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Henry James is famous for psychological realism. Psychological realism is a genre of writing that adopts direct psychology and indirect psychology to enrich the images of characters and explain the story wholly. He always employs it to show inner activity of the characters in the novel and make the novel real and credible for readers.
The Portrait of a Lady tells that Isabel, an innocent American girl, fond of European culture, goes to Europe with her aunt for liberty and horizon after her father dies and then suffers conflicts of different culture and fraud of marriage for trusting friends’ lies. Finally, she becomes mature and holds on the marriage with Osmond for her responsibility.
2. Literature Review
A lot of writers comment on the novel. The Portrait of a Lady is characterized by its international theme，psychological exploration，and female central characters．One of the striking characteristics of the novel is the international theme which is widely studied by many critics. Sharma researches into the international theme in The International Fiction of Henry James and argues “The international light pervades various settings in the novel．It permeates the contrast presented by Isabel’s three suitors．It suffuses Isabel’s journey in Europe and the little pilgrimage to the East and her friends’ traveling back and forth frequently across the Atlantic.” (Sharma, 1979: 16) For the success of the novel lies in the technique-psychological realism, Porte explores the novel in the perspective of psychology. He argues that “a problematic need for self-sufficiency often arises from maternal insufficiency, and frequently is a foundation of an underlying narcissism.” (Porte, 2007: 131) The novel is also studied in the perspective of feminism. Elizabeth Allen puts her emphasis on the feministic reading of Isabel Archer in A Woman Place and points out that James explores the conflict between women’s function as representative of her society and her own struggle into consciousness.
In China, scholars focus on the researches on the international theme and the culture of the novel. There are Zhou Lihua’s The Portrait of a Lady: The Conflicts and Mergers of the Two Cultures，Zhang Lihong’s The Contrast of the European Society and the American Society in The Portrait of a Lady and Zhang Yan’s Intercultural Ideal’s Pursuit and Reconstruction.
There are so many researches on The Portrait of a Lady. This thesis is intended to analyze the influence of the application of psychological realism in the novel and studies the effects of psychological realism.源'自:优尔`!论~文'网www.youerw.com
3. The Application of Psychological Realism in Shaping the Personality of Characters
Wilhelm Wundt, a German psychologist, is the founder of modern scientific psychology. He thinks that “the object of psychology is to investigate the immediate experience of inpiduals.” (Wundt, 1999: 1902) The publication of Wundt’s Principles of Physiological Psychology stands for his maturation of psychological realism. Most writers are influenced by him. Later, Henry James applies psychological realism and enriches it in his novels. He writes The Art of Fiction. As for Sigmund Freud, he establishes his own psychological analysis. Psychological realism now is more or less taken for granted by the modern novelist. But at the beginning of its occurrence, it was unnoticed revolution technique.
Psychological realism is the product of realism and modernism and the combination of psychology and realism. It uses conscious activity and indirect consciousness such as images, dialogues and expressions of characters to describe nature and mind of characters. It places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which develops external actions. In the literature of the United States, Henry James, Arthur Miller, and Edith Wharton are considered major contributors to the practice of psychological realism. Psychological realism serves as the prelude to the stream of consciousness.