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  • Wonderful character studies, smart dialogue, and an in depth look at human feeling. The imagery was gorgeous and the writing poetic. I liked Isabel Archer at first, but her cold manner of treating 2 men who were in love with her was a bit upsetting. She started off as a strong character, but she foo ... Continue

    Wonderful character studies, smart dialogue, and an in depth look at human feeling. The imagery was gorgeous and the writing poetic. I liked Isabel Archer at first, but her cold manner of treating 2 men who were in love with her was a bit upsetting. She started off as a strong character, but she foolishly let herself get manipulated. Isabel chose her husband mostly because her relatives opposed it (never a good idea). The examination of her married life and her husband’s cold personality was horrible. Ralph was my favorite character because of his wit. His conversations with Isabel towards the end of the book were very emotional.

    ISABEL QUOTES:

    “I have always been intensely determined to be happy, and I have often believed I should be…but it comes over me every now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way; not by turning away, by separating myself from life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer.”

    “No I don’t wish to touch the cup of experience. It’s a poisoned drink! I only want to see for myself.”

    “I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all. I don’t wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me.”

    

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• ― MoirneStark said on Jul 18, 2009 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

Described by F. R. Leavis as one of the two most brilliant novels in the language, The Portrait of a Lady tells the story of Isabel Archer, young, American, and eager to embrace life, as she makes her choice from the suitors who court her. She is true to her principles, but at what
cost?

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