Madame Merle's opening diatribe -- or at least, her lengthy monologue of dissatisfied pronouncements -- makes it clear that gender had a great deal to do with personal definition and constraint, in her view, and though Isabel protests it must be acknowledged that there is some truth to her assessment. At the same time, Madame Merle fully adopts and thus allows herself to be constrained by the notion that she must "cheat [her]self with some pretence [sic] of movement, of unconsciousness." Seeing how limited women are and how society functions on a superficial level, Madame Merle has decided to work within the system, seeing success as an ever-distant and fleeting, while Isabel persists in defining success as "to see some dream of one's youth come true." Madame Merle deems this to be impossible for any dream of real substance, though Isabel insists that she has seen it happen. Merle's rejection of the younger woman's earnest optimism is humorous, but it also presents a single note throughout the chapter compared to the complex and conflicting emotions Isabel evinces with growing "emphasis" and "eagerness."
They of course discuss love as a measure of success, and it is here that the philosophical divide that nonetheless bears a strong reflective sensibility most clearly emerges between these two charatcers. Madame Merle insists that "one's self…is...
For Merle, the world and the people in it are automatically flat, external, and superficial, and she is just such a character, while Isabel sees people as complex and divisible from their circumstances and is thus a rounder and more complex
character herself. In this light, Isabel is the full and flesh-formed woman, and Madame Merle is the cold and flat
reflection that is left after being translated by the mirror of decades spent in a society and culture -- and with an
identity -- that feels is imposed rather than empowered.
Conclusion
Madame Merle is correct in asserting that women in her socioeconomic position have relatively few choices. Isabel's poorer upbringing might in fact be a reason behind her
passion and her own "success." It is also certain that Madame Merle gave in to her flat and cycnical view of the world early on, while Isabel refuses to do so even at the last.
References
Edel, Leon. Henry James. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
James, Henry. Portrait of a Lady.
Tanner, Tony. "The Fearful Self: Henry James's the Portrait of a Lady." Critical Quarterly 7.3 (1965): 205-9.
