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trinityofoneDo you think I can get away with saying fuck in my Portrait of a Lady essay? Specifically:
Reading the title of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady is almost as important as reading the novel itself. Each word is significant, both for what it says and what it does not say. The ‘The’ is definitive: this is not a view, a quite possibly subjective view, of the novel’s heroine—it is the only view. It is a ‘Portrait,’ unabashedly centered on one subject and one subject only, and while it looks that subject straight in the eye, there is a remove; you can see the subject, but you cannot hear, smell, taste, or touch her. It’s a portrait ‘of’: the subject is not presented on her own terms, but through the guiding hand of another; the artist’s presence can be firmly felt. And though this sketch is meant to be the definitive work on the subject in question, the subject is denoted by the singular ‘a’; she is to be taken as herself, not viewed as representative of her species or gender as a whole. But most of all, she is a ‘Lady’: not a girl, not a woman, not even a female. A lady carries with her a certain refinement, an inherent separation from the coarser things in life: there are definitive things a lady simply does not do. She doesn’t dress out of season. She doesn’t allow herself to be unescorted in the presence of a man not her relation. She doesn’t fuck.
Worth the risk? Not worth it? I'm being crude on purpose, and I'm not quite sure how else to get the point across. "Have sex" doesn't carry quite the same weight, you know?
Reading the title of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady is almost as important as reading the novel itself. Each word is significant, both for what it says and what it does not say. The ‘The’ is definitive: this is not a view, a quite possibly subjective view, of the novel’s heroine—it is the only view. It is a ‘Portrait,’ unabashedly centered on one subject and one subject only, and while it looks that subject straight in the eye, there is a remove; you can see the subject, but you cannot hear, smell, taste, or touch her. It’s a portrait ‘of’: the subject is not presented on her own terms, but through the guiding hand of another; the artist’s presence can be firmly felt. And though this sketch is meant to be the definitive work on the subject in question, the subject is denoted by the singular ‘a’; she is to be taken as herself, not viewed as representative of her species or gender as a whole. But most of all, she is a ‘Lady’: not a girl, not a woman, not even a female. A lady carries with her a certain refinement, an inherent separation from the coarser things in life: there are definitive things a lady simply does not do. She doesn’t dress out of season. She doesn’t allow herself to be unescorted in the presence of a man not her relation. She doesn’t fuck.
Worth the risk? Not worth it? I'm being crude on purpose, and I'm not quite sure how else to get the point across. "Have sex" doesn't carry quite the same weight, you know?
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Date: 2005-04-01 09:48 pm (UTC)