Studies of gender and literature can reflect how literary texts can be written, read and interpreted by men and women in different societies in diverse periods. As a rule, we are submitted to a set of cultural stereotypes and social patterns related to genders which are originated from the Western Culture. Therefore, studies of gender and literature can help us perceive and understand human relations, the concepts of male and female, sex and sexuality and their implications in society. In this sense, some literary works are valuable due to the fact that they expose the cultural apparent inflexibility attributed to the roles played by men and women. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, for example, is a narrative that focuses mainly on Isabel’s story, but it also presents different portraits of men in the late nineteenth century. This work seems to show a preoccupation with questioning the role of the man as a rigid gender construct. Understanding the male role and the masculine representation in this particular narrative requires close attention, especially in his subtler performances. That is because it is possible to say that the author deals with the male role played by Ralph Touchett as diversified from the other men The Portrait of a Lady.

James amplifies the male role in Ralph’s performance in order to expose and explore masculine identity by deconstructing the male role conceived in Western Culture. In this sense, William Veeder observes that “no one in James is in fact masculine” because “everyone is effeminate” (86). To some degree I think that it is true, but I believe that not all the male character is definitively effeminate in his literary work. On the other hand, his suggestion is essential to my analysis of Ralph Touchett since I am inclined towards the idea that James presents this character as alternative portrait of man as society has known it in Western Culture so far. In other words, Ralph is, in my opinion, a male portrait which is absolutely different from Lord Warburton or Gilbert Osmond portraits, for example. In fact, Ralph is a character that does not act according to the social patterns related to the male role established by Western Culture.

James starts deconstructing male role and performance in the first chapter, when he notes three men concerned with making tea time “an eternity of pleasure […] were not of sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony” (03). They are Mr. Touchett, Lord Warburton and Ralph Touchett, who

was a person of quite a different pattern, who, although he might have excited grave curiosity, would not, like the other [Lord Warburton], have provoked you to wish yourself, almost blindly, in his place. Tall, lean, loosely and feebly put together, he had an ugly, sickly, witty, charming face, furnished, but by no means decorated, with a straggling moustache and whisker. He looked clever and ill — a combination by no means felicitous; and he wore a brown velvet jacket. He carried his hands in his pockets, and there was something in the way he did it that showed the habit was inveterate. His gait had a shambling, wandering quality; he was not very firm on his legs. (07)

As we can see, James first describes Ralph by giving the reader an idea of the personality of this character that portrays him as a different male type. He is a “person of quite another pattern” (07) who is not attractive to women.

In this sense, Ralph Touchett can be seen as an example of James’ determination of deconstructing male identity as society has known it. That is because this character plays a questioning role in the novel. Apparently, James describes him as an individual who is educated according to established patterns in Western Culture. Ralph studied at American schools and graduated from Harvard. Besides, after he has returned to England he also graduated from Oxford. Curiously, after we read some chapters it is possible to recognize that Ralph is not a simple male character. In fact, he is an ambiguous man and his ambiguity can be considered a strategy used by James to lead the reader to inquire into this personality. For that reason, at the same time that James describes Ralph as a resigned man, he states that:

His outward conformity to the manners that surrounded him was none the less the mask of a mind that greatly enjoyed its independence, on which nothing long imposed itself, and which, naturally inclined to adventure and irony, indulged in a boundless liberty of appreciation. (62)

As this passage indicates, Ralph can be understood as someone who has a non-singular identity. That is, he is a person whose identity is represented socially by a mask that covers his real self. Based on that, it is not easy to discover who he really is. So, the reader is lead to decipher who is the man behind this mask. However, it is necessary to pay close attention in order to understand Ralph’s performance. Besides, James reiterates the fact that Ralph has somewhat hidden behind his mask since the author highlights that this character is a man “whose head was full of ideas which his father had never guessed” (63).

As James portrays Ralph’s personality, we can observe that he expands the male identity attributed to this character as Ralph does not represent the masculine pattern. The young man is an ill bachelor who “had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs and threw them into dire confusion” (64). It is a relevant fact in his life. That is because, by exploring Ralph’s physical and psychological condition, James emphasizes a lack of testosterone which identifies Ralph as man whose attitude is more intellectual than active. Moreover, it is interesting to observe that Ralph sees himself as an ineffectual man who “was too ill for aught” (65).

Due to his limited condition, Leland S. Person notes that Ralph is “relegated to a narcissistic mode of self-understanding” in which he “feels split into subject and object” (90). In fact, Ralph experienced an intense dislike since “it appeared to him that it was not himself in the least that he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person with whom he had nothing in common” (64). According to Person, by considering this second self from the vantage point of the first, whose position is privileged in the culture dominated by male power, Ralph feels a strong disgust (90). That is because his illness does not allow him to play a male role in accordance with the Western Culture patterns. On the other hand, the narrator mentions that this second person “improved on acquaintance, and Ralph grew at last to have a certain grudging tolerance, even an undemonstrative respect, for him” (64). As we can observe, this fact corroborates the identification of Ralph with a second self that – we can affirm –, does not represent the phallic power of the Western Culture. Robert K. Martin states that “Ralph’s increasing identification with this second person – as a narcissistic self-understanding –, generates a new perspective in his life” (89). That is, a perspective in which Ralph does not have to play a role as it is established by society.

The relation with Isabel reveals another important fact related to Ralph’s identity and performance. Isabel is an interesting and beautiful young lady who becomes the object of desire of different male types, like Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond. Like these men, Ralph is also transformed by the encounter with Isabel, as we can see:

It was very probably this sweet-tasting property of the observed thing in itself that was mainly concerned in Ralph’s quickly-stirred interest in the advent of a young lady who was evidently not insipid. If he was consideringly disposed, something told him, here was occupation enough for a succession of days. It may be added, in summary fashion, that the imagination of loving — as distinguished from that of being loved — had still a place in his reduced sketch. He had only forbidden himself the riot of expression. However, he shouldn’t inspire his cousin with a passion, nor would she be able, even should she try, to help him to one. (67)

As this passage shows us, Ralph’s thoughts about Isabel generates a revision of the way he was living his life. Before he met Isabel, the young man was a person that used to feel that “there was really nothing he had wanted very much to do” (65). However, the desire for her makes Ralph live more intensely. Thus, he feels motivated to have a new occupation in his life.

Apparently, we could consider Ralph’s desire as a sign of his masculine sexuality. However, it is necessary to observe some particular aspects concerning the relation between Ralph and Isabel. Firstly, if we compare the relation between Isabel and Lord Warburton or Caspar Goodwood, it is possible to perceive a remarkable difference in Ralph’s attitude. That is because they wish to marry Isabel, as we can observe, for example, in a dialogue between Warburton and Isabel:

— […] ‘I don’t go off easily, but when I’m touched, it’s for life. It’s for life, Miss Archer, it’s for life’, Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion – the heat, the violence, the unreason – and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place. […]
— ‘Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!’ Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her hand away.
— ‘Don’t taunt me with that, that I don’t know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it’s all my loss. But that’s what I want, and it seems to me I’m taking the best way. If you’ll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you’ll not be able to say it’s from ignorance.’ (91)

Lord Warburton is lead by a burning desire to possess Isabel for all his life, but the same objective does not apply to Ralph. Certainly, we can not observe in Mr. Touchett’s son a sexual and physical attraction that would correspond to a male strong feeling for a woman. This fact can be seen clearly in the long dialogue between Ralph and Mr. Touchett at the moment that his father is almost dying in a bed:

— ‘Well, that’s what it comes to in the end. Don’t you like Isabel?’
— ‘Yes, very much.’ And Ralph got up from his chair and wandered over to the fire. He stood before it an instant and then he stooped and stirred it mechanically. ‘I like Isabel very much,’ he repeated. (315)

Strangely, the question made by Mr. Touchett seems to provoke a type of discomfort in Ralph, but his unexpected reaction can be seen as a sign of his lack of interest in performing his male role. Moreover, Ralph’s physical discomfort can be caused due to the fact that he should hide nothing to his father, including his disinterest of exploring his male desire. In fact, the young man prefers to protect his dubious personality even for Mr. Touchett, as we can identify in the passage below:

— ‘You are in love with her then? I should think you would be. It’s as if she came over on purpose.’
— ‘No, I’m not in love with her; but I should be if… if certain things were different.’

As we can see, although knowing that Mr. Touchett is almost dying, Ralph keeps preserving himself behind a mask of unpretension. James exposes Ralph’s performance as somewhat ambiguous. He says that he wants to care deeply for Isabel at the same time he affirms that he does not wish to marry her:

— ‘I take a great interest in my cousin,’ he said, ‘but not the sort of interest you desire. I shall not live many years; but I hope I shall live long enough to see what she does with herself. She’s entirely independent of me; I can exercise very little influence upon her life. But I should like to do something for her.’ (318)

His attitude is not aggressive like Goodwood’s attitude, the American that fights for the possibility of marrying Isabel by traveling to England to convince her to marry him. Ralph, on the other hand, satisfies himself by embodying a kind of voyeur whose consumption of beautiful objects such as Isabel can be considered his only pleasure. The “conscious observation of a lovely woman” strikes him as the “finest entertainment that the world now had to offer to him” (32). According to Person, the performance of Ralph “dramatizes another aspect of Jamesian suspense: the suspense of the male subject between desires and genders” (91). That is because Ralph is not interested in exposing a sexual or physical desire like any man probably would do it by facing a beautiful woman like Isabel, or like Goodwood or Warburton really do that.

Through a dubious role, James seems to expose a different male role which deconstructs the masculine patterns. As we can notice, Ralph satisfies himself by living a kind of voyeurism in which he can observe the relation between Isabel’s desire and other men who desire her:

— ‘You’d have liked me to make such a marriage.’
— ‘Not in the least. I’m absolutely without a wish on the subject. I don’t pretend to advise you, and I content myself with watching you- with the deepest interest.’ (258)
— ‘What I mean is that I shall have the thrill of seeing what a young lady does who won’t marry Lord Warburton.’
— ‘I shall not see all of it, but I shall probably see the most interesting years. Of course if you were to marry our friend you’d still have a career, a very decent, in fact a very brilliant one. But relatively speaking it would be a little prosaic. It would be definitely marked out in advance; it would be wanting in the unexpected. You know I’m extremely fond of the unexpected, and now that you’ve kept the game in your hands I depend on your giving us some grand example of it.’ (259-260)

As this passage indicates, Ralph wishes to appreciate Isabel passively rather than forging an intimate relationship: “I’ve been absolutely passive” (98), he admits. This attitude, we can assume, is absolutely opposite to the masculine patterns, as man is not expected to be passive in a relationship with a woman; but Ralph is passive. It is a consequence of the expansion of James makes concerning Ralph’s male role that is characterized by ambiguity. In this sense, we can say that James explores a new perspective related to genders as concepts that interact with politics, patterns and values in society.



References:

James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. Global Language Resources, Inc. 2001. From the website: http://www.global-language.com/
Martin, Robert K. “Failed Heterosexuality in The Portrait of a Lady” in Henry James and the Homo-Erotic Desire. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1999.
Person, Leland S. Henry James and the Suspense of the Masculinity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.