The Corresponding Character Study Of Henry James's The Portrait Of A Lady And The Wings Of The Dove

The thesis attempts to make a study on the corresponding characters from Henry James two representative novels, namely The Portrait of a Lady of the early psychological realism and The Wings of the Dove of the late modernism.The thesis is composed of four parts including introduction chapter, conclusion chapter and the body part composed of two chapters. The introduction mainly states the purpose of the thesis and briefs on the review of psychological realism and modernism, which serves as the background knowledge for the character study in the following parts. The second chapter is devoted to the comparison between the delineations of the protagonists in the two novels, which is illustrated by four similar scenes and ends with the conclusion that while the early James is still concerned with the realistic presentation of the protagonist's external world in The Portrait of a Lady, the late James has moved to the exploration and dramatization of the protagonist's consciousness in The Wings of the Dove. The third chapter goes on with the comparison between the delineations of the antagonists in the two novels, in which the origin as well as the reversibility of the evil has been discussed upon two pairs of antagonists, with a conclusion that as Henry James moves towards his late years, his early concept of evil, most based on the ground of individual level, has been obscured and intricately interrelated with social complexes which catch the modern man in 'dilemma'.In the conclusion, the thesis makes a brief summary of what has been discussed previously and touches upon how the shift of James's literary technique influences his international themes as well as the novelist himself.