劉爽 西北政法大學(xué) 河南鄭州

People should have won't listen to reason. ---Oscar Wilde

After I have read this novel, I was overwhelmed and somehow sad. I know that some novels’ plots are fascinating but readers wouldn’t read it if they have known the end and I know that this novel isn’t one of them. This novel is worth studying and researching again and again to find out the true meaning of it.

This is a story all about the main female character, Isabel archer and the existence of all other figures were just to pave the way for her which I think is a incredible idea. Focusing on only one lady makes us know better about the whole story and the author’s thoughts.

The story begins as a pretty young lady, Isabel came to American from England. There were many man attracted by her ever since she lived in Garden court but this beautiful girl turned all of them down including a English aristocracy, Warburton and a wealthy American businessman, Gold Wood etc.

This carefree girl also met a elegant and noble women, Mrs. Mel and Isabel really respected this women for this rich knowledge and talents. After her aunt’s death, Isabel traveled to Italy and in that romantic city, Mrs. Mel introduced a American amateur artist, Osmond to her. Isabel soon fell in love this ‘gentleman’ and his cute daughter, Pansy---she decided to marry him against all her relatives’will.

Gradually, she saw the true face of life---Osmond turned out to be a selfish and evil man and that ‘elegant’ Mrs. Mel turned out to be Osmond’s lover and Pansy’s birth mother. When Isabel found out the truth, she had to pretend that she’s fine and she got out of that so called home when her cousin, Ralph was sick.

After Ralph’s death, Isabel returned to Osmond.

Unlike other marriage tragedy like , this is a marriage chose by the main character herself who believed in freedom and selfjudgment which makes this story even more sad---all other people’s judgments were right and only her judgment was wrong.

I realized that she made this stupid decision not because she was too foolish, on contrary, it’s just because she was too smart---she loved to think and she wanted to be independent so bad---she chose her own destiny but her destiny just fooled her.

This is not just a tragedy of Isabel, it’s also a tragedy of culture. In such a transition period, young people are easy to be confused and overwhelmed.

In the preface, the author said that the key to understand Isabel is to understand her consciousness. There are a lot of descriptions about Isabel’s mental activities in this book so that readers could understand that freedom was the staple idea of Isabel.

However, it’s not hard to find that even though Isabel dreamed about freedom but she still acted traditionally---she wanted to please her husband.What she really dreamed about was the combination of conventions and freedom---and of course, she failed.