Point of View and the Ficcional Reader in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Henry James was one of the most renowned writers at the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century and is stilt known for his vast number of literary works and studies about the art of fiction. In his prefaces and critical essays, James discussed his own method of writing fiction, with a special focus on point of view and on issues related to the reception of his fictional work. Therefore, James also considered the importance of the rote of the reader. In this sense, in this article we discuss the construction of the fictional reader in The Portrait of a Lady, with special attention to the character Isabel Archer, who is the main center of consciousness of the narrative. Our objective is to analyze if the manipulation of point of view has implications to the rhetoric configuration of the reader. In short, our discussion shows that, Henry James constructs a reader that is gradually more participative and critical.