earticle

영어

As a psychological realist, Henry James employs the narrative strategy of the stream of consciousness, which is inseparably associated with the philosophical trend of phenomenology. In this regards, this paper examines Isabel’s epistemological process in the light of descriptive method, which is inevitably related to the phenomenology of perception. Despite her passionate aspiration to obtain the absolute freedom, she cannot escape the trap built up by her surroundings, due to her fault. She marries Osmond because his aesthetic attitude toward life seems to be promising for her to seek for the ideal beauty. After immense suffering from her mistake to choose Osmond, Isabel undergoes a serious change in her life mentally and physically. Isabel starts to see the reality behind Osmond’s false appearance and realizes the diminished freedom. She can arrive at a transcendental apprehension with the phenomenological reduction to the thing itself after being exposed to different people. At the last part of the novel, by returning to the chill and ruins of Rome, she accepts her responsibility for her mistaken choice. The reason for her return to Rome is analyzed in connection with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ‘body phenomenology’. The phenomenological perception on human existence provides her with a new paradigm emerging from the perception of the human body.