describe the brief summary of The Portrait of lady in your own word
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Summary
At the start of the novel, Isabel Archer, an American, is visiting extended family in England. During her visit, she rejects two marriage proposals, including one from Lord Warburton, who is a decent person, but toward whom Isabel does not feel romantically inclined. The other proposal, from Caspar Goodwood, tempts Isabel, but she worries that marriage will impede her personal freedom. When her ill uncle dies, he leaves Isabel a small fortune, which Isabel then uses to travel to Italy.
While in Florence, Italy, Isabel falls subject to a scam. Madame Merle, a woman she met at her uncle's house back in England, and a man named Gilbert Osmond have conspired to trick Isabel into marrying Osmond so they can steal her fortune.
Tragically, Isabel falls for Osmond and, together, they move to Rome. Osmond does not like Isabel, and the two quickly become unhappy. While they are married, Isabel develops a friendship with Osmond's daughter, Pansy. She does not know that the girl's true mother is Madame Merle. Pansy is in love with an art collector, but her father wants her to marry Lord Warburton.
Isabel finds out that her cousin, Ralph, the son of the uncle who left her the fortune and her dear friend, is dying. She wants to travel to England to see her cousin before he dies. Osmond tries to stop her, but Isabel does not listen to him. After saying goodbye to Pansy, who she has recently learned is actually Madame Merle's daughter and not the product of Osmond's first marriage, Isabel travels to England.
After Ralph dies, Isabel has a chance encounter with Caspar, the other man who proposed to her at the beginning of the novel. Caspar tries to convince Isabel to stay with him, but Isabel insists she has to return to Rome. The ending does not make it clear whether Isabel is returning to Rome because she is afraid her husband will force Pansy to marry Warburton against her will or if Isabel is only going back to take Pansy away from her father.
The chapter ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ is the story of the author and his grandmother. The grandmother was an old woman with a wrinkled face. The author had always seen her like this, for the past twenty years. She appeared to be so old that he could not imagine her being ‘young and pretty’, someone who had a husband. She was short, fat and slightly bent. The author had seen his grandfather’s portrait- an old man with a turban and a long white beard covering his chest. To the author, his grandfather didn’t seem like a man who could have a wife and children, but someone who could have lots of grandchildren. His grandmother used to move around the house in ‘Spotless White’ with her one hand resting on her waist and her other hand counting the beads of her rosary. In the initial days, the author and his grandmother had a good relationship. She used to wake him up and get him ready for school. She used to pack the things required by him for the day and walked him to school everyday. She used to visit the temple that was attached to the school. She had a routine of reading the scriptures. The author along with other children sat on the verandah singing alphabets and morning prayers. They both used to come back home together with stray dogs roaming around them as his grandmother would carry the stale chapattis to feed them. Soon, the parents of the author who went to the city to settle in and called them. As they reached the city, his relationship with his grandmother took a turn. Though they shared the room, there bond grew apart. He started going to an English medium school, she no longer accompanied him to his school, and there were no longer stray dogs who roamed around them while walking back home. She, however, used to ask him about his day and what he had learned. She didn’t understand anything as everything was in another language which she could not understand. She didn’t approve of the new syllabus that he was studying because she thought that they did not teach him about God and the scriptures. They saw less of each other. As the days passed, he grew older and soon went to the university. He had his own room and this made their relationship sour. She stopped talking to everyone and spent her whole day sitting at her spinning wheel, reciting prayers and moving beads of the rosary with one hand. However, she loved feeding sparrows in the verandah at dawn. Breaking bread into pieces and feeding it to the birds was her daily routine. The birds would sit on her legs, her head, some even on the shoulders. Soon, the author decided to go abroad for further studies. She came to the railway station to leave him off. She was not sentimental, continuously recited her prayers, her mind lost in the prayers, and she kissed him on the forehead. After five years, as he returned home, she was there, came to pick him at the station, was still the same as she had been five years ago. She clasped him within her arms and didn’t say a word. She still used to feed her sparrows. One day, she didn’t recite her prayers but instead collected the women of the neighbourhood, got a drum and started singing. The next morning, she was ill with mild fever. The doctor said that there was nothing to worry about but she was sure that her end was near. She didn’t want to waste her time talking to anyone in the family anymore but spend her last hours in reciting her prayers laying on the bed. She died and so her body lay on the bed, lifeless. As they prepared for her funeral, they saw all the sparrows sitting in the verandah around her, mourning her death.