【正文】Abstract: Henry James is one of the three great initiators of US realism literatures in the 19th century; His masterpiece The Portrait of a Lady is highly praised to be excellent work which reads with each method. Not only this novel highlighted James to become famous overnight “for international theme”, but also has unfolded James exquisitely to Isabel, the vivid psychological analysis, and afterwards it has laid down for him by the reputation of the psychological realism writer. 
　　Key words: psychological realism, freedom, tragedy
　　1. Introduction  
　　The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James. It is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer，having lost mother from her early childhood，she was brought up，in her hometown Albany and with two elder sisters，happily by an open-minded father who had granted his daughters much freedom，and had always encouraged them to see the world as much as possible. Under this influence，Isabel had grown to be an unconstrained and imaginative young lady, with eagerness for knowledge and justness，a very fine embodiment of American sprit，
　　2. Examples of the psychological realism 
　　2.1 The heroine’ reaction to the European  First ,let me explain Isabel Archer’ character. 
　　At this point, we had better not forget James’s previous description of his heroine: “Her nature had in her conceit, a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of perfume and murmuring boughs, This collection of picturesque and tender words garden-like, perfume, bough, bower, vista, rose seem to imply her naive attitude.
　　2.2 The heroine’ s reaction to the Europe
　　At the next step, Europe disappointed her more .On paying visit to Warburton’s sisters , she detected :“Their extreme sweetness and shyness and shyness of demeanor”, and that “their friendliness was great, so great that they were almost embarrassed to show it; they seem some what afraid of young lady from the other side of the world and rather looked than spoke their own wishes.” 
　　 3. Writing technique：
　　3.1 Definition of psychological realism  The writer use psychological realism to analyze the character ，one of the most authoritative literary document， The Oxford Companion to American Literature, as defined the term “realism” as “term applied to literary composition that aims at an interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice ,idealism ,or romantic color”, Far from being sufficient, but this definition has been able to bring forward the most distinguished nature of this literary moment. 
　　3.2 Contrast with other realism writers  James stated that novel, as art ,has “no pattern, no theory”, that the writers should not be concerned about choosing attractive characters, about optimism or pessimism, to put up a “happy ending” and fill the works with exciting incidents so as to please certain readers, using what is called today a “literary marketing tactic”. The later would be considered a betrayal of realism, according to James, and in addition, narration of things that never happened was also false. To bring it closer, this ideal insists that the task of literature is to reveal Life as it is, and if life itself is a God, then writers should be loyal to that God. [8]P(210)Because there is an urge for them to interpret Him like He is. And, to James, they were entitled to complete freedom, the “freedom to feel and to say”, no matter what impacts it would bring to readers, to have them laugh, or to make them cry. Next he criticized those romantic writers, whose “art means rose –colored window panes”, whose artistic considerations have nothing to do with the disagreeable, with the ugly, Thus ,in that spirit, James often unintentionally left his story unfinished and let the story decided by itself .
　　4. Conclusion: 
　　From the above, we can easily see the writing technique: from the psychological way to describe the heroine, the author claimed that reality of life would be revealed through presentation of human inner world, in the working of the minds. Also, we can see that the tragedy of the heroine is caused by herself and the society.
　　Bibliography：
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　　[2]陈敬莲.亨利·詹姆斯早期作品中女性自我意识之分析[D] .东北师范大学, 2006
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　　[4] Henry James, Harold Bloom. Modern Critical Views New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987
　　[5] Loyal Powers.The Portrait of a Lady: Maiden, Woman and Heroine Boston: Dwayne Publishers ,1991.