Agency and Objectification Theme Analysis

 “The Oval Portrait” relies on—and, arguably, critiques—the traditional pairing of male artist and female model, where masculinity tends to be associated with inspired creativity, activity, and seeing, and femininity with creative inspiration, passivity, and being seen. The early 19th century, when Poe was writing, was a largely patriarchal era during which time male-produced literature and art tended to underplay or even ignore female agency. At first glance, this seems true of “The Oval Portrait,” too. In the story, male characters are always gazing upon and admiring the wife’s beauty, but the wife herself has very little agency or depth to her character—she’s characterized as an object for men to admire and venerate, but not a full person in her own right. However, it’s possible that Poe crafts his characters in this way to actually criticize the dehumanizing power of the male gaze, which subjugates and objectifies female subjects.

On one hand, it might appear that the author is bending to his times in terms of how he presents the dynamic of the relationship between the painter and his “model” wife (pun intended). With broad strokes, Poe “paints” the wife as a one-dimensional stereotype of the ideal 19th-century woman—a passive “angel of the house.” The wife exists as an object for the painter’s contemplation, and her own agency and subjectivity are downplayed to the point of virtual nonexistence:  “She was humble and obedient,” Poe writes, “and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark high turret-chamber where the light dropped upon the pale canvas only from overhead.” 

While the wife evidently sees the painter as a human being, and suffers his passions out of love for him, aware that he takes “a fervid and burning pleasure” in the act of painting, the painter sees not the wife herself but the idealization of her that he’s creating on the canvas: “[he] turned his eyes from the canvas rarely, even to regard the countenance of his wife.” Furthermore, whatever love he may have for his wife is eclipsed by the “ardor of his work.” The relationship between husband and wife, paralleling the relationship between artist and model, is a clearly unequal one, and the reader may initially conclude that Poe is presenting this dynamic as a social given—simply the way things are.           

On the other hand, it’s also possible to read “The Oval Portrait” as Poe’s subtle and indirect critique of female objectification and the denial of female agency. The story’s tragic climax—the painter finally looks up from the perfected canvas, only to see that his wife has died—may force the reader to re-evaluate the author’s intentions. Yes, the model does indeed exist on the page solely as a one-dimensional stereotype. But perhaps that is because the reader is effectively being made to see her through the eyes of the painter—who, blind to the living reality of his wife, inadvertently causes her death through neglect—rather than directly through the eyes of the author himself. In other words, perhaps Poe fails to flesh out the wife’s character, to turn her into a three-dimensional human being, not because he is himself complicit in the dehumanization of women, but rather because he’s actually emphasizing the blindness of those who do so.

The physical form of the portrait itself is also thematically significant in this regard. Poe describes it as a “mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner.” The girl’s head and shoulders, effectively severed from the rest of her body, come to serve as a decorative object intended to appeal to the (male) eye. And indeed, the language Poe uses to evoke the narrator’s visual fixation on the portrait: “I remained, for an hour perhaps, […] with my vision riveted upon the portrait.” This suggests that he derives aesthetic pleasure from the very act of looking at it. The painter has failed to represent the entirety of the girl’s body, and by extension, perhaps, he has failed to represent her true nature and full self as well—she has become the proverbial “pretty face,” existing exclusively for male gratification.

It might be tempting to object that all manner of portraits are only partial depictions of the human body, and that this doesn’t necessarily imply an act of dehumanization or objectification on the part of the artist. Nonetheless, in the context of Gothic fiction, and in the context of “The Oval Portrait” in particular, it’s quite likely that this severe mode of framing the female body represents an act of metaphorical dismemberment. And it seems legitimate to argue that Poe uses this stark visual imagery to criticize the gendered politics of his day. Overall, then, Poe uses “The Oval Portrait” to explore the subtle interrelationships between agency, gender, and artistic works, identifying particular social structures that define who sees and who is seen—and arguably critiquing these structures in an indirect, though highly effective, fashion.