¶ … Daisy Miller, the heroine he created in 1878 in a novelette by the same name, Henry James styled a protagonist who is both quintessentially American and absolutely feminine. Indeed, beyond forwarding the action of the story itself, Daisy may also be seen as a device created by James to help his readers -- both American and European -- understand what it was to be a young American women in the decades just after the Civil War.
The story follows Daisy as she travels through Europe and encounters a number of compatriots who have become in many ways more European than the real Europeans: These resettled Americans are intent on enforcing the morality and mores of established (and in at least some ways antiquated) European communities. Daisy is herself not so much intent on violating these established ways of behaving as she is inured to them. As an American, they are not a part of her world.
The plot of Daisy Miller serves as a symbol not only of the ways in which young women are often disapproved of by older men and women precisely because of their desire to garner for themselves a greater degree of freedom than that had by the generations that have come before them but also of the ways in which all Americans -- of both genders and many generations -- sought to make their own way in a wider world.
By setting out from her native Schenectady to explore Europe, Daisy attempts to expand her physical universe even…
Henry James Scheiber, Andrew J. Embedded Narratives of Science and Culture in James's 'Daisy Miller'. College Literature 21.2 (1994): 75-88. In this article, Andrew Scheiber explores the scientific concepts that lie in the social relationship of the story's characters. Scheiber, perhaps, found that a discussion of this would be appropriate to enable the reader of the novella understand the rationales behind the differences between the story's characters in terms of social relationship. Scheiber
Realist, Henry James Henry James stands alone among nineteenth-century United States writers. He is known primarily as a realist novel writer, though his novels and short stories include a wide variety of definitions. According to Paul Lauter, James was the first writer in English to see the "high artistic potential of the novel as a form" (Lauter 548). His fiction has attracted many sophisticated readers who regard him as a
Lolita in Tehran -- Reading the Politics of Azar Nafisi Lolita -- otherwise known as Dolores Haze, the object of Humbert Humbert's affection. Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby. Daisy Miller, protagonist of Henry James' most famous long short story. These heroines and heroes of fiction might not, upon their surfaces seem to be politically oriented protagonists. Indeed, the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran begs her own, presumably Western reader, not to
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now