Winterbourne is no doubt attracted to Daisy and is proud to be seen with her on the way to the Chillon. He simply cannot allow himself to be with her because he is too concerned with what others might be thinking. For example, he considers what others are thinking as they look at her "hard" (111) but is overcome with "satisfaction in his pretty companion's distinguished air" (111). However, Winterbourne cannot completely escape his social training, which is illustrated in his concern over the prospect that Daisy might "talk loud" (111) or "laugh overmuch" (111). Here we see that Winterbourne cannot relax and enjoy the company of this girl that seems to attract so much undesired attention. Winterbourne also has outside influences working against him in the area of snobbery. His aunt wastes no time telling him that she disapproves of Daisy, believing her to be "dreadful" (124) and that her behavior is "crazy" (124) because allows her self to walk with two men at the same time. She snubs Daisy later, an act that even Winterbourne finds "cruel" (132). These circumstances lead to Winterbourne's hypocrisy. He cannot make up his mind about Daisy and that turns out to be his downfall. He wants to believe in her goodness because he is attracted to her but he cannot escape the trappings of what society says about her. He does not listen to his gut feelings when it comes to Daisy and this is precisely because he allows himself to be persuaded by others. His first impression of Daisy is that she is "uncultivated . . . But she is wonderfully pretty, and, in short, very nice" (James 102). He also wonders if she is the epitome of all pretty girls from New York with a "good deal of gentlemen's society? Or was she also a designing, as audacious, an unscrupulous young person? (James 97). By the end of the novel, as he hears her in the Coliseum, he comes to the conclusion that Daisy is "a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect" (140). This estimation is significant because it allows Winterbourne to finally give in to what society has been teaching him all of his life. This final analysis allows Winterbourne to place Daisy in a group of women that is not respectable. One can almost see him sighing with relief as he has finally decided that Daisy does not deserve his attention and he has finally found the evidence he needs to write her off as a lost cause. Winterbourne's conclusion about Daisy is the apex of James' point regarding...
McEwen maintains, "James's realism is most evident in the close of the story. Winterbourne is remorseful over Daisy's death. He regrets that he did not try harder to understand her and correct her misconceptions" (McEwen). Winterbourne does realize until it is too late the truth not only about Daisy but his own feelings as well. McEwen notes that this is not the end of what James is teaching us. While Winterbourne may have realized this truth, he certainly did not do anything about it. McEwen explains, "So far, the story has seemed to advance a moral thesis about the corruption of innocence and the valuable truths that can be learned. James closes . . . On a note that proves how realistic his vision of human nature was . . . James had no illusions about people" (McEwen). This is true. Winterbourne makes one feeble attempt to defend Daisy in front of his aunt but returns to his former way of life.
This is an interesting point-of-view about Aylmer and it works with his character. Others identify Georgiana's birthmark as something that is essentially hers and therefore, should remain with her. Shakinovsky goes even further to say that it is a "metaphor for her identity, her sexuality, her being" (Shakinovsky). Aylmer is blind to this fact altogether. He cannot see that "in removing the mark, he removes all there is of
Henry the Fifth and the Ideal of a Monarch Shakespeare's history plays are based mostly in fact yet have the insertion of beliefs and systems that where truly his own. In Shakespeare's Henry V can be seen a culmination of his goals of monarchical character development. Though the character King Henry does not always closely resemble his slightly more carefree youth, Prince Hal as seen through the story of his father,
This is simply a strategic and crafty way of ensuring that none of the solider back down from the task at home, since there's a very strong and very implied message at stake. This message is that if any of the soldiers back down, they'll have God to answer to, for what they refused to engage in was in fact a holy mission. The young king is simply being
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
"(Weis 9) It is doubtful that the model for Falstaff was an actual highwayman, but it is possible he was not as well behaved as would have been expected by his family, perhaps a black sheep. Falstaff appears in several of Shakespeare's plays, but there is contention whether he is the same in all. Goddard finds a rather schizophrenic portrait of both Falstaff and Henry IV. A colossus of sack, sensuality, and sweat
With that, definition of this piece has not yet been completed. The New York Times continued with "the strongest and most affecting argument against sin we have lately encountered in literature." At that, through a process of self-annihilation, this journalist went on to "express the awful, almost overpowering sense of the evil that human nature is subject to derive from it [the story] by the sensitive reader." He judged the
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