It is really interesting to analyse this short novel aˆzDaisy Miller ” written by Henry James. This novel has a batch of intriguing things ready to be discovered and understood, and behind the narrative of the novel a batch of symbols are hidding ready to be dyscovered and understood. This symbols are uncovering a new position upon the narrative, a new manner of understanding the narrative.
Another interesting thing noticed in “ Daisy Miller ” is the lasting contrast that is being created, like a symbolic resistance between summer and winter, hot and cold, young person and old age, flower ( daisy ) and winter, life and decease. Daisy Miller herself is an image situated in the center of incompatible sentiments, she plays the portion of the guiltless miss, being for good judged by society, judged by Winterbourne, although deep inside she is guiltless and pure ; so, an incongruousness between world and visual aspect is being created.
Another interesting facet of this novel is the puting. From the beginning of the book, the writer makes a great debut by locating the action, puting the reader easy in the state of affairs. First the location is being named: “ At the small town in Veney, in Switzerland ” , so, the topographic point is set. The narrative technique used by the writer in the first paragraphs is a really interesting 1. The image is foremost enlarged and so easy with every word, the background converges, prevailing on the description of the hotel and the tourer, stoping by puting the clip: “ a beautiful summer forenoon ” and so concentrating on one of the novel ‘s character: Winterbourne. So, a portion of the action takes portion in Switzerland and another section of the novel ‘s action takes topographic point in Rome. These two scenes are notarbitrary chosen, both have a deep significance. These topographic points are symbols of other literary plants or genres. First both are tight related with Romantic poets whom Winterbourne profoundly see. “ Mary Shelley ‘s Frankenstein takes topographic point mostly in Switzerland, and Mary Shelley wrote it during the clip that she, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron sojourned at Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley and John Keats are both buried in the Protestant Cemetery, which becomes Daisy ‘s ain concluding resting topographic point ”[ 4 ].
Chapter three starts with the sentence: “ Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the twenty-four hours after his jaunt to Chillon, went to Rome towards the terminal of January ”[ 5 ]. This sentence points precisely the three chief locations where the action of the novel takes topographic point and where the characters of the novel express their relationships and their attitudes.
Not indiscriminately chosen, the capital of Italy, Rome might be seen as a deaf-and-dumb person character, a soundless informant of the action or as a background that links incompatible affairs. Rome is the metropolis of Renaissance, the metropolis where art bloomed, a metropolis where the creative person might easy happen the topographic point to show. Here, Daisy behaves in a really debauched manner ; she does n’t care about any societal or ethical values, keeping her artlessness and her unity without anybody, particularly Winterbourne to detect that. Daisy, like an creative person, is merely judged and condemned and merely after her dead she is being understood and appreciated.
In Rome there was a batch of speaking about the so called “ Roman febrility ” ; this line has a dual significance, although foremost it could be understood as the female parents ‘ concern about their girls, this look typify a disease: malaria, the malady that was stalking the metropolis, and who eventually kills Daisy.
Another of import scene of the novel ‘s action is the Coliseum ; this is the background where a really of import scene takes topographic point. Here Daisy has the concluding brush with Winterbourne, here she contacts the febrility, malaria and after that she dies. This topographic point is non indiscriminately take. In ancient times, the Coliseum was a topographic point celebrated for different battles and competitions. But besides, the Coliseum is well-known as the topographic point “ where centuries of Christian martyrdoms took topographic point ”[ 6 ]. Sing this background from a symbolic position the Coliseum becomes a topographic point where an guiltless miss was killed without holding any guilt and being pure and sinless merely like the Christians in the ancient times.
It is typical for Henry James to stand for the society of people interested in thoughts and polishs of elusive mode. He frequently was considered as being a cosmopolitan because he liked going so much and he frequently moved between America, England and Europe.
The struggle between Americans and Europeans can be found as one of the chief subjects in the background of his novel. This subject has at its footing a modernistic construct particular to the age.
The American beginning plays a great function in the novel because all the characters that bare this nationality are the greatest characters, that mature and eventually accomplish a illustriousness at the terminal of the novel.
The usual image that we find is the 1 of the American that loses a portion of that initial artlessness when meeting the figure of the European with life experience.
When it comes to James ‘ construction of the novel, we can happen that about all of them are structured in the same manner. We have a cardinal thing that “ supremely affairs ” , as James himself said, that all the lines point at. In “ Daisy Miller ” , this supreme affair is Winterbourne lecherousness for the find of Daisy ‘s artlessness. As a effect we have the round construction of the novel as an attack to the cardinal topic.
Henry James offers us state of affairss of a society that he was portion of and we can see that in his novels, every incident has its map in supplying us more information about a state of affairs or a character. Although we may be tempted to state that he had a kind of “ pragmatism “ in his plants, the lone world we can happen is the description of a society of struggle.