Comparing Daisy Miller and The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James Essay

Henry James Daisy Miller and The Beast in the jungle arefirst and fore close powerful tragedies beca determination they employ such popular themes as crushed ambitions and wasted lives. And theappeal of each does non equivocation solely in the darkening plot and atmosphere,but in those smallest inside information James gives us. Omit Daisys strange littlelaughs, delete Marchers flinging himself, face down, on Maystomb, and what are we left with? Daisy Miller would be a mere personality study against the backdrop of clashing American and Euro-pean cultures and The Beast in the Jungle, a very detailed inner diaryof a exclusively self-absorbed man who deservingly meets his fate inthe end. It is only when we consider the unrealised social ambitions ofDaisy Miller and the hopeless, empty life of John Marcher as tragediesthat we begin to feel for these two works and discover the unmistakabledepths that guard them so touchingly, and sometimes disturbingly,profound. Their tragic concl usions are about the only function thesestories share, though there is a stark difference in the guidance Henry Jamesapproached his narrative and characterization technique to convey mostfully the underlying tragedies. And yet, despite such differences, whichdraw mainly from the use of opposing tones of voice in the two stories,the bleakness of the stories of Daisy and Marcher is unmistakable. Edith Wharton proposes an evoke theory as to what makes atragedy, and it has very much to do with our nurture experience. Whatwe know about the events slowly unfolding before us, or what the germ allows us to know, heavily influences the way we feel about thestory and its characters, ... ... well-read that comesfrom recital is sometimes also granted to the characters we are readingabout. Despite the differences in narrative techniques, the two storiesdo converge here. It is sad to leave these stories knowing that part ofthe blame for the fates of the two main characters must actually be p uton themselves, but even sadder to see that they are not allowed toremain ignorant forever, to know that they, too, finally realize how theyhave have their own worst enemies. And herein lies the essence oftheir tragedies this illumination (54), this horror of argus-eyed (673). Works CitedJames, Henry. The Beast in the Jungle. The Story and Its Writer An Introduction to pathetic Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston Bedford Books, 1995.______. Daisy Miller. New York Dover Publications Inc., 1995.