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Daisy Miller

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Submitted By hannahrae1123
Words 822
Pages 4
Hannah Banks
E. Connor
EN 210-016
15 February 2013
The Distance between the Reader and Characters in Realism Realism has a way of connecting with readers unlike any other type of literature prior with its honest and brutal interpretation on life. It not only focuses on only the truth and what is real but it looks at things in ways that had never been seen in a certain light before. Realism in American started to flourish in the following years after the civil war. This essay will briefly explain ways this takes place. Realism has a set of criteria that make it unique, and one of the critics doing so is William Cain. Morality, subjectivity, psychology, and the types of characters all help mold realism into what it is. Through the characters and how distant they are to the audience, it is easy to see how both Henry James’s “Daisy Miller: A Study” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” fit well within Cain’s ideas on realism in Literary Realism in America. When reading “Daisy Miller: A Study” the main character and protagonist is Winterbourne, but the most intriguing character is Daisy Miller. Unlike Winterbourne, you do not have access to her thoughts, and it is up to you and Winterbourne’s thoughts to determine what to think of her. “He had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion; never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential inconduite.” Cain says that in realism characters should not fit the mold of what society has made for them. Daisy is a perfect example because of her being an American woman in another culture and not meeting the expectations that previous generations have put on the young people of the time. Cain states, “Realism also suggests taking

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