| Henry James (1843-1916), an outstanding novelist, stylist, playwright, essayist and critic, is one of the key figures of19th Century Literary Realism, one of the greatest novelists in the English language, and one of the most influential literary figures writing at the turn of the century. He is primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounters of Americans in Europe with Europeans. The novella Daisy Miller is one of the representative works on International Theme in his early stage, also was "the most prosperous child of my invention" called by Henry James himself. This thesis, through intensive analysis of human relationships in Daisy Miller, indicates that Henry James chose a "typical" American girl, Daisy, to convey the theme of alienation from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialist perspective with two important narrative techniques, respectively "Internal Focalization" by Sartre’s successor Genette, and "Actantial Model" by Greimas, in order to offer a fresh interpretation to the novella and enrich the previous studies.This thesis consists of six chapters. After a brief introduction to Henry James and his work Daisy Miller, the first chapter conducts a literary review of this novella and the theory of alienation, thus paving a solid foundation for the following chapters. Chapter two, after beginning with a brief introduction to the theory of Genette’s Internal Focalization, explores the alienated human relationship between Daisy and Winterbourne through Genette’s theory. It will focus on the disconnection between Daisy and Winterbourne with the focalization of Winterbourne. With a thorough and deep analysis of four important relevant plots in the text, this thesis puts forward the idea that Daisy cannot be understood by Winterbourne, nor can Winterbourne be understood by Daisy. The relationship between Daisy and Winterbourne is therefore an alienated relationship. In Chapter Three, after a briefing of Greimas’Actantial Model, an explication of alienated human relationships will be made through the detailed analysis of octants in the text. It will pay special attention to the disconnection and conflict between Daisy and Winterbourne, and the Hell of Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Walker. Chapter Four emphasizes the direct conflicts between Daisy and the Other. It revolves around the direct conflict between Daisy and Winterbourne and the direct conflict between Daisy and Mrs. Walker. In Chapter Five, starting from the explication of Daisy’s death, this thesis will discuss the theme of alienation in Sartrean Existentialism in Henry James’s International Novels as well as at least three reasons for Henry James to discuss the alienated human existential conditions in his works. According to the analysis of some tragic endings of his other masterpieces on International Theme, this thesis proposes that Henry James has a pessimistic attitude to human being’s alienation. The last part summarizes what this thesis has explored and then states its significance. With the two narrative approaches-Genette’s Internal Focalization and Greimas’Actantial Model, this thesis argues that the novella Daisy Miller uncovers a universal condition of human relationships underneath the surface of ethnic differences and cultural contrasts that is the alienation between human beings. Through Daisy Miller and his other International Novels, James already demonstrated the characteristics of modernity at the beginning of his literary career. Therefore, this thesis also intends to encourage the future researchers to pay more attention when they study Henry James’s works and claim more serious considerations about the human relationships in the21st century, which is supposedly a time of increasing development but also of increasing alienation. |
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