Narrative Mode Violet

Daisy Miller & Scarlet Letter & Huckleberry Finn

Daisy Miller (1876) is Henry James’s (1843~1916) most representative work for his international theme. It mainly speaks of an American girl named Daisy, owing to her innocence and discretion, is not accepted by her American expatriates and other Europeans, even her admirer Winterbourne. Eventually, she dies of malaria as a result of visiting the Colosseum at midnight..

The traditional narrative mode  Omniscient point of view Omniscient point of view  The autobiographical type The autobiographical type

In this case, the author is also the narrator. He has the godlike authority, knowing everything with no need for waiting until the end of the story. Not only the eternal action of the characters is at the narrator’s fingertips, but also their inward movements.

In Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne adopts the omniscient point of view. He himself acts as the narrator. He acts like a onlooker, presents the development of story before us by using the third person narrator most of the time. However, the author intervenes from time to time.

And before the prison door, the author turns up again to interfere as an eyewitness. “…as she entered the prison-door, ---we shall not take upon us to determine.” (Hawthorne, 2003, p.46) At the end of the story, the author appears before the scaffold, reading the dejecting ending of the story of Scarlet Letter.

It helps to break the limit of time and space so that the narrator’s view is quite expanse.

It often uses the first person narrator. He is the latent eye of God. He see the whole story and characters within his maximum view without the intervene of the author. The story will not be confined by the limited view of a certain made-up character.

In Huckleberry Finn, Twain ( ) by adopting Huck’s point of view uses the first person narrator. At the beginning of the novel, “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr Mark Twain, and he told the truth” (Twain, 1994, p.11).

Twain distances himself from the following story and stepping out of it completely. The whole story is narrated by Huck, the protagonist in the story. Huck’s point of view makes the story more authentic and convincing.

It makes the reader and the narrator closer. By describing Huck’s own narration, we can see clearly how a child views the world and how he grows up. His psychological movements are also revealed fully especially when he suffers the inner struggles between whether he should report Jim’s escape to Miss Watson or not.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he’d got to be a slave, and so I’d better write a letter to Tom Sawyer, and tell Miss Watson where he was…….all right, then, I’ll go to hell’-and tore it up. (pp )

Jamesian Narrative Mode James focuses on a certain character’s consciousness in the story. That is to say, he chooses one character of the story as the center of the novel.

Lemon(1964) notes that “James discovered the trick of making his characters reveal themselves with minimal intervention of the author” (pp )

All the narration is based on this character’s observation and understanding without the author’s interferences. “To correspond to life the author should avoid artificial omniscience as much as possible.” (Chang Yaoxin, p.127)

He opens up a particular way of telling the story. That is to say, he tries to illustrate the situation and characters through one or several minds. James calls this kind of character “Viewpoint Characters” or “Mirror Characters” (Wang Yuehong).

All events and characters filter through the consciousness of his characters. In Daisy Miller, James places the center of the subject in the consciousness of Winterbourne. The reader has all his inner meditation and vision.

When focusing on the consciousness of a certain character in the story, the other characters are thrown into a relative passive position. Their thought and ideas can not be shown directly.

Thus we can not know what they really know and think. Daisy is quite this type. She stays under the monitoring of Winterbourne. All we know about Daisy is though his description. What she really thinks and knows stays mysterious to us.

This kind of narration mode makes the image of Daisy more pathetic. It helps to indicate Daisy’s final tragic destination.

Other differences In addition to the difference of the point of view, the narrative plot in Daisy Miller is also quite unique.

In the traditional novels, the narration plot is often concerned about the salvation. The protagonist often gains what he peruses and finally makes some change on the world in a certain way.

Take Scarlet Letter and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for example. In Scarlet Letter, Hester wins back the reverences of her townspeople by her atonement though her committing adultery.

In Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim make a series of adventures along the Mississippi to gain their freedom. Finally, Huck changes his attitude on Jim and finally they all gain their freedom.

These two novels all follow the traditional narrative plot, while Daisy Miller breaks the mode of salvation. In the process of Daisy’s pursuit of self, she is not accepted by the European society and her expatriates.

Instead, she pays the price of life. Daisy’s innocence is finally destroyed by the European rigidness.

Life is still going on as usual without any change. As is suggested at the end of the novel, “Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva……an intimate on that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady” (p. 56).

Daisy, as her name indicates, is common enough to be ignored as if she never turns up.

By making a sharp contrast between the American innocence and the European sophistication and ending in the death of Daisy, James conveys that the pursuit of free spirit which is advocated in America can not be accepted by the European countries which follow strictly the proprieties.

Conclusion Jamesian narrative mode is an innovation to the traditional novel, which no doubt makes a great contribution to the development of modern novel.

His “viewpoint character” provides a new view for the author to narrate his story more authentically and objectively without the interference of the author.

By emphasizing the inner awareness and inner movements of his characters, he becomes the first psychological analysts in the novel and later develops his stream-of –consciousness technique.

References:  Edel, L (1964). The Modern Psychological Novel. New York, pp  Howthorne, N (2003). The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam Dell.  James, H (2006). Daisy Miller. London: Wordsworth Editions.  Twain, M (1994). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Penguin Books.  常耀信（ 2007 ）. 美国文学简史. 天津：南开大学出版社. pp

Thanks for your attention O(∩_∩)O~