The Clash of cultures in Henry James’Daisy Miller and An International Episode

Abstract

This thesis entitled“The Clash of Cultures in Henry James’ Daisy Miller and An International Episode,”deals with the confrontation between European and American cultures.James brings the people from two different cultures–America, ‘new world’ and Europe, ‘old world’ together and shows how they behave. American character Daisy Miller, Mrs. West gate and Bessie Alden, for the sake of their individual freedom reject and rebel against European restriction and hypocrisy. America stands for freedom and innocence and Europe for restriction, sophistication and corruption. There arises an irresolvable dispute between ‘new world’ and ‘old world’, represented by America and Europe respectively. The study makes a brief view of these stories and brings in light the problems that the protagonists face in different cultures.The characters of both stories adhere to their own cultural backgrounds and never come to compromise with each other. The clash is created by the characters’ into lerability of each others’ culture as they are accustomed to their respective cultures.