Societies Clenching Paws

Part I of Essay
The adaptation of the stories Daisy Miller and The Age of Innocence into movies are a seamless one. Henry James and Edith Wharton, the writers of the two works, both focused on the issue of wealthy American society and its discontents. The two stories were written in rela ....

Part II of Essay
.... at home, but are not in a sense. Except for the fish out of water, Ellen Olenska. Her uniquely European take on the world shocks and offends the American aristocratic sensibility. Strangely, the American sensibility seems to be more deeply ingrained in her than any other character in the movie. The freedom and the innocence that she displays is foreign to the New Yorkers that she talks to, although among Americans of the day her thoughts and actions she would be normal. The same type of personality is brought to Europe when Daisy Mille ....