Language and Relationships

Mckenzi Kerrigan

Daisy Miller and Super Sad True Love Story are similar in the way that the characters switch from being formal to informal and alternate between periods of short and lengthy sentences under different circumstances. In both stories that authors use tone, diction, and style to create a sense of time and place assisting the readers in developing a clearer picture in the characters the authors are creating.

In Super Sad True Love Story, Eunice is very informal in her emails and instant messages to her friend Precious Pony. “Sup Slut?” I really wish you were here right now. I need someone to verbal with and Teens just ain’t cutting it” (Shteyngart 44). Eunice’s lack of formality and casual speech enables the reader to believe that she is being fully honest in these messages as opposed to when she is restricted to what she can say in more formal situations. When Eunice gets to know Lenny better and begins to speak to him casually and informally as she does with her sister and her friend her true feelings toward Lenny are illuminated. Eunice is often also short and to the point in her speeches of honesty over her emails and in person. In Daisy Miller the opposite position to the belief that the less formal the speech the more the reader can discover can be proven true. In Daisy Miller I found that Daisy had a greater restriction of what she could say informally as opposed to when she was being formal because of the persona she was embodying. Daisy was fascinating to Winterbourne because of the formality of her speech and her maturity level. “Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little, light laugh. "I like a gentleman to be formal!" she declared.” Daisy and Winterbourne spoke formally to each other often, as Daisy had wanted.

"Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of our journey."

"I never was better pleased in my life," murmured Winterbourne.” Their speech sometimes seems forced because it is so formal, but both Daisy and Winterbourne seemed to be wooed by the others eloquent speech. When Daisy was informal it revealed more about her true identity (Annie) and aspects like her culture and possibly where she grew up from the way she spoke.

The relationship between Winterbourne and Daisy and Lenny and Eunice are similar in that both Daisy and Eunice were never as fully honest or open with the men about their feelings or true selves as the men were immediately. “After a while I just start to trust him with everything and I open up the way I would to a girlfriend” (Shteyngart 114). Eunice stayed with Lenny when she was not even sure she was attracted to him or liked him and still had feelings from her last relationship. Daisy seems to be putting on an act for Winterbourne from the beginning not revealing her true self. “Daisy Miller was extremely animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those of anyone else; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor when she felt that people were looking at her.” Winterbourne and Lenny however were both fascinated by the women and were open about their feelings. I also found that although the women showed feelings for the men they seemed to be more reserved about their feelings than the men were defying the stereotype of “typical” men and women’s display of emotion. Eunice described Lenny to her friend Precious Pony, “He’ll listen to me talk about what my father did to me and Sally and Mom and he’ll take it in, and sometimes he’ll even cry (he cries a lot)” (Shteyngart 114). In the story of Daisy Miller, Winterbourne is also displayed as gentle and sensitive when he first describes his reaction to Daisy, “Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures; they helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evidently she was rather wild. "Well," he said, "I am not a courier, and yet she was very charming to me." I also found that both Lenny and Winterbourne were very protective and possessive of Daisy and Eunice. “"You're a very nice girl; but I wish you would flirt with me, and me only," said Winterbourne.” These commonalities seen amongst the two relationships in the stories help to tie together the individual stories and illuminate the similarities they possess, as did the type of informal/formal language and different length sentences they use.