Seeing Time & Relationships Through Talk

1. In the stories Daisy Miller and Super Sad True Love Story there were several differences in the way the authors created a sense of time and place through tone, diction, and style. In Daisy Miller we see that the time is set in the 1870’s “three or four years” (chapter 1) before the telling of the story, and we also learn the story takes place in Vevey, Switzerland as well as in Rome. The author, Henry James uses very formal language in the story as a tool to portray the time setting. This is because back in those times, and in the high-end environment that the story takes place, people had high standards of how one should speak and act in public. Winterbourne speaks in a very formal way when engaging conversation in the story “It’s a very pretty excursion...I should think it might be arranged...most earnestly” (chapter 1), these are examples of some of the language used in the story. Daisy, also tries to adopt this same formality in an effort to blend in as a sophisticated young lady. On the other hand, in Super Sad True Love Story there is a lack of formality where Eunice for example communicates using casual language throughout the story. “Welcome back, sticky bun!” (Shteyngart 114), “And then when he left he’d call you a whore or worse” (Shteyngart 115). The style of Super Sad True Love Story is that the text is a compilation that goes back and forth between Lenny's journal entries and Eunice's email and IM exchanges, showing their very different reactions to what happens between and around them as they start a relationship in a politically, economically, and technologically unstable world. Daisy Miller is more of a traditional narration style of Winterbournes point of view with a mix of conversational moments. One thing that I found significantly different about these stories is the fact that communication in Daisy Miller is strictly through face-to-face means (which is expected during these times), whereas in Super Sad True Love Story we see that there is heavy use of online communication, which carries this text and coincides with the fact that this book is set in the future.

2. The relationship between Daisy and Winterbourne is in a way similar to that of Eunice and Lenny in Super Sad Love Story. To me, I believe that Winterbourne was very interested in Daisy Miller from the moment he first saw her, and his intensions were driven by the fact that he was “mystified by her manners” (chapter 4), where ultimately he tried to pursue her. “They were wonderfully pretty eyes...her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing and analyzing it” (chapter 1). When it comes to Lenny, he is also mesmerized by Eunice when they first meet, and falls in love with her “I focused on the living animal in front of me and tried to make her love me...I told her I didn’t want to leave Rome now that I had met her” (Shteyngart 24). Both males in these stories are romantically attached and attracted to the female character, and they fall hopelessly for these women, which is the similarity I saw in these stories in regards to these relationships.

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