Point of View

In many ways point of view is the story, in Henry James' work. His stories are really more about internal dialogue and perceptions of reality, rather than actions or events. He often filters the story through a narrator, giving the reader access only to the thoughts and perceptions of that character, not the actual facts of the situation. This is an early example of an unreliable narrator — a point-of-view character who may not see the truth, or the whole truth. In Daisy Miller: A Study, the young, timid, unnamed narrator reports the habits and personality of the fresh-faced, forthright young American Daisy Miller. Because the reader sees Daisy only through this filter, it is much harder to form an impression of her and impossible to know if that impression is correct. That story even has a second point of view, a first-person "I" character who...