Daisy Miller and The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James are first and foremost powerful tragedies because they use universal themes such as shattered ambitions and wasted lives. And the charm of each of them lies not only in the dark plot and atmosphere, but in those smaller details that James provides us. Leave out Daisy's strange laughter, delete Marcher's "throwing himself, face down, onto [May's] grave", and what are we left with? Daisy Miller would be a simple character study against the backdrop of conflicting American and European cultures, and "The Beast in the Jungle", a very detailed interior diary of a completely self-centered man who finally meets his fate deservedly. It is only when we view Daisy Miller's unfulfilled social ambitions and John Marcher's empty, hopeless life as tragedies that we begin to feel for these two works and discover the unmistakable depths that make them so touching, and sometimes disturbingly profound. However, their tragic conclusions are about the one thing these stories share; there is a marked difference in how Henry James approached his narrative and characterization technique to primarily convey the underlying tragedies. Yet despite these differences, which arise primarily from the use of opposing tones of voice in the two stories, the bleakness of Daisy and Marcher's stories is unmistakable. Edith Wharton offers an interesting theory about what makes a tragedy, and it has a lot to do with our reading experience. What we know about the events slowly unfolding before us, or what the author allows us to know, heavily influences how we feel about the story and its characters, ... at the center of the card.. . knowledge that comes from reading is sometimes also granted to the characters we are reading about. Despite the differences in narrative techniques, the two stories converge here. It's sad to leave these stories knowing that some of the blame for the fate of the two main characters must be placed on themselves, but it's even sadder to see that they are not allowed to remain ignorant forever, to know that they too finally realize how much they have become their own worst enemies. And here lies the essence of their tragedies: this "enlightenment" (54), "this horror of awakening" (673). Works Cited James, Henry. "The Beast in the Jungle." The story and its writer: an introduction to short fiction. Ed. Anna Charter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1995.______. Margaret Miller. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1995.