ABSTRACT
There is always a conclusive dramatic renunciation that proves the moral courage of the central character. The late plays, 1907-10, dramatise and stage psychological action by describing it as a fragile space between characters that is always under threat. Between the early and the late plays Henry James realised that he had been under-employing the stage space in which his characters moved and adjusted his drama accordingly. Sensation plays were extremely popular in the States when and after James was a young theatre-goer. The conclusions of The American and Guy Domville demonstrate James's early efforts at staging character. By 1878 when James's first public success, Daisy Miller, was published he was well acquainted with the Parisian stage. The subject of the tale, Daisy's heroic moral transparency, suffers great strain when it is mapped on to the well-made play.
