Daisy Miller:
A Fable of American Innocence
Patrick Mooney
English 130C
November 19, 2001
Henry James clearly portrays Winterbourne's problems in relating to Daisy throughout Daisy Miller. Winterbourne's constant lack of certainty about how to understand Daisy and her behavior and his constant search for a category that will allow him to know the proper way in which he should interact with her is a central problem in the novella. Daisy also has clearly drawn problems in her relationships to European society and its social standards. Both of these more or less Europeanized Americans exhibit, in different ways, tensions between American and European characteristics and ways of life. The primary ethical and social problems in the novella are found in Daisy's relationship to European society and in Winterbourne's relationship to Daisy. These problems are explicitly characterized in spatial terms in the novella: They are the problems that characters have in dealing with the social rules associated with unfamiliar spaces and, therefore, are the problems of an outsider. As Daisy is herself portrayed as representative of Americans in general, her problems in relating to Europe become problems that are representative of the general problems in American-European interactions. Because of this, the novella takes on the general character of a fable on this topic. This fable demonstrates the problems that Americans, who are essentially an innocent people, have in interacting with Europeans, who are essentially not innocent.
Daisy's characterization as an American is accomplished in several ways in the novella. The clearest of these can be seen in her characterization as a "flirt." Winterbourne tells Daisy, "Flirting is a purely American custom; it doesn't exist here [in Europe]." (James 99) Flirting is an activity in which only Americans engage in this narrative. In fact, with the exception of the reference to Mrs. Costello's granddaughters as "tremendous flirts," Daisy is the only character explicitly referred to as a "flirt" in the work. (64) James often modifies the noun "flirt" with the adjective "American" to emphasize the necessary connection between the two. (For instance, this pairing occurs on pages 57, 58, 90, and 100, and twice on page 113.) Moreover, Daisy characterizes herself as "a fearful, frightful flirt," and Winterbourne constantly thinks of her this way, especially when he is inclined to think of her as innocent rather than as "a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person." (99, 57) Daisy's characterization as the primary flirt in the work and the construction of a "flirt" as a peculiarly American creature make Daisy into a character who is strongly cast as an American.
James paints the other Americans as Europeanized in the novella just as strongly as he paints Daisy as a representative American. This is important if there is to be any tension between Americans and Europeans in this novella, since Americans constitute the focus of Daisy Miller. Although there are European characters, James describes all of the more important characters as having some sort of American identification. (The possible exception is Giovanelli, but his importance is downplayed throughout the novel. Unlike many of the other Americans, for instance, the novella's focalization never gets any real access to his thoughts or feelings that Winterbourne himself would not have; Winterbourne and Mrs. Costello have to speculate on his motives, for instance, on pages 103-4.) The narrative is focalized primarily through Winterbourne, who is a Europeanized American (although it occasionally describes the thoughts or feelings of another American character, to which Winterbourne presumably does not have direct access), and the descriptions of interactions of any significant length are descriptions of interactions with other American characters. As the primary focus of the novella is on Americans, how can Daisy's problems be problems with Europe?
That Daisy's problems with the other Americans are representative of problems with American-European interactions can be seen from several aspects of the novella. The Europeanized Americans all, eventually, wind up rejecting Daisy. In some cases, this occurs immediately, as with Mrs. Costello, who avoids the entire Miller family completely without ever meeting any of them. She says that she has "observed them. Seen them -- heard them -- and kept out of their way." (61) Mrs. Costello has avoided even allowing her space to intersect with that of the Miller family. Because society is explicitly cast in spatial terms in Daisy Miller, as will be demonstrated below, this is a significant insult. Mrs. Walker also eventually winds up rejecting Daisy by refusing to respond to her and declaring, "She never enters my drawing-room again." (101) Again, this is a refusal to allow Daisy's space to intersect with that of owned by Mrs. Walker. Even Winterbourne eventually insults Daisy by speaking to her "almost brutally" and telling her, "it makes very little difference whether you are engaged or not" -- that is, that he has no interest in her. (111, 113) The other Americans in the novella align themselves with the Europeans and against Daisy by telling "observant Europeans ... [that] her behaviour was not representative -- was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal." (106) As James has made sure that Daisy is, in fact, characterized strongly as an American, and as the other Americans have rejected her and aligned themselves with the "observant Europeans," it is possible to see the tension between Daisy and the other Americans as an American-European difference, rather than simply as a conflict between Americans.
Daisy's problems in fitting into European society are essentially the problems of an American entering into and engaging with a foreign social space. The characterization of society as a space is neither arbitrary nor accidental, but is made in several ways throughout the novella. Society is structured as a space and is described in spatial terms. Winterbourne thinks about "Daisy Miller's place in the social scale," for instance, emphasizing that the characters in the novella occupy a "place" in a social ranking. (62) Mrs. Miller also says that Dr. Davis "stands at the very top" of the ranked order of doctors in Schenectady. Again, there is a reference to occupying a particular place in a social space. (82) Social spaces are characterized by certain social codes and practices with which they are associated. Mrs. Walker makes this clear when she tells Winterbourne that Daisy does "everything that is not done here [in Rome]," which indicates that Rome has its own specific set of rules of social engagement and ethical behavior. (94) These are rules that Daisy is breaking in her loose association with various men. Winterbourne is also aware of the fact that rules differ from one place to another, as the narrative makes clear when he first meets Daisy; he is aware that
in Geneva ... a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely occurring conditions; but here, at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these? (51)
This indicates that rules of social engagement differ from place to place, and are therefore tied to specific locations.
The reason that Winterbourne finds his relationship to Daisy problematic also involves the relationship between a European and an American. Though Winterbourne is an American by birth, he is so Europeanized that he is, essentially, not American in his views at all. Evidence for this claim can be found both in Winterbourne's own comments and in the manner in which Winterbourne interacts with the European social spaces at Vevey and Rome. He thinks about his own Europeanization both at the very beginning of his social intercourse with Daisy and after her death. James describes his confusion at how to classify Daisy when he first meets her by writing, "He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that ... he had become dishabituated to the American tone." (57) Speaking to his aunt after Daisy's death, he explains that he "was booked to make a mistake" in interpreting her because "I have lived too long in foreign parts." (116) His uncertainty about interpreting Daisy Miller, then, comes from the fact that he is no longer an American in social practices, but rather a European. Moreover, he is European enough to explain the European social codes to Daisy on several occasions. One of these occurs when Winterbourne advises Daisy to stop walking with him and with Giovanelli and to get into Mrs. Walker's carriage. Another occurs when Winterbourne explains to Daisy that her behavior with Giovanelli is the reason that the other Europeanized Americans are snubbing her. (93, 108-9) Winterbourne is essentially a character who is familiar with the European social spaces, and his difficulty in relating to Daisy is essentially a difficulty in relating to someone who is not familiar with their codes of conduct. His problems with Daisy come from their attachments to different social spaces.
Daisy's general problems in interacting with the European social space, then, can be seen as representative of general American-European problems. This is the first of several other indications that Daisy Miller is meant to be taken as a tale with a fabulous character. One of these indications is that Daisy is often portrayed as representative of a type. Winterbourne, on first encountering her, sees her as more pronounced a type than any other young American girl whom he has ever seen. (57) Winterbourne also often sees her as a "pretty American flirt," not as Daisy Miller, individual. "Giovanelli" may also be representative of a type, as Patricia Crick points out in her notes to Daisy Miller: His name means "young man." This interaction between characters who represent abstract principles or entities is typical of fables. Finally, Giovanelli makes a reference to the Cinderella story, which is a fable, toward the end of Daisy Miller. (113) All of these characteristics point to the novella's fabulous character.
The defining characteristic of a fable is that it makes an "edifying or cautionary point." The point on which Daisy Miller edifies the reader is the essentially innocent character of Americans and the problems these people, who are fundamentally innocent, have in interacting with Europeans, who are essentially not innocent. The most striking way that Daisy's innocence (and the lack of innocence of the Europeans and Europeanized Americans) can be demonstrated is from the etymological root of the word "innocent." The word comes from a Latin root that means, literally, "not harming." Daisy causes none of the other characters in the novella any harm. Even Winterbourne, to whom Daisy is so confusing and vexing, is left with nothing worse than a lingering set of doubts about which he can speak socially with his aunt. On the other hand, the Europeans and Europeanized Americans cause Daisy a great deal of harm: The rejection of the Europeanized Americans is emotionally painful for her, for instance, as can be seen from the fact that "Daisy turned very pale" when Mrs. Walker rejects her socially. (101) More importantly, Giovanelli's recklessness in taking her to the Coliseum at night leads directly to her death from malaria and Winterbourne's rejection of her contributes to her own recklessness, which in turn contributes to her death of malaria. (113) In the etymological sense of the word, then, Daisy is innocent by definition.
Daisy's innocence is also a major theme in the narrative. Winterbourne refers daisy to as "innocent" through the majority of the novella (on page 80, for instance). Although this conception of Daisy is rejected by Winterbourne immediately before her death, he accepts it again when Giovanelli assures him that Daisy was "the most innocent" "young lady that I ever saw." (115) She describes herself as "natural," which implies that she is unaffected by social standards and the opinions of others; this is a characteristic traditionally associated with innocence. (68) Moreover, her brief reference to her reputation sounds "strange" to Winterbourne, which implies that she is not usually concerned about the opinions of others. (92) Daisy's conversation is described as containing "puerility;" again, this word is etymologically revealing: "Puerile" comes from Latin puer, which means "child," and childhood is also traditionally associated with innocence. (101) The only painting described in the novella is a painting of Pope Innocent X, near which Daisy is seen to be standing, associating her with innocence. (105) Daisy's innocence, in fact, is twice described as mythological in character. This occurs when Daisy is seen by Winterbourne as "like [a] ... sylph," a mythological creature unconcerned with ethics and with social matters, and when Mrs. Costello describes Daisy as acting "as they did in the Golden Age," a time of fundamental innocence in Greco-Roman mythology. (65, 103)
This tension between the innocence of the American girl and the non-innocence of the Europeans and Europeanized Americans is what makes Daisy Miller more than simply a narrative or an entertaining story. This tension between characters who represent types and classes makes it into a metaphoric tale about the interactions of characters who are larger than themselves: It makes it into a fable.
References
James, Henry. Daisy Miller (1878 edition). New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
Crick, Patricia. Notes to Daisy Miller in Henry James's Daisy Miller (1878 edition). New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
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