Daisy Miller

by Henry James
Student: Olaru Elena Izabela
Romanian-English group
Book information

 Was first published in June 1878

 62 pages
 2 parts
 THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL NOVEL
Setting

 Time: 1870’
 Place: Europe –Vevay, Switzerland
- Rome, Italy
 Length: approximately 6 months
Daisy

 Third person narration- Winterbourne’s thoughs and point of view dominate

 Daisy is a rich, pretty American girl, traveling through Europe with her mother and younger
brother
 Refuses to conform old-word rules
 Aware of society but chooses not to abide by it
 Spontaneous
 She leads on men that she interact with and manipulate them
 Is always the centre of attention
 Complex character
 Uneducated but also witty
 Speaks and behaves frankly, almost in a child-like fashion
 Daisy is rustic but smart
 Has a "natural elegance" and
 a mixture of "innocence and crudity’
‘Daisy represents the next socio-evolutionary element in
civilized society. The ultimate irony is found in the
Europeanized American’s deeming Daisy to be common.
However, Daisy is aware of societal protocol and makes a
conscientious choice to defy it and establish independent
protocol with which she aligns herself’- Louise Barnett
Daisy is:

Pretty:
 In manner- ‘Daisy still showing her pretty teeth, bent over and kisses her hostess’
 In appearance- ‘Charming eyes, happy dimples, eyes that were prettier than
before....’
Daisy is also:

Sociable and talkative:

 Mom- ‚She goes around everywhere, a great number of acquaintances’
 Is always found in conversation
 And has a natural talent for performing introductions, mentioning the name of each her
companions to the others
Quotes

 ‘She has the tournure of a princess’

 ‘He felt the young girl’s pretty eyes’
 ‘She is completely uncultivated, but she is wonderfully pretty, and, in short, she is very
nice.’
 ‘Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turnet to her,
and something annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all. He said to himself that
she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have
reflected upon her ostracism, or even to have perceived it’
 ‘But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense, she was very unsophisticated, she
was only a pretty American flirt.’
Bibliography

 Barnett, Louise K. "Jamesian Feminism: Women in 'Daisy Miller.'" Studies in Short Fiction, vol.
16, no. 4, 1979, p. 281.
 Pollak, Vivian R. New Essays on 'Daisy Miller' and 'The Turn of the Screw.'" Cambridge UP,
2011.
 Poole, Adrian. "Henry James and Charm." Essays in Criticism, vol. 61, no. 2, 2011: 115–36.
 Aslimoska, Hristina, ‘The cult of the new woman reflected in Henry James’s ‘Daisy Miller’
 D’amore, Amanda, ‘Daisy Miller: Picking-up James’s Psychological Breadcrumbs’ Seton
Hall University