‘I am afraid your habits are those of a flirt,’ said Winterbourne gravely.
‘Of course they are,’ she cried, giving him her little smiling stare again. ‘I’m a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am not a nice girl.’
One of the quotations I found striking in Daisy Miller was Daisy’s announcement: “I’m a fearful, frightful flirt!” While the other characters in the novel try to define themselves by their position and actions in society, Daisy definitively identifies herself as a “flirt.” She places herself outside of the upper class society norms that she enters into whilst in Europe. In a novel that otherwise avoids concretely labeling its characters, Daisy declares her identity with a level of self-awareness far more developed than any other character.
In contrast to Daisy stands Mr. Winterbourne. Although Daisy is ready and able to identify herself as a “flirt,” Mr. Winterbourne can only state his emotional reaction: “I am afraid your habits are those of a flirt.” He cannot tell directly her she is a flirt, only that he fears that she is. Further, after he states that he is afraid of her flirtatious habits, he contradicts himself in stating that he does not mind her flirtatious nature, if she directs it towards him: “I wish you would flirt with me, and me only” (James 49). Throughout the novel Mr. Winterbourne is constantly contradicting himself and his identity. For example, the narrator makes a claim that “he [Mr. Winterbourne] should never be afraid of Daisy Miller,” and yet his aunt blatantly tells him that he is “very much pre-occupied” because of Daisy (52).
On the other hand, Daisy does not suffer from this identity crisis. She demonstrates that she understands not only herself extraordinarily well, but also the two different societies she and Mr. Winterbourne come from. After disarming Mr. Winterbourne by her frankness regarding her character, she addresses the difference in what both she and Mr. Winterbourne consider to be a “nice girl.” For Daisy, being a “nice girl” in New York can also include spending copious amounts of time with gentlemen, such as attending “seventeen dinners […] three of them were by gentlemen” (11). She is free to be a flirt in her usual habitat, and even if it is to to the extent of being “fearful” and “frightful,” it is still possible that society considers her a nice girl. However, she also realizes that Mr. Winterbourne does not consider her a nice girl. For Mr. Winterbourne, a nice girl includes someone who does spend so much alone time with a single man. David Lodge writes that the “unspoken reason for this rule was to guarantee the woman’s virginity when she married” (xviii). Mr. Winterbourne’s upper-class society expects women to live a sheltered and covered existence.
Therefore, Daisy goes against this expectation quite strongly, even in her own name. She is a flower like the flower she is named after. She is meant to be seen and appreciated; this is a fact which she accepts and acknowledges.
I agree with the fact that Daisy has more self-awareness than the other characters in the book. I think she has this trait because of how and where she was raised. This connects to Jane Eyre because the hardship she faced as a child has allowed her to become more self aware.
When I first read the novel I did not like Daisy Miller, and to be completely honest I still don’t like the character of Daisy Miller, but you bring up some good points about her. I especially like the point you brought up about how she is the most self-aware character in the novel. In the long list of things I don’t like about her, this unique attribute I admire. She knows who she is and doesn’t let anyone tell her otherwise, even though plenty of people try. While I disapprove of how she manipulates people, and uses them for attention and to feed her need to be admired, I appreciate how self aware she is.