Class Blog

Why do so many novels of the 19^th century diminish the role of motherhood?  For Dickins, why are the mothers frequently absent (Dombey and Son, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist)?  For Jane Austin, the mothers are largely just silly or decorative (Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park).  What does their absence or inadequacy imply?  It is also interesting to note who, if anyone, is filling that role in the respective novels.  In Daisy Miller, it partially falls to the courier, and the consequences are fatal.

Exploring more deeply the role of motherhood in Daisy Miller, James would seem to be implying that the figure is absent, negligible, ineffective, insignificant.  As Dames reports in his excerpt A Concise Companion to the Victorian Novel:  “A common enough moment in Victorian fiction – the introductory portrait of a character – here relies on the meaningfulness of facial characteristics, their capacity to unveil the workings of a personality” (Dames p. 101).  James introduces Daisy’s mother using adjectives which describe her non-entity:  “Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose”.  Even her physical introduction is covered in nuances of her insignificance “The figure of a lady appeared, at a distance, very indistinct, … with a slow and wavering movement”…” (p. 22) the lady in question hovered vaguely about the spot”.  James uses adjectives or adverbs to describe her as a shadow, her lack of presence, her deficiencies as a parent.  Her hair is thin and “frizzled” rather than “curly” which other than being pejorative implies burned or ruined.  This is not an attractive image of a role model for Daisy.  Finally, he uses very strong language in the last chapter when he writes “Mrs. Miller was invisible.”

But what if James is actually implying the reverse: that the absence of a strong figure in the role of motherhood is damaging to her children’s growth and ultimately could have fatal consequences?  Mrs. Miller’s social invisibility in the last chapter is due to her bedside presence with her sick daughter.  James is then saying that her daughter is advantaged by her mother’s presence.  Tracing this back throughout the novel, the absence of adequate and effective guidance from her mother has repeated negative consequences for Daisy and ultimately results in her tragic death.  James would thereby seem to be indirectly expounding the importance of motherhood in forming and rearing children.

Without making a definitive claim as to what Winterbourne’s sexuality is in Daisy Miller, it is still important to acknowledge the many instances when sexuality is not clear. Considering the true identity of Winterbourne is rather ambivalent to begin with, sexuality should not be eliminated. The use of “I” throughout the narration means that we are still viewing Winterbourne though the perspective of another, and that this is one view of Winterbourne that does not necessarily help us in identifying him as a person. We do not get clear statements on Winterbourne’s past, such as his family and possible past romances, or his true desires and reasons for being infatuated with Daisy’s manners and demeanor. Much can be drawn out of what James conceals about the character of Winterbourne and the small spaces where this gives way to seeing small glimpses into Winterbourne’s uncensored mind.

One passage that could allow the reader to attain a further glimpse into his identity and truth is during Daisy and Winterbourne’s visit to Chillon, and his allusion to Byron’s poem, The Prisoner of Chillon. He tells her the story of Byron’s “unhappy Bonivard.” (James 29) In the previous sentences, Daisy had been asking about Winterbourne’s “family, his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his intentions,” but we never hear any of his answers to these questions. The next time we know of him speaking is to portray the story of Bonivard, who was imprisoned at Chillion. It is notable that we do not actually know much of Winterbourne’s history, but instead of hearing the answers to these questions Daisy asks, we get Byron’s story instead. This establishes a relationship between Winterbourne and Bonivard. Winterbourne could be seen as relating to the imprisonment of Bonivard in that he is mentally imprisoned by over-analyzation of sexual manners and temperament. Winterbourne can also connect to the character of Bonivard in that he is always alone with his thoughts, and arguably as a result of them. “You are always going around by yourself. Can’t you get anyone to walk with you?” Daisy once asks him. (James 57) He is isolated just like Bonivard, but it is a castle of his own making. While Winterbourne can be see as relating to Bonivard, more obviously, Winterbourne is also taking the place of Byron himself in telling this story to Daisy. James would have been aware that Lord Byron was a figure who was rather well known for his sexual life and escapades, with much public speculation about his involvement with incest, pedophilia, and homosexuality. He is putting himself into Byron’s position, and possibly into the role of a man characterized by otherness and queerness in that he was certainly not the societal “norm.”

Winterbourne focuses, almost obsessively on his describing Giovanelli’s handsome face and good looks much in the same way that he constantly describes the face of Dasiy. In the same manner that Winterbourne countlessly refers to Daisy as “pretty” throughout the novel, Winterbourne uses the word “pretty” multiple times for Giovanelli, saying that he had a “pretty face” (James 41) and that he “sang very prettily.” (James 48) The word has some feminine connotations, and in using the word for Giovanelli, Winterboune seems to be framing him in a feminine light. Giovanelli overshadows Daisy in these moments and displaces Winterbourne’s attention onto him in a manner that parallels previous observations about Daisy. While it could be said that this descriptive language, used similarly for both characters, implies that Winterbourne’s interest in the two characters is more of an indifferent and intellectual manner, it could also portray desire that exists outside of the normal straight line between one romantic interest and another. It could portray Winterboure’s desires as, consistent with his character, multiplicitous and often confused. 

Without fleshing out a full argument in one blog post, it can still be acknowledged that there is language used by James to create an atmosphere of general ambivalence around Winterbourne’s character, and sexual/romantic situations are certainly not excluded from this. The “otherness” of his character and lack of clear lines makes him queer and perplexing in comparison to the straight lines of patriarchal man and wife.

In Henry James’s Daisy Miller (1875), Winterbourne is an American ex-pat whose lived abroad in Europe for most of his life. He becomes fascinated with the eponymous character, an American tourist who refuses to assimilate into European cultural standards. As a result, she is judged by European society for her (lack of manners) perceived impropriety and coquettishness. By forgetting his own American origins, Winterbourne ignores Daisy’s individuality and “studies” her with a Eurocentric lens that reduces her into a caricature: a girl devoid of moral fortitude and reasoning, the product of their shared homeland. Winterbourne’s failure to recognize his American culture—to understand Daisy as her own person—alienates her and catalyzes her downfall.

Winterbourne’s European socialite aunt, Mrs. Costello, warns him against pursuing a “relationship” with Daisy because of her inappropriate (in a social-cultural context) comportment. She reminds Winterbourne is out of his depth since Daisy is an American girl: “You have lived too long out of the country. You will be sure to make some great mistake” (James, Project Gutenberg). Having inhabited Western Europe for so long, Winterbourne is not only tuned to the cultural standards and social hierarchies of places like Geneva and Rome, but detached from American society. He reserves judgement for Daisy based on her behavior in relation to their current environment, without making much of an attempt to understand where she’s coming from when she displays her affability towards suitors and resistance to the oppressiveness of European rules. Winterbourne’s mistake is that he misinterprets Daisy as being indifferent towards him—because she is friendly with other European men, or because she doesn’t listen to his “advice”—which comes off to her as him not sharing her romantic attraction.

In Remembering, Repetition and Working-Through (1924), Freud argues that “repetition is a transference of the forgotten past;” (Freud 151) the more one tries to forget their past experiences—the circumstances and actions relating to their origin—the more they are prone towards repeating those same actions (or drawn to semblances of such). Obsessed over this ‘pretty little American girl,’ Winterbourne constantly inspects the qualities of Daisy that are a product of her motherland from a Eurocentric lens. He reasons that “American women—the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom—were at one the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense of indebtedness” (James, Project Gutenberg). This generalization contains gendered and nationalistic (pro-Europe, anti-American) biases. Winterbourne’s explains away Daisy’s ‘lack of proper morals or education’ as a result of her appearance, gender and nationality; to control her by showing her a ‘better way’ through European codes of conduct. In repressing his own ties to America, Winterbourne identifies his European environment as moral and correct. He associates Daisy’s impropriety with her Americanness. Unable to sympathize with her—to understand her behavior as okay, albeit in a different cultural context—he judges Daisy doing her own thing as much as his European peers do.

Rather than accepting that Daisy can be friends with male suitors, Winterbourne interprets Daisy and Giovanelli’s relationship as romantic. He critiques Daisy for being flirty and displays faux-indifference towards her. In turn, this communicates to Daisy that he doesn’t care about her, or does only if she follows his script. She rebels against his ‘rules’ and ends up dying from malaria after a reckless outing meant to spite him. Had Winterbourne made more of an attempt to reconnect with his American identity, he and Daisy might’ve reached a mutual understanding. Healthier communication could’ve resulted in a less tragic ending.

Henry James is very deliberate in the descriptions of his characters in Daisy Miller.  Mr. Giovanelli is described repeatedly as being very handsome, but also very short. When Winterbourne first meets him, James writes, “Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with folded arms, nursing his cane” (39).  While Giovanelli’s size could be contributed to Winterbourne’s distance from him, the phrase “little man” immediately associates Giovanelli as being shorter than Winterbourne.  Also the use of “nursing his cane” implies that Giovanelli needs some kind of walking assistance that Winterbourne does not.  As Winterbourne and Giovanelli are in competition for Daisy Miller’s attention and affection, this characterization seems to paint Winterbourne in a more favorable light.  Later on, Winterbourne also says, when referencing Giovanelli, “‘The little Italian… He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I believe he is in a small way a cavaliere avvocato” (53).  Winterbourne cannot seem to ignore Giovanelli’s size, stating it twice in the same section of dialogue.  Even when describing Giovanelli’s profession, which is very admirable, Winterbourne uses the unfortunate phrase “he is in a small way”, which further reinstates Giovanelli’s inferior size (53).

Height seems to be a great source of stability and validation for Winterbourne.  Throughout the novella, Winterbourne seems to be uncertain about everything, most especially, societal expectations and Daisy Miller’s personality and interest in other men.  David Lodge’s introduction to Daisy Miller describes Giovanelli as “a handsome young man of dubious social status” (xvii).  Winterbourne struggles throughout the novella with proper social habits and expectations. Giovanelli’s ambiguous position in the social hierarchy is another layer of conflict and confusion for Winterbourne, as Giovanelli seems removed from the rules Winterbourne must follow, most especially with women.  David Lodge also states, “Daisy is forcing the pace of [her and Winterbourne’s] relationship” (xxiii). Traditionally, men have more control in the beginning of a relationship because women have to adhere to stricter social standards, but Daisy inverts this as she controls many men throughout the story. Winterbourne becomes lost in this competition for Daisy and cannot gain any footing because she seems to desire attention from many different men.  When Giovanelli’s height becomes clear, Winterbourne holds onto this subject as a source of validation and superiority.  As Daisy becomes enthralled with Giovanelli’s beauty, Winterbourne reaffirms his masculinity and importance by repeatedly noting his superior size.

This conflict between Winterbourne and Giovanelli seems to suggest that Winterbourne is insecure and highly unsure of his place in society as he is evidently very threatened by another man’s attractiveness.  Winterbourne holds onto the attention and affirmation he gets from Daisy Miller, and when her attraction strays to another man, Winterbourne is forced to cling to something as trivial as height to reinsert himself in the narrative and in Daisy Miller’s life.

Society is a big theme in the novel Daisy Miller and most of the characters seem obsessed with where they are placed within it. Winterbourne offers a unique perspective on both American and European societies as he has experience within both of them. The last scene highlights the novel’s message, the emptiness of high society.

Daisy has an obsession with society and mentions it multiple times she talks to Winterbourne. She wants to be ‘exclusive’ but as we see from her actions, she does everything to exclude herself. While Winterbourne is invested in her and tolerates her laxness of social rules, others within society are quick to outcast her. He goes back and forth within the novel believing her to be either a “little American flirt” or an innocent and unknowing young lady. The back and forth narrative creates uncertainty and paints him as an unreliable narrator. This hints that the lesson the novel tries to portray is not realized by Winterbourne.

At the end of the novel, we see Daisy become sick and die. No one seems to care except Winterbourne. After her death, the next summer in Rome, “in the interval Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy Miller and her mystifying manners… it was on his conscience that he had done her injustice” (James 64). The novel suggests that Winterbourne only thinks of Daisy when he visits Rome. He dismisses Daisy from his mind and only brings her back when his guilt is too much for him to bear.

The dismissal of Daisy as a person highlights how those who hold value separate from society suffer. The novel’s pointless upper-class affairs show the inhumanity in the culture of gossip. Winterbourne only comes to the conclusion that he was wrong about Daisy so he could cope with the guilt of caring for someone he should not have. After confronting his guilt he forgets Daisy and returns to his old life with no change in his character. The novel ends as it begins with Winterbourne in Genova studying devoted to a mysterious ‘clever foreign lady’. Daisy Miller highlights the way society treats people who do not belong.

In Charles Dickens’ classic mid-nineteenth century novel, there are few characters who show they are kindhearted and have good intentions. The character who embodies this the most is a young woman named Rose. She is a sweet “girl next door”. As her name hints, she is feminine and beautiful like a flower. Roses symbolize love, and the young woman Rose certainly infiltrates love into this crime ridden storyline. There is another young woman, Nancy, who is affiliated with Fagin’s gang and lives her life on the streets trying to keep herself alive. To Rose, Oliver is an innocent young boy who needs more guidance in his life. Per request of the gang, Nancy kidnaps Oliver. Rose wants nothing but to help other people, Oliver in particular, and Nancy is interjecting herself into his life and causing havoc. To the audience, Rose is portrayed as this ultra-feminine woman whereas Nancy does not even recognize herself as human, let alone feminine. 

Nancy goes to speak with Rose to inform her that she was the one who kidnapped Oliver. She tells Rose, “I am the infamous creature you have heard of, that lives among the thieves… so help me God! Do not mind shrinking openly from me, lady. I am younger than you would think, to look at me, but I am well used to it. The poorest woman fall back, as I make my way long the crowded pavement” (Dickens 226). This entire passage is Nancy degrading herself as not just a woman but from humanity, and she is having this conversation with the very entrancing and womanly Rose. 

Nancy identifies herself as a “creature”, an entity that is worse than the “thieves” she lives with and she does not fit in with even the poorest people on the streets. She is a woman, but she is also worse than the other people on the Earth. Labeling herself as “infamous” expresses that her unpleasant qualities are everlasting. Being eternal and a monster are qualities typically describing and evil entity. Nancy is deceptive, she is older than she looks. In actuality, this is likely due to her impoverished lifestyle, but she is “not what she seems” nonetheless. Deceiving others is a trait the devil often uses. 

Rose, on the other hand, is the opposite of Nancy. Although they are both women, Nancy calls Rose “lady”, a title she does not give herself. They are the same, but they are also not, as Nancy would not be offended if Rose visibly showed her disturbance of Nancy’s presence. Nancy also cries out “so help me God!” in a time that Rose tries to lend a helping hand. Rose is portrayed as angelic and feminine. A woman with good energy who wishes to assist others in fixing their problems. This scene stands out in the plot because it is an intimate interaction with two women: one pure and one evil. 

In Oliver Twist, Rose is described as the ideal woman, in sharp contrast to the low-class women in the novel. Her beauty, kindness, and virtue are emphasized in almost every passage she appears, which positions her as one of the few moral characters in the novel. In chapter 40, Rose and Nancy are presented as foils in respect to femininity, character, and class. This contrast highlights the novel’s theme of poverty leading to moral degradation, perhaps serving as a warning of Oliver’s future if he remains lower-class.

When Rose and Nancy meet for the first time, Rose is presented as a potential “savior” of Nancy’s abandonment of virtue and traditional womanhood. Rose’s kindness is explicitly connected to her femininity; Nancy is embarrassed when meeting her, as she has abandoned this softness and gentleness. Nancy is described as “the miserable companion of thieves and ruffians…even this degraded being felt too proud to betray a feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but alone connected her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated so many, many traces when a very child” (225). This connects Nancy’s criminality and roughness to both her lower class and abandonment of her femininity. Her “wasting life,” or her suffering and desperation as a lifelong member of the lower class, “obliterated” her “womanly feeling,” which can be interpreted as her empathy and gentleness. Her life as a criminal, which originates in her childhood, makes her “degraded,” as she cannot express her deeply repressed softness.

Rose is the antithesis of Nancy’s class, femininity, and morality issues. Her willingness to be kind to a woman like Nancy is touted as an example of her unparalleled compassion. However, she goes further by attempting to rescue Nancy from her loss of virtue. Rose begs to Nancy, “do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first, I do believe, that ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion…It is never too late…for penitence and atonement” (238). As the ideal woman, Rose wants to return Nancy to her intrinsic virtue, or womanhood. Rose attempts to appeal to Nancy as “one of [her] own sex” in order to make her remember her innate goodness. Despite Nancy’s attempts to explain to Rose that her class status has trapped her in this life, Rose believes Nancy can express “penitence and atonement” and escape. This emphasizes Rose’s flawless empathy and belief in the goodness of others. However, as their conversation continues, it becomes clear that class is the ultimate division between Rose’s upmost morality and Nancy’s depravity.

The comparison between Rose and Nancy emphasizes the novel’s message of lower-class life leading to moral corruption. Nancy is just one of many women in the novel described as unattractive and unfeminine. These two women are symbolic of Oliver Twists’ two potential routes in life, as Rose and Nancy are each potential mother figures. Rose reflects and encourages Oliver’s innate goodness, while Nancy would lead him down a path of destruction, despite her attempts to save Oliver. Nancy’s death later in the novel emphasizes that she was unable to escape her life as a degenerate. Therefore, if Oliver is trapped in a lower-class life, he may also be forced to be corrupted.

I want to discuss Oliver’s discourse so far and what that implies about the society he lives in. His discourse has mostly been passive, because he only gets a chance to speak when he is confronted and even if he does, he is never trusted. As readers, we seldom get any insights on what exactly is going on in Oliver’s mind, and he rarely conveys to people or has anyone to convey to, about his feelings and thoughts. So I was glad to see when Oliver was finally given a chance to talk about his past and was entrusted at Mrs. Maylie’s house. It was the first time in his life that he was able to speak about his sufferings; the process of his recollection was difficult just as his journey was: “The Conference was a long one; for Oliver told them all his simple history: and was often compelled to stop, by pain and want of strength. It was a solemn thing, to hear, in the darkened room, the feeble voice of the sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him” (163). Simply having listeners to his stories was a kind of grace for Oliver, because he wasn’t always so fortunate.

Before finding his haven at Mrs. Maylie’s house, Oliver met people who simply do not care about what he has to say: Fagin could tell by his appearance that Oliver was obviously just another orphan for him to exploit. Mr. Bumble shamelessly lies about Oliver’s past because he knows that his words will always be more credible than Oliver’s due to his age and status. And Mr. Brownlow chose to believe in whatever the stranger tells him instead of trusting Oliver who was sincere and grateful. In this society, innocent children are easily mistaken as malicious liars, which indicates how skeptical and insecure they are of each other. Even when people do have interest in what Oliver has to say, the interest always lies in his past, which is directly related to his status or his family’s status. Mr. Bumble’s fabrication begins with how Oliver was “born of low and vicious parents” (95) which clearly has a great impact on what Mr. Brownlow thinks of Oliver. The only place where social status and history doesn’t matter is at the bottom of the social hierarchy which is a catch itself.

By looking at the parallels between the characters of Nancy and Rose, the complexity of Dickens’ representation of “goodness” in women, most importantly Nancy’s complexity, can be further analyzed. Both women were orphaned, but ultimately ended up on two entirely different ends of society. Rose reveals what a possible outcome could have been for Nancy if she had been raised in the same environment that Rose had, and also highlights the virtues of good that Nancy might still have and could have grown further if given more time.

Nancy, despite her poor upbringing, is also capable of love. Dickens places a lot of importance on the idea of love in the ending of the first meeting between Nancy and Rose.

“When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are…give you’re hearts, love will carry you all lengths…Pity us, lady—Pity us for only having one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and pride, into a new means of violence and suffering,” Nancy tells Rose (Dickens 229).

Nancy of course is no longer a virgin, so that “feeling of woman” is gone. She is also no longer “good,” as she has been hardened to a life of crime. The only “feeling of the woman left” that she claims to have is her devotion to the character of Sikes. While Rose had turned away her love of Harry, Nancy clings onto her love for Sikes despite his brutality because she believes her love is her last shred of womanhood and perhaps pure femininity. While this continued devotion to Sikes can be seen as simply a continuation of her life of crime, analyzing Nancy’s change in character and demeanor because of her passion for Sikes could reveal another layer to her supposed last bit of womanhood.

“But the girl, being really weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair, and fainted… (Sikes) Not knowing very well what to do, in this uncommon emergency; for Miss Nancy’s hysterics were usually of that violent kind which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance.” (Dickens 216)

As demonstrated in this passage, Nancy’s character becomes increasingly less argumentative and more feverish and delicate. After being “savagely” talked to by Sikes, instead of wittily defending herself like in past circumstances, she faints. Sikes notices this change, contrasting her reaction to the “fights and struggles” that would have usually resulted. She also talks to Sikes differently, and Dickens clearly specifies that she tries to quell him in another passage “with a touch of woman’s tenderness.” (Dickens 215) The specification of it being a woman’s tenderness expands the notion that her nursing of and care for Sikes is an aspect of her true womanhood, formerly suppressed. These new kind of reactions by Nancy are paralleled by Rose, who “sank into a chair, and endeavored to collect her wandering thoughts” (Dickens 229) after speaking to Nancy, and even becomes gravely sick in earlier chapters after going on a walk that is too long, showing how easily a woman of virtue becomes lightheaded. Nancy, through her last womanly virtue of her love for Sikes, seems to be transforming in ways that draw her closer towards Rose, who is represented as the epitome of womanly purity and virtue.