Class Blog

Henry James’ novel Daisy Miller is hard for a reader to grasp at first. Not, in the usual way with 19^th century novels, because it is over packed with plot and characters, drama and metaphors, but because on the onset this novel seems incredibly simple, even dull. It is true, that not much happens. Mr. Winterbourne visits his aunt, meets Daisy Miller and her family, falls for her, goes to visit her in Rome where she has found a new object of attention and this ultimately brings about her demise. The story is short, tragic, but ultimately leaves no real mark on the reader because no one really likes Daisy anyway. Having just finished the book I myself am still trying to dig for meaning in it all, because I refuse to believe that the novel is what it appears on the outside.

Thus finishing the novel, and after reading of Daisy’s death, I remembered the scene towards the beginning of the end of the story when Daisy and Winterbourne have just left Mrs. Walker’s house and Daisy is causing a scandal, as usual, in her intent to meet and accompany Mr. Giovanelli by herself. Suddenly, Mrs. Walker storms through in her carriage in an attempt to save Daisy from herself, and in speaking with Mr. Winterbourne describes the girl as “very reckless” but more importantly to the later events of the novel, says of this recklessness “and goodness knows how far- left to itself- it may go.”  This is not simply a, now, obvious foreshadowing of Daisy’s death, but a concrete fact. The way Daisy behaves is dangerous and inappropriate, but the reason she acts like this is because of her mother. Mrs. Walker touches on this fact also when she says “’Did you ever’, she proceeded to inquire, ‘see anything so blatantly imbecile as the mother?’” and then goes on to describe how she herself couldn’t sit around and let Daisy make such mistakes without attempting to stop her. Here in this scene, this acquaintance of Daisy, acts more in a motherly way than Daisy’s real mother does through the entire novel. It is true that occasionally Mrs. Miller will almost attempt to persuade Daisy to not do something, however in the end Daisy always does just what she likes. This is because Mrs. Miller is weak willed and lazy, and her character has effected Daisy’s own more than either of them could know.

Throughout Henry James’ Daisy Miller, the character of Daisy Miller is constantly referred to as beautiful by the men she entices. The main character, and arguably the narrator, Mr. Winterbourne struggles to decide whether her appeal, besides her beauty, comes from her free-spiritedness, innocence, or her foreign ignorance. However, the expression of Daisy’s beauty is always followed by the expression of her innocence. Moreover, her innocence is always noted by the men besotted by her, but never by the men would have been rejected by her in some way. Nevertheless, despite his alternating opinions of Daisy, her beauty remains, and in the end of the short novel Daisy’s other suitor, Mr. Giovanelli, also refers to her as “the most beautiful young lady I [he] ever saw” (82).

Looking at this, the repetition of beauty and innocence, from a Freudian lens, it is obvious that Daisy has nothing more to her than physical appeal. Moreover, her beauty and “innocence” is a façade to hide her conceit and agitating ways. In truth, Daisy is an ignorant foreigner, travelling through some of the world’s most beautiful countries, and is arguably unphased by her surroundings. Instead she remains fixated on the attention she receives from her male suitors, disregarding the custom of women to remain passive to men’s opinions.

Daisy’s perceived beauty and “innocence” from the young men who interact with her, says more about them than her. Daisy is obviously unintelligent and manipulative, but still the desire to have her remains high amongst single men. This either means that men are easily enticed by foreign objects, for that is essentially how she is treated, as an object, or, that her beauty, and lack of personality, mimics the lack of plot in the book. I would argue the latter. Like Peter Brooks states, plot is essential in understanding the novel, yet this novel does not seem to have any plot whatsoever. Thus, it is impossible to find the intention of Henry James, for he does not give much to analyze. Though I could analyze the repetition of the words beautiful and innocent, there is not much more to the character of Daisy Miller besides those words, so thus is impossible to analyze this novel under Freud’s or Brooks’ argument. Instead this novel just reasserts gender roles, as the male protagonist is a deep thinker trying to explore the different layers of the main, female character. However, the female character is one dimensional and manipulative, so regarding her layers, there is nothing more than her physical beauty.

When Winterbourne first meets Daisy Miller, he is immediately awestruck by her beauty and passive yet “flirtatious” nature. Speaking generally, what stood out to me is how quickly Winterbourne was willing to drop everything and tell his aunt how he wanted to run away with Daisy—all of which he seemed to want based on seeing her. On an analytical level, this suggests his physical infatuation with her is what is driving the relationship. This is shown throughout the novel, beginning with some of their first interactions. Upon meeting Daisy, Winterbourne is constantly mentioning how she is an American woman, and how physically attractive he believes American women to be. how he has never been with an American woman before. Winterbourne remarks “Never indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things, had he encountered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this. Certainly she was very charming; but deucedly sociable! Was she simply a pretty girl […] or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him. […] But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated; she was only a pretty American flirt.” (12) In this passage, he seems to be acknowledging that yes, she’s American, and yes, she’s pretty—however, besides those two things, she doesn’t have very many redeeming qualities. He calls her “unsophisticated” and notes how she only seems to have her flirtatious nature going for her. Instead of seeking out qualities that one would typically look for in a mate, Winterbourne doesn’t seem to care that in his eyes, all Daisy has going for her is her physicality.

Daisy’s allure as a beautiful, American woman is what seems to get her further in her relationship with Winterbourne, which is noticeable when they are on the boat to Chillon. It is said that “She was apparently not at all excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those of any one else. […] People continued to look at her a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty companion’s distinguished air. […] He quite forgot his fears, he sat smiling, with his eyes upon her face.” (28) This passage shows how Winterbourne is wanting to be with Daisy because of the image she gives off to others—he relishes in the appeal of his female companion, taking pride in how others are looking at her and must be jealous of how he has such a beautiful woman. Daisy’s lack of an emotional connection with Winterbourne is forgotten whenever he looks at her, because it is her face that shapes their relationship, or rather, lack thereof.

Some of the language that is used to describe Daisy not only in these two passages, but throughout the entire book is “flirtatious” or “coquette.” I find this language to be ironic, considering her way of flirting usually takes the form of avoiding Winterbourne and ignoring what he has to say. These words to describe her are perhaps an illusion of Winterbourne’s and correspond to the image that he has created in his head of her based strictly based on assumption and observation. He seems to be in lust with an idealized version of Daisy, rather than the “real” Daisy who lacks substance.

“…narratology has in practice been too exclusively concerned with the identification of minimal narrative units and paradigmatic structures; it has too much neglected the temporal dynamics that shape narratives in our reading of them, the play of desire in time that makes us turn pages and strive towards narrative ends.”

This particular quote from Brooks’ article about reading for plot has really stuck with me ever since I read it while we were discussing the piece in class. Admittedly, it first only did so because I was really confused as to what it was actually trying to tell me (academia is truly in love with big, complicated words). The more I read it, the more I started to get the impression that this was what it was trying to say: people who are too focused on narrative structures when they read, often search for both minute details and grand symbolic imagery alike, and rely on a steady advancement of the narrative to maintain their interest in the plot; whereas those who read purely for plot are satisfied simply with the knowledge that the plot will, eventually, advance, and that’s what keeps them turning the pages. Now, I could be completely and totally wrong, but that’s just the way I see it.

And honestly? Brooks has a point, and that’s probably why nobody in this day and age is really capable of successfully reading authors like Henry James. All of the books and short stories and music videos and movies–basically just anything with a narrative plot–that we’re exposed to these days have plenty of those minute narrative details and grand symbolic imagery to keep us satiated as we drift from plot point to plot point. Authors like Henry James, however, as well as other classical authors like James Joyce or Herman Melville seem to write specifically for readers who are capable of seeing the big picture when going into a story–those who stay interested in the story just because the story interests them.

The phrase “reading for plot”, then, takes on a new meaning with authors like James because when the plot is a summary of what’s happening, and in cases like Daisy Miller, you’re quite literally reading just to find out what happens. There’s no minute plot details that all tie together in some big, flashy reveal at the end, like so many modern fantasy novels. There’s no fateful intertwining of multiple lives that culminate in a huge climactic moment like in A Tale of Two Cities. It’s just a story that happens, in the lives of the characters that James has created, and if you want to read Henry James you have to be okay with that.

In all likelihood, that’s probably the reason why many people nowadays have such difficulty reading Henry James “for the plot” (as Brooks, more or less, says so himself). It’s because James doesn’t write the kinds of plots we’re used to. He doesn’t write the sort of heart-pounding, page-turning, can’t-put-it-down-because-you-have-to-know-what-happens-next plots. In the case of Daisy Miller, and a few of his other stories as well, he’s content with writing a simple slice-of-life plot that has no overall symbolic meaning beyond the story itself. It’s just a nice little story about Winterbourne and his romantic misadventures with Daisy. Nothing more, nothing less. And there’s nothing wrong with us for possibly not being able to enjoy that; it’s simply just not what we’re used to.

(And, to be clear, I hated reading this as much as the next guy, because I, too, want a more solid plot in my writing.)

Daisy Miller contains a variety of moments in which the texts seems torn about how Daisy should be received. Peter Brooks mentioned in his article, “Reading for the Plot” that “Plot is the principle of interconnectedness and intention which we cannot do without […] even such loosely articulated forms as the picaresque novel display devices of interconnectedness, structural repetitions that allow us to construct a whole.” His notion of structural repetition is an interesting lens through which to examine the repetitive structure of Daisy Miller and inquire as to why these structures might exist.

Daisy Miller contains a “bookend” scene structure, scenes that are nearly identical that appear at both the beginning and end of the novel. The novel begins with “[Winterbourne] was some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva ‘studying’. When his enemies spoke of him they said- but after all, he had no enemies […] What I should say is, simply, that when certain people spoke of him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a lady who lived there- a foreign lady- a person older than himself” (James, 3). At the end of the novel a similar description is repeated: “Nevertheless, [Winterbourne] went back to Geneva, whence there continued to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report that he was ‘studying’ hard- an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady” (64). The scene is phrased like contradictory gossip, similar to the gossip or doubt surrounding Daisy throughout the novel. It might be crazy, but what if the story’s presentation of Daisy Miller is a direct reflection of the story’s supposed narrator, Frederick Winterbourne?

The way this book seems to gossip about Winterbourne at the beginning and end remind me of the way Winterbourne considers Daisy. The terms he uses are contradictory, both unflattering and flattering. “She was very quiet, she sat in a charming tranquil attitude; but her lips and eyes were constantly moving” or “ He felt sorry for her- not exactly that he believed that she and completely lost her head, but because it was painful to hear so much that was pretty and undefended and natural assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder” are two examples of contradictory descriptions that are assigned to Daisy (11, 54). The contradiction remains a similarity between the two characters until Winterbourne decides that he no longer cares what is true about Daisy: “A sudden illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy’s behaviour and the riddle had become easy to read. She was a young woman whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect” (59-60). Winterbourne’s decision to stop respecting Daisy destroys the “protection” of contradiction surrounding her and exposes her to judgment. The judgment upon Daisy breaks her connection with Winterbourne that had existed through their similar contradictory presentation making her useless in the novel. No one (except an omniscient author) could pass judgment on Winterbourne in the same way he passed judgment on Daisy so he is forced to return to Geneva, a limbo between acceptance and rejection; a place of contradictory existence. 

On page six of Henry James’, Daisy Miller, Winterbourne and Master Randolph are discussing how American things are the best. Master Randolph says that American candy is the best while Winterbourne says that American boys are the best. The conversation continues and Winterbourne see’s Randolph sister and declares that American women are the best.

“She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale coloured ribbon (James, 6).” This line indicates that Winterbourne is initially attracted to Daisy Miller because of his expectations of her appearance. This is proven from the words “white, frills and pale coloured.” What I mean is that the color white represents innocence, purity, virginity, and perfection. This is important because all of the words contain a positive connotation (colorwheelpro.com) which can infer that Winterbourne views Daisy Miller positively because he thinks she is innocent, pure, a virgin and perfect.

I can conclude that using the word “frills” to describe what Daisy is wearing is comparing her to a child. I associate the words frilly and frilled with little girls dresses which is important because it indicates similar characteristics that the color white represents. It shows that Winterbourne initially judges Daisy’s personality based off of her appearance and is attracted to the fact that she has the innocence, purity, sexual experience and perfection that a little girl would have. The most important part of this is that Winterbourne expects Daisy to be a passive and well mannered girl that he would be able to control. He also thinks that she has the manners of an upperclass woman meaning that she does not speak out against people and is accepted by the upper classes social norms. These norms would include refraining from being openly sexual and flirting with men.

Winterbourne’s“pale coloured” description of Daisy’s outfit proves his schema of Daisy. Pale, in contrast to bright or bold is rather hidden. It does not have the power to be overpowering and is very limited in attracting attention. This is the same exact way that Winterbourne interprets Daisy’s personality, he believes that she is a soft spoken girl who will never be the center of attention. The importance of how Winterbourne describes Daisy’s outfit is foreshadowing that Daisy’s appearance is not representative of her personality. This is most important because it foreshadows that Daisy breaks the social norms of a woman in the upper class.

In Charles Dickins’ A Tale of Two Cities, the character of Lucie Manette is a singularity. One of the few women characters, her role in the novel itself is vital for the advancement of the plot, however in the story she is nothing but a tool. This pattern is held through the novel. Lucie’s singularity and useful yet hollow character can be seen in many places, but particularly in the passage starting on page 94 and continuing on 95, when Lucie and Doctor Manette have just returned from a walk and she is being fussed over by Miss Pross and her father. Here, the passage is initially misleading because it seems as though she is the main object of the event, which is true, however it serves more to illustrate the characters of the people around her and how her presence has affected them and the novel rather than Lucie herself.

From Miss Pross’ affectionate fussing, to Doctor Manette’s fond remarks and Mr. Lorry’s contented observation of the whole affair, it is clear each of these reactions are prompted by their devotion to Lucie. Such devotion that is more an indication of their characters and her effects on them than a further insight into her character. We see more of Miss Pross’ nature in the fact that she would have “retire to her own chamber and cried” had Lucie meaningfully protested against the attention, than we do of Lucie’s nature in her compliance to Miss Pross. Similarly, when Doctor Manette comments on how Miss Pross spoils Lucie, despite himself doing the same, it gives more insight on his constitution, and consequently how it has improved from when the reader first met him, than it gives to Lucie’s character.  Though she may be the main figure in this passage, the insights provided are not about her.

Another way Lucie is used as a tool in this passage, as well as in the rest of the novel, is to provide a singularity in the form of a sharp contrast to the rest of the story. The atmosphere of this scene is pleasant, gentle and happy which contrasts sharply to the death, danger and despair in the rest of the novel. As seen in this passage, Lucie is a light in the dark world depicted in the story. She saves her father, “recalling him back to life”, and is the object of affection and desire for most of the characters so far. She is also one half of the marriage plot that propels the story forward. However, despite all this, she is portrayed as nothing but a pretty face and lovely disposition. While she is absolutely vital for the advancement of the novel, she herself gets no dimension.

Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is a novel of sexual repression.  Written during the austere Victorian era when writing about such matters was strictly taboo, Dickens personifies inanimate objects and incorporates the sensation of touch to give his prose a subtle yet apparent sexual undercurrent.

We first see this in the meeting between Mr. Lorry and Lucie Manette in Chapter IV of Book I.  They have a dialogue until their conversation is punctuated by a passage of touch:

“Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips.  He then conducted the young lady straightaway to her chair again, and, holding the chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood looking down into her face while she sat looking up into his.” (26)

We see Dickens setting up a few things here.  First, the physical contact between Mr. Lorry and Lucie comes as a dissonant surprise, especially since Mr. Lorry has just stated that he has “no feelings” and is a “mere machine” (Dickens 26).  This passage appears particularly sexual because Mr. Lorry kisses Lucie’s hand with his lips, framed with Lucie hesitating and confiding in him.  Lucie’s hesitation shows that what she is doing is a big deal for her, while her confiding in him hints secrecy and trust.  This portrays Lucie as a sort of virginal character about to engage in the sex act, further suggested by Mr. Lorry guiding her and holding the chair-back, which can be construed as Lucie’s back.  Mr. Lorry taking Lucie’s hand “with ceremony” foreshadows her nuptials and eventual marriage, while the diminutive use of her “little” hand and her “looking up” at him suggests that she is a helpless character that needs protection.  It is important to remember is that nothing sexual actually occurs in this passage; Lucie is only seventeen, Mr. Lorry is old, and they are held back by the rules and norms of their social culture.  Although nothing is consummated, we can glean that, contrary to his stoic speech, Mr. Lorry actually deeply desires Lucie sexually; however, he cannot fulfill these desires.  Lorry’s kiss and seating of Lucie is his way of letting her go and presenting her as ripe for courtship.

Lucie’s body is evoked even more subtly during Charles Darnay’s confession of his love for Lucie to Doctor Manette.  Here we see a chair representing Lucie again: “His touch still lingered on her father’s hand.  Answering the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the conference” (128).  First, notice how the paragraph begins with “her father’s hand,” already indirectly referencing Lucie and framing her into what follows.  Then Doctor Manette rests his hands on the arms of his chair, this time the chair’s arms representing Lucie’s arms.  He even looks up just as Lucie looked up, suggesting that he is weak.  Here we see Doctor Manette’s desire to protect Lucie, and Lucie as a vulnerable character.  Lucie’s vulnerability is starkly contrasted with Madame Defarge’s dominance, seen when Monsieur Defarge puts his hand behind his wife’s chair, using his wife to barricade himself from someone he hates.  Given the lack of female characters in A Tale of Two Cities, the sensual contrast between Lucie and Madame Defarge is particularly striking.