{"id":116,"date":"2017-02-17T02:47:15","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T02:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=116"},"modified":"2020-08-31T20:39:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T20:39:01","slug":"bookends-the-parallel-of-winterbourne-and-daisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2017\/02\/17\/bookends-the-parallel-of-winterbourne-and-daisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bookends: The Parallel of Winterbourne and Daisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daisy Miller<\/i><\/span> contains a variety of moments in which the texts seems torn about how Daisy should be received. Peter Brooks mentioned in his article, \u201cReading for the Plot\u201d that \u201cPlot is the principle of interconnectedness and intention which we cannot do without [\u2026] even such loosely articulated forms as the picaresque novel display devices of interconnectedness, structural repetitions that allow us to construct a whole.\u201d His notion of structural repetition is an interesting lens through which to examine the repetitive structure of <\/span>Daisy Miller<\/i><\/span> and inquire as to why these structures might exist. <\/span><\/p>\n

Daisy Miller<\/i><\/span> contains a \u201cbookend\u201d scene structure, scenes that are nearly identical that appear at both the beginning and end of the novel. The novel begins with \u201c[Winterbourne] was some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva \u2018studying\u2019. When his enemies spoke of him they said- but\u00a0after 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\u201d (James, 3). At the end of the novel a similar description is repeated: \u201cNevertheless, [Winterbourne] went back to Geneva, whence there continued to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report that he was \u2018studying\u2019 hard- an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady\u201d (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\u2019s presentation of Daisy Miller is a direct reflection of the story\u2019s supposed narrator, Frederick Winterbourne? <\/span><\/p>\n

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. \u201cShe was very quiet, she sat in a charming tranquil attitude; but her lips and eyes were constantly moving\u201d or \u201c 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\u201d 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: \u201cA sudden illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy\u2019s 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\u201d (59-60). Winterbourne\u2019s decision to stop respecting Daisy destroys the \u201cprotection\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, \u201cReading for the Plot\u201d that \u201cPlot is the principle of interconnectedness and intention which we cannot do without [\u2026] even such loosely articulated forms as the picaresque novel display devices … Continue reading Bookends: The Parallel of Winterbourne and Daisy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138876,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2017","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}