Daisy Miller by Henry James Essays

His actions show that he is not loyal nor respectful towards Daisy, instead displaying apathy and disinterest. In addition to acting uncompassionate towards Daisy, he is also not taking into consideration Myrtle’s feelings. In fact, he lies to her in order to stop himself from being forced into a committed relationship. This lie that Tom tells Myrtle is not only extremely false, but also shows he is simply using her. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce” (Fitzgerald 33). Tom lying to Myrtle shows he has no intention of marrying her, instead he only wants to take advantage of her vulnerable state. Myrtle is unhappy and desperate to fulfill her dream of moving up social classes. Instead of acting sympathetically towards her situation, he exploits her weakness. Likewise, Daisy and Gatsby’s affair shows similar exploitation for one’s own personal needs over the emotions of their counterpart. Without Tom’s knowledge, Daisy has an affair with her long lost love, Gatsby. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour… (Fitzgerald 105). During this affair Daisy shows no acknowledgement of Tom’s feelings, the man she married and pledged to be loyal to. At the same time, she is also exploiting Gatsby. Authors say, “...his desire to marry Daisy as an attempt to enter/create

Daisy's superficiality extends to her personality. She is fragile, unstable and a confused character. While talking to Nick she said: “...I woke up with an abandoned felling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'Alright,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool-that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful fool” (Fitzgerald 21). They also married their husbands for different reasons. Myrtle says she married George because she thought he was a gentleman. She also thought he knew about good “breeding.” On the other hand, Daisy married Tom because rich girls had to marry into money and good social status.

Daisy throughout the novel was part of a failing marriage, specifically her husband affair with Myrtle. In the beginning of the novel, Daisy did not know she had an option to get out of her marriage, and could live a happier life with Gatsby. When Daisy first learned of Tom’s affair, she seemed embarrassed not for him but herself, considering this was not the first time Tom has had an affair and

As seen in society today as well as in Fitzgerald’s time, men will have affairs outside of their marriages, and the wife, falls victim to this violation of faith. Daisy falls victim to Tom’s affair with Myrtle: “Daisy’s affection for Tom…was soon shattered by his breech of her trust” (Fryer 51). Matters take an abrupt turn in the novel however, when Daisy’s sudden insistence for honesty emerges. At the hotel in the city, when Gatsby pressures her into proclaiming that she never loved Tom she can no longer bear the anxiety. She refuses to deny her love of Tom.

Not only has Daisy hurt her family, she also wounded the man she once loved. When Gatsby does his service at the army, he still writes letter and keeps contact with Daisy. But she becomes impatient with Gatsby’s return and leaves him out of the blue. “Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping a half dozen dates a day with half a dozen men and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor besides her bed” (151). Daisy is lustful and sleeps with many men to tries to fill the hole in her heart created by Gatsby. When she sleeps with so many men, she becomes numb to the idea of love because her fairy tale prince never returned to save her. Although Daisy never felt the same about Gatsby as when she was younger, Gatsby was madly in love with everything about her til his death. He sacrifices his life for her by taking the blame of Myrtle’s murder. “‘Was Daisy driving?’... ‘Yes

Daisy, like her husband, is a girl of material and class at heart, and Gatsby being her escape from a hierarchist world. Daisy has just grown up knowing wealth, so in her greedy pursuit of happiness and the “American Dream” Myrtle Wilson died, Gatsby's heart and life were compromised, without claiming responsibility on her part. Daisy was “by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville...” (116) Jordan says, describing early affections between Daisy and Gatsby. She goes on to say, “...all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night.” (116) . Daisy was a fancied girl who has Gatsby tied around her finger, Jordan explains that he was looking at Daisy “...in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at some time...” (117). Daisy, abusing Gatsby’s love for her uses it to create security and protection, greedily and selfishly allowing him to take the fault. While Daisy’s beautiful, alluring traits turn her into an innocent, naive flower, she plays the ultimate villain.

Her actions are viewed as foolish, creating the stigma around women, and though Daisy does not see herself as a fool, surprisingly she expresses that “the best thing a girl can be in this world [is] a beautiful little fool (Fitzgerald, pg 17).” Yet, Daisy is not a fool; she is merely a victim of her environment which is influenced by gender, money, and status. This leads to Daisy having no power or control over her own life and feeling as though women can only be “beautiful fools” as stated earlier.

Daisy confides in Nick that she believes “the best thing a girl can be” is a “beautiful fool” which shows us that Daisy is unhappy with the shallow society of the 1920’s. This comment shows the reader’s that Daisy isn’t shallow and empty; she dislikes the impersonal nature of the people around her and wants her daughter to be a “fool” so she doesn’t notice it. This shows that Daisy does have morals and feels strongly for the people close to her. An aspect of Daisy’s character that could suggest that she is immoral is the possible promiscuity associated with her voice. Nick refers to an excitement in her voice that “men found difficult to forget” which

Again, she tells Nick, "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman. I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe" (35). While Myrtle married thinking her husband was a gentleman, Daisy married because she wanted to settle her life. The narrator explains,

Walker goes a step further than merely gossiping about Daisy's scandalous meetings with men by trying to stop one such episode. On this particular day Daisy was walking around a very crowded corner of Rome with both Giovanelli and Winterbourne. Mrs. Walker pleads with Daisy to get into the carriage with her but Daisy laughs her off saying "If this is improper, Mrs. Walker... than I am all improper, and you must give me up" (93)!

Critics of this writing think that James created a character that makes the reader think about whether she is really innocent or not. Carol Ohmann shows that James displays Daisy this way on purpose so that we as the readers can argue whether Daisy is really innocent and just naïve. In “Daisy Miller: A Study of Changing Intentions,” Ohmann writes,

Besides the visual blazon he writes on Daisy as a traditional weapon of subjugation (and which permits him, momentarily, to "mentally accuse" her face "of a want of finish" [7]), Winterbourne tries something equally dominating‹to usurp Daisy's own power of sight by judging her eyes only on aesthetic terms. In their meeting, Daisy is at first ostensibly pinned by Winterbourne's evaluative gaze of superlatives and particularization, but her eyes tell another story: "She sat there with her extremely pretty hands, ornamented with very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty eyes now resting upon those of

As Daisy becomes older, society pressures her to think a certain way. Eventually the pressure to become perfect makes her fickle and uncaring for everything but money and status. When Daisy and Gatsby reunite, it is awkward up until he shows her everything he owns now. When Gatsby shows her his expensive English shirts, Daisy begins to cry. She

Gossip had a huge role in the years that Daisy’s life was taking place, and the gossip took up most of her life, because the gossip was mostly about her. I believe the reader would most likely think that Daisy manipulated people to do her bidding and flirted with every man she ever met, including Mr. Winterbourne. It gives the impression that Daisy doesn’t care what people think about her until later in the story. The story shows how naive she is because she doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions. Mr. Winterbourne wants to believe that she is innocent but the gossip he hears about her tries to convince him otherwise, it works a little but not all the way. Daisy wants everyone to think she is a pure woman, but in reality she is

Daisy Miller" by Henry James, is a study of a young American girl's rebuttal of all things "proper" and refusal to conform to social standards. One can see that realism is apparent throughout the text. The characters utilize free will throughout, are affected by their environment and familial relationships, and ultimately make their own choices. These choices eventually affect the outcome in an unhappy ending. Jame's creates characters that encompass both sides of the social sphere in this work. Winterbourne, Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Walker are all individuals that come from old money, a higher societal background, and expectations of what is deemed right and proper. In contrast, Daisy Miller, Mrs. Miller, Randolph and Eugenio are the opposite in many ways coming from an average societal realm and more realistic, modest lifestyle. Winterbourne has a rather telling conversation with Mrs. Walker and her statement to him upon asking what exactly it is that Daisy does that pushes "too far" sums up the overall reputation Daisy is establishing for herself. "(she does) Everything that is not done here. Flirting with any man she could pick up; sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the evening with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o'clock at night"(James, p. 1537). Daisy's ability to make her own choices and follow her free will are aspects of realism which writers began to utilize. Again, her environment and family most definitely affect her behavior.