SOURCE: "Jamesian Feminism: Women in 'Daisy Miller'," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 16, No. 4, Fall, 1979, pp. 281-87.

[In the following essay, Barnett compares the limitations society places on women with Winterbourne's self-imposed social and personal restrictions.]

Although Henry James satirizes the idea of a women's movement in The Bostonians, his constant exploration of the tension between individual self-realization and social restriction often focuses upon the way in which society particularly shapes the behavior of women. A number of James's heroines must give up some degree of personal fulfilment and freedom because of social realities. The fine spirit of Isabel Archer is "ground in the very mill of the conventional," just as Marie de Vionnet, another valued heroine, must be sacrificed to Chad Newsome's social obligations of marriage and career. Kate Croy and Charlotte Stant struggle against the limitations placed upon them by their social position as women without means. Resignedly or ruefully, all of these women accept the terms of society, try to achieve self-realization within its confines, and remain within the system after their defeat. Only in Daisy Miller does James portray a woman whose innocent devotion to her own natural behavior causes her to flout society wilfully and persistently. The contrast between what Daisy wants and what other women in the novella have, and between the amount of freedom allowed by society to Daisy and to Winterbourne, constitutes James's clearest indictment of the restrictions society imposes specifically on women.

Through a number of emblematic settings ranging from the castle of Chillon to the Protestant cemetery, and through a spectrum of characters, Daisy Miller explores the options available to women. The odyssey of experience which Daisy, "the child of nature and of freedom," undergoes reveals society's desire to confine women within a narrow and rigidly defined sphere. While those women who accept their circumscribed existence pay varying prices of neurotic illness, ineffectuality, and hypocrisy, the woman who ignores social prescription is punished by ostracism and death. Although the women characters uphold the system which restricts them, the chief arbiter of society for Daisy is a man, the aptly-named Winterbourne. As a definer and enforcer of the bourne or boundary of social propriety, whose verdict has the life-denying implications of winter, Winterbourne represents the masculine world which has ultimate control over the lives of women.

Significantly, Winterbourne is strongly attached to Geneva, a city identified with Calvinism and its social reflection, a decorum which is both narrowly conventional and hypocritically relaxed. The innocent and natural association of young people is strictly controlled and even discouraged: "In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely occurring conditions." Such a view is sustained in Rome by Mrs. Walker, a lady who "had spent several winters at Geneva" and is thus linked to Winterbourne's position both seasonally and geographically. In spite of the severity with which Geneva controls the behavior of young unmarried girls, married women of a certain age enjoy a clandestine sort of freedom, vaguely conveyed by James's statement that some "singular stories" existed about Winterbourne's mysterious foreign lady. Geneva also prescribes a standard of conduct towards relatives, which Winterbourne dutifully conforms to: "He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must always be attentive to one's aunt."

Although Winterbourne from time to time expresses an awareness that Geneva has narrowed his perspective, he is unwilling to repudiate its values. When Daisy upbraids him for seeking out Mrs. Walker's company in Rome rather than her own, she remarks:" 'You knew her at Geneva.… Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good.'" Daisy has no way of knowing that Geneva prescribed the familial obligation that brought Winterbourne to Vevey; his real world is "the dark old city at the other end of the lake." Daisy's unsuccessful attempt to be a natural and free person within a rigid and hypocritical society is framed by Winterbourne's coming from and returning to Geneva, its Calvinistic code of social behavior and its allowable liaisons with older women.

1

With Winterbourne as observer and mediator, Daisy Miller develops as a series of confrontations between Daisy and those women who live under the sign of Geneva. In the resort world of Vevey, where Winterbourne and Daisy first meet, social decorum is embodied in Winterbourne's aunt. Denied a more constructive career, Mrs. Costello has channeled her energies into the negative occupation of social exclusiveness. Always on the verge of realization about the life-inhibiting aspects of conventionality, Winterbourne finds Mrs. Costello's picture of the "minutely hierarchical constitution" of the society she presides over "almost oppressively striking." Herself victimized by the demands of propriety, Mrs. Costello has internalized the rules of society and devoted herself to oppressing others in its name. In the service of these standards her will has become so inflexible that she tells her nephew, apropos of acknowledging the social existence of the Millers: "'I would if I could, but I can't.'" Nevertheless, more than a touch of picque may be felt in her comment to Winterbourne: "'Of course a man may know every one. Men are welcome to the privilege!'"

That Mrs. Costello might have been more at home in this larger masculine world seems likely: her lack of rapport with her children indicates that she was ill-suited to the maternal role. She is described as "a person of much distinction, who frequently intimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick-headaches, she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her time." Believing that there is a disparity between potential and achievement in her life, Mrs. Costello has sick headaches both as a rationalization for and a psychogenic response to her frustrations.

Mrs. Costello's exclusiveness prevents her from censuring Daisy's behavior in person, a task undertaken in Rome by Mrs. Walker, "the lady from Geneva." While Mrs. Walker strenuously opposes Daisy's walking about without a proper escort, her name suggests that by virtue of conforming to the conventions—being a mature married woman—she is allowed to walk with more freedom than society allows Daisy. Because she prefers a carriage, however, Mrs. Walker's name may be an ironic reflection of the confinement of her own spirit within socially prescribed boundaries. Her "little crimson drawing-room … filled with southern sunshine" indicates a passionate nature, but Daisy's remark that Mrs. Walker's small rooms are suited to conversation rather than dancing shows that this nature is not given physical expression.

Ineffectual and ignorant, Daisy's mother is a still lesser version of the absolute represented by Mrs. Costello. As she says to Winterbourne about Giovanelli:" 'I suppose he knows I'm a lady.'" Bewildered by an unfamiliar milieu, which makes her social lapses more plausible, Mrs. Miller nevertheless advances hesitant prescriptions which show a rudimentary sense of the proprieties in force at Geneva. When Daisy complains about her brother, Mrs. Miller rebukes this violation of family loyalty. She also expresses a feeling of vague impropriety when Randolph is boastful and when Daisy refuses to say whether or not she is engaged. Mostly, Mrs. Miller fails to see social infractions because she has a decidedly practical bent. When Mrs. Walker warns Daisy that her contemplated walk on the Pincio is not safe, Mrs. Miller immediately thinks of the danger to her daughter's health rather than to her reputation. Her explanation of Daisy's delayed arrival at Mrs. Walker's party is similarly unsophisticated: the impracticality of Daisy's dressing so early obscures for Mrs. Miller the impropriety of her remaining alone with her Italian suitor.

Like Mrs. Costello's headaches, Mrs. Miller's dyspepsia is both a response to the paucity of meaningful activity in her life and a substitute for it. She becomes animated only when discussing her illness, an affliction which at least makes her important to one person—her doctor:

" 'He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing he wouldn't do for me. He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia, but he was bound to cure it. I'm sure there was nothing he wouldn't try. He was just going to try something new when we came off. Mr. Miller wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn't get on without Dr. Davis.'" The European trip which deprives Mrs. Miller of this one entirely satisfactory human relationship was commanded by her husband. Given a luxurious leisure which she can make little use of, and unable to play significant maternal role for her headstrong children, Mrs. Miller has a chance to exhibit competence only during Daisy's fatal illness. With a limited and specific task, that of nursing her daughter, she is able to be efficient and, for once, "perfectly composed."

2

Of the two vistas to be seen from Vevey—"the sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Castle of Chillon"—one images the world of nature and, metaphorically, Daisy's character; the other is a symbol of the societal repression whose less obvious forms constrain the other women in James's novella. To the Daisy Winterbourne meets at Vevey society means people, particularly gentlemen admirers. Successful in the more fluid ambience of New York, where even Winterbourne's proper cousins are "tremendous flirts," Daisy neither feels the weight of nor comprehends the prohibitions of society expressed in Mrs. Costello's snub. Her reaction is merely unoffended wonder: "'Gracious! she is exclusive!'" Another embodiment of society's power, the castle of Chillon, is equally uninstructive to Daisy. It is fitting that Winterbourne should guide Daisy on the excursion to Chillon—the first of a series of juxtapositions of Daisy to a symbol of group tyranny over the individual—for after his first impulse to take Daisy's part against his aunt, Winterbourne consistently tries to persuade Daisy to abide by the social proprieties. Daisy's response to the paraphernalia of punishment is instinctive antipathy: "She flirted back with a pretty little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes." Chillon is an emblem of society's severest forms of repression, but Daisy has not yet perceived its relevance to herself.

Winterbourne follows up his introduction to Daisy with a continuing effort to place her in the proper social category, but the stereotypes he tries to apply—"pretty American flirt," "nice girl," "young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect"—always turn out to be inadequate. Because the forms of social behavior obviate the need of individual decision—prescribing the correct treatment of aunts, unmarried girls, and married women—finding the right label for Daisy, reifying her with the application of some pat formula, would reassure Winterbourne. Uncertain how to categorize Daisy, he is correspondingly uncertain how to act towards her and is reduced to taking his cues from her. Daisy resists his classification and thus eludes his comprehension.

After Vevey, where Mrs. Costello and Chillon suggest the ostracism and confinement society accords its rebels, Daisy is made aware of society's disapprobation by Mrs. Walker's attempt to enclose her both within her carriage and within her social code. Taking a position she never retreats from, Daisy expresses a desire to alter society rather than her own behavior. She concludes, meaningfully: "'If I didn't walk I should expire.'" Walking is the simple physical activity performed by an autonomous individual and also the motion of life itself, in contrast to the rigidity of social prescription and the stasis of death. For Daisy, life without the freedom to move under her own power and by her own direction is unthinkable.

When Daisy turns from Mrs. Walker's importunings to Winterbourne, she exhibits a realization that men are the final arbiters and wielders of power. Her appeal is not for the social truth Winterbourne gives her, but for support. Instead of joining Winterbourne in the repressive world of social propriety which his stiffness reflects, Daisy wishes to entice him into her pastoral world of innocence and spontaneity. Winterbourne is tempted, as he was at Vevey, but social decorum impels him to acquiesce to a lady's command, i.e., to join Mrs. Walker in her carriage. His reluctance to accompany his friend and his pondered comment—" 'I suspect… that you and I have lived too long at Geneva!'"—reveal Winterbourne's irritation at this point with the restrictions imposed by propriety. When pressed by Mrs. Walker to give up Daisy, he vacillates characteristically. In asserting that there will be "nothing scandalous" in his attentions to Daisy, Winterbourne still imagines that he can have both Daisy and society, but in walking towards his aunt's residence and away from Daisy, he shows his most deeply felt commitment. And, of course, he casually exercises a prerogative denied to Daisy—that of freely walking about alone.

The climax of the novella makes Winterbourne's position clear to Daisy; in his rejection she sees the impossibility of having both freedom and social approval, individuality and community. Significantly, the Roman fever which later kills Daisy is first mentioned in conjunction with her intention of behaving improperly by walking to the Pincio alone. Her death establishes a link between social disapproval and fever: had Daisy not violated a social taboo by going to the Colosseum at night with Giovanelli, she would not have been exposed to the fever. Daisy's own remarks give a further twist to the theme of society's responsibility. Before Winterbourne explicitly rejects her, Daisy affirms her good health: "'I never was sick, and I don't mean to be!'" After he pronounces his judgment, made in the name of that Geneva doctrine which keeps young women under strict surveillance, Daisy no longer cares whether or not she gets malaria.

Both Winterbourne's and Giovanelli's lack of susceptibility to the fever reiterates again the theme of society's imprisonment of women. Men already have the prerogatives which Daisy lays claim to: it should be just as imprudent for Giovanelli or Winterbourne to go to the Colosseum, but the first shrugs off the danger while the second thinks of it only after satisfying his desire to imbibe the romantic atmosphere for a bit. James's description draws our attention to the enchantment of the setting:

The evening was charming, and he promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalize it. When, on his return from the villa (it was eleven o'clock), Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Colosseum, it occurred to him, as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches, near which, as he observed, an open carriage—one of the little Roman street-cabs—was stationed. Then he passed in, among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade, the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk.

The division of the ruin into light and dark areas, and the recitation of Byron broken off in mid-quote, illustrate Winterbourne's conflict: his oscillation between Daisy and the customs of "the dark old city," between the risk-taking of individual assertion and the safety of social prudence. James's vivid rendering of the scene, which impresses us with its charm and powers of attraction, indirectly points up another contrast. Winterbourne's innocent desire to see the Colosseum by moonlight is socially acceptable, albeit medically unwise. The same innocent desire in Daisy is a scandalous violation of propriety.

In death Daisy returns to nature, but she is also locked away in a place suggestive of Geneva, the Protestant cemetery. Hypocritically, the society which ostracized her turns out for her burial in a "number larger than the scandal excited by the young lady's career would have led you to expect," perhaps in vindication of the collective mores no longer threatened by Daisy. Winterbourne returns almost immediately to his life in Geneva, "stiff" because of its repression of natural feelings and its rigidly conventional behavior, but safe because it lacks the puzzling and unpredictable qualities of natural self-expression.

3

Daisy remains the most uncompromising and uninhibited of James's many freedom-seeking heroines, a resister of patriarchal authority who "has never allowed a gentleman to dictate to [her] or to interfere with anything [she does]." She breaks rather than bending to social demands. Mrs. Costello's mocking gossip, Mrs. Walker's overt rudeness, and Winterbourne's final cruel rejection of Daisy all reveal the entity opposing her to be mean-spirited and reductive, able to respond only in a negative fashion to natural vitality and innocence. In creating a spectrum of socially approved but sterile feminine existences, James contrasts Daisy's desire for freedom with the confinement of other women in artificial and trivial spheres. Ironically, much of the freedom society prohibits to Daisy is allowable to Winterbourne, but he has confined himself within a sterile and restricted mode of existence, the victim of his own temperament and choice rather than of society's coercion.