Recurring Topics in Daisy Miller
- Realism: be able to illuminate examples (see
web page for characteristics of Realism) from the text.
- Narrator's perspective: In terms of James' technique,
what type of narrator does James employ? In terms of thematic comparison,
can you see similarities to Chillingsworth's gaze (and Prospero's gaze for those who savor Shakespeare's The Tempest)?
- Notice James' use of geography (setting) to create
a moral background for his characters. The James scholar Geoffrey Moore reflects
that "it is particularly appropriate that the scene should be set in
Vevey, for Vevey is a sort of no man's land, half-way between the grim certainties
of Geneva (geographic origin of Calvinism) and the moral laxity of Rome."
- Man in the margin motif. People who read and
reread Henry James find this recurring character type. Winterbourne is a man
in the margin because he does not commit to anything and prefers to observe
life rather than live it. return to top
Part I
- Observe the narrator's gaze change from a wide angle
sweep to the focus on Winterbourne.
- Introduction of Winterbourne (literally born of a
winter's wind), Randolph, Daisy, Aunt (who was indisposed--again) and Eugenio,
the Miller's Courier. return to top
Part II
- Mrs. Costello more developed; stems from one of the
original rich families of New York. She is from old money and contrasts sharply
with the Miller's. What are her specific cuts on the Miller family? NB: underline
the part where Mrs. Costello calls Daisy common. Do you think that James'
is playing around with the fact that the flower daisy is a common flower?
What should we make of Daisy's last name? What are the bad qualities of the
name that Mrs. Costello finds? What are the good (democratic
sympathies = Realism characteristic) qualities.
- What's up with Winterbourne's social life? Does this
twenty seven-year-old have a life?
- How does the reader first meet Mrs. Miller?
- Daisy promises to stop teasing (chaffing) Winterbourne
if he promises to go...quando? return to top
Part III
- What are the underlying dimensions of Mrs. Walker's
plea for Daisy to enter the carriage and what is significant about Daisy's
option to continue walking with Giovanelli?
- Who makes an uncanny appearance in Mrs. Walker's apartment?
- Since the story has moved south to Rome, have you
noticed anything about characters' behavior? What do you make of Winterbourne's
remark to Mrs. Walker about living in Geneva for too long?
- Does anything in Part III foreshadow the close of the
story? return to top
Part IV
- It is possible to interpret the ending with the larger
perspective of seeing Daisy as the representative character of Romanticism;
Winterbourne as representative of the intellectual movement of Realism. How
and where does Daisy die?
- Which themes from Hawthorne are revived in James?
- What does James want the reader to think when he describes
Daisy's grave: "the raw protuberance among the April daises" (1596)? return to top
Henry James' Biography and Anxiety of Influence:
American-born writer, gifted with talents
in literature, psychology, and philosophy. James wrote 20 novels, 112 stories,
12 plays and a number of literary criticism. His models were Dickens, Balzac,
and Hawthorne. James once said that he learned more of the craft of writing
from Balzac "than from anyone else".
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