Innocence in Daisy Miller :: Henry James, Daisy Miller

The story of Daisy moth miller, by Henry James, is told by a potent narrator. This male figure serves to reveal the deep seated stasis in frequently social interaction which existed in the Nineteenth Century.Winterbourne is the protagonist and filters through his impressions of the heroine Daisy Miller so that we neer see Daisy except through the qualifying prose of Winterbourne himself. gum olibanum by the end of the tale, we feel we brook not met Daisy at all. We have only caught glimpses of this transient flower almost in spite of the suffocating prevarications of Winterbournes frozen nub We feel thwarted by the elusiveness of this heroinePoor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed. He had never yet heard a youngish girl express herself in just this fashion never, at least, save in cases w here to say such(prenominal) things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential inconduite, as they said at Geneva? He matt-up that he had lived at Geneva so long that he had muddled a good deal he had become dishabituated to the American tone. 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 how deucedly sociable Was she just a somewhat girl from New York State- were they all like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemens society? Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his occasion could not help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent. Some mint had told him that, after all, American girls were exceedingly innocent and others had told him that, after all, they were not. He was accustomed to think Miss Daisy Miller was a flirt- a pretty American flirt. He had never, as yet, had any relations with young la dies of this category. He had known, here in Europe, two or three women- persons older than Miss Daisy Miller, and provided, for respectabilitys sake, with husbands- who were great coquettes- dangerous, terrible women, with whom ones relations were liable to take a serious turn. moreover this young girl was not a coquette in that smell out she was very unsophisticated she was only a pretty American flirt.