jb_123 's review for:

Daisy Miller by Henry James

3.0

emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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The book seems reflective of the debate around women’s actions of the time. We see a lot of gothic literature around this time that poses women to be mysterious and witchy if they choose to venture outside of typical social circles or norms. Daisy seems to be a girl that cannot be understood by the frame of a proper Victorian woman showing a shift in the place of women in society. The older more ‘respectable’ members of society look down upon Daisy for her actions yet she does not care as her freedom is not something she is willing to give up in favor of what is expected of her. The narrator continues to misinterpret her as naive or innocent while she is truthfully neither. Yet she is not trying to trick him, those qualities that he assigned to her are all his own projections of what she ought to be. Daisy Miller shows a change in women, not just American women but all women, as society moved away from the ‘angel in the house’ sphere for women.