When Henry James contacted Philadelphian publishers in an attempt to get his novella, Daisy Miller, printed, he was told the piece was an “outrage on American girlhood” and was promptly turned away (Isaacs 49). American publishers, quite frankly, were leery of the novella’s eponymous character, a young woman from New York who wreaks havoc on European high society. Unphased, James decided to send the piece to European publishers and in 1878 Daisy Miller made its literary debut in London’s Cornhill Magazine. Pirated copies of the piece quickly began to circulate among curious Americans and a great social divide took hold: “Daisy Millerites” versus “Anti-Daisy Millerites” (Werlock 163). To Daisy Millerites, the character upheld the fiery, independent, and bold spirit colonists had died for in the previous century. …show more content…
The opposing viewpoints among readers were not simply due to a different sense of morality, identity, or patriotism. In reality, Daisy Miller is a layered novella that features a cast of flawed and inconsistent characters. The main source of ambiguity in the novella stems from the third-person limited narration style, which is dictated by the thoughts of Frederick Winterbourne, an American expatriate. Winterbourne’s muddled thought and insecure identity, prove him to be deeply fallible. Readers are then left to deduce the nature of Daisy’s behavior within the context of Winterbourne’s unreliable thoughts, which are riddled with descriptions of her “innocence.” Ultimately, a reader’s interpretation of Daisy is subject to their chosen sense of innocence, a term that has three recognized definitions: blamelessness, ignorance, and