Novella: Daisy Miller

Overview
Henry James’s Daisy Miller: A Study (1878) follows a charming, self-possessed young American woman abroad whose open manners confound the rigid social codes of expatriate society. Told largely through the perceptions of Frederick Winterbourne, a reserved American long resident in Europe, the novella stages a clash between naïve spontaneity and worldly decorum, asking whether Daisy is a flirt without morals or an innocent misread by those eager to condemn her.

Setting and Early Encounters
The story begins in Vevey, Switzerland, where Winterbourne meets Daisy Miller, her energetic little brother Randolph, and their amiably ineffectual mother. Daisy’s frank talk and readiness to stroll unchaperoned unsettle Winterbourne even as they attract him. He escorts her to the Château de Chillon, an excursion that suggests romance but also exposes cultural fault lines: Daisy treats such intimacy as casual fun, while Winterbourne worries about impropriety and his aunt, Mrs. Costello, refuses to meet Daisy as a girl of questionable manners. The ambiguity of Daisy’s conduct, friendly or forward, innocent or calculating, takes root in Winterbourne’s mind, and he postpones judgment.

Rome: Escalation and Scandal
Months later, in Rome, the stakes rise. Daisy becomes a fixture in society yet soon draws censure for walking and driving with a suave Italian, Mr. Giovanelli, without proper chaperonage. Mrs. Walker, an American hostess guarding the rules of decorum, urges Daisy into her carriage to avoid gossip; Daisy refuses, insisting on her freedom and the harmlessness of her actions. The refusal marks a public breach. At Mrs. Walker’s party, polite society freezes her out, and even Winterbourne’s loyalty wavers as Daisy’s flirtation with Giovanelli appears bolder.

Winterbourne confronts Daisy repeatedly, alternately fascinated and censorious. He reads her behavior through European lenses, conflating appearance with guilt, while Daisy resists the premise that friendliness equals moral laxity. Her mother remains passive, her courier Eugenio officious, and Randolph loud, all sharpening the picture of an American family ill-equipped for Old World expectations.

The Colosseum and Roman Fever
One night, Winterbourne finds Daisy and Giovanelli in the Colosseum, a place notorious both for romantic trysts and for the “Roman fever” (malaria) lurking in the night air. He condemns the rendezvous as socially ruinous and physically dangerous. Daisy is stung by his judgment but does not immediately yield. Soon after, she falls ill with the fever. On her deathbed she sends word that she was never engaged to Giovanelli. Giovanelli, meeting Winterbourne at her funeral, calls her “the most innocent,” implying she was more artless than immoral, though not prudent. Winterbourne, chastened, realizes he may have misread her and allowed caution and convention to harden into cruelty.

Resolution and Aftermath
After Daisy’s death, Winterbourne returns to Geneva, to his circumscribed life and a rumored attachment to a “very clever” lady, aware that his habit of analysis has cost him warmth and understanding. The final note is one of rueful self-knowledge rather than redemption: he has learned something about Daisy, and about himself, too late.

Themes
The novella probes the tension between American openness and European etiquette, exposing how social codes can masquerade as morality. It explores the peril of judging character by appearances, the fragility of female reputation, and the moral ambiguity of spectatorship: Winterbourne’s “study” of Daisy never resolves her mystery so much as reveal his own limitations. Daisy remains an emblem of unguarded vitality whose fate indicts the world that misreads her.