Question

Read this excerpt from Daisy Miller, in which Winterbourne tries to understand Daisy, and answer the question. 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 simply a pretty girl from New York State? Were they all like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen's society? Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? In a 150 word response, give your opinion about whether Daisy was an innocent flirt or a manipulator who deliberately defied social norms. Support your opinion with at least two reasons or examples from the text.

Answer 1

I would argue that the character of the young Daisy Miller was an innocent flirt rather than a manipulator. She was full of life, of freedom, of sincerity, and of grace, and she was beautiful, carefree, charming, and certainly ahead of her time, but she was far from being a manipulator. She had "a great deal of gentlemen's society," as she herself pointed out, but she was unpretentious, "unsophisticated," and "completely uncultivated," as Winterbourne described her, so it is possible to say that she acted naturally, not in a manipulative way.

This can also be confirmed in the passage that narrates the moment when they both met: "... (Daisy) was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony." This, once again, indicates that she was honest and straightforward, and far from Machiavellian.