Cultural Clash in Henry James' Daisy Miller

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Daisy Miller: Cultural Differences In "Daisy Miller" by Henry James readers are challenged to take a look at an American girl mainly from the viewpoint of Winterbourne. Daisy is portrayed as extremely beautiful and fairly innocent. Winterbourne's infatuation with this typical American girl, in fact, reveals the differences between the highly-developed European upper crust culture and the newly developing American culture. Even though Winterbourne is American, he shows readers what European culture is: civility, gallantry and apparent gap among social status etc. Winterbourne's sophisticated manners contrast with Daisy's relatively poor education, innocence and crudity. Therefore, the way Winterbourne's aunt criticizes about Daisy's vulgarity symbolically indicates European high-minded pride over fledgling American culture. The dominant image concerning Daisy throughout the entire work is that she seems to be frank and thus never tries to conceal her inner mind like the typical European girls with a view to arresting attention from men. However, that prevailing image is bound to be changed by the last twist of plot. At the moment of death, Daisy's wish is that Winterbourne should know that she is not engaged with that Italian guy. Then, why? Actually, it is quite ambiguous; none the less, her wish can be interpreted as her desperate trial to overcome the European prejudices against shallow American culture. In other words, behind her vulgarity and innocence, there is a fundamental desire to appreciate and enhance one's dignity even in love affairs, which is not vulgar at all, and which makes Winterbourne study hard.

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