Classics Corner: Daisy Miller and Washington Square by Henry James; Two Very Different Female Protagonists Reveal Henry James’ Gift of Capturing the Female Psyche

Classics Corner: Daisy Miller and Washington Square by Henry James; Two Very Different Female Protagonists Reveal Henry James’ Gift of Capturing the Female Psyche

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: In a previous review of A Turn of the Screw, I wrote about Henry James’ interest in the psychology of his characters.

This is particularly felt in his female characters. Even though he was a male author, he had no problem plowing through the depths of the female mind and how women felt about their roles in society and their individuality. In most of his works, the female characters are the most interesting such as the Narrator of A Turn of the Screw, Wings of the Dove’s Kate Croy, and Portrait of a Lady’s Isabel Archer (my favorite James book which will be reviewed on a future date.).

Two of his most prominent female characters are also in two of his shortest works: Daisy Miller, the protagonist of the novella of the same name and Washington Square’s Catherine Sloper. These two women couldn't be more different in terms of appearance, thoughts, actions, and their relationships. However, in their different ways, they both question and challenge their roles as women and maintain their individuality in a society that frowns on that individuality, especially from a woman.

Daisy Miller is a pretty American flirt taking the obligatory “Grand Tour” of Europe with her mother and brother. In Switzerland, Daisy meets Winterbourne, an American student.
Winterbourne is captivated by Daisy’s beauty and free spirit. She doesn't mind going to sites without an escort (even though it's forbidden for young ladies of her stature) or making statements that would be considered impertinent. When Winterbourne says that he is afraid to introduce Daisy to his domineering aunt, she taunts him. “You shouldn't be afraid. I am not afraid.”

Daisy captivates Winterbourne because she is rebellious, even though she is masquerading as a typical single young woman of her status. She appears to be no different than any other young woman of her age. At one point Winterbourne's aunt confuses her with the other women at the hotel they are staying in. Winterbourne however detects there is something different about her. She doesn't hide behind the etiquette rules of courtship and outright tells Winterbourne how she feels about him.
When Winterbourne tells her that he might go to Rome to visit his aunt in the winter and if he has time he may see her, Daisy says “I don't want you to come for your aunt. I want you to come for me.”

Daisy knows what the courtship rules and rituals are supposed to be. She is supposed to visit relatives, act demure and docile, and wait for her man to show. But by outright telling Winterbourne what she has in mind, she shifts the balance of power during a courtship in her direction.

Daisy's name plays into her character. A daisy is a spring flower and like the season, Daisy Miller is a breath of fresh air and represents new life, new experiences, and new ways of doing and thinking. However, Winterbourne's name suggests the opposite. He is winter, cold, and reliant on old ways and traditions. While winter turns into spring, the two are never together and James’ novella says the same about its two protagonists.

Daisy and Winterbourne's incompatibility reaches its head when they are in Rome. Winterbourne's conservative outlook towards men and women clashes with Daisy's more liberal free spirited ways. He does not approve of her familiarity with an Italian man, Giovanelli and constantly asks if the two are engaged. At one point, he tells her that he doesn't want her to speak to Giovanelli, Daisy sarcastically says “Do you think I mean to use signs?” She is puzzled why this American man feels that he has to have power over her. He keeps warning her to stay away from Italian men because they may take her flirtations the wrong way.

However, he is less concerned about her virtue than he is about his ownership over her.
He is jealous of her flirtations with other men and thinks that Daisy should behave like a respectable woman of her day.

The irony is that Winterbourne himself doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation for fidelity. At the beginning of the novella, his mind is on an unnamed foreign lady. Then at the end after his relationship with Daisy comes to an end, his mind is on another foreign lady. Winterbourne is a product of his time. He lives in a world where the rules are made by men and to enforce women to follow them. Rules that men don't necessarily follow themselves.

Daisy is someone who is so youthful and brings the promise of spring, that winter and age are not on her mind. She behaves very recklessly and puts her health at risk when she accompanies Giovanelli at the Coliseum at night, despite the warning of yellow fever. After she and Giovanelli are caught at the landmark by Winterbourne, she succumbs to the illness and dies.

This trip could be considered a thinly veiled metaphor for a sexual encounter. Daisy had been repeatedly warned not to be alone with Giovanelli so when she succumbs to temptation, she pays for her encounter with her chastity and her life. (Perhaps the yellow fever is a metaphor for syphilis). However, Giovanelli is never seen as predatory and the people that warn her such as Winterbourne and his aunt are filled with the snobbery and hypocrisy of their day. (Remember, Winterbourne's foreign ladies?) Giovanelli even clears Daisy's name posthumously by saying that they were never engaged and that she was completely innocent. So if it was a warning against young ladies having sexual encounters with foreign men, why does it include this curious detail of Daisy's innocence?

There are some hints that Daisy's death is a result of the patriarchal society that surrounds her. She is looked upon as a “Madonna-Whore” by the male characters, particularly Winterbourne. In Geneva, he sees her in purely virginal terms as a young harmless innocent who is all whites and yellows and girlish charm. He defends her from his aunt by saying that her actions are harmless and that she is merely a flirt.

In Rome however, Winterbourne is constantly suspicious of her behavior. All of the traits that he once loved about her, such as her outgoing nature and blunt speech, are now sources of irritation when they are given towards other men. Instead he sees her as someone treacherous who is inviting trouble. Winterbourne doesn't believe Daisy when she says that she and Giovanelli were not engaged, until Giovanelli confirms it until after her death. In Winterbourne's eyes, Daisy corrupted the image he had of her, so she is guilty until proven innocent.

James himself meant the story to be a character study of the young American heiresses that he saw while in Europe who took the Grand Tour to see the sites and to marry a man of title and fortune. This was the era of American heiresses becoming titled ladies such as Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie. Many of these women experienced a wider world than they had seen before, but were required to set the standards for the American women at home. This experience of Americans abroad interested James and was a common theme in his works. He was fascinated by American tourist's insecurities of being from a young nation as compared to these Old World Aristocrats. The Americans in James’ works often struggled to compete with the Europeans and tried to behave according to their standards, even creating tighter standards of their own. In their drive to overcompensate, the American characters lose their authenticity and mannerisms that made them so unique in the first place.

Daisy is authenticity personified. She isn't afraid to be herself, a young flirtatious vibrant spring-like person. She lives for the present only for the moment. She is similar to a mythical character like Persephone who represent a promise of spring, youth, adventure, and rebellion. Unfortunately, youth cannot last forever and the young rebel grows into the older rule maker. For Daisy, that moment never comes.

It is unknown what Daisy may have been like had she settled into marriage and lived to an older age. Maybe she would be like Winterbourne's aunt, a snob looking down on the younger generation of women. Maybe she would be a scandalous figure with multiple marriages trying to recapture her lost youth. She never gets to that age. Instead, she burns out and dies young. Daisy Miller is unable to accept the compromise that comes with age. She cannot play by rules that tell her that she can't speak in a friendly manner to a man without suspicion or that she cannot go to monuments by herself or with her love interest. Instead of accepting the role that she has been given since birth and entering the winter of age, she remains spring-like and youthful forever by dying young.

Daisy concedes defeat the only way that she can and remain true and authentic to herself. She dies young.

Washington Square presents a different character and setting from Daisy Miller but also asks the same questions about the role of women in society. Catherine Sloper is the polar opposite of Daisy in many ways: plain where Daisy is beautiful, shy where Daisy is outgoing. Even the setting favors the internal claustrophobia of swank New York studies and parlor rooms rather than the exterior of old world European castles and monuments. However, Daisy and Catherine both are surrounded by the expectations placed on wealthy 19th century American women and in some ways that still surround women today. Both Daisy and Catherine also have their own ways of questioning and fighting against those expectations.

Catherine Sloper lives in a world that is devoid of emotion and is in favor of reason. She is dominated by her widowed physician father who takes pride in having an analytic mathematical mind. He boasts that he can take “a man's measure” by observation. He can guess the type of person by observing and analyzing their appearance and behavior, like an even scarier Sherlock Holmes.

Sloper is able to fully control and dominate his daughter by using his icy logical analysis.
He controls where Catherine goes, who she associates with, and makes clear that he has the final say in who she marries.

Standing on the opposing side of Dr. Sloper is Aunt Lavinia Penniman, Sloper's widowed younger sister. Romantic where Sloper is Reason, Warm where her brother is cold, Aunt Lavinia tries to steer her niece towards a more sociable nature, but her father commands that she must train the girl to be clever. (“You are good for nothing unless you are clever.”)

Using his measuring, Sloper reasons that Catherine is not beautiful, that goodness makes her insipid, so she might as well be smart. While Sloper's motivations to make Catherine learned and intelligent seems progressive for the day, he only sees Catherine as an object of his making and she can only go from one extreme (very beautiful, outgoing, and good) to another. (very plain, intelligent, and socially awkward). When Catherine reaches 18, Sloper is disappointed that Catherine isn't clever enough and that she doesn't seemingly fit the mold he built for her. He verbally abuses his daughter and considers her ugly and stupid.

Despite this, Catherine's aunts try to help her. Catherine's Aunt Marian Almond throws a party for her daughter's engagement and Aunt Penniman accompanies Catherine. The two meet Morris Townsend, a man-about-town who is handsome, but unemployable and living off of his sister and her family.
Morris and Catherine fall in love and begin courting to Dr. Sloper's chagrin. He bases his information on Aunt Almond's knowledge of Morris and his own observations of the man during interviews. He believes that Morris is a fortune hunter who has only one thing on his mind during his courtship: Catherine's money.

Catherine ends up caught between the two men. Morris demands that she stands up to her father and wait for him. Sloper tells her that he does not approve of her engagement and even threatens to cut her off if she marries him. He is so insistent that Catherine not marry Morris that he alters his will so that Catherine will not inherit money from him should she marry Morris. (He can't do anything about her mother's inheritance, however. That's still hers.)

Morris and Sloper's differing views clash when during an interview Sloper says that Morris belongs to the wrong category. Morris, however, insists that Catherine does not marry a category, she marries an individual. Sloper's intellectual reasoning sorts and categorizes everything and Morris has to remind him that human beings are not like that. They are individuals who contain multitudes and he and Catherine cannot be sorted.

Like he did with the characters in Daisy Miller, Henry James had fun with names. Instead of seasons, Washington Square uses mathematical and urban terms for description. The Sloper's family name is from an algebraic equation.The title Washington Square has a double meaning. Besides being a prominent area in New York City that was the height of wealth and sophistication at the time, the name “Square” is a geometric shape. Catherine and Sloper live in a world of mathematics, measuring and counting the world to fit the doctor's view.

Morris's name is a contrast to the Sloper's mathematically precise world of facts, figures, and sorting. His last name Townsend, reveals him to be a man-about-town and all of the social obligations that come with that role of attending parties and befriending the wealthy elite, a world that Sloper deprives her from. The second half of Morris's name “-end” suggests an end to Catherine's current life and either the decline of her relationship with her fiancé or her father.

Both Sloper and Morris want to own Catherine. Sloper manipulates Catherine's courtship in ways that are in his favor. He orders Morris's sister not to let him marry Catherine. He takes Catherine to Europe solely with the intention of making her forget about Morris. His hold on Catherine is not out of concern for her welfare or that Morris will break her heart. It is out of a selfish obsessive need to control her and to prove himself right.

Like Sloper, Morris has a desire to own and possess Catherine but uses different means. He writes passionate letters to Catherine extolling his love. He tries to convince her to be more sociable and surrender to him.Like Sloper, Morris, too, manipulates a relative. He makes arrangements with Catherine's Aunt Penniman to meet Catherine at her house.

While Morris is more emotional than the intellectual Sloper, he is no less domineering to his fiancée. He constantly insults and gives Catherine ultimatums forcing her to choose between him and her father.

Even Aunt Penniman has her own stake in this. She subtly encourages the romance to continue as if to experience it vicariously. She allows them to meet at her apartment and when Catherine is terrified of her father, Aunt Penniman suggests that she lay in bed and fake an illness to appeal to his sentimental nature. Her romantic nature seems to be inspired by the literature of the time and she tries to shape Catherine and Morris into the romantic couple of her dreams who are torn apart by cruelty but elope and live happily ever after.
Sloper, Morris, and Aunt Penniman see in Catherine what they want to see: an obedient daughter, a loving fiancée, or a passionate romantic. They don't see her for a full woman.

The irony is that Catherine does not hate any of them, especially Sloper and Morris. She does not risk upsetting her father nor ending her engagement. The expectations that others have bestowed upon her have starved her for affection. She willingly submits herself to their control rather than lose them. When they force her to submit to them, she cannot make up her mind because she doesn't want to lose the people whom she believes loves her, but in reality want to own her.

Sloper is right that Catherine and Morris's engagement does not work out but not solely for the reasons that he believes. When Morris learns that Catherine will not inherit her father's money, he breaks things with her. However, his decision is made easier by Catherine's indecision. The indecision is caused by the intense pressure Sloper puts on her. In preventing his daughter's marriage to someone he deemed unsuitable, Sloper becomes part of the reason that the engagement ends.

Sloper's control over Catherine works all too well. The end of her engagement becomes the end of Catherine's emotional outlook. She becomes a creature without emotion, one solely of intellect and reason. She becomes every bit the mathematical analyst that her father was. She becomes Daddy's girl.

Catherine learns the lessons from her father so well that when he suggests that she get married to other men, she refuses. Her heart is not only broken by her failed engagement. It is shattered beyond repair. Sloper feels his age and wants to have a grandchild to inherit and create a legacy. However, Catherine will not allow this, so she refuses to marry or have children.
Sloper squashed Catherine's emotions. Now he has to live with what he has created and knows that his family line will die with him and Catherine.

Catherine's lack of emotion continues long after her father's death when she inherits his money. She is a serious, analytical woman deprived of any feminine institutions. She refuses to play the game of courtship. Even when an older Morris proposes to her again, she flatly turns him down. She knows that her love for him or for anyone else has died.

However, Catherine still has regret and sadness over what her life has become, shown by the final moment when she holds onto her needlework as “if for dear life.” She knows what she has become, but she can't change. She is unable to change.

Instead of dying young, Catherine rebels against the institutions of marriage and primogeniture by aging into permanent singlehood. In claiming her own independence from the people who want her to become the Catherine that they want, Catherine chooses not to marry at all. Her independence is at the expense of emotional connections and she claims it by living in solitude and regret.

Daisy Miller and Washington Square gives us two women who use different means to rebel against the rules of courtship and family. One plays the game, but concedes defeat by dying young. One enters the game, but ultimately chooses not to play at all.