Henry James’ novella Daisy Miller portrays a young couple falling in love and experiencing many difficulties everyone in a relationship has to go through. Reading this, I found two main themes: innocence and betrayal.
Daisy Miller consists of two chapters, each having its own themes. I think the first chapter definitely shows innocence, whereas the final chapter represents betrayal. At the beginning of the story, Winterborne meets Daisy and gradually starts to fall in love with her. This chapter shows us how people meet and slowly start to fall in love. This slowness is because Winterborne first believes that he is only falling in love because of her beauty. However, he later on proves himself wrong, realizing that he also likes her personality. Although Henry James does not include Daisy’s point of view, we can tell that she has a bit of interest in him. As the reader, I could tell that the two main characters were beginning to fall in love with each other. Innocence is the key to the first half of the story, but stories always require difficult situation, which in this case occurs in the final chapter of the book: betrayal.
If the first chapter portrayed innocence, this chapter has a theme of betrayal. Winterborne promises Daisy to visit her in Rome, believing their love will never come to an end. Instead of waiting for her loved one, Daisy has been flirting with other men and moved on to an Italian. As the reader, I was able to sense the pain and betrayal Winterborne felt as he came to Rome. Instead of welcoming him, Daisy rather starts teasing, trying to make him feel jealous by “introducing” her new boyfriend. Winterborne feels anger and hopelessness as he stays in Rome, by trying to ignore her and move on. Unfortunately, it is reported that Daisy has died from malaria after she visit to the Colosseum with her boyfriend. Winterborne begins to feel guilty as Daisy’s mother tells him that Daisy had always cared what Winterborne thought of her and wanted him to know that she had never been engaged with her boyfriend. As a result, he returns to his home in Geneva and normal life.
One thing that I liked about this novella was that the two themes didn’t blend at all. In most books I have read, the author usually combines both themes so you aren’t able to figure out which theme each chapter covers. However, in this book, you could tell which chaper represented which theme. In these terms, I think the author did a splendid job!
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