Daisy Daisy Daisy

Daisy Miller is a book about a girl who is unaware of how her actions are seen by others. The study of Daisy is to me simply that. I don’t think it necessarily stereotypes American girls although who’s to stop someone who reads it from thinking all American girls are not like Daisy?
Howells says, “She is one of the young American persons who amaze and confound European society, and give a strange reputation to American girls.” This is very true in the story. The other ladies don’t know what to make of her. She doesn’t seem to care at all about her reputation and it almost appears as if she is oblivious to the fact that people are talking about her so negatively.
In the text Mrs. Walker tries to interfere and tries to convince Daisy to get in the carriage and go home, “You are old enough to be more reasonable. You are old enough, dear Miss Miller, to be talked about.” To this Daisy’s innocence is shown with a reply, “Talked about? What do you mean?” But then before she gets into the carriage it appears Daisy isn’t as naïve as she presents herself to be by saying, “I don’t think I want to know what you mean, I don’t think I should like it.”
Howells would appear to be dead on when it comes to Daisy in this sense. Daisy has “amazed and confounded” Mrs. Walker. People were starting to talk negatively about the American girl Daisy. I’m not too sure of just how “innocent” Daisy was. She obviously knows that there is something negative about the gossip going on around her or else she would have simply gotten into Mrs. Walker’s carriage. She would have set herself up for a moral lecture she would have been completely shocked by, but she doesn’t because she thinks she would not like what she would hear from Mrs. Walker. She wants to keep having her fun whether it is innocent or not. Daisy thinks she shouldn’t have to change her ways simply because she is visiting another country.
When Howells says, “If an American writer proposes to show the American woman to the world, he should select the best, and not the worst.” The real argument then might be whether or not Daisy does in fact represent American women or whether or not Daisy was as “innocent” as the men around her thought she was. I don’t feel as if Daisy was completely innocent, but I don’t think she necessarily did anything that was wrong. Sure she was out late with boys, but it’s not as if she was doing mind altering drugs behind a bar somewhere in the middle of the night. Does this represent American women? Sure it probably represents some of them…