Analysis
Chapter 3 begins with a literary
joke. In a letter to Winterbourne asking him to come and visit her
in Rome, Mrs. Costello passes on some gossip about Daisy and, in
the same paragraph, asks Winterbourne to bring her a copy of Victor
Cherbuliez’s Paule Méré, a novel that bears a striking
resemblance to Daisy Miller in several ways. Like
James’s novel, Paule Méré takes its title from
the name of its heroine and concerns a spirited, independent-minded
young woman whose unchaperoned excursions with a man excite the
censure of European society and make her an object of scandal. Even
the settings of the two novels are similar: both open at a Swiss hotel
and end in Italy. Paule Méré was considered a mildly
scandalous book when it first appeared in Geneva in 1865,
so it is ironic that the proper Mrs. Costello should think it “pretty.”
James had reviewed the novel when it first appeared, so there is
no question of coincidence in his choice of this particular work.
By having Mrs. Costello request a novel with a plot that so closely
mirrors the plot of the novel in which she herself is a character,
James emphasizes a facet of the cultivated American expatriates’
relationship with art: Mrs. Costello may admire literature, but
she does not understand it.
Whereas the first half of Daisy Miller is
set entirely in Switzerland, the second half takes place in Rome, and
here we meet Mr. Giovanelli (the name means “young man” in Italian),
who will eventually play a role in Daisy’s demise. Giovanelli, an
impoverished Italian of no particular social distinction, is a slap
in the face to the American colonists in Rome. Mrs. Walker, who
sees herself as a gatekeeper to the closed society of expatriate
Americans, is stunned when Daisy asks to be allowed to bring him
to the party and appalled when Daisy goes walking with him alone
in the Pincio Gardens—a compromising situation from which she tries
to rescue Daisy. Daisy’s free-spiritedness had been only mildly
alarming and annoying in the past, but it takes on a more dangerous
dimension once she takes up with Giovanelli.
We never get a full picture of Giovanelli, mainly because
we see him only through Winterbourne’s eyes, and Winterbourne does
not offer the most reliable point of view. We don’t really know
what he wants from Daisy, especially since he must be aware that
he is helping her to hurt her own reputation. Winterbourne doesn’t
know enough to fully denounce Giovanelli, but this lack of information
serves only to make Winterbourne suspicious. One possibility that
never seems to occur to Winterbourne is that Giovanelli acts as
a confidant to Daisy, in much the same way that Mrs. Costello fulfills
that function for Winterbourne. At the Pincio Gardens, where he
first meets Giovanelli, Winterbourne spends a good deal of time
trying to figure Giovanelli out. Winterbourne notes that
the little Italian does not behave like a jealous lover, and he
seems to overlook any other possibility for what his relationship
with Daisy might entail.
