I noticed that both Winterbourne and Daisy are very theatrical but in separate ways. While Daisy is theatrical in that she wishes her life to be dramatic, Winterbourne is theatrical in that he tries to manufacture the way he is being perceived. A moment that I thought was silly and revealed the nature of both characters was when Daisy’s mother, Daisy, Eugenio, and Winterbourne were deliberating whether Daisy would accompany Winterbourne on the boat. Winterbourne strongly desires Daisy’s company but when asked casually states, “as mademoiselle pleases” (James, 21). Winterbourne conceals his true excitement regarding Daisy’s company to appear polite and refined to those around him. Daisy becomes upset at his passivity and frustratedly remarks, “Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss! I don’t care to go now” (James, 21). Daisy is more open about her desires, admitting that she wanted Winterbourne to fight for her company. Both reveal in this moment their wish to manufacture the moment. Winterbourne acts artificially to appear easy going while Daisy reveals that she wishes for Winterbourne to be more forthcoming about his feelings so there is more excitement. It does not seem enough to Daisy to go on the boat for the experience itself but wants Winterbourne to openly display his desire for her. Daisy refuses to be defined by the expectations placed on women in society but has her own expectations for how she lives her life. Winterbourne is much more concerned with his reputation and following into societal norms.
Character Analysis of Winterbourne and Daisy
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I find this an interesting point to bring up. Daisy was judged in the novel for her seeming ability to manufacture scenarios for if she was viewed as innocent and naive, it is likely her consequences wouldn’t have been nearly as grave. However, society expected everyone to strive to manipulate social situation through etiquette. This observation of the fact that what Daisy was doing wasn’t nearly as different from what other did only goes to show that she was unjustly charged. Its hypocritical that just she’s seen as manipulative when the entirety of society was manipulative at this time. Conversations were held in code and courting was taken as a game, a different game than we play today, but a game none the less. Thus, I find this only does to show that Daisy was unjustly judged by society because in the end she acted no worse than everyone else that sought to control her, but rather just wanted her freedom as well.
I think the description of Daisy as theatrical is super interesting. On the one hand, its true that she has a flair for the dramatic and looks for excitement. However, on the other hand, she doesn’t really play the role society expects her to, her performance is not up to par. Although everyone is performing or manipulating others to some degree, Daisy is singled out and punished for it. I think as Aubrey was saying, performance and manipulation are deeply entrenched within the social etiquette and Daisy does nothing to take embrace the role society hands her, instead electing to to take her own path. This lack of conformity is what gets her in trouble.
I also think it’s interesting to describe Daisy as ‘theatrical’ especially since Winterbourne revealed from the beginning that Daisy is intriguing to him as a feminine beauty worth ‘observing’ and ‘analyzing’. For Winterbourne, it is the moments where Daisy defies societal conventions that makes her even more of a ‘character’ to him thus placing the two of them in this very theatrical dynamic where Winterbourne is the audience trying to decipher something about the character on stage: Daisy.
I really enjoyed this blog post. I like that you mentioned that Daisy refuses to be defined by the expectations placed on women because I just recently wrote a comment about Daisy and Eva, and how they represented women that the 19th century wasn’t totally ready for. Daisy does have expectations on how she wants to live her life, but I find that a lot of these revolve around her independence and not following what would be expected of her. This really is in contrast to Winterbourne as he is concerned with his reputation, like you said, and he wants to follow the usual social norms and wants to control the way he’s perceived. I think that Winterbourne is a representation of the type of people in the 19th century that were not ready for a woman like Daisy to exist. He serves as an example for what most people would want to see regarding following social norms and he cares about how he is perceived. I would predict that most people would be more like Winterbourne and may be intimidated (for lack of a better word) by a woman who was going against the social norms.