The Quintessential American Woman Essay -- American Women Henry James

The Quintessential American WomanThe American muliebrity is a mystery that has yet to be solved. She is an ever-changing poem that sparks interest in those who are unaccustomed to her obscure ways. The American women fascinated many authors, including Henry James. To express his enthrallment, James use his literary talent to create Daisy Miller. Daisy exudes the vast depth of the entity of the American woman, which in the first place captured James attention. John Hay, a contemporary observer of American courtesy and mores stated of the American woman, Her conduct is without blemish, according to the rural American standard, and she knows no other (qtd. in Fogel 52). Jamess Daisy Miller depicts the innocence of the American woman, with its accompanying crudeness. It is through Daisy Miller, and her contradictory characteristics of purity and crudeness that James presents and depicts his American woman to the world. Pure is defined as chaste virgin in the American Heritage D ictionary (681). This describes one half of the American woman in the Jamesian perspective. Daisy Millers character is depicted as the ikon of pure. This purity particularly lies in Daisys ignorance of proper social behavior. Daniel do Fogel wrote in his critical analysis of Daisy Miller, In America, women were under somewhat little rigid control than they were in England or Europe, in part because of the comparatively high degree of social mobility in the United States and the concomi...