Question

Is Daisy Miller responsible for her own fate? Do you think the way society treated her was justified in any way? Your answer should be at least 100 words.

Answer 1

Daisy Miller is innocent and uncultured but society sees only the surface of her character and the actions that she takes. They imagine a member of their social circle, thus someone with the experience and knowledge to understand and exaggerate the moral code of the European culture, acting in the way that Daisy Miller does. In doing so,they do not take the time to look beneath this outward appearance to find that she is naturally innocent, acting on impulse instead of caution and convention. Daisy, in turn, rebels not by having a great knowledge of the rules which bind the society and consciously deciding to throw them out the window. But by being limited in her scope of experience and by refusing to change her natural ways in order to please the society in which she is living, she oversteps these bounds.

Society's treatment of Daisy was justified in their own eyes. As she couldn't see anything wrong with her behavior, society couldn't dismiss it as innocent fun. Daisy does bear responsibility for her actions because she had been warned, time and again, of her poor choices. In the end, these poor choices cost her her life. If she had listened to those about her, she would have escaped her untimely fate.