Individual vs. Society in Daisy Miller and Old Woman
Henry James’ "Daisy Miller, A Study" and Mary Wilkins Freeman’s "Old Woman Magoun" contain morally ambiguous conflicts between individuals and society. Both of these short stories are tales in which strong, individual women directly conflict with their respective destructive male societies, attempting to uphold innocence while flouting societal rules and expectations.
Freeman and James both construct strong female individuals in different guises. Freeman’s Old Woman Magoun is old, wise, and practiced in the art cooking and child-rearing, embracing a traditional feminine role and drawing power from it. She practises this art because it is her right, and, passive-aggressively, she uses her cooking lore to kill Lily, removing innocence from the world. Quite on the other side of the spectrum we have James’ Daisy: young, innocent, practised only in the art of flirting, yet drawing her powerful independence from the practise of this non-traditional feminine art. She is allowed to practise her art, but only for a while. Daisy dies of an attack of Roman Fever contracted at the Colosseum; more symbolically, her innocence is lost from society when her character is crucified on a cross of social propriety.
Men and men’s desires represent societal aims in both stories. Freeman’s men are Nelson Barry and Jim Willis, both are members of old, highly placed, "degenerate" (179) American families. Their goal is to steal Lily from Old Woman Magoun and force her into a traditional societal role to satisfy their own ends, no matter that this will destroy Lily’s innocence. Barry desires "to have that girl" (184) for financial comfort; Willis desires her for more traditional domestic comfort. James embodies society in Mr. Winterbourne, a socially accepted young American who has "lived too long in foreign parts" (492). Winterbourne desires for Daisy to enter into and conform with society to satisfy his own ends, as well. He desires mental and emotional comfort: to judge her "eccentricities" (486) innocent, and that she "would flirt with me, and me only" (482).
Each individual’s conflict with society is resolved in different ways and in difficult lights. Magoun directly flouts society’s rules by committing infanticide, effectively removing purity from the destructive intents of male society. Yet her actions pose a question of morality to Freeman’s audience. Was Lily’s death justified? Meanwhile, the men are left comfortless and alone. Magoun, however, is also comfortless and alone, depriving herself of Lily’s innocence to save it. Magoun cannot cope with the regret and reality of her loss. She retreats into madness, carrying with her the symbol of Lily’s innocence, her "old rag doll" (190).
Daisy also directly flouts the societal rules and expectations. She "never allow[s] a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do" (476), and she stubbornly clings to her independence, no matter how society lectures her or give her the "cold shoulder" (487). Winterbourne, representing the old, degenerate, European society, judges her as "a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect" (489). He and society try to destroy her innocence by rejecting her motives as immoral. Daisy dies, the individual loses to society, but her defeat is not complete. She preserves her innocence, taking her frank independence to the grave, buried in a "Protestant cemetery, in... imperial Rome" (491). Society’s victory, like that of Old Woman Magoun’s, is comfortless. Winterbourne is left alone with his regrets, knowing he has done Daisy a great injustice, for she was "the most innocent" (491).
In both stories society is old, degenerate, male, unable to comprehend innocence and thus its potential destroyer. In both stories individual women are vehicles for innocence. Old Woman Magoun protects it and removes it from the hands of destruction, while Daisy Miller embodies it and willfully retains it to the bitter end. The individual wins mixed victories in both cases. Both individuals are involved in ambiguous moral situations. Both women stick to their principles, maintaining innocence even to the death, regardless of their male society’s perceptions and judgments
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