Theme Of Daisy Miller

Guiltless Pleasures: Daisy Miller and the Super-ego The storied psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud would have jumped at the opportunity to dive deeper into the mind of Henry James’ star character Daisy Miller in his novella appropriately named Daisy Miller. Many in her day could not begin to understand the ways in which Daisy’s mind worked, however Freud could have found a way, given the opportunity, to parallel many of her actions, choices, and thoughts to main ideas mentioned in his book Civilization and it’s Discontents. The careless, flirtatious behavior of the young American traveling Europe is hardly understood by and of the other characters in the novella, however Freud would have answers linked to her upbringing and development of her super-ego,

The super-ego is responsible for internalizing and converting rules and regulations gathered from the parent (or authoritative figure) into the child. The child’s super-ego develops from this knowledge gained about repercussions for actions. For example, when a child does something that is deemed a “good” action, they are received with praise. On the contrary, when a child does something that is “bad”, they are punished. Their conscience takes these feedbacks into account and begin to establish mental and social guidelines that lie within the super-ego. In the case of Daisy Miller, she most likely grew up asserting her natural aggressive instincts and behavioral tendencies (as Freud suggests all children do), but was never met with any punishment nor praise. The super-ego is also responsible when individuals feel guilty for certain actions, because they have internalized such behavior as “bad” and therefore must be punished by feeling guilty. It is hard to imagine that Daisy is able to feel guilty, for she was never provided with the necessary means to develop a

Winterbourne and others experience first hand what is it like to deal with someone who never feels guilty, despite the fact she neglects the feelings of others often. But, after further analysis, it is not directly the fault of Daisy but of her parents leniency that did not supply the much needed attention to her behavior. This attention is crucial in the process of internalizing reactions to certain actions, so that the individual can know what is right and wrong, and feel the corresponding punishments or praises. So, although Daisy seems to leave her mark (in both good and bad ways) wherever she may travel and on whomever she may meet, her unattached nature is mostly due to something that was out of her