Transatlantic fusions in Henry James’s ‘Daisy Miller’, ‘An International Episode’ and ‘Lady Barbarina’
Henry James was known to vigorously explore the thrill of transatlantic entanglements between the English and the Americans. In three short stories, Daisy Miller, An International Episode and Lady Barbarina, James contrasts the cultures of similar people. He juxtaposes British rigidness and narrow-mindedness against American freedom, revealing Victorian society’s prudish behaviour that even gets to American expats. James attempts to show how these two cultures can mix. Can marriage between America and Victorian England prove to be successful? Who compromises and how much? Is it even worth it?
At first, it seems strange. Why would there be any problem? But in those days, it wasn’t common for such marriages. They might be the same people but they have polar opposite cultures.
In the stories, you notice that mainland Americans don’t care about British manners or opinions and also don’t promote it in their circle. This includes British propriety of women not being alone with men (unless with an intention to marry) and the custom of ‘precedence’ (to enter and leave in order of superiority in the society). On the other hand, the British scorn everything American. They think of Americans as vulgar, classless, lacking sophistication, uncultured, running with new money and ill-suited to be in English societies. This is visible in the way they form opinions on Daisy, Bessie and Jackson.
Daisy and Bessie get the harsh treatment of being called unsophisticated and classless because of their freedom with men. Bessie, a well-read Bostonian who’s never visited England, extensively quizzes Lord Lambeth’s title and society which gets misinterpreted as her wanting to upgrade her status by marrying him, a Marquis. Daisy’s constant companionship with an Italian man gets her ostracized by society on account of being vulgar. In Victorian society, you do not go around with a man too much in public unless it’s for courtship. Both of them are at first unaware of this rule but later refuse to fit into these mores of British culture. Bessie says, “I don’t see why I should regard what’s done here. Why should I suffer the restrictions of a society of which I enjoy none of the privileges?”
On the other hand, the Americans are more indulgent towards their British counterparts and don’t judge them on their mannerisms. Lord Lambeth and Percy Beaumont seem to enjoy American society a lot but behave differently in England. “Newport isn’t London. At Newport he could do as he liked; but here it’s another affair. He has to have an eye to consequences,” explains Mrs Westgate to Bessie. To this, the latter innocently says that it speaks much of him if he behaved well even with that freedom.
Poor Daisy Miller gets the worst of it all. If I were to read her story from a totally Victorian point of view, I’d be equally horrified. A young girl alone in a corner with a man she’s just met on tour, whom she calls as nothing but her friend, without a care for who’s watching her and with the approval of her mother? Certainly shameless. But the same thing is acceptable in America, which is why it doesn’t bother her. But Daisy is let down by her own countrymen. The Americans at the hotel shrug their shoulders and instead join the British ceremony of heaping insults on her upbringing and shamelessness.
If you thought they are sexist, then you’re wrong. Even the American men aren’t spared from the British contempt. Lady Barbarina’s parents ridicule Jackson’s profession and title as a Doctor and his country’s probability of being a suitable place for their daughter. In fact, the meeting where he goes to ask her parents for her hand in marriage is odd for him since in America “it wasn’t much left to the parents to think of”.
Barbarina’s parents, Lady and Lord Canterville, are disdainful of American culture too. They are too proud of their heritage and would not want an American to defile it. They would rather wish that Jackson give up his American life and live with them, which eventually happens. They approved the marriage because Jackson conceded to their demand of paying a pre-marriage ‘settlement’ to their daughter.
With Lady Barbarina, the New Yorkers try to make her feel as welcome as possible, but she holes herself up in her house. Unlike her parents, she does enjoy New York but from the confines of her home, ogling at the women’s dressing sense. She is unable to mix with the “screeching women and random extravagant laughter”. Contrarily, her younger sister, Lady Agatha, loves her newfound freedom since America is a land where “people could do whatever they wanted”.
What can you judge in the end? English society wins over American not because it is better but because it is rigid and uncompromising. Daisy’s reputation is tarnished with the English society’s unsympathetic opinions, Bessie is compelled to reject Lord Lambeth’s marriage proposal and Jackson must take an abode in England to please his wife.
