Daisy Miller recap

At Vevey, the Europeanized American Frederick Winterbourne meets Daisy Miller, a wealthy young tourist whose openness and disregard for chaperonage intrigue him. They visit Chillon alone, a choice that makes Winterbourne's aunt refuse to meet her. Months later in Rome, Daisy spends much of her time with the Italian Giovanelli and rejects warnings from Winterbourne and Mrs Walker that public opinion is turning against her. Winterbourne cannot decide whether her conduct reflects innocence or impropriety. He finally sees Daisy with Giovanelli at the malaria-ridden Colosseum at night and judges her harshly. Daisy contracts Roman fever and dies soon afterward, leaving a message that she was never engaged to Giovanelli. Giovanelli affirms her innocence. Winterbourne realizes that his reliance on social categories kept him from understanding her, but returns to his conventional life in Geneva.

Frederick Winterbourne, an American long resident in Geneva, is visiting his aunt at Vevey when he meets nine-year-old Randolph Miller and Randolph's older sister Daisy. Daisy is a wealthy American tourist, lively and direct in a way that unsettles Winterbourne's European social assumptions. She speaks freely with him without a formal introduction and agrees to visit the nearby Château de Chillon alone with him. Their mother is indulgent and their courier Eugenio seems unable to impose the usual rules. Winterbourne's aunt, Mrs Costello, refuses to meet Daisy because she considers the family socially unacceptable. Winterbourne remains attracted to Daisy and carries out the excursion to Chillon, but soon returns to Geneva. Daisy tells him that the family will spend the winter in Rome and expects him to visit there.

Winterbourne finds the Millers in Rome and learns that Daisy's conduct is already troubling the American expatriate community. She is often seen with Mr Giovanelli, a handsome Italian of uncertain position, and she refuses to treat gossip as a reason to avoid him. At Mrs Walker's gathering, Daisy announces that she will walk publicly with Giovanelli. Mrs Walker follows in a carriage and urges her to get in, warning that the walk will damage her reputation. Daisy refuses to be controlled and continues with the two men. Winterbourne alternates between defending her as an innocent American and suspecting that she understands the implications of her choices. When Daisy later arrives at Mrs Walker's party, the hostess openly turns away from her, completing her exclusion from the respectable circle.

Daisy continues to see Giovanelli despite Winterbourne's warnings. She playfully claims to be engaged and then denies it, making it impossible for Winterbourne to fit her into a stable category. One night he visits the Colosseum and discovers Daisy and Giovanelli there together. Because the ruins are known to be dangerous after dark, their presence risks not only scandal but malaria. Winterbourne suddenly decides that Daisy must have known what people thought and ceased to care. His uncertainty seems resolved, but the judgment distances him from her just when she asks whether he believed she was engaged. He insists that she and Giovanelli leave the unhealthy place at once.

Daisy contracts Roman fever after the night at the Colosseum and becomes seriously ill. Mrs Miller tells Winterbourne that Daisy wanted him to know she had never been engaged to Giovanelli, a message that reveals his judgment mattered to her. Daisy dies and is buried in Rome. At the funeral, Giovanelli tells Winterbourne that she was the most innocent young woman he had known; he had recognized that she would never marry him, but valued her company. The following summer Winterbourne tells Mrs Costello that he wronged Daisy and had lived abroad too long to understand her. Yet this insight produces no evident change: he returns to Geneva and to the same polished, conventional social life that shaped his mistake.

Winterbourne finds Daisy and Giovanelli together at the Colosseum late at night, despite the danger of malaria. He decides that her presence there proves she is indifferent to social judgment, though he still urges her to leave immediately. Daisy soon becomes gravely ill with Roman fever. Before dying, she asks her mother to tell Winterbourne that she was never engaged to Giovanelli, showing that his opinion mattered to her. At the funeral, Giovanelli insists that Daisy was innocent and says he had no expectation of marrying her. Winterbourne later admits to Mrs Costello that he made a mistake and had lived too long away from America to understand Daisy fairly. Nevertheless, he resumes his life in Geneva, where rumor again associates him with a foreign woman. His recognition comes too late to change Daisy's fate or his own settled habits.