To be Determined - Essay Example

The young Daisy, an American girl of flirtatious demeanor and apparent stubbornness quite rare of women her age, meets and is pursued by the sophisticated Winterbourne—a bachelor of high status, but with decidedly traditional values. He is enamored by her, but is taken aback when Daisy’s behavior debunks everything he knows as true; that a young woman should never be outspoken or carefree, and that she should not be allowed to be friendly with men. Unless she is engaged to him, and that situation still calls for numerous restrictions.

The young and pretty Daisy apparently enjoying the teasing and flirting with Winterbourne, also befriends an Italian gentleman named Giovanello—and their much-witnessed romps and trips around Rome sealed the girl’s fate and reputation as an unsuitable woman. Winterbourne acknowledges and supports this general opinion after concluding that Daisy had chosen Giovanello over him, and tries to dissuade her from creating an even more horrid image of herself. Daisy finds this laughable, and continues to move around with the Italian, until their regular evening outings cause her to be afflicted and to die of malaria, or Roman fever.

In the end, Winterbourne is told of Daisy’s last message for him, which is to clarify that she is not engaged to Giovanello. Soon after, Winterbourne proceeds to live his regular life in Switzerland. The story clearly echoes a widely-acknowledged Victorian philosophy, called domestic ideology. During this time, a woman is only held as good, or true, when her environment and social parameters are limited to the home and family. She was required to uphold her identity foremost as a virtuous and dutiful wife and mother, coming from an earlier life as a good sister and daughter.

Such are the ideology’s rules that should a woman violate or neglect any, she is immediately relegated to a persona of negative