English 015 - Americans Abroad
Ignorance: The American Culture
Ignorance: The American Culture
Category: 1E: Twain, James, Wharton | Thomas Buehrens
What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American. This common European joke demonstrates the general perception abroad that Americans are widely uncultured, and even relish that fact. Evidently this is a pattern that, as The Innocents Abroad and Daisy Miller reveal, has been occurring for some time, and questions Americans’ sincerity in their dealings with foreigners. Though the characters in Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad and Henry James’s Daisy Miller deal with Americans’ treatment of tradition in very different manners, through their attitudes and actions, emerges a common irreverence for European culture and values.
The characters in both works have a common disinterest in European Art and history. In Daisy Miller, this is clearly illustrated by Daisy’s actions while Winterbourne is showing her around the castle at Chillon: “Winterbourne told her about the place. But he saw that she cared little for medieval history and that the grim ghosts of Chillon loomed but faintly before her” (p.36). While Daisy is eager to go to the castle, her interest is in being able to say she has been there, rather than the visit itself. In Rome, Daisy confirms this indifference for cultural history in her remarks to Winterbourne about Italy: “I foresaw we should be going round all the time with one of those dreadful old men who explain about pictures and things” (p.48). While Daisy is completely bored with the idea of history, Twain feels that he is supposed to gain from the rich history of Europe, yet he ends up admitting his lack of interest. Twain remarks, “…to me it seemed that when I had seen one of these martyrs I had seen them all” (p.167). Here Twain demonstrates his initial will to care and understand ultimately being reduced to apathy. Later, however, Twain declares outright his frustration, “Then I said, in my heat, that I ‘wished to goodness high art had declined five hundred years sooner’” (p.170). In this quote a striking similarity exists between the two works and the way they describe proverbial American ignorance and Americans’ will to stay such. Although Daisy Miller echoes The Innocents Abroad very closely in its treatment of art and history, it diverges in the way it deals with social customs despite the common conclusions about European customs the two works reach.
While Twain is aware of European social customs, he is conflicted in his treatment of them, ultimately concluding that they are inferior to America’s. Daisy, however, is for the most part, either oblivious or dismissing of European social customs. When Twain is discussing the way in which young women are approached in Europe, he describes his groups attempts at assimilation: “We are gradually and laboriously learning the ill-manners of staring them unflinchingly in the face—not because such conduct is agreeable to us, but because it is the custom of the country and they say the girls like it” (p.164). In this episode he seems to begrudgingly accept the mores of the time and place. Later, however, Twain is sneeringly sarcastic in his description of his group’s perceived duty to act a specific way, “we shall begin to take an absorbing interest in them like our cultivated countrymen from Amerique” (p.169). Not immediately evident, the sarcasm in this statement takes the form of the word “Amerique,” a word he associates with foolish Americans who have tried to immerse themselves in foreign culture. This inner conflict remains at a more conscientious level than Daisy’s treatment of customs. Winterbourne sees her lack of concern for European customs, and calls this into question, “Would a nice girl—even allowing for her being a little American flirt—make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner?” (p.51). Here Winterbourne calls her judgment into question but does not outwardly distinguish her as disregarding or even disrespecting European custom. When he is talking with Mrs. Walker, this becomes clear, “‘What has she been doing?’ ‘Everything that’s not done here’” (p.55). Daisy Miller, in her clear abandonment of cultural values, lacks the conflict that Twain has about customs. When determining to what degree Twain and Daisy Miller respect European culture and its values, no single point is more revealing than their opinions of society in general.
Both Twain and Daisy Miller find European culture to be much inferior to that of America. Daisy Miller couldn’t be more blunt in her conclusions about European culture than she is when talking to Winterbourne after they first meet: “‘The only thing I don’t like […] is the society. There ain’t any society…In New York I had lots of society”’ (p.14). In Rome, Daisy is pleased to find society she can identify with: “‘The society’s extremely select. There are all kinds—English and Germans and Italians. I think I like the English best” (p.48). Daisy demonstrates her need to flock to what is familiar. Something as simple as a common language affects the way in which she values different societies, ultimately picking the one most similar to her own as the so-called best. Twain, while not directly disparaging of European society, treats it as a tourist would, refusing to engage himself in it, rather sampling it superficially as one would an amusement park. Upon arriving in France, he expresses his discontent at being delayed in his entry to this land of amusements, “It was annoying. We were full of enthusiasm—we wanted to see France” (p.62). At the end of the evening he describes his shallow experiences.
"That first night on French Soil was a stirring one. I can not think of half the places we went to, or what we particularly saw; we had no disposition to examine carefully into anything at all—we only wanted to glance and go—to move, keep moving!" (p.64).
In this episode he is clearly more interested in the tourist activities and the sights and sounds, rather than understanding the culture or learning of it. While Twain and Daisy Miller differ in the way they act in foreign culture, their attitudes both represent those of a tourist, preferring their own culture without understanding what they are judging.
The way in which the characters in both The Innocents Abroad, and Daisy Miller treat European tradition, customs, and society, lead them to the common liberty granted by ignorance and disregard for culture abroad. In a greater sense, both works also allude to a pompous pride Americans seem to have in their ignorance. Seen in writings at the turn of the century, the theme of American self-absorbency is one that rings true today in the way in which modern Americans conduct themselves abroad.
Posted by on October 02, 2003 at 01:19 PM