English 015 - Americans Abroad
Ignorant Americans
Ignorant Americans
Category: 1E: Twain, James, Wharton | Kelsey Abbruzzese
Ignorant Americans
“The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad,” wrote Mark Twain on page 164 of The Innocents Abroad. In The Innocents Abroad and Daisy Miller, both Twain and Henry James see how American ignorance occurred overseas. However, they do not agree on the ignorance found in American travelers. Twain sees ignorance in his fellow Americans abroad and they disgust and embarrass him. However, James’s Daisy Miller flaunts her lack of European culture. While Twain cringes at elements of America overseas, Daisy sees her nationality in Europe as a ticket to social freedom.
Twain distances himself from his fellow Americans because of their affectations. When the doctor ruins the Mediterranean sunset by blathering on about “the sun’s diramic combination with the lymphatic forces of the perihelion of Jubiter,” Twain says, “Doctor, you are going to invent authorities now, and I’ll leave you, too” (Twain 59-60). Also, when the American caravan moves through Syria, Twain describes their absurd hats, thick green spectacles, and white umbrellas. “No Arab wears a brim to his fez, or uses an umbrella…and he always looks comfortable and proper in the sun” (343). Through these actions of his countrymen, Twain sees exactly what he does not want to be overseas – an obnoxious, ridiculous-looking tourist who is out of his element and trying impossibly to fit in.
Americans taking on the identities of foreigners also face Twain’s ridicule. He writes of an American named Gordon who had spent enough time in France that he did not answer to his name unless it was pronounced “M’sieu Gor-r-dong” (165). Again, Twain is disgusted by the affectations of his countrymen abroad. He considers them idiots for giving up their homeland. On page 166, Twain writes, “Oh, it is pitiable to see him [an American] making of himself a thing that is neither male nor female, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl – a poor, miserable, hermaphrodite Frenchman!” He finds them taken in by this foreign land and wanting to immerse themselves in it, but they become fools in the process.
While Twain’s fellow Americans take on new French identities, Daisy Miller has no desire to absorb European culture. She chooses to remain ignorant, chattering on about America and letting Europe pass her by. When speaking about European society, she says, “There ain’t any society – or if there is, I don’t know where it keeps itself…I’m very fond of society and I’ve always had plenty of it. I don’t mean only in Schenectady, but in New York” (James 14). Daisy depicts New York as the epitome of society, showing her narrow view of culture. Her use of the word “ain’t” also implies her lack of education, yet she has no qualms about displaying her ignorance to Winterbourne, a man she just met.
Daisy also shows her lack of interest in European culture when visiting the Castle of Chillon. She pays no attention to the castle. James writes,
“[Daisy] turned a singularly well-shaped ear to everything Winterbourne said about the place. But he saw she cared little for medieval history and the grim ghosts of Chillon loomed faintly before her…Of her own tastes, habits and designs the charming creature was prepared to give the most definite and indeed the most favorable account” (36).
The visit to the Castle of Chillon indicates Daisy’s belief that her American nature is superior and grants her the right to do as she pleases in European society. Her own tastes, habits and designs are more interesting than European culture and deserve a high place in foreign society. Daisy continues to spurn European customs through her relationship with Mr. Giovanelli and her interactions with Mrs. Walker. After Winterbourne tells Daisy to get into the carriage with Mrs. Walker to save her reputation, Daisy says, “I never heard anything so stiff! If this is improper, Mrs. Walker, then I’m all improper, and you had better give me right up” (54). She makes a show of refusing Mrs. Walker’s help and therefore elevating her views over the views of Europeans.
Though Twain is critical of Americans abroad attempting to become European, he desires to surround himself with foreign culture. His sharp humor shows his frustration when he sees elements of America intruding on foreign culture. When the party pleases the French waitress by using English, Twain says, “To think of this skinny veteran intruding with her vile English…it was exasperating” (Twain 63). Also, in his journey to Egypt, an American treasure-hunter armed with a chisel disrupts Twain’s marvel of the Sphynx. “One of our well-meaning reptiles was trying to break a ‘specimen’ from the face of this the most majestic creation the hand of man has wrought,” he writes on page 474. Americans overseas are ruining Twain’s foreign travels. It is not the Americans of his own party, but the small elements of his own country that pervade foreign culture do more to anger Twain. He expects American stupidity and ignorance from his own countrymen, but while in Europe he hopes for foreign stupidity and ignorance. Instead, he witnesses scenes like the “Southern belles” in Venice. “It is so like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go into a store and buy ten cents’ worth of blue ribbon and have it sent home in a scow. Ah, it is these little touches of nature that move one to tears in these far-off lands” (163). Twain’s sarcasm indicates his anger at this intrusion of American nature in Venice. He does not want to see these Venetian women bickering and sending home blue ribbon among the Bridge of Sighs and the church of Santa Maria dei Frari. He can see that in his Mississippi home.
Daisy believes her “little touches of nature” give her license to move through European social circles as she pleases. Her affair with Mr. Giovanelli and her actions toward Mrs. Walker are justified by Winterbourne with the excuse that she is “a pretty American flirt” (James 15). While Twain distances himself from everything American and becomes frustrated when it intrudes overseas, Daisy embraces her nationality as an opportunity to do what she wants, when she wants. Winterbourne sums up the attitude when he first meets Daisy, saying to her brother Randolph, “American girls are the best girls” (7). This attitude allows Daisy to flaunt her American ideas without intruding on Winterbourne’s European culture. He defends her trysts throughout the novel, calling Mrs. Walker cruel when she turns her back on Daisy at a party (64). When he becomes critical of Daisy’s affair with Giovanelli, he does not give her the cold shoulder as Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Costello do. Instead, he pities Daisy and advises her directly against the affair. “It was painful to see so much that was pretty and undefended and natural sink so low in human estimation,” he thinks (68). Daisy does not disgust Winterbourne, but her American nature provides entertainment in spite of her ignorance. He says, “She’s completely uneducated, but she’s wonderfully pretty, and in short she’s very nice” (21). He does not distance himself from her, but tries to save her at the end of the novel. He fails because, as an American girl, “she did what she liked” (80).
American ignorance overseas takes many forms. It takes the form of Mark Twain’s bobbing umbrella caravan and Daisy Miller’s pretty flirtations. It can be embarrassing or it can be intriguing. No one wants to be seen as the wandering tourist in Twain’s party, passing the same drug store seven times and calling it a “low, disreputable falsehood” when someone brings it to the attention of the group (Twain 64). Yet Daisy uses her American nationality to her advantage, cashing in on it as her license to superiority in European society. Mark Twain chooses to leave his country on the boat with the Fourth of July celebration, but Daisy Miller drags hers through Vevey and Rome, parading it for all to see.
Posted by on October 02, 2003 at 01:34 PM