Questioning Daisy Miller

After struggling through the unnecessarily long and incredibly boring introduction, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I made it through the actual story. One of the things that the introduction did bring up that I found interesting (other than the fact that Henry James was born on Washington Place) was the question on Winterbourne's mind as to whether "she is a new type of fearless, independent but virtuous American womanhood, or is she a shameless coquette who exploits the relative freedom apparently permitted to young people in America?" This question seems to be fairly prevalent in regards to the pains Winterbourne takes in examining Daisy's character. However, Daisy obviously doesn't pay any attention to the way people perceive her, which is why the answer to this question is so elusive to Winterbourne.
A somewhat similar question that comes to mind when reading Daisy Miller is whether she is "simple" or not. Toward the end of the book it reads, "Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turned towards her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all." His annoyance with this suspicion seems to stem from his acceptance of the fact that he is so drawn to her, and does not want to admit to himself that she is "common." However, he also treats her like a child at times, asking her if she knows what certain words mean. I found it very interesting that Daisy, who seems to be presented as a defiant, headstrong, female character (at least in the mind of Winterbourne), is actually just somewhat oblivious to the way others view her and the customs she is blatantly disregarding.
Back to the first question. Although the introduction claims that Winterbourne's question regarding whether Daisy is a coquette or a fearless American woman remains unanswered in his mind after her death, I believe that he answered the queston for himself when He found her in the coliseum. He decided that, "she was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect." This tells me that Winterbourne has decided the latter; that Daisy was, "exploiting the relative freedom apparently permitted to young people in America," and his perception of her changed dramatically in a short period of time.
(Sorry that this seems kind of like a boring half-finished essay for high school english class. I just felt like the best approach for me would be to try to get some thoughts down in order to examine the story on a little bit of a deeper level).