Olivia took an exam on Daisy Miller during today's session. We also briefly reviewed her essay on " The Scarlet Letter". Olivia has one more essay to complete on Daisy Miller which she will finish in class tomorrow.

The novella "Daisy Miller" opens with a scene located at the Castle of Chillon , the subject of a famed poem by Byron, and closes with an allusion to "Manfred" also a poem by Byron. We discussed the relationship between these allusions and the theme of the novel. The narrator of both poems is an outcast from society and, like Daisy, has beliefs that threaten the existing social order. We then continued to compare Daisy Miller to Hester Prynne of "The Scarlet Letter" noting the parallel allusions to prisons in the beginning of both books as a metaphor for the social conventions and restrictive rules especially impacting women. Toward the end of the. session, at Olivia 's request, we also worked on an outline for her college application essay. For homework: Study for tomorrow's test on Daisy Miller.

Daisy Miller meets her demise as a result of visiting the Roman Collesium at night . We examined the significance of Daisy's death in light of the author's intent to compare Daisy's disregard of society's moral code to the early Christian's refusal to conform to the prevailing religious norms.I further explained how it was believed in the 1850s that the night air in Rome could cause malaria, and we located language in the text foreshadowing Daisy's death by "fever". As Daisy's mother is oblivious to her daughter's social transgressions, we examined Mrs . Miller's actions and analogized it to a mother today virtually encouraging her daughter to grossly misbehave. As Henry James subtitled the novella " a study", I discussed how that term applies to the novel, as the reader is hearing the story from a first person narrator ,who observes or has heard about Winterbourne, while Winterbourne in turn observes and tries to interpret Daisy. As Olivia has been absent, for homework due on Monday, the following which were assigned last week are due: essay on Scarlet Letter, essay on Margaret Fuller, and Daisy Miller study guide questions on Part I.

Olivia was absent today.

As Olivia was not feeling well today ,she did not stay for class.

Olivia was absent today.

I substituted for Andy today. He left detailed plans; Olvia worked independently on the following: Daisy Miller study guide, Scarlet Letter multiple choice, Scarlett letter essays.

Today I substituted for Andy and followed his lesson plan for 11/21-12/5. Olivia worked independently on the Daisy Miller study guide in class. I sent the Scarlet Letter test home for homework as well as reading the rest of the Daisy Miller novella.

We completed an examination of Part I of "Daisy Miller" by Olivia first noting the significance of the characters ' names, Daisy's suggestive of a lower class mill worker , Winterbourne 's suggestive of a cold aloof personality. Daisy's flirtations confuse Winterbourne, and we examined the text to discern the motives of the characters in this very Victorian social interaction and then compared Daisy's and Winterbourne's "first date" with social interactions today. Last, we examined Mrs .Costello's judgmental character and dramatic moral distaste for Daisy simply because Daisy agrees to visit the Castle of Chillon with Winterbourne unaccompanied and because Daisy is so familiar with her servants. We noted how the author imparts class distinction by his use of dialogue. Daisy does not speak proper English, while Mrs. Costello is wont to interject French language expressions into her conversations. The rescheduled final test for Scarlet Letter is tomorrow.

As the vocabulary homework is extracted from the novel, we initially looked at the author's use of the vocabulary words in the context of the novel and made modifications to the definitions. I then placed on the whiteboard the opposing moral forces in the novel. We discussed how the old money European values are in conflict with Daisy's more lax American values and how the author portrays Americans as uncultured and crass. Olivia did a good job analyzing the concept of the "ugly American" in Europe and finding specific examples from the text to support her observations including the speech patterns of the characters and the Americans lack of awe in the face of European antiquities . We next examined the novel's main issue: Is Daisy an innocent unaware of how or why she is being judged or an immoral woman who doesn't care? This lead to a discussion of people judging others based on external factors rather than on their true character, and why this especially applies to women. In this regard, we noted how in the novel, and in life itself, there is double standard when examining male behavior . For homework, I assigned reading Chapter 2 of the novel.