Work for Friday 17 February 2012

Please finish Daisy Miller.  Read the last several pages very closely.  Answer the questions on the handout I gave you in class.  I am attaching the paper options here so that you can decide whether you want to do a paper or take a test!!!!

Daisy Miller

Essay Options

 I.    Choose one of the following topics and write at least a 500 word essay ( two typed pages ) on it.

 A.  Rewrite a major scene from the first person point of view.  Use Daisy, Winterbourne, or Mrs. Costello for this option.  You may have that person’s thoughts and observations as part of the scene.  Use dialogue and description following the pattern of the original.  Keep the plot similar but make changes according to how that person would narrate the events of the scene you choose

B.   Compare the book and the movie. Tell how they are alike and different and whether the movie helps you to interpret the narrative since you can see the nuances of the events and characters.  Did the director Bogdanovich translate the story well?  Why or why not.  Use specific scenes to back up your opinion.

                                                              Or

II.   Choose  two of the following  topics and write 250 words or more on each.

A.    Daisy is described as extraordinarily good looking.   How does this  description work  as a plot element  necessary to the effect of the story?  Use paraphrases and quotations from the novella to make your points.

B.    Some of the scenes of the plot take place indoors and some outdoors.  How does the setting the author chooses help to define the main theme of the plot: American freedom and honesty vs. European decorum or formality and proper speech?

C.     Could the theme of American innocent vs. European calculated behavior be developed as well as it was if the representative of European behavior was Daisy,  and Winterbourne was the innocent American representative of openness and honesty?   Or is the standard view of males and females necessary to make the point of Daisy’s rebelliousness?  In shor,t would this novella work if  their roles were reversed?

D.    Write several letters from Daisy to a friend in NY “society” explaining what her life in Europe is like.

N.B. A topic of your choice needs my approval but is a welcomed alternative!