Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller is an 1878 novella by Henry James.  I posted here a photo of a sample cover of it that could give us an idea of who Daisy Miller was.  

After reading there are some questions that would be very helpful to analyze the novel in the context of our Journey in Literature class.  A tourist is someone who visits a place largely driven by the promotion and publicity that a certain place gets throughout the world.  These people visit a limited number of places and/or places that are readily prepared to receive tourists.  Tourists try to escape they reality and they go through a certain place without really taking the time of analyzing the culture, the problems, the costumes or the reality of the people that live there.  On the other hand a traveler merges in between the people of the places he travels and becomes one of them.  To me a traveler is someone who goes all around different places developing his/her own culture as a mixture of everything that he has gathered along his journey.  Based on these definitions, I would classify Daisy Miller as a tourist.  She was originally from New York and when she went to Europe she simply let go.  She didn’t mind what locals where saying about her flirting with many men and being all by herself, without chaperone, late at night.  This can be shown in two quotes I selected from the text.  In the first quote Daisy says: "I don't to do anything improper. There's an easy way to settle it."  She states that she doesn’t believe that what she was doing with the European men was wrong at all showing how she was in an escape from her reality, not minding what consequences would it bring after.  The second quote shows the respond from Daisy after Mrs. Walker confronts her for her actions:  "I never heard anything so stiff! If this is improper, Mrs. Walker, then I am all improper, and you must give me up. Goodbye; I hope you'll have a lovely ride!”  Both quotes demonstrate how Daisy Miller keeps her beliefs very strong and doesn’t show any concern if her actions disrupt the rules established by the society she is visiting, thus fitting the definition of a tourist.

            Along the story we can observe some incidents where othering is tangible.  At the beginning of the story when Winterbourne meets little Randolph and he introduces himself and his sister, he states very proudly “She is an American girl.”  Randolph also states: “I am an American boy.”  This shows a sense of proudness and othering, trying to make his family look as important as being an American is for him.  He makes this part of his introduction in order to state differences between the Europeans that surround them.   Another incident of othering is seen when Winterbourne talks to his aunt about Miss Miller and she says: "They are very common.  They are the sort of Americans that one does one's duty by not—not accepting."  This demonstrates class othering; Mrs. Costello puts herself on a higher standard than Daisy’s family and makes them different from her.  She maintains a distance between her othering them as being “common” or low-class people.  The last incident of othering I chose corresponds to this quote by Daisy Miller: "He's an Italian. He's a great friend of mine; he's the handsomest man in the world—except Mr. Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to know some Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans. He's tremendously clever. He's perfectly lovely!"  Daisy Miller others Mr. Giovanelli for being an Italian, and therefore being an exceptional man.  She establishes a difference between men of different nationalities and Italian men.  Daisy uses the fact of him being an Italian as an argument in favor of her spending time with him. 

            This story lets us see how society can or cannot shape somebody’s perspective.  Daisy Miller would represent an example of how the Italian society could not shape her and instead she was showing completely American behaviors all over the story.  The fact that Daisy goes around flirting with many men not bothering with the order the Italian society displayed, categorizes her as a rebel of the Italian society and a perfectly shaped American character.  Her ideals and vision of the world were very strong, not letting any foreign beliefs interrupt hers.  If we try to identify a character that bears an opposite characterization to Daisy Miller that would be Mrs. Walker.  Her perspective is completely shaped by the Italian society.  The way she thinks and acts towards Daisy’s actions reflect how conservative and truthful she is to the Italian costumes.  She cannot bear the idea of Daisy flirting around with men and she really acts to denounce Daisy’s actions as wrong.  Finally a character that would be in between of Daisy Miller and Mrs. Costello would be Winterbourne.  He is the perfect example of a character whose perspective has been shaped equally by both cultures: the Italian and the American.  Even though he confronts Daisy for her actions and tries to persuade her, he respects her decision and he even incites her to flirt with him.  He stands between both “seas” of perspective and therefore he tends to display a contradictory behavior.  

First Thoughts Journal

As part of my Journey in Literature class I was assigned to keep a journal where I had to practice an activity named First Thoughts.  Since the beginning of the semester I’ve been writing in it and by this time I have over 40 entries, each of which shows a certain aspect of myself.  A first characteristic that we can evaluate its change during the course of these past months is the structure of my writing.  At the beginning of the semester my entrees were perfectly aligned paragraphs.  My writing was very structured and as time went passing by, my writing got freer, being a little more unorganized and the general appearance of my entrees was more careless.  Another change that I observed when analyzing my journal entrees was that I progressively crossed out lesser words.  By the end of my journal I can say that there was no crossing out at all.  Amongst other changes there is the growth of my handwriting which to me reflects too the letting go of my consciousness.

First thoughts activity is characterized by certain rules and/or limits.  Evaluating my journal in the context of those guidelines I can state that it was hard following them at the beginning, but it got better with time.  Trying not to stop my hand was the most difficult of all; after 5 or 7 minutes I became to conscious of it and the temptation to stop invaded me.  Crossing out and not worrying about spelling and grammar were rules that I wasn’t able to follow them during my first tries of journal entries, but I can really say that from the very half of my journal I just let go and stuck to those rules.  In general I can say that not being logical of what I was writing and going for the jugular did went really easy and most of the time it helped me discover things of myself I didn’t know.

Another exercise that we had to do was a life compass, every once in a while, where we examined ourselves in a mental, spiritual, emotional and physical way.  Throughout my whole journal I only did three compasses, in part I think it was because I didn’t want to face the lack of overall wellbeing I’ve been having during the semester.  The pattern showed through all of my compasses was that I started the semester with lots of energy and connection to my spirituality and emotions, but as the semester developed, the stress and overwhelmingness took control of myself and my balance was lost.  Because of the “chaos” that college work and other requirements bring to my life, my scores on the compasses got lower and lower each and every time (no wonder why I started avoiding it haha).

As I already stated, the writing of this journal helped me discover things about myself that I didn’t know.  The writing process made me realize how fortunate I am for having such a supportive and loving family.  Whenever I went for the jugular I was able to appreciate that not everyone is as fortunate as we may be and that we have to let those around us know how grateful we are of them.  Writing this journal also helped me see how much of a stressful person I can be.   During my journey writing this journal I figured out that I am constantly overthinking my performance in college assignments and tests and always expecting the worse results.  Whenever I noticed that I was overwhelming myself with stress through my writings, I tried to have a mini getaway to relieve my anxiety and do better in life.

Here I include pictures of my journal, whose decorations represent my inner and external journeys until right before beginning my writing process with it.  

My Day As A Tourist

"Yesterday I arrived at San Juan, Puerto Rico (shown in the picture above) for the first time.  I have always been invited by a couple of friends but I never dared to come and I don’t even know the reasons why.  Maybe I was scared of going to a place that I had no idea where it was or that it even existed. Sitting at the hotel lobby, waiting for my car to drive back to the airport, made me want to take out my journal and begin to write about my experiences here.  

I have to start by saying how hard it is to drive here in Puerto Rico.  There weren’t specific traffic signs that marked the different routes and exits.  We got lost like four times trying to get to the Convention District that has like three different entrances and none of them is properly identified.  But I don’t want to ruin my vacation with that little mishap, so we laughed all the way until we got to our destiny.  People here at hotel have been so friendly and sympathetic.  They were so happy that we were visiting the island for the first time and they have been very interested in making our stay as pleasurable as it could be.  

During the afternoon we went to the Old San Juan, specifically to the pier area.  It had an amazing view and it was so well acclimated as you can see in the picture below.

I was fascinated with the whole spirit of joy and celebration that I experimented there.  They were holding an activity where people got the opportunity to taste different foods and beverages.  They had music, children activities, etc.  To me it was a place so full of life and unity.  It made me see how little Puerto Ricans need to have fun and enjoy as a whole community.  After that we went to have dinner to a place called Downtown.  What an amazing place! The treatment there was taken very good care of.  The family that was seating right beside us they started a conversation with us about the music that they were playing there as if they knew us from a whole lifetime.  I found very lovely how everybody went crazy about singing happy birthday to a little guy that celebrating his birthday.  I don’t think I am as enthusiast as they were, not even for my own birthday.  I also noticed that every single table had at least one beer on it.  Everybody likes to drink pretty much in this island.  Maybe that is what keeps them so happy all the time.  But I have to make a pause because the valet just brought my car and I have a plane to catch. Nice visiting Puerto Rico!" 

Reflection:

As part of my English class I was assigned to make a journal entry as a tourist for a day.  Trying to portrait the common things as a tourist would see them was a little hard for me.  At the end of the day i found out things that I don't usually notice about our own island and culture.  First of all I became really aware of the bad traffic signs system we have.  Maybe the whole population assumes that people who transit the streets of a specific area they know it all and that we don't mind getting to know new places.  The street and exit identification is really poor and it makes it really hard, not only for tourists, but for anyone who is from another area of the island to familiarize with any route.  Another thing I realized after this exercise was that puerto ricans are really happy persons.  Everywhere I went during that day I was treated with the greatest of friendliness.  Not only where the employees of the different places nice, but also random people who were just seated by my side or walking past me.  Most of the time us puerto ricans go through life creating such a bad image of ourselves based solely on our imagination.  Sometimes it takes a little time for fellowship with those around us and notice that there are still good and nice people that put the name of our island very high.  Putting myself in the body of a tourist made me feel really comfortable with the atmosphere of joy I was feeling.  I am actually really proud of the fact that there are still family Sundays and that good values are cultured.  The main  teaching that I want to spread through this experience is that there are puerto ricans who still make the effort to make others feel good and like home even when we may be far from it.  

Are you a tourist or a traveler?

       As part of my English Literature class we were assigned to watch the movie A Room with a View.  Even though anyone would think that sitting and watching the movie without further analysis would be more than enough, that was not the purpose.  The main idea was to watch the movie in the resemblance of the difference between a traveler and a tourist.

      A Room with a View is a film based on E. M. Forster's (here's a cool link with really nice E. M. Forster's quotes) novel of the same name.  The movie takes place during the early 1900's.  It shows the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman from England, whom visits Florence for the first time.  She meets there a young man named George Emerson; a quiet unconventional guy for whom she begins to feel a growing attraction.  When Lucy returns to England she has to make a choice between continuing with her marriage plans with her fiancé or following her heart and her developing feelings for George. 

      If we go around asking people to identify a possible difference between a traveler and a tourist, a great majority of the people would not be able to do it. To me there is a clear distinction between the two and part of it would be easy to describe focusing on the first part of the movie I was assigned to watch.  

       In my opinion a tourist is someone who visits a place largely driven by the promotion and publicity that a certain place gets throughout the world.  These people visit a limited number of places and/or places that are readily prepared to receive tourists.  Thus, this shows how tourists become related to a certain atmosphere that is created for them to feel comfortable and like home.  I believe that a key aspect that makes a tourist is the fact that they go through a certain place without really taking the time of analyzing the culture, the problems, the costumes, the reality of the people that live there.  Tourists only relate to a certain group of people that are trained to build an environment thats pleasurable for those visitors.  To me Lucy represents the tourist character.  At the beginning of the movie Lucy Honeychurch clearly states that she was a tourist in Italy so that confirms the evaluation we may do to her character.  She doesn't merge within the culture.  During the beginning of the movie it is clearly observable that she's an outsider in Italy.  As a tourist she travels with her culture and costumes and that is seen through the character of her chaperone, whom is constantly repressing Lucy's freedom.  On the other hand, a traveler distinguishes himself because he travels for the pleasure of knowledge and understanding.  The destination that he or she chooses is based not on the publicity but rather it is based on the less talked about places and features of it.  A traveler merges in between the people of the places he travels and becomes one of them.  To me a traveler is someone who goes all around different places developing his/her own culture as a mixture of everything that he has gathered along his journey.  In the movie I would consider George the traveler.  He is the one in the movie who shows a great amount of concern for what happens around him to the people of Italy.  He is the one who evaluates different points of view, enriching himself with all the experiences he lives. What is left to think of is if we go around the world in the role of tourists or travelers?

Watching The Rum Diary

During the weekend I watched the movie The Rum Diary based on the Hunter Thompson's novel bearing the same name.  The movie stars Johnny Depp as an american journalist, named Paul Kemp, whom takes an independent job in Puerto Rico for a newspaper.  The movie takes place during the 1960s and it shows the endeavor that locals went through to preserve island culture against the american migrants that were living in there. 

Watching the movie in the context of the literature class I am taking, made me reflect about how Puerto Rico was portrayed in the movie.  The cover picture for the movie (shown in the image above), as the first thing we know and see about the movie, represents the whole idea that the movie tries to project of Puerto Rico.  It is observable that the image depicts an atmosphere of chaos, alcoholism and insecureness. 

The first phenomenon that caught my attention was how Puerto Rico was pictured as a place to get drunk.  The alcoholism issue is presented throughout the whole movie, trying to characterize the island as a place where it was hard to stay out of trouble and temptations that could interfere with the goals or dreams someone was trying to pursue were always present. 

There was a certain quote that relates to the reflexive line of thought with which I saw the movie.  Lotterman says, referring to Puerto Rico: “It is a reluctant part of America. Like England with tropical fruit”.  This statement could serve as an introduction of how far the immigrants in the island thought of Puerto Rico.  To them the island was a distant rare belonging of the United States, that could stand out only for their own benefit and which served for the glory of others.  This idea was reinforced when the movie presents the interests of the real estate men in developing tourism infrastructure.  These men refer to the beautiful beaches and scenery as a "sea of gold".  The overall profit that their development plans could deliver was literally translated into gold.  Their perspective on the island was based on how much money they could win or lose and how could every little squared inch of the territory could become pure richness.

The movie also presents the island as an unsafe place to be.  Tourists came to visit and they didn't leave their hotels.  For as much risky as leaving the hotel could turn out to be, to me this gives the idea of a place where a constant war was held. It presents a violent place, and even if violence was held, the way tourists in the movie thought of it was over reactive.

Watching this movie, at this point of my life, was an enriching experience.  I think it has given me new perspectives in the topic of othering and how it comes up in a daily basis.  Even though this movie represents a different historic period than that in which we live, it influences the way we are thought, by external people, in the actual time. This is the main reason why we should keep on instructing ourselves and others so that Puerto Rico, and any other place, could be portrayed as the important piece of the world each of them is.