General Miriam Discussion

We discussed the following questions in class. The responses were not recorded. The purpose of the discussion was to simply make us take a closer look at the text.

• Why is Mrs. Miller both attracted to and repelled by Miriam?
• Why does Mrs. Miller feel "oddly excited" when she first meets Miriam?
• Why does Miriam's large vocabulary mae Mrs. Miller flush and shift uncomfortably?
• Why does Mrs. Miller stay pu later than usual on the night Miriam first shows up at her house?
• Why doesn't Mrs. Miller know what to say when Miriam asks, "Aren't you glad to see me?

We also looked more closely at text passages

• Page 3: where Miriam displays her large vocabluary & Mrs. Miller reacts
• Page 4: the time before Miriam's arrival - Mrs. Miller seems to lose track of time
• Page 11: Miriam's mention of the old man she used to live with
• Page 9: Mrs. Miller's dream - a Miriam-like figure leading a bunch of old people

Finally, a new theory was presented - that Miriam is real and is preying on old people, perhaps even making them feel like they are going senile or insane.