What is Uncle Tom's Cabin? How did it help change perspectives?

Uncle Tom's Cabin was a novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. Stowe, an abolitionist who actively and fervently opposed slavery, was outraged by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This act imposed heavy penalties on Northerners who harbored slaves or helped them escape. The act imposed requirements on states that they actively pursue and return runaway slaves. Stowe, who like many others, thought slavery would gradually wither and die, was outraged by this law, which helped the cause of slavery and which she considered a step backward in emancipation efforts.
Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in response, wanting to show people what an evil institution slavery was. She had lived in Cincinnati, which was right over the border across the Ohio River from Kentucky, a slave state, and was familiar with slavery.
Her stroke of genius was to write a novel of sentiment that played on people's human feelings and to show that even "good" slavery was evil. Part of what the novel does is illustrate that slavery is a cruel institution even in the best of situations. The Shelbys, who own Uncle Tom when the novel opens, are good masters who treat their slaves well, especially the kind and religious Mrs. Shelby. She is the best of owners. Nevertheless, even good owners have the right to do terrible things to their slaves. When Mr. Shelby gets into financial trouble, he sells Uncle Tom, separating his faithful slave from his beloved wife and children. He also has to sell Eliza's four-year-old son, which means ripping the little boy from his mother's arms to who-knows-what cruel faith. In response, Eliza makes a daring and dramatic escape with the little boy. Stowe then shows gradually worsening situations for Tom as his ownership changes hands. Finally, he ends up in the grip of a sadistic monster of an owner, Simon Legree.
Stowe's gripping novel had a huge impact on the slavery issue in the United States. It raised a huge outcry, for many people read it and demanded an immediate end to slavery. It helped abolitionism move from a fringe movement to a central political cause. It is the most striking example in US history of a work of literature having a direct impact on politics. It is often said to have hastened the start of the Civil War by sharply increasing political polarization in the country.
In Europe, as in the US, it was one of the best-selling novels of the nineteenth-century and is said to have spurred the czar to free the Russian serfs. (Initially, however, Uncle Tom's Cabin was banned in Russia.) For more information on Stowe's novel and its impact, you might look at the book by David S. Reynolds called Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America. That book also looks at the influence of the novel in Europe.
Stowe's novel is a prime example of the ability of literature, through moving people's hearts, to influence politics and help bring about change.

What were the bath houses in ancient Rome?

Bath houses in Ancient Rome were common spaces where Romans could go to bathe and relax. They were open to all Roman citizens, but had a class structure rooted within them. Rome's higher elite class would have exclusive areas in which to bathe compared to regular citizens. The baths were additionally separated into men's and women's sections.
They were social spaces in which business deals would have occurred and other political affairs. Many have compared their use to golf courses, as they have multifaceted uses (relaxation, business, etc.).
The bath houses varied in size, but the largest served up to 3,000 bathers at a time. Rome's use of bath houses was adopted from the Greeks; who had built bathing facilities across the scope of their empire, some even being built in Alexandria, Egypt. Rome followed this custom and built bath houses throughout their own empire. This is why one can visit Bath, England; which is famous for the Roman baths that were built there during Roman rule.

Communal bathing in ancient Rome was a social, hygienic, and therapeutic ritual that was common among most strata of Roman society. The Romans inherited their penchant for communal bathing from the Greeks, who first prioritized this aspect of civic life. Bath houses, or facilities at which such group bathing occurred, could generally be divided into two types: balneae and thermae.
Balneae were small, utilitarian facilities existing in great quantity throughout the empire. The thermae, by contrast, were large, elaborate, state-maintained bath houses established in most Roman communities. These complexes included separate bathing areas for men and women, as well as changing rooms and gymnasiums. The largest recorded thermae, the Baths of Diocletian, could reportedly accommodate nearly 3,000 bathers. Other notable thermae included the Baths of Trajan and the Baths of Caracalla.
https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Baths/

How did Christianity change the lives of people in the Middle Ages?

The Roman Empire officially declared Christianity to be the religion of the empire in 380 CE. The fifth century brought about the beginning of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Christianity's spread throughout Europe. As Christianity forced its way across Europe, tribes were forced, under threat of genocide, to submit to the will of Christian empire. Europe, as a group of nation-states with solidified borders, is absolutely a result of Christianization. This process resulted in the dissolution of pagan tribes and religions and the solidification of nation-states and large centralized hierarchies. As the power of the Catholic Church spread throughout what became known as Europe, Christianization became an immensely influential force in culture, art, societies, science, music, and literature. The persecution of traditional medicine women throughout Europe, which resulted in the murder of upwards of millions of women, directly resulted from the institutionalized power of the church as it spread and gained power throughout the Middle Ages. By 1230 AD, the Roman Catholic Church institutionalized formal inquisitions against "heresy" that resulted in the imprisonment, torture, and/or execution of hundreds of thousands of people.

Does Junior become a better person at the end of the novel?

Junior is a better person by the end of the novel, in my view. He is able to reconcile with his old friend Rowdy, and he tries to build up Rowdy's confidence. When Rowdy says he'll never be able to afford air conditioning, Junior reminds him that he (Rowdy) will likely be a professional basketball player and that he's the fastest, strongest, and best-looking kid on the reservation. Junior is able to be sympathetic to Rowdy because he knows that Rowdy's remarks often come from a place of insecurity.
Junior is also able to face his own insecurities and fears. When Rowdy challenges him to climb the biggest tree on the reservation together, Junior has to accept. Though he is afraid, Junior manages to get to the top of the tree, where he and Rowdy admire their view of the world. Junior pushes himself to climb the tree because he is more confident and because he wants to honor his friendship with Rowdy.
In the end, Junior also tries to forgive himself for leaving the reservation and for his desire to find something different. Rowdy refers to Junior's ways as "nomadic," and this term helps Junior accept himself and hope that others on the reservation will forgive him. By the end of the novel, Junior is in many ways a better, more mature, and more self-accepting person, though you may have a different take on the matter.

In the period following the Civil War, what was the impact on cultural traditions and customs of American Indians, Latinos, and Chinese immigrants in the West?

Following the Civil War, the continued frontier expansion of white settlers forced the Chinese, Hispanic and Native American groups into tightly knit communities. All of these groups banded together as communities—either willingly or by force—to preserve their language, traditions, and culture.
Chinese immigrants moved to urban centers across the United States after they finished the transcontinental railroad and became disillusioned by the California gold rush. Hispanic communities were given menial jobs in New Mexico and forced from their longtime homes in California. A growing number of neighborhoods, or barrios, in Los Angeles housed the increasing Hispanic population. Native Americans were relocated into smaller and smaller reservations, where they could maintain some semblance of their tribal hierarchy.
While some traditions survived the dominating white presence, cultural assimilation still changed the culture of many Chinese, Hispanic and Native Americans.

Lowman Inc. sells a product with a sales price of $25 per unit, variable costs of $10 per unit, and total fixed costs of $100,000. Lowman is looking into implementing an aggressive advertising campaign that will cost $45,000. By what amount do sales dollars need to at least increase by in order for the company's overall profits to not decrease by having the advertising campaign?

The profit equation for the company whose costs are outlined here abides by a common formula:
(selling price - variable cost per unit) * (quantity of goods sold) - fixed costs = operating income. The break-even unit quantity can be determined by setting the equation equal to 0.
Here, selling price is $25, the variable cost is $10, and the fixed costs are $100,000.
So we have the following equation, where "x" represents the quantity of goods sold:
($25-$10)*x - $100,000 = 0
= $15x - $100,000 = 0
$15x = $100,000
x = 6666.66 (or about 6667 units)

We can use the same equation again with the added advertising cost (lumping it together with the other fixed costs). This will give us a new value of "x," which we can then multiply by the dollar amount per unit to get the overall difference in sales cost.
($25-$10)*x - $145,000 = 0
= $15x-$145,000 =0
$15x = $145,000
x = 9666.66 (or about 9667 units)

So, 9667 units (the new break-even point) -6666 units (the old break-even point) = 3000 additional units that need to be sold to support the advertising campaign. Because this question asks about sales dollars, we can multiply the $25 cost per unit by 3000 units to achieve:

$25 * 3000 = $75,000 sales dollars

How is the play "The Still Alarm" by George S. Kaufman related to today's society? How are literary devices and characterization used in the play?

At least five literary devices are used in the play “The Still Alarm,” four of which are considered literary elements and one of which is considered a literary technique. The four elements include setting, which is the time and place in which the story takes place; dialogue, how the characters speak with one another; and mood, the general atmosphere of the play. The last element is character, to which your question also refers. The literary technique used by playwright Kaufman is irony, meaning he uses words or actions in such a way in which the intended meaning is completely opposite to their literal meaning.
The playwright chooses a room in a burning hotel as the setting, yet the way the characters dialogue with one another and the polite language they use establishes a mood that is quite unlike the mood one would expect from characters in a crisis. Let us break down each literary element and see how irony is used within these elements.
Setting: The title of the play “The Still Alarm” sums up the setting. The characters are calm (still), polite, and, ironically, not at all anxious about the fire burning up the floors beneath them. Although they discuss the fire, look out the window to see it, and even feel the heat of the fire, their nonchalant, mundane dialogue continues. They remain “still” during an alarm. Kaufman uses the setting to create the play’s irony. Note that a “still alarm” is defined as a fire alarm transmitted in a way other than sounding the alarm bell. In this case, a bellman comes to the room to calmly report that the building is on fire.
Dialogue: Notice how the characters speak to one another. They are not hurried in their speech; they discuss how bad the fire looks and how close it is to them, but they do not excite panic or a create a fearful atmosphere. Again, this is ironic. At one point the character Ed telephones for ice water because he is feeling warm. There is an expectation that the hotel concierge will be available to answer the phone and meet his request—despite the fact that the ground floor he or she is on has already burned. It is ironic that Ed would even ask for ice water while the building is burning down around him.
Mood: Similar to the devices of setting and dialogue, Kaufman has the characters engaged in civil conversation throughout the play. The characters create a gracious, genteel mood by the way in which they discuss the fire and its progress. Irony is again used, as this mood is completely opposite of the mood one would expect among people in a burning building.
Characterization: Kaufman expertly uses characterization to complement the setting, dialogue, and mood of the play. The five characters all act the same way. Each character’s personage is displayed by how he is dressed, how he moves, his physical appearance, and his choice of words. Again, none is hurried, anxious, or excited. Through these mannerisms, the audience can infer that they are calm amid a storm, so to speak. Again, is that not ironic?
In the play’s final scene, irony is used expertly. One of the firefighters picks up a violin and plays a song, bringing to some an image of the band on the Titanic playing songs calmly and persistently as the ship sunk. The song played by the firefighter is called “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”
How is this play related to today’s society? Answer this based on how you see society. Maybe you see people reacting too quickly to a relatively uneventful situation. Maybe not quickly enough? Contemplate what statement this play may be making about contemporary society to find the answer to your question.

While waking back to his seat in the park what did Gortsby see?

Gortsby has been having a brief conversation with a young man on a park bench. The young man has taken the place of an elderly gent, whom Gortsby imagines has gone home to what he presumes to be bleak lodgings or a home where he's ignored and insignificant.
The young man spins Gortsby a tale about being stranded in London without any place to stay. As part of his elaborate story, he tells Gortsby that he has no money left on account of spending his last shilling on buying a drink and some soap. But as the young man appears not to have the soap on him, Gortsby thinks he's being taken for a ride by a con-artist who just wants to get some money out of him. But after the young man gets up and walks away, Gortsby discovers a bar of soap on the ground next to the park bench. It seems that the young man was telling the truth, after all.
So Gortsby anxiously sets off to find the young man. After finally catching up with him, he hands over the bar of soap and gives the young man some money. As one can imagine, the young man is highly delighted with his sudden unexpected windfall. When Gortsby returns to the park bench, he sees the elderly gent he'd sat next to earlier. He appears to be looking for something. When Gortsby asks him if he's lost anything, the old man replies

Yes, sir, a cake of soap.

Is Hamlet's greatest flaw melancholy or inaction?

If the audience is trying to figure out Hamlet's tragic flaw from his "To be, or not to be" speech, they need to look no further than lines 85–88. Note the following words:
Thus the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, / And enterprises of great pitch and moment, / With this regard their currents turn awry, / And lose the name of action.
Proof for either tragic flaw (melancholy or inaction) can be found within these lines. The proof for the tragic flaw of melancholy can be found in the quotation about "the native hue of resolution" that is being "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." In other words, it doesn't matter whether the scholar believes Hamlet is contemplating suicide or avenging his father, because Hamlet is not able to do so due to his melancholy thoughts. If the reader is looking for proof of the flaw of inaction (or Hamlet's inability to act), one needs only point to the words "With this regard their currents turn awry, / And lose the name of action." Again, it doesn't matter in the slightest whether the reader thinks Hamlet is contemplating ending his own life or killing Claudius in order to avenge Hamlet's own dad; Hamlet can't commit murder no matter what. He is unable to act, period. The reasoning matters not. The question of "why" is not important. The flaw is not in the asking of "why," but in the fact that Hamlet is not able to act.

Was Columbus's arrival positive or negative to the "New World"?

The impact Columbus had on the "New World" depends on the perspective you are using. From the perspective of later European migrants who would settle there, it is arguable that Columbus's impact was positive because he provided confirmation about the location and wealth of the Americas.
From the perspective of Native peoples (and specifically the Arawaks), his impact was undoubtedly negative. Columbus arrived in the New World looking for wealth to bring back to Spain in order to justify his voyage and, as he hoped, a larger second voyage. In order to obtain this wealth, Columbus demanded that the Arawaks deliver large amounts of resources. This forced the Arawaks to labor for long hours and for days on end and prevented them from sustaining the agricultural and hunting lifestyle they had led before. Columbus and his men used the Arawaks as slaves, working many to death, beating some to death, and killing many more through the introduction of new diseases for which the Arawaks had not developed resistances. Some of the tortures that Columbus used when he was not provided his demanded quantity of resources foreshadowed the techniques used by Leopold's men in the Congo several centuries later.
For the people that resided in the Americas prior to Columbus's landing, his impact was devastating. For those that would come after, Columbus's impact was arguably positive because it eased later conquest.

Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I am confused about character analysis homework. I need to describe a dynamic and static character. I was thinking I could use her mother as a static character, would that be right? If I used her brother, how does his interactions enhance and deepen the understanding of this book? He's in her life all the time, so I find it hard to pin point

The difference between static and dynamic is largely the extent of change and growth. Dynamic characters develop in the course of the time period covered in the work. A static character is also usually flat, without nuance, more like a stereotype than an actual person.
The most dynamic characters are Maya/Ritie and Bailey, as they grow and change considerably. In part this is because Angelou is tracing their paths from child to adult but it also relates to the insights they gain about themselves, their families, and the way the world works.
Mama is dynamic in terms of personality but static in terms of growth. As Maya largely views her through a child's eyes, she seems complete and unchanging; those are qualities a child needs to believe in.
Vivian seems static for much of the book, but is shown as dynamic when she changes her attitude toward motherhood and responsibility.
The other men tend to be static. Her father does not change his ways. Uncle Willie similarly does not develop.

How does Janie define love? To develop your argument, consider the following questions: Where do her expectations for love come from? Do you think she is naïve in her expectations? Consider Janie’s three marriages. Do they represent her definition of love? Does she learn anything from the successes and failures in her relationships?

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is on a quest for the romantic ideal—an idealized version of love that she believes will make her feel satisfied and whole. Janie wants to be swept off her feet, to feel consumed and satisfied. Her desire for marriage is motivated not by the security and respect it can afford her, but by the idealized love she believes it will bring her. In her first two marriages, however, she learns that marriage does not bring love as she had hoped. When it doesn’t, she feels trapped, oppressed, and unable to bloom into the woman she hoped to become.
Janie’s ideal version of love is born out of innocence and based on equality. She longs for openness and understanding with her lover, but primarily, she longs for the idea of love itself. Thus, the quest for romantic love appears to consume her. To Janie, love is a goal, a state of being that will come to define her as a woman and make her feel whole. And Janie pursues her goal throughout the story. Hurston appears to be saying that African American women deserve to be loved. They deserve to be free, and they deserve to pursue their dreams. Given their historical status as enslaved people, love and freedom have been hard to achieve for African American women as a group.

What was the main religious difference between the Separatists and ordinary Puritans?

The main difference between the two is that the ordinary Puritans wanted to reform the Church of England from within. Despite their numerous misgivings, they were prepared to remain members of the Church but would endeavor to purify its practices to keep them more in line with their rigid Calvinist standards.
As for the Separatists, they believed that the Church was simply incapable of reform. They didn't regard the Church of England as a true church, at least not as they understood it. In common with the more mainstream Puritans, they argued that the Church had departed from the ideals of the Reformation. However, unlike them, the Separatists felt that the Church had strayed so far from the path of righteousness that it was now completely beyond the pale. As such, they deemed it necessary to break away from the Church of England entirely and establish a completely new church based upon a strict adherence to Scripture.
https://www.plimoth.org/what-see-do/17th-century-english-village/faith-pilgrims

How is masculinity and manhood represented by each character by three levels of masculinity (class, universal, race)?

The three male characters of the play are, of course, Dr. Rank, Krogstad, and Torvald, whom I'll try to deal with individually and in comparison to one another. First, however, I would disagree somewhat that masculinity can necessarily be broken down into the three elements you've specified without a huge amount of overlap, to say the least. With regard to the class factor, all the characters in Ibsen's play would probably be characterized as upper middle-class. The requirements of this class seem chiefly to be the proverbial "good provider." Torvald fulfills this function. Dr. Rank does not even seem to have a family, and Krogstad is a failure for the most part in this regard. But Torvald is at the same time basically a hypocrite and a fool. The race-based feature of masculinity, in my view, is the least significant in Ibsen, unless we are to assign some special trait Northern European men are expected to have. Would this, perhaps, be that they are more expected to keep their outward emotions in check than other men? If so, I would regard this as a stereotype not borne out in the play at all, except in Dr. Rank. His stoicism in the face of both illness and his hopeless love for Nora are evident. The other two men, Krogstad and Torvald are, by comparison, whiners, to put it colloquially. Krogstad is a self-pitying and deceptive man who comes off the weakest by any standard of masculinity. Through the first part of the story Torvald appears a decent man (apart from his demeaning way of addressing Nora as his "little bird," and so on) but his weaknesses and irrational domineering increase in equal proportion as the action advances, probably because the two qualities are interrelated. His vicious outburst at Nora when he is made aware of the blackmail plot shows him a coward. This has to be the worst violation of the universal "male code" (if such a thing exists) that's exhibited by any of the men. Torvald is terrified at losing his own status and wealth, and his reaction is to blame Nora for everything, though the loan taken out fraudulently by her was actually done for his benefit.
What seems to contradict both this failure of Torvald by any normal standards, and the stereotypical ideal of masculine dominance, is Torvald's plea, when Nora finally makes ready to leave him, that she stay and the two of them live together platonically. She, of course, doesn't believe him and remarks that "we both know how long that would last." But it is an interesting point that Torvald now seems to express what is the genuinely masculine (as well as feminine) need for simple companionship. This is the most universal quality that all the men in the play, regardless of their faults, end up expressing, though, as stated, there is nothing about it that relates specifically to "masculinity" on any level.

In this chapter, Carson critiques two well-known federal "eradication" campaigns involving aerial application of pesticides. What were the targets of these two campaigns? What does Carson see as the general lesson to be learned from them (p. 156)?

The answer to this question can be found in chapter 10 of Silent Spring. Here Carson discusses two eradication campaigns, both of which used aerially applied pesticides. The first was an attempt to destroy the gypsy moth, which was widespread in northern states, and the second was a campaign against fire ants in the South. These insects, neither of which is native to the United States, were the subjects of initiatives undertaken by the federal government in the 1950s. In both cases, Carson sees a similar pattern. First, the threat posed by each species was exaggerated and overblown. This was largely because of information spread by pesticide manufacturers. Second, the campaigns to eradicate them were not targeted—essentially areas where they lived were sprayed by air with a mixture of dangerous pesticides and oil. Third, the efforts, quite predictably, had a devastating effect on local environments. These included mass killings of desirable species of insects, contamination of drinking water and agricultural products like milk and eggs, and the deaths of birds in particular. In both cases, Carson claims, the US Department of Agriculture downplayed these devastating side effects with as much vigor as it overstated the initial risk. She advocates instead a more targeted approach. For example, rather than spraying vast areas with chemicals to kill fire ants, individual mounds could be treated with pesticides.

What is an event in the book Hatchet that aids in Brian's survival?

Hatchet is a novel by Gary Paulsen. The story is about a thirteen-year-old boy named Brian Robeson. He is the sole survivor in a plane crash, and he has to survive in the wilderness all by himself until he is rescued.
Two events in the story can be said to have greatly aided his survival. The first event is that of Brian’s mother giving him a hatchet shortly before the plane departed. The hatchet is crucial in Brian’s survival in the wilderness, as he is able to make fire by striking it against a stone. Additionally, he uses the hatchet for hunting and for cutting his way into the plane, where he finds a survival pack. The second event that aids Brian’s survival in the story is that of finding a survival pack in the plane. When the tail of the plane is drawn toward the shore by a tornado, Brian is able to cut into it using his hatchet, thus retrieving a survival pack that contains an emergency transmitter, additional food, and a .22 AR-7 rifle. Using the transmitter, he unwittingly makes a distress call, which leads to his rescue. Therefore, these two events greatly aid Brian’s survival and rescue.

Why did the cousin return the horse to John Byro?

The cousin returned the horse to John Byro because he felt it necessary to do so. His conviction, however, rested on his desire to protect the Garoghlanian family's good name.
Initially, Mourad (Aram's cousin) did not want to return the horse. Both boys enjoyed riding the majestic, beautiful horse. After John Byro visited Aram's home and inquired about his white horse, however, Aram begged Mourad to return the animal. However, Aram made Mourad promise not to return the horse until after he had learned how to ride.
The boys rode the horse for two more weeks. Eventually, they ran into John Byro on their way to stable the horse at a deserted vineyard. The farmer engaged the boys in conversation. During the interaction, John Byro refrained from accusing the boys of theft. Instead, he merely commented that the horse in their possession looked like his stolen horse. John Byro's last comment probably pricked the boys' conscience:

I would swear it is my horse if I didn't know your parents. The fame of your family for honesty is well known to me. Yet the horse is the twin of my horse. A suspicious man would believe his eyes instead of his heart. Good day, my young friends.

Not long after the conversation, Mourad returned the horse to John Byro's stable. Mourad (the cousin) returned the horse to John Byro because of his pricked conscience.

Describe and analyze how the CRS Report for Security views border and transportation security.

In short, it views it as surprisingly unstable. The CRS Report for Security, in particular border and transportation security, lists all the methods being used to prevent unauthorized travel and migration, and it details the ongoing issue. There is a severe need for additional resources, according to the report.
One of the items mentioned in this report is the need to prevent repeat offenders and to better evaluate and inspect the individuals coming into the country. This is certainly a hotbed issue politically, but the report reveals that there is a large influx of immigrants, and some of them do engage in illicit activity upon entering the United States. Security measures are being tightened when it comes to port authority and cargo transportation, but there is no human element, so it isn’t questioned. However, due to the threat of terror, drugs, and human trafficking, even ports have tightened security when receiving cargo.
The report paints a comprehensive picture of the efforts being taken to prevent illegal activity, but it also underlines the fact that, as of right now, these measures have deficiencies. The idea is unavoidable that some action needs to be taken, according to the Congressional report, to improve security and prevent criminal activity.

How do we know that Uncle Tom is loved and respected by all the other slaves?

We know that Uncle Tom is looked up to and respected by all the other slaves on Mr. Shelby's estate, first, because the narrator tells us this is the case. When, as readers, we are invited into Uncle Tom's cabin to witness his happy domestic home life, he holds a religious meeting there. Other slaves attend, as does Mr. Shelby's son, George. We are told that:

"Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the morale was strongly predominant, together with a greater breadth and cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked up to with great respect, as a sort of minister among them; and the simple, hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified even better educated persons."

Later, when Tom is going off with the slave-trader to be sold, we learn that,

"A crowd of all the old and young hands on the place stood gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old associate. Tom had been looked up to, both as a head servant and a Christian teacher, by all the place, and there was much honest sympathy and grief about him, particularly among the women."

But actions speak louder than words. What we see of Uncle Tom throughout the novel confirms that he is a person worthy of respect. Beyond his simple, sincere speech, he shows a willingness to sacrifice himself for the other slaves. For example, although he could try to escape, as Eliza does, he chooses not to because he knows this means other slaves--perhaps all the slaves--would have to be sold in his stead to settle Mr. Shelby's debts. He does not want others to suffer.
He is a person of gravitas and moral courage throughout the book, who submits to his body being sold but who dies rather than compromise his soul.

How does the book Common Sense affect the character Isabel in the book "Chains" by Laurie Anderson?

Common Sense is a very famous work of political theory by the American revolutionary Tom Paine. Soon after it was published, it became a hugely influential book among supporters of the Revolution and inspired many with its combination of stirring rhetoric and meticulously constructed argument in support of American independence. In Chains, the slave girl Isabel is given a copy of Common Sense by a book-seller. He tells her that the words it contains are dangerous and that she should commit them to memory.
Once Isabel has finished reading the book, she realizes just what the book-seller meant. The work is a call to arms for the American people to liberate themselves from the tyranny of King George III. One passage in particular fires her imagination. It's where Paine, railing against the principle of hereditary monarchy, states that no one has the right to set their family over all others simply by virtue of their birth. Isabel applies this sentiment to her own situation; she takes Paine's radical, emancipatory message to heart. She now has validation from the wise words of a great thinker that everyone is equal. In Paine's words, she sees the promise of equality for all, including a young African American slave such as herself.

What are the motivating forces for Pip and Joe in chapters 14 and 15?

In Chapter 14 of Great Expectations Pip is pretty much marking time. He has just started his apprenticeship at Joe's forge and isn't too happy about it. Spending all of that time at Satis House in the company of Miss Havisham and Estella gave him a tantalizing glimpse into a world far away from the humble life of a blacksmith's assistant. It's fair to say that Pip's experiences at Satis House formed an indelible impression on him, briefly holding out the prospect of a better, more socially elevated existence. Though disappointed by his lowly station in life, Pip doesn't reveal his true feelings to Joe as he wouldn't want to upset his kindly old friend. For his part, Joe is pleased to have young Pip around, and is more than happy to teach him everything he knows about being a blacksmith.
In Chapter 15, Pip tries to persuade Joe that he needs to pay Miss Havisham a visit. Joe advises him not to go, but as Pip is growing into manhood, he feels that he is entitled to do as he pleases. Life at the forge is becoming increasingly unpleasant, not least because of the cruel behavior of the hateful Dorge Orlick, Joe's forge worker. So it's not surprising that Pip wants to return to Satis House, the scene of a much happier, more carefree time.
But Joe wants Pip to move on with his life; he doesn't see that there is much to be gained by Pip's taking a trip down memory lane. He's keen for Pip to learn a trade and to make his way in the world as a blacksmith. Joe only wants what is best for Pip, but as a simple common working man, he lacks the imagination to understand Pip's motives in wanting to see Miss Havisham once more.

How did the professor respond to Susan and Peter after their account of Lucy's story?

The professor in "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" is a character that is based on partially on author C.S. Lewis himself. Therefore, it is easy to imagine Lewis himself responding to Susan and Peter when they confront him about their sister Lucy's story about her trip to a mysterious "other world" early in the narrative.
The professor calmly and quietly asks Susan and Peter about the nature of Lucy's character, and if she lies on a regular basis. After Susan and Peter both admit that Lucy is a trustworthy sibling, and acknowledge that Edmund, the brother who states that Lucy's story is a complete fabrication, the professor gives them a measured, supremely logical response.
“Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she istelling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth.” - C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The professor's response, while colored by his own, later-revealed experiences in Narnia, allow Susan and Peter to draw their own conclusions about Lucy's story while hinting to them that they should, perhaps, be a bit more supportive of her.

The Professor in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has one of the most reasonable responses that could be imagined in such a situation. In reality, his calm demeanor is aided by his knowledge of Narnia from his experience there as a young boy. However, discounting this fact (since the children don't know it), he seems to have an incredibly measured, logical response.
After listening carefully and allowing the children to explain the story, he comes back with a set of conclusions: Lucy is either lying or making up a game, which seems unlike her; she is crazy, which by all accounts she is not; or she is telling the truth. In the Professor's estimation, they have to give some credence to her experience simply because there is little other room for explanation.
At the end of the discussion, he balks at the children, who argue against his conclusion. He is perturbed, questioning if they'd ever been taught logic or reasoning in school. This is humorous commentary on the society that, in Lewis's eyes, was venturing further away from reasoning and refused to believe in magical or miraculous events.

How did Grover Cleveland's political views and approaches change or differ from his first term to his non-consecutive second term?

Cleveland won the presidency in 1884 by appealing to his record as a reformer. He characterized the Republicans as corrupt machine politicians who were too closely aligned with big business to be trusted. In general, there was little difference between Cleveland's approach to governing in his first term and his second. Though he vetoed several Republican-backed bills in his first term, he generally favored an approach that could basically be described as laissez-faire.
In his first term, his opposition to high tariffs was both consistent with Democratic orthodoxy and strongly opposed by Republicans and the corporations that supported them. However, he consistently opposed inflationary monetary policy, a stance that set him at odds with the emerging Populist movement.
His second term was marked by the Panic of 1893 and the subsequent economic depression, the worst in American history before the 1930s. His unwillingness to intervene directly in the crisis (except by continuing to embrace the gold standard) was not really a departure from his behavior in his first term, but it did mean that his second-term policies and approach to governing were more generally aligned with conservative business interests.
Therefore, his response to the economic crisis that gripped the country during his second term, more than any ideological or policy change on his part, was the defining characteristic of his two separate presidencies.
https://millercenter.org/president/cleveland/domestic-affairs

What did President John Tyler do?

John Tyler was the tenth president of the United States of America, from 1841 to 1845. He was sworn in to the office unexpectedly after the death of the serving president, President William Henry Harrison.
In 1842, President Tyler authorized the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, which settled a number of border disputes between the United States and British colonies to the north.
In 1844 President Tyler ratified the Treaty of Wanghia, which secured for the United States the rights to trade in Chinese ports. Under the treaty, the United States was also granted the status of a favored nation, meaning that the United States would be given the same benefits as were afforded to the British.
In 1845, President Tyler signed a resolution which permitted the annexation of the Republic of Texas into the United States. This annexation led to a war between the United States and Mexico in 1846.

What do you think of Thucydides' treatment of early Greek history? What sources does he use? Could he have done a better job treating this period?

I'd suggest it would be a mistake to judge Thucydides by modern historical standards (be aware, in the context of the study of history, he's positioned as one of its earliest practitioners, and when it comes to his analytic rigor, he represents a substantial leap forward compared to his predecessor Herodotus). We should make allowances for his status as a classical historian and one of those individuals who shaped history into the field of study we know today.
So, when you look at his use of sources, be aware that he did not have the access to modern methodologies or extensive documentation generated by modern societies; with that in mind, he tended to rely heavily on eyewitness accounts, as well as on his own personal experience (he did serve as an Athenian general during the Peloponessian War). He remains far less credulous in his treatment of fact and supposition than Herodotus appears to have been before him, and he is far more stringent in his approach to historical truth.
That being said, Thucydides is also quite known for his wholesale re-creation of speeches. When he presents Pericles's Funeral Oration, for example, this is not an actual transcription of Pericles's words but rather a dramatic invention on Thucydides's part, intended to recreate the essence of Pericles's meaning. For modern historians, such reinvention would be viewed as dubious, but again, you should make allowances for time and era and recognize the ways in which classical history will not match up to modern standards.
Where I would say Thucydides really excels, however, is in his analysis of politics and ideology. One might well suggest that Thucydides, long before Machiavelli, invented the concept of realpolitik, as he was the first to really assert that political decision-making is ultimately founded solely upon self interest, rather than on moral and ethical concerns. In his histories, Athens comes across as purely amoral in its political decision-making, acting solely for its own pragmatic self interest. To pull toward a more specific example, I've always been of the impression that his analysis of civil strife and factionalism (found in book III) looks remarkably modern in its insights, and one can easily imagine this same general vision being re-applied to the kind of chaos unleashed during the French or the Russian Revolutions:

So revolutions broke out in city after city, and in places wherever the revolutions occurred late the knowledge of what had happened previously in other places caused still new extravagances of revolutionary zeal . . . To fit in with the change of events, words too had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward. . . . Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted and anyone who objected them became a suspect. To plot successfully was a sign of intelligence, but it was still cleverer to see a plot was hatching (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War [Penguin Classics ed.], transl. Rex Warner, New York: Penguin, 1972, p. 242)

The description goes on, but there's a remarkable sense of timelessness in this vision that reaches beyond the classical world toward a scope that is more universal in its insight into human experience. I would suggest that this is where Thucydides as a historian particularly shines.

In the earlier part of the novel we read that Manon admires her father in the way he treated his slaves, which is opposite of how her husband treated his slaves. However, toward the end she calls her father a hypocrite and place a picture of him face down. What changes or thoughts caused Manon to think differently of her father at the end?

In Valerie Martin's novel, Property, the slavery period of the United States is examined, and particularly the dynamics between the slave owners and the slaves. The main character of the novel, Manon, is the daughter of a plantation owner in Louisiana. She admires her father despite the fact that he owned slaves. The beginning part of the novel showed how people of that era were blinded by what they considered social norms.
Figuratively speaking, Manon is still "asleep" during the beginning of the story. When she marries a man who also owned slaves, she is repulsed by it, and yet she still admired her father based on memories of his good qualities. In essence, she disliked her husband for his perversions and sociopathic behavior, and therefore it was easier for her to point out his immoral acts of enslaving other human beings.
On the other hand, she was, at first, able to brush off her father's similar acts of atrocities because of surface-level fondness for him. When a slave rebellion kills her husband and leaves her destitute, she has a psychological and spiritual awakening. This event triggered her consciousness to admit that her father was just as complicit in the crime of slavery as her former-husband.

What are 7 ways in which Melinda is mistreated in Speak?

Melinda is abused and mistreated throughout most of the book. One of the things that I think has to be included in this list is Melinda's rape. It did happen before the book begins, but readers will come to know that Andy Evans raped Melinda at the end of the summer party. He sexually took advantage of a drunk girl before she even started high school. I would say that is severe mistreatment. He attempts to do it again near the end of the book.
Another form of mistreatment comes from other students. Melinda is shunned by people that know about her being the reason for the cops breaking up the party. If they don't shun her for that reason, then they don't hesitate to let her know that they remember she is the reason the party was ended.

"Aren't you the one who called the cops at Kyle Rodger's party at the end of the summer?"

The verbal mistreatment escalates to blatant name calling as well when one girl calls Melissa an "asshole."

"My brother got arrested at that party. He got fired because of the arrest. I can't believe you did that. Asshole."

That same girl then pulls Melinda's hair from behind.

The girl behind me jams her knees into my back. They are as sharp as her fingernails. I inch forward in my seat and stare intently at the team. The girl with the arrested brother leans forward. As Heather shakes her pom-poms, the girl yanks my hair. I almost climb up the back of the kid in front of me. He turns and gives me a dirty look.

It is also important to note the Melinda physically mistreats herself in two ways too. She chews her lips and scrapes her arms with paper clips.

I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting. It looks like I arm-wrestled a rosebush.

Though Melinda is mistreated throughout the book, the reader doesn't find the reason for the mistreatment until near the end. Up to this point, readers can only guess why many of the adults and children are treating her so badly.
The book opens with Melinda on the school bus on her first day of high school. She says she is desperate to tell someone her secret, but when she looks at her old best friend Rachel, Rachel mouths "I hate you" to her. Her old friends continue to ignore her and Melinda finds herself having to sit by herself in lessons and at lunch, leaving her open to even more abuse. On one lunch break a boy hits Melinda with some mashed potato. Everybody laughs, including Rachel. At a pep rally some people recognize Melinda as someone who called the police at a party and they beat her up.
The students behavior towards her begins to have a negative effect on her grades and self-esteem, which goes unrecognized by the adults. Her teachers see her as "trouble," and her parents demand that she gets better grades. Ignored, Melinda begins self-harming by biting through her lip.
At the end of the "Third Grade Marking Period," the reader finds out that in the summer Melinda was raped by a boy called Andy at a party. She calls the police on him, but when people at the party find out the police are coming they slap her and call her names.
Andy tries to rape her again in a school cupboard, but this time Melinda defends herself by holding a shard of glass to his throat. The story ends with Melinda finding the courage to tell a teacher what has happened to her.

Why can the discussion of Minerva's interests endanger the family according to the narrator's comment in In the Time of the Butterflies?

Minerva is the narrator of the novel. She knows that the dictator Rafael Trujillo demands absolute loyalty and subservience from every Dominican. In his thirty years in power he had built up a totalitarian state and a cult of personality that utterly controlled the nation.
Trujillo may have ordered killed as many as 30,000 people during his time in power. Other political parties were banned, and the press was censored. The capital, the capital province, the nation's highest mountain, and many public buildings were all renamed after Trujillo. The nation's money, churches, and even license plates all praised Trujillo. The nation was heavily militarized and had forts everywhere, even though it had only a single weak and poor neighbor, Haiti.
Trujillo also personally targeted anyone he saw as an opponent. This included Minerva's family. He allowed Minerva to attend law school, then withheld her degree. Finally he orders the three sisters murdered.

How have Beowulf’s men, with the exception of Wiglaf, changed?

Like most epic poems, Beowulf tells modern-day readers about life during the Anglo-Saxon time. During this point in history, loyalty to your king above everyone else was a guiding principle. Beowulf is often referred to as “Higlac’s follower” reminding us that while he is the brave hero, he still remains loyal to his current king.

In the early sections of his journey, we see the Geats’ loyalty to Beowulf as they travel across the seas to Denmark with him just to fight Grendel. Here his men set the trap for Grendel as they lay in Herot waiting for Grendel.
Fifty years later, Beowulf is now the king of Geatland and needs one more battle to ensure his fame and memory in his people. Luckily, a dragon is laying waste to the Geats in retaliation for someone stealing his jeweled cup. Beowulf prepares for battle bringing along the strongest and bravest soldiers in his country; however when it’s time to fight he tells them to stay behind and let him fight the dragon alone.

Wait for me close by, my friends. We shall see, soon, who will survive This bloody battle, stand when the fighting is done.

When Wiglaf sees his king in trouble he knows that it is his duty to protect Beowulf. The soldiers see their brave, strong king struggling and begin to run afraid for their own lives. Wiglaf reminds the other soldiers of all their history and of all good times they had together. He reminds them how they promised Beowulf that they would always be there for him and would be willing to pay him back with their lives if that was what was needed.

I remember how we sat in the mead-hall, drinking And boasting of how brave we'd be when Beowulf Needed us, he who gave us these swords And armor: all of us swore to repay him, When the time came, kindness for kindness —With our lives, if he needed them.

However, the soldiers are unmoved by Wiglaf’s words, and they run away, leaving Wiglaf alone to aide Beowulf.

Throughout the majority of the story of Beowulf, Beowulf's followers are supportive and helpful to their leader. After all, Beowulf is a paragon of an Anglo-Saxon-era warrior. When, for instance, Beowulf and his men travel to Herot from Geatland to defend it against the monster Grendel, Beowulf's men attempt to help their leader fight the monster. Although their swords are ultimately useless against Grendel, they do try to help their then undefeated leader in any way that they can.
However, the point of the story at which Wiglaf comes into the narrative in an important way is at the end of the epic. Beowulf is now king over his own land and has been for fifty years when he is called upon to fight a dragon. He chooses twelve choice warriors to accompany him, though he asks them not to fight, a last attempt at proving himself the "unbeatable warrior" that the reader is used to seeing. Obviously, Beowulf is an old man at this point and is therefore in the most need of help that he's ever been. Once the battle ensues, Beowulf is quickly wounded. Rather than gather to defend their king and captain, the men disband and run—all except for Wiglaf. Wiglaf berates the men for their lack of courage before joining Beowulf in slaying the monster. For his faithfulness, Beowulf rewards Wiglaf with his golden collar, a symbol of bequeathing the kingship.

What are the similarities and differences in "The Devil and Tom Walker" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster"?

Both stories are about poor men who strike a deal with the devil. In "The Devil and Daniel Webster," Jabez Stone is genuinely down on his luck. He works hard to support his family, but nothing works. After a particularly trying day, he says, "I vow it's enough to make a man sell his soul to the devil and I would too for two cents." The devil doesn't show up right away, which gives Jabez hope. He is a religious man, so he knows that it was foolish to say. In "The Devil and Tom Walker," Tom meets the devil by chance while walking through the forest. He doesn't run away, like most people would. He isn't afraid of the devil, because he already deals with his wife, who is a mean woman.

Jabez prospers for six years. Then the devil comes to collect what Jabez owes him. Jabez begs to be let out of the deal, but all he gets is a three-year extension.
The devil makes a deal with Tom Walker—his soul in exchange for Captain Kidd's treasure. Tom Walker is as poor as Jabez Stone, but his reason for wanting the treasure is his greed. He goes home to tell his wife about his meeting with the devil, and she encourages him to take the deal. But the more she talks about it, the more he refuses, just because he doesn't want her to have any of the treasure.

Jabez Stone's family knows nothing about his deal with the devil. Tom Walker's wife goes out into the forest, hoping to find the devil so that she can make a deal with him. She never returns, and she is never found. Jabez wants to get out of his deal with the devil, so he hires a lawyer, Daniel Webster, to represent him. Daniel Webster is an amazing lawyer, so he is able to save Jabez's soul.

In contrast to Jabez Stone, Tom Walker follows the devil's instructions to a T. He becomes an usurer and becomes very rich. He does start to worry about his soul as he grows older, and he becomes an avid churchgoer. It doesn't help him, though. As he is dealing with a particularly troubling client, he says, "The devil take me if I have made a farthing!" The devil shows up right then and whisks Tom Walker away, and no one ever sees him again.

What is the plot of The Prophet of Zongo Street?

"The Prophet of Zongo Street" is told from the perspective of a nine-year-old narrator. The narrator lives in the crowded city of Kumasi, found in the West African country of Ghana. Here, the narrator recalls Kumi: a local post office worker whose family abandoned him. Kumi is shy and book-smart—a recluse but well-liked. He often invites the boys in his neighborhood to his house to lecture them about philosophers, happiness, and religion.
The narrator is the only boy who genuinely seems interested in Kumi and considers him a friend. One day, Kumi gives him a book called Manifestations and tells the narrator that he cannot see him anymore—he needs to study in isolation. The book seems scandalous to the narrator; it says Christianity and Islam were never indigenous to Ghana but instead brought by invaders and colonizers.
Three weeks later, Kumi emerges from his home, bearded and emaciated. He begins preaching in the street zealously—day and night, rain and shine. Kumi says the Muslim people of the neighborhood have been practicing a long tradition of lies—that, centuries ago, Arab invaders brought their people a false, white prophet. He tries to tell them that their God is as black as them and continuously preaches a new religion. People gather around at first, but they quickly dismiss Kumi as a nut. The narrator tries to talk to Kumi, but the man does not seem to recognize him.
Kumi continues to preach without food or rest, even though no one listens. One day he stops. Three days later, some town people break into Kumi's house and find him dead on his bed. It seems the only person who learned something from Kumi's knowledge is the narrator, who continues to read passages from Manifestations in secret.

Should schools and lawmakers do more to protect kids from cyber bullies?

Cyberbullying is a public health concern in the modern internet age. The Centers for Disease Control did a study of youth risk behaviors in 2015 that found that 15.5% of students in the United States face some form of electronic bullying. While these numbers are self-reported and might not be entirely accurate, they do give us an idea of how pervasive the issue is for teens.
The fact that such a large number of teens have faced some form of online bullying is an indication that society needs to put more protections in place. However, looking at the current policies in place, it seems that lawmakers in nearly every state have done the footwork to make cyberbullying illegal and provide education and resources for schools and parents to ameliorate the issue.
It seems like the most significant issue with cyberbullying at the moment is that schools and authorities do not use the current laws and policies to help those who suffer. Cyberbullying, like physical bullying, is treated too flippantly in society, and that can account for the fact that it still affects one in eight teens. The New York Times reported that many schools see cyberbullying as something that happens outside of the school and thus feel under-equipped to deal with it. Cyberbullying will remain a significant problem until schools and law enforcement see the threat as serious and take action to protect teens.
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/2015/ss6506_updated.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/style/28bully.html

https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/laws

How did Aronnax, Ned and Consiel come to the floating island in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

Disillusioned by Captain Nemo's erratic and dangerous behavior, the three characters in question decide to escape from the Nautilus using a small vessel. Just as they embark on their escape, the submarine finds itself in a massive, deadly whirlpool. The best clue as to how Aronnax, Ned, and Consiel arrived at the Norweigan island is towards the very end of the book's penultimate chapter.
The narrator observes that:

He had not finished the words, when we heard a crashing noise, the bolts gave way, and the boat, torn from its groove, was hurled like a stone from a sling into the midst of the whirlpool. (278)

The narrator is then struck unconscious and cannot tell for himself exactly how their vessel escapes the huge whirlpool, or "maelstrom." Ostensibly, once the small boat is wrenched free from the Nautilus, it was able to rise through and out of the whirlpool on its own course.
This line of thinking requires some extrapolation as the narrator himself admits in the conclusion that he is not sure how he and his companions escaped from the vicious whirlpool and found themselves in a hut off of the Loffoden Isles.

Discuss how Hamlet is a commentary on the presence of evil in the world.

This is quite a broad topic. Evil as presented in Hamlet usually takes on the form of moral corruption resulting from earthly desires or passions, such as political gain, emotional rage, or sexual lust. Characters let their baser natures get the best of them time and again throughout the play.
For example, Hamlet decries the corruption of the Danish court, from his mother's sexual desire for Claudius (her former brother-in-law) to the betrayal of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in spying on him for the king. Claudius is a man well aware of how evil he is, having murdered his brother for political gain, though he cannot bring himself to sincerely repent. Polonius is driven by political ambition as well, though in a more comedic manner. Hamlet also warns the innocent Ophelia to never marry, so that she will never have children or bring more "sinners" into the world.
So, evil in the world of Hamlet it mainly stays in the realm of the political and the moral. All of the characters appear to suffer some degree of corruption—even Hamlet himself, whose rash temper leads to the murder of people innocent of Claudius's wrongdoings. Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern are about as close to unwitting innocents as the play gets, and they suffer horribly too.

In what ways does Morrison show how Pecola's environment and American society as a whole are hostile to her existence?

Morrison critiques the ubiquitous white standard of beauty and how it negatively impacts those who do not fit into that standard. Like your question suggests, those whose appearance is the opposite of the standard are often met with hostility and derision.
Pecola desperately wants to be what she perceives as beautiful because she feels that she is ugly. Morrison explains why Pecola fixates on white beauty in the following excerpt:

Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.

This passage suggests that American society as a whole promotes white supremacy in the guise of prettiness. The default standard is a classically European white, and since Pecola exists far outside that standard, she is not included.
More than just society, however, Pecola’s own family regards her with hostility. Morrison states that the Breedloves accept their lot in life because “they believed they were ugly.” This represents internalized racism, whereby a group buys into the idea that they are inferior to another based on social conditioning. This is what perpetuates colorism within non-white groups, a practice whereby milder ethnic features and lighter skin tones are prized over the alternatives. Pecola, being darker skinned, suffers from the internalized hatred to which her family transfers onto her very existence.

What is an analysis of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell?

In Cloud Atlas, the author takes the reader on a literary journey through multiple dimensions and times. David Mitchell presents a set of six distinct but interrelated stories, tenuously connected by theme, narrative, and character. Each story in some way informs the next. The impression left by the previous story may be a physical marker, such as the comet-shaped birthmark—but often it is neither obvious nor direct. Rather, it is nebulous or cloudy.
The metaphoric clouds may refer to mental and physical conditions. These include Adam Ewing’s state while being poisoned, the visual disability that keeps Vyvyan Ayrs from perceiving Robert Frobisher’s deceptions, and the memory-wiping effects of the Soap that the fabricants eat. In the latter part of the novel, the role of the holographs becomes more important, suggesting that projections, another sort of cloud, may be considered more “real” than living peoples or material objects. While many readers have enjoyed the complex interactions and partial connections among the tales, others find the author’s intentions frustratingly obscure.

How does Deven feel when he leaves Mirpore to go to Delhi? What are his feelings after having met Nur and why?

When Deven agrees to Murad's proposal that he interview the poet Nur in Delhi, he is both elated and apprehensive. Deven understands that this interview offers an unparalleled opportunity for him to meet one of his great literary and cultural heroes, and he is honored to have been selected to conduct it.
Nonetheless, he has known Murad for many years and his friend has behaved less than ethically in the past; for example, he has not paid Deven for the materials that were published in his literary magazine. Deven is suspicious that Murad may have ulterior motives or might fail to publish the interview.
On the bus trip to Delhi, his mixed feelings about returning to the city resurface, and he feels it is ominous that the bus strikes, and possibly kills, a dog. When he finally arrives at Nur's apartment and meets the great man, he is both shocked and disappointed. Age and hard living have taken a toll. Nur is clearly an alcoholic and his health is failing; he is also surrounded by sycophants who leech his hospitality. Deven is determined, however, to tape an excellent interview.

What is a critical analysis of the poem "Stormcock in Elder" by Ruth Pitter?

A critical analysis of a text requires one to study and interpret it in a compelling way. In this poem, the speaker, perhaps a kind of hermit who lives away from the world's prying eyes, is searching for food and, instead, finds "celestial food." By celestial food, we might assume that he or she refers to spiritual sustenance rather than physical, in the sign of a stormcock, a kind of bird, singing in the elder tree above the broken roof. The speaker marvels over the care taken in the bird's creation: its wings and beak and claws, its bright colors and tuneful notes, how "strongly used, how subtly made," each sinew and sequin feather. The speaker also wonders how the bird looks so well-fed in February, and he compares the creature to the angel Gabriel in his brightness.
Pitter uses an ababcc rhyme scheme, meaning that the first and third lines share an end rhyme (the final words in the lines rhyme), the second and fourth lines share an end rhyme, and the fifth and sixth lines of each stanza rhyme. This construction seems as careful and purposeful as the creation of the stormcock is described to be. The different repeated sounds all work together, producing something that is even rather song-like in its musicality.
Pitter also uses a number of revealing metaphors and similes to describe the stormcock and the effect it has on the speaker. It is an "unfailing chorister," a player of "bagpipes," "dressed / Like a rich merchant at a feast," and "As bright as Gabriel," the angel. The song seems so lusty and clear, and the bird itself is so lovely with his "Gold sequins" and "shower / Of silver, [that it is] like a brindled flower." It inspires the speaker to think of springtime, when life is less lean and food more plentiful, and it even feels like a holy presence in his life.

A critical analysis goes beyond summarizing the work and discusses themes, imagery, structure, technique, and other literary and formal aspects of the work. Critical analysis shows how the writer alludes to ideas that aren’t explicitly stated in the text. When reading “Stormcock in Elder" by Ruth Pitter, consider topics or questions raised by Pitter in her story of a person looking at a bird from inside their home. A critical analysis will expand on what—at first—seems like a simple narrative to find a deeper meaning supported by the text.
For example, repetition of a particular idea or image often indicates importance. Ritter references food and being full at least three times (in a poem that is only seven stanzas long). The poem begins with the speaker “groping . . . for bread.” The speaker isn’t just taking a piece of bread; the language indicates desperation, possibly due to hunger or possibly due to her wanting bread but not finding it. This bodily hunger is immediately contrasted with “celestial food” at the sight of the bird. The speaker later comments about the bird appearing “full-fed in February,” the coldest month of the year, when crops don’t grow and food is harder to come by. Ritter juxtaposes a hungry speaker with a well-fed bird.
What are the possible implications of these contrasting images? What might it suggest about the literal hunger for food or the basic needs of survival? Is there irony to the fact that a bird living in the wild isn’t hungry but the speaker, a human being sheltered in society, is desperate for food? How does this idea connect to Ritter’s lines about “One-half the world, or so they say / Knows not how half the world may live?”
Another possible area of analysis is Ritter’s lengthy description of the bird, both the physical appearance of its feathers, coloring, beak, etc. and some of the characteristics she ascribes to it, such as “soldier of fortune.” You might need to do some research into the meanings of these terms, which could help you expand your ideas into new territories. Some research into the author’s life may also provide ideas. Remember that a critical analysis reveals things about the work that aren’t immediately apparent, and might even seem like a stretch at first, but are worth exploring as long as you can support them with examples from the text.
https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/elejeune/critique.htm

Who is protagonist and antagonist in the play?

Antigone, the titular character, is the play's protagonist. She chooses the morally correct route in performing what the gods say she must: she provides a ritual burial of her brother, Polyneices. In doing so, she defies her tyrannical uncle, Creon, who has forbidden the burial and has promised death to anyone who dares to contradict him.
Creon, then, is the play's antagonist. He acts against what the gods have decreed as proper handling of a corpse. Creon is caught up in local politics; he sees Polyneices's act as an attack on his own people, so he takes it upon himself to dishonor his remains. Creon is also angry because his niece dares to publicly embarrass and defy him. Creon's rigidity and defiance of the gods leads to more deaths: Antigone's, Haemon's, and Eurydice's.

What are Hobbes' views on coercivity and the commonwealth in Leviathan?

In Part II of Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes first explicates his definition of the commonwealth. He views the commonwealth as a union that evolves from an initially disparate group of people when they consent to be bound by a social contract. Hobbes defines the social contract as a system of agreements that negates the human instinct of total self-interest. The social contract accomplishes this by instituting political arrangements that stem from assumptions about how free and rational agents would prefer to live, if they had no choice but to live with each other, yet still wanted to optimize where they were situated in life.
Controversially, Hobbes then argues that this social contract bestows the (elected) sovereign leader of a given commonwealth with the inherent right to coercion, which he views as the essence of lawmaking. In his opinion, the legal right to coercion proceeds logically from individuals' original position of consent to the social contract. Without the principle of coercivity, there would be no way to implement the social contract's ideal order.
Hobbes' emphasis on this feature of government corresponds to a more generalized appeal to a natural law, or preordained order to human relations, that pervades much of his work outside Leviathan. Hobbes is therefore often accused of confusing might with right by political thinkers who view unchecked power as antithetical to any healthy social contract designed to uphold human rights.
Hobbes' dissidents tend to conceive of coercion more as an instrument of active oppression than an element of consent, obedience, or democracy. These thinkers view coercivity as completely unrelated to the idea of the social contract, and question his belief that a rational actor would ever consent to coercion. Most contemporary political theorists view Hobbes' argument about coercivity as a slippery slope to the intellectual and political ills of authoritarianism and absolutism.

I need to find an example of hyperbole in Up from Slavery, and I am confused on what that would be.

Hyperbole is an example of overstatement. It is characterized by the use of exaggerated language to heighten or further a rhetorical effect.
One representative example of of hyperbole is in chapter 15, when Booker T. Washington is describing his "Atlanta Exposition Speech" (in which he made some controversial pronouncements concerning how African Americans were to "deport themselves modestly" in order to achieve their political goals slowly and steadily). In this chapter, Washington expounds on the nature of public speaking by stating, "I think that one of the worst instruments of torture that was ever invented is the custom which makes it necessary for a speaker to sit though a fourteen-course dinner, every minute of the time feeling sure that his speech is going to prove a dismal failure and disappointment." He is clearly exaggerating for the sake of a comic interlude. Though he might disapprove of the time spent eating, surely he doesn't mind the meal itself!
In Up from Slavery as in other works of literature, hyperbole can be used for a variety of dramatic effects, both jarring and humorous.

Comparing the First Gulf War to the Balkans Wars In your reading, how did the conflicts differ in their nature? For example, was one a simple case of one state’s aggression against another (e.g., Iraq v. Kuwait in the First Gulf War), while the other conflict was born from the breakup of a multiethnic state after the Soviet collapse? For example, did the legacy of the past, or history, matter more in one conflict than the other? Compare and contrast the “leadership” role played by the United States in these two conflicts. Did the United States take the lead and shape the international community’s response similarly, and did others follow the United States unreservedly? What differences in cooperation do you find in the two wars? For example, did coalitions against “aggression” form more easily in one than the other, and if so, why might that have been the case?

Both of these conflicts were the long-term result of the breakup of empires after World War I.
The Balkan countries had been part of the Austrian and Ottoman Empires prior to the twentieth century. Both of these empires collapsed during World War I (1914–1918), and the victorious Allies created a new country, Yugoslavia, by bringing together at least seven nationalities: the Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Slovenians, Bosnian Muslims, and Kosovar Albanians. These ethnic groups, for the most part, had little love for one another, but the country was held together by powerful leadership for most of the next seventy years. With the collapse of Communism in 1991, Yugoslavia broke up into states whose boundaries were disputed, and the results were the Bosnian and Kosovar wars of the 1990s.
The nearly contemporaneous Gulf War was also ultimately the result of artificial boundaries long before established by outside powers. The Ottoman Empire had contained the various Arab countries which are now independent. Iraq as a sovereign state was simply a creation of borders drawn by the British after World War I. In 1991, Saddam Hussein arbitrarily decided that Kuwait, as well, "belonged to" Iraq, just as Serbian leaders believed that areas claimed by other Balkan ethnic groups should be part of Serbia.
The difference between the Balkan situation and that of Iraq/Kuwait was that the former was based on the continuation of centuries-old ethnic and religious conflict. Serbian nationalists, who were Eastern Orthodox Christians, were opposed to having "their" land taken by either the Roman Catholic Croats or the Muslims of Bosnia. Though religious conflict exists in the Arab world (especially between the Sunni and Shia groups), this was not the cause of the Iraqi takeover of Kuwait. This event was simply a power grab by a leader (Saddam) who was disgruntled over what he considered the arbitrary sovereignty of oil-rich Kuwait and its wealthy rulers.
In both cases, the international response was led by the United States, but this was partly by default, owing to an international dynamic in which no one else wanted or was able to play a leadership role. The European powers, ever since the devastation of World War II, have been reluctant to engage in any military ventures, even when a problem is occurring on their own continent. In general the United States has taken on the "policeman of the world" role; in the Middle East, no other country would take any initiative, though George H.W. Bush was able to put together a huge coalition to oppose Saddam's incursion into Kuwait. And because the Soviet Union was itself on the verge of collapse, Mikhail Gorbachev had neither the will nor the ability to oppose the United States in its attack on what was a nominal ally of his, Iraq. Iraq was clearly seen to have taken an action against international law in invading Iraq. In the Balkans, the situation was somewhat more ambiguous, though the Serbs were considered aggressors who had little if any justification for their actions. In fact, their campaigns in both Bosnia and, later, Kosovo were considered genocidal by much of the international community.

Which parts of Candide would be most disturbing to a European monarch?

I think the easiest and most obvious answer to this question would be to point towards chapter 26 of Candide, in which Voltaire turns his vision of arbitrary fortune to reflect on the monarchs themselves. In this chapter, rulers are shown to be just as subject to these cruel turns of fortune as every other human in the book. Cruelty abounds everywhere, and no one (not even rulers) can ever be secure against those tragic twists of fate.
Taken from a personal perspective, one can imagine the thought of being deposed or overthrown would be greatly disturbing to any given monarch. That being said, I suspect in most cases, any particular scene within Candide taken in isolation (even a scene such as that depicted in chapter 26) would be less disturbing than the effect of this book when it is viewed in its entirety.
The thing you must be aware of is that monarchy lay at the very center of the early modern state. Thus, monarchy was actually very closely intertwined with all the various other institutions of the State, including the army, the church, the nobility, and the judiciary. It stretches over any number of relationships with various cities and provinces, as well as with all the various sub-classes that made up the early modern social hierarchy. One might say that the monarchy was the glue that held this entire political system together. Meanwhile, taken as a whole, Candide represented an attack on that system.
With that in mind, I think it would be somewhat deceptive to single out any chapter in particular the way one can single out attacks on the Church or the nobility (to give two examples). On the contrary, any attack on traditional religion is also, in its own way, an attack on the monarchy. This is because monarchy ultimately gets much of its legitimacy from religion and is closely tied up with traditional religion and religious structures (think about something like the Divine Right of Kings). Something similar might be suggested of any attack on Nobility: to undermine the nobility means undermining political and social stability, and this destabilizes the monarchy also. Within the context of the Early Modern Era, Candide looks like a deeply radical and subversive work of literature, and it is the overall subversiveness of this book as a whole, I imagine, which would have been its most dangerous feature—at least as far as the the Monarchies would be concerned.

What are three character traits for Meg from Carolyn Reeder's Shades of Grey?

Megan Jones in Shades of Gray is the ten-year-old cousin of William. Meg has a happy disposition and remains positive no matter what circumstances she deals with. Meg is very supportive of her cousin, William, as well as of her father.
However, despite Meg's positive outlook and youthful innocence, she is a tough child who defends her principles. For instance, she supports her father's decision to not join the war and defends him from critics. Her adolescence allows her to be vocal without being inhibited.
Meg is also very smart and wise for her age. She provides William with different perspectives about the North. Meg's character is the voice of reason and provides a sage archetype to the narrative, despite her young age. Author Carolyn Reeder chose Meg's character to be the representative of innocence and a calming presence because of Meg's age.

Why is Andy held back from trying to rescue Rob

As the story begins we discover that high-school basketball star Robert Washington has been tragically killed in an automobile accident. Rob was a passenger in a car driven by his friend, Andy Jackson. Andy's responsible for the accident; he was drunk behind the wheel, causing him to weave erratically across the lanes of the expressway before crashing into a wall.
Upon impact, the car's gas tank exploded and the car burst into flames. This made it virtually impossible for Andy and the other survivors of the crash to save Rob from the wreck. The three young men—Andy, B.J., and Tyrone—tried frantically to pull Rob from the car's burning wreckage, but were beaten back by the flames. Despite their best efforts to save Rob, they were forced to look on helplessly as their friend burned to death.

What is the impact of having two different points of view in A Long Walk to Water?

Nya and Salva grew up in different times and have radically different experiences, which include their staying in Sudan and moving to the United States, respectively. In addition, gender shaped their childhood experiences. The literal and metaphorical aspects of the title, A Long Walk to Water, convey the differences in those experiences but also suggest the point of convergence that comes at the end. Any attempt to merge those differences into a single narrative would have destroyed the importance of each individual story and diminished the author’s point.
For Nya, walking to fetch water from the pond was required of her as a woman's task. The distance from the water shaped her daily experience, because she and other female members of her community spent many hours walking to and from the water source. However, on a figurative level, “water” also represents the necessities for surviving and thriving; the latter includes education, which had become an unattainable luxury for the village girls.
For Salva, the long walk included his journey of escaping from the war and arriving at the refugee camps: he literally walked hundreds of miles. The metaphorical walk was his relocation to and adoption in the United States, which became the “water” by which he survived and thrived. That experience helped teach him the value of necessities such as potable water and of education. The return “walk” took him back to his original country and inspired him to work with communities such as Nya’s to help them obtain those necessities as well.

How can I present an argument about the following two different perspectives? 1. Dialects are related to a language 2. Dialect refers to a variety of language.

It's possible that the question is asking you to support one statement as true and the other statement as false. It's also possible that the argument could explain how each statement is true under certain conditions, and the argument then needs to explain in what situations each perspective might be true.
In my own opinion, I would argue that both statements are always true. Merriam-Webster defines dialect as a "regional variety of language." The definition specifically echoes the second perspective in that dialect offers variety. The variety is language based; therefore, dialect relates to language which is what the first perspective statement says. Maybe your argument needs to be a concise thesis statement that ties those two perspectives together. In that case, the following thesis statement might work.

The two dialect perspectives are so woven together that it would be erroneous to discuss one without the other.

Using “Hills Like White Elephants” and “Babylon Revisited,” discuss how Hemingway and Fitzgerald convey tension in their stories.

Though they were close friends and influential upon each other, Hemingway and Fitzgerald can be considered, in some ways, opposites in terms of literary style. Fitzgerald writes poetically, with language that is often luxurious in its imaginative qualities, as in the opening of "Babylon Revisited" after Charlie Wales has just left the bar:

Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain. It was late afternoon and the streets were in movement; the bistros gleamed. At the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines he took a taxi. The Place de la Concorde moved by in pink majesty; they crossed the logical Seine, and Charlie felt the sudden provincial quality of the Left Bank.

Yet the description of this aspect of the beauty of Paris also paradoxically conveys a forlorn, washed-out quality. For Charlie and his circle, who celebrated in the hard-partying, high-flying Jazz Age, Paris has now become a kind of ghost town. Fitzgerald conveys a tension between what was and what is by presenting images that are redolent of Charlie's past but now do not have the same meaning for him:

He was curious to see Paris by night with clearer and more judicious eyes than those of other days. He bought a strapontin for the Casino and watched Josephine Baker go through her chocolate arabesques.

In some passages, Fitzgerald directly juxtaposes these past luxuries with the fear and regret Charlie currently feels:

Zelli's was closed, the bleak and sinister cheap hotels surrounding it were dark; up in the Rue Blanche there was more light and a local, colloquial French crowd. The Poet's Cave had disappeared, but the two great mouths of the Café of Heaven and the Café of Hell still yawned—even devoured, as he watched, the meager contents of a tourist bus—a German, a Japanese, and an American couple who glanced at him with frightened eyes.

In other words, heaven and hell—as in the glorious past—are still beckoning the American expatriate, but they do not have the same allure for him any longer:

"You have to be damn drunk," Charlie thought.

On the other hand, Hemingway's style is stark and unadorned, unlike that of Fitzgerald. In Hemingway's prose there is little commentary: little elaboration beyond the simplest means of conveying a story-line. But this sparseness in itself creates tension. While reading Hemingway, one expects, or almost wishes, the characters or the narration to burst out with some revelation that never comes. In "Hills Like White Elephants," the man and the girl sit at the bar and drink, waiting for a train, while the prospect of an "operation" on her is almost casually mentioned by the man. Because this is mentioned so tersely, there is an inevitable tension that's palpable to the reader—a tension between the gravity of the situation and the bleak, sparse language used to describe it. Understatement is the hallmark of Hemingway's narrative technique. The title of the story—the almost bizarre idea of hills appearing as elephants—is symbolic of the presence of something in an apparently quiet and passive setting that has a quite different and deeper meaning than the stripped-down prose of Hemingway explicitly conveys to the reader.

Was the American Revolution really revolutionary? Explain why or why not.

The Revolutionary War was revolutionary because for the first time in history it established a country in which a person's access to achievement and self-fulfillment depended on the individual's intelligence, talents and initiative rather than his parentage or the class into which he was born. It was the more of a meritocracy than anything that had come before.

I would argue that the American Revolution was most certainly revolutionary. A group of colonial subjects in a far-flung corner of the British Empire came together to fight—and defeat—what was at that time the world's largest military power. This was virtually unprecedented in the annals of history. Additionally, once the American colonists defeated the might of Great Britain, they set about establishing a new nation almost from scratch. Despite certain family resemblances, the American Revolution was radically different from the French Revolution. The American colonists were not simply getting rid of an old regime; they were building a nation. This was not just any nation; this was a nation founded on the principles of liberty and democracy. Again, there was almost no historical precedent for this. With the birth of the United States, British subjects were turned into American citizens, active participants in a newly-established Republic. It is difficult to see how such radical change can be seen as anything but revolutionary.

I need help with my essay for school. How and why does Shakespeare capture the complexities of human relationships in Romeo and Juliet?

I would say that where Shakespeare most captures the complexities of human relationships in this play comes in Romeo and Juliet's conflict between their individual relationship and their familial relationships.
Romeo and Juliet's relationship should be very simple and straightforward. They are two young people who meet and fall head-over-heels in love. They should be able, in a perfect world, to pursue their romance wherever it takes them.
However, as we know, the situation is not so simple because their two families are involved a deadly feud. The two young people are, therefore, caught in a dilemma: if they want to be loyal to their families, they must not see each other anymore. However, if they want to be true to themselves, they need to continue developing their relationship.
They get caught in a web of complexity because they see through the surface of a mere name and refuse to automatically hate each despite their families being at loggerheads with one another. At the same time, they love their families.
It seems to me you might look at Juliet as one who get caught in this web of complexity. After Romeo kills Tybalt in act 3, scene 1, Juliet experiences deeply conflicted emotions. She loved Tybalt as her cousin and is initially very angry at Romeo for killing him. Yet she has also just married Romeo and loves him deeply.
Juliet also gets caught in a web when her father insists she marry Paris, although she is already secretly married to Romeo. Shakespeare wants to examine what happens when one deeply felt relationship, such as a loyalty to a parent, bumps up against another deeply felt relationship, such as falling in love. Shakespeare does this because he knows relationships don't occur in a vacuum but within a network of other, competing relationships. How we navigate these is important. As Romeo and Juliet don't do so well balancing these conflicting sets of priorities, we as an audience might explore alternatives.

What is a book critique of The Sovereignty Solution: A Commonsense Approach to Global Security by Anna Simons, Joe McGraw, and Duane Lauchengco?

The Sovereignty Solution suggests an alternative strategy for achieving national security and maintaining global order without resorting to invasions, nation building, or attempting to spread American ways of life around the world. It is based on the idea that each nation is responsible for its own way of life without interference from others, and that each nation needs to self-police in order to do that. It is based on mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty, with a strong “or else” set of consequences.
The authors outline the ways in which outside interference in other countries’ sovereignty fail. They postulate that financial aid fails because it is pocketed by and benefits those in power rather than helping those in need. Furthermore, they indicate that nation-building from the outside always fails, and that the only helpful thing the US can do is lead by example. They also state that interventions—for example, to combat genocide—also fail because they generate further violence and rebellions.
This book is viewed favorably by those who see it as a long overdue adjustment to the reality of international relations and the embrace of US strengths and abilities vs. interfering in other nations. They cite the expertise of the authors, Anna Simons (Professor of Defense at the Naval Postgraduate School) and Joe McGraw and Duane Lauchengco (both Special Forces officers).
Others see this book as a cold withdrawal from a humanitarian perspective, allowing genocide, atrocities, poverty, and famine to prevail without any response from the US.

How does Bassiano plan to get money to show Portia that he is worthy of marrying her?

Bassiano plans to borrow the money to woo Portia from his older friend Antonio. He knows that Antonio is a wealthy merchant. Bassiano also knows that the older man feels a great deal of affection for him and is not likely to turn down his requests.
Bassiano is right to expect that Antonio will lend him the money. Antonio tells hims that he should use Antonio's credit lines, saying,

Try what my credit can in Venice do—
That shall be racked even to the uttermost
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.

Antonio has drained all his cash putting three merchant ships out to sea. When at least one of them comes back with cargo, Antonio will be a wealthy man again, but at the moment, he is cash poor. This leads Antonio to approach Shylock for a loan, which sets the plot of the play in motion.

In this status-conscious society, money is everything. Bassanio may be an aristocrat, he may be head over heels in love with Portia, but he knows that's not enough. If he's to keep her in a style to which she's become accustomed, he's going to need to get his hands on some ready cash. In Venice, wooing a lady—especially one of such wealth and social standing as Portia—requires money, and lots of it.
Unfortunately, Bassanio doesn't have much money of his own, so he goes to borrow some from his old friend Antonio. Antonio's a bit of a soft touch and has lent money to Bassanio in the past. Although all his money's currently tied up in his investments, Antonio agrees to help out Bassanio once again. Only he won't be able to lend him money out of his own pocket this time; he'll have to borrow it from Shylock, the moneylender, at very disadvantageous terms.

Who was Lucy Gray?

This question is a little confusing, as the character Lucy Gray does not appear in Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge." "Westminster Bridge" is a sonnet—a lyrical work expressing an emotion—about how lovely the city of London is in its peaceful, early dawn state, before the noise, bustle, and confusion of the day begins.
"Lucy Gray," however, is a different Wordsworth poem. It is a ballad, or narrative poem, about a little girl (Lucy Gray) who is sent to fetch her mother during a snowstorm and gets lost. Her parents trace her footsteps in the snow to a bridge, where she presumably fell off. However, some people report seeing her ghost among the hills and valleys of the Lake District. She was a child who embodied nature and loved to play outside, and perhaps her spirit still gambols among the plants and animals of the natural world.
Both poems, though different, celebrate and exhibit a love for nature. "Westminster Bridge" expresses the speaker's wonder that a city—usually associated by Wordsworth with corruption and depicted as the antithesis of nature—can have such a peaceful, natural beauty in the early morning, and "Lucy Gray" depicts a young girl as a beautiful and innocent child of nature.

Two ocean liners leave from the same port in Puerto Rico at 10:00 a.m. One travels at a bearing of N 51o W at 13 miles per hour, and the other travels at a bearing of S 58o W at 15 miles per hour. Approximate the distance between them at noon the same day. Round answer to two decimal places.

I'm going to assume that the directions stated in this question were "51 degrees north of west" and "58 degrees south of west". Regardless of that information, however, the steps will be the same to determine the correct distance between the ships.
The first step will be to determine the location of each ship relative to port. They will each have traveled 2 hours at their listed speed and so will have traveled 26 miles and 30 miles respectively.
The location of ship A will be <-26*cos(51), 26*sin(51)> and the location of ship B will be <-30*cos(58), -30*sin(58)>. Remember that west is the negative x direction and north is the positive Y direction.
These locations are <-16.36, 20.21> for A and <-15.898,-25.441> for B, both in miles.
Use the distance formula between these two points to get their total distance sqrt[(Ax - Bx)^2 + (Ay - By)^2].
The total distance is 45.65 miles between the ships.
Don't forget the positive and negative signs when using the distance formula, because the compass bearing of each ship will greatly impact the total distance.

How did Ulysses S. Grant get elected president?

As the man who'd led the Northern forces to victory in the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was seen by many Republicans as the natural choice for a presidential candidate. Hugely popular and with name recognition to spare, this national war-hero was seen as the ideal man to contest the election of 1868.
Under the circumstances, it's more than likely that any Republican candidate would've won in that year. Many Southern whites were disenfranchised and were therefore unable to participate in the election. In addition, large numbers of African Americans were able to vote for the first time, and almost without exception they voted for the party of Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. All things considered, Grant's Democratic opponent, Horace Seymour, didn't really stand a chance.
Grant repeated the trick four years later, chalking up an even more impressive victory than in 1868. Despite monumental levels of graft and corruption at the highest levels of his administration, Grant was easily able to secure re-election, comfortably seeing off another Horace, his Liberal-Republican opponent, Horace Greeley, whose election campaign was somewhat undermined by the fact that he died before the Electoral College cast its votes.

What do you think causes Sykes to behave the way he does?

One can only speculate as to why Sykes is such an abusive, philandering piece of work. Perhaps his father acted the same way, and Sykes just thought that this was the normal way for a man to behave. Abusive men like Sykes often have backgrounds like this, when abuse—be it physical, mental, or sexual—was very much the norm.
Or perhaps Sykes had negative experiences of women when he was growing up. If this indeed was the case, then his cruel treatment of Delia can be seen as some kind of twisted act of revenge against his mother, sister, or other female relatives.
None of this is to condone Sykes's appalling behavior in any way; these are simply possible explanations for why he acts the way he does toward Delia.

What does Piggy say they should have done before the fire in "Lord of the Flies"?

Piggy sensibly realizes that, before the boys even think of making a fire, they need to start building shelters down on the beach. Piggy understands that, if the boys are to be rescued, they need to get their priorities right. Unfortunately, Piggy's sensible advice is ignored by most of the other boys, who can't wait to go screaming up the mountain and get a good fire going. In their over-excitement, they build a fire that rapidly gets out of control and uses up all of their existing supply of wood.
The boys have only been on the island for a little while at this point, but already the tensions that will develop among them are starting to emerge. Specifically, we see that the rules-based order that Piggy and Ralph want to establish on the island is under serious threat from the immaturity of the other boys.

What ideology has—or what ideologies have—most shaped the long arc of US history from the 1820s to the 1910s? (as detailed as possible)

One could argue that the ideology of Manifest Destiny was important throughout this period, even before it was first articulated by the journalist John O' Sullivan in 1845. This was the notion that America was a unique, special country that had been entrusted by God with a mission to expand its territory, thus spreading liberty, democracy, and capitalism from coast to coast.
Up until the late 19th century Manifest Destiny was applied exclusively to the North American continent. The annexation of Texas was a crucial stage in its development, and was seen by the champions of Manifest Destiny as vital to the future economic growth of the United States, with its rapidly expanding population. Much the same justification was used for the acquisition of the Oregon territory from Great Britain—or most of it, at any rate—and of California from Mexico.
Yet even after the continental United States had taken the recognizable shape that it holds today, Manifest Destiny still retained a powerful hold on the American imagination. In the late 19th century, the ideology manifested itself in the Spanish-American War, in which the United States became an international superpower for the first time.
Although the McKinley Administration had no intention of colonizing Cuba and the Philippines in the way that Texas and California had been decades earlier, the United States' control over these formerly Spanish territories was nonetheless justified by reference to Manifest Destiny. In taking sovereign control of these territories, the United States, so it was argued, was spreading the values of democracy, liberty, and capitalism in much the same way as it had done by the previous expansion of domestic territory across the North American continent.

What was the purpose of the Mayflower Compact?

The Mayflower Compact was written to guide the English settlers arriving on the American shores by way of the sailing vessel "the Mayflower". The rules established how the new arrivals intended to be governed. Although they had laws they would bring from their home country of England, many of those laws were not practical and relevant to the arduous task of taming an unexplored land. The Mayflower Compact provided a sense of stability and a practical guide for how the settlers would proceed as a society.
Historians believe the rules were not intended to be permanent even though the Mayflower Compact remained in force until about 1691. The British colonists would remain as loyal British citizens and, as such, remained under the authority of the British government. However, the situation in the new world was unique, and historians believe that at the urging of William Bradford, who anticipated potential problems, the compact was created. How much regular citizens participated in the creation of the document is unclear. For the most part, citizens agreed and were willing to abide by the general principles stated in the document as it applied to their daily lives.
The document is brief and states some general principles. For example, while recognizing the practicality of establishing an independent governing body for the settlement, the settlers would remain committed to King James and the British governmental authorities. The Mayflower Compact required colonists to live as Christians and to act in accordance with the decisions made by the majority that best benefited all of the settlement, placing the welfare of the colony as the priority over self-interest.
The Mayflower Compact is an important document, as the document establishes the first self-rule and democratic process in the colonies.