What are three main events in Turtles All the Way Down?

The book explores the actions of two friends, Aza and Daisy, in the wake of a billionaire's disappearance. The first main event that occurs is the two girls trespassing upon and exploring the house and grounds of Russell Pickett, the missing billionaire, in hopes of finding clues to find the man, so they can receive the reward money. They meet his son in the process, Davis.
Later in the novel, after damaging her burgeoning relationship with Davis, Aza realizes that she has hurt Daisy, who expresses her anger through the Star Wars fan fiction she writes. The two argue, which leads to a car crash after which Aza is taken to the hospital. Once out of the hospital, the two girls reconcile.
The final event culminates the plot of the novel, as the girls come across Russell Pickett's dead body. They give Davis information on where he is so that he can lead the police there anonymously.

Event 1: Aza and Daisy investigate Russell Pickett’s house.
Early in the book, Daisy urges Aza to come along so they can investigate Russell Pickett’s house for clues about his disappearance. Aza knows Davis, Pickett’s son, from when they were both in a dead parents support group. The security guard catches them on the property and Davis ends up talking to Aza for the first time in a while.
The meeting she has with Davis is important because it is the start of their relationship—one that blossoms later in the book. Davis is Aza’s first real boyfriend, and he is also the one that gives her and Daisy $100,000—which Aza saves for college, and Daisy uses to buy a car later in the story. Their meeting and talking is important because it sets off a lot of the character development and emotional connection that Aza has in the later parts of the book.
Event 2: Aza and Daisy get into an argument and car accident.
In chapter 18 of the book, Aza and Daisy are driving to Applebee’s to have food and spend time together. However, Aza has just read some of Daisy’s Starwars fanfiction and realized that the sidekick of the text, Ayala, is based on her. Worse, the sidekick is the worst character in the stories, and people hate her. This leads to a long dialogue and a fight between her and Daisy where Daisy tells her the metaphor that Mychal created to describe hanging out with Aza,

“ . . . you’re like mustard. Great in small quantities, but then a lot of you is . . . a lot.”

The fight is a main event because it is a turning point not only in their relationship but it also pushes Aza a bit to learn that she is not always a great friend. It also leads to the car accident that puts Aza in the hospital, a place where she cannot stand to be and leads to her drinking hand sanitizer to become “clean”—something she is continually obsessing over because of her OCD. Without Daisy, Aza is a colossal mess, and they have to make up for Aza to deal with the ending of the story.
Event 3: Aza and Daisy find Russel Pickett’s Body
After the art show in chapter 22, Aza and Daisy are walking through the tunnels that are off the Pickett Engineering Project. As they sit at the mouth of Pogue’s Run, they realize that it is “the jogger’s mouth” from the cryptic messages and that this is where Pickett would have been hiding. However, the smell down in the tunnel is terrible, and they assume that he is dead. Aza decides to tell Davis and let him decide if they will alert the police.
Davis calls in an anonymous tip to the police, and then he determines that it is best if he and his brother move to Colorado for boarding school. Davis’s choice to call in the possible body and Aza giving him the option are significant because it is the end of the mystery, the end of their relationship, and the moment when Davis has to give up his wealthy lifestyle—because his father left his entire fortune to the research of tuatara blood.

How did geography impact the settlement of colonial America?

Many of the regional differences in colonial America were based on the differing geographies of those regions. In the British American colonies, there were three main regions: New England, Mid-Atlantic or Middle, and Southern. Each region had different climates and access to certain natural resources, which impacted the development of their economies as well as their overall way of life.
The New England colonies had a colder, harsher climate. While colonists there did farm, their climate was not conducive to the growing of major cash crops like tobacco. Therefore, the New England colonies never developed a plantation system. Likewise, they did not have a big demand for slave labor to work on the plantations. There was slavery in New England but not on the scale of the Southern colonies. Because people tended to work on small farms or in other industries, people tended to settle more in towns and villages, rather than being spread out on large farms. However, the New England colonies did have access to oceans full of fish. They also had access to large forests and harbors in which to trade. Thus, some of their main economic industries were fishing, lumbering, and shipbuilding.
The mid-Atlantic colonies included some of the best natural harbors and ports in colonial America, such as New York City and Philadelphia. They thus became centers of commercial activity and trade. They also attracted many different ethnic groups, causing them to be the most diverse region ethnically and religiously.
The Southern colonies had land and warm climates well suited to commercial agriculture of cash crops such as tobacco, rice, and indigo. The wealthy owned large plantations that eventually relied on slave labor. The stark income disparity between the plantation owners, small-scale farmers, and slaves created a social system with a rigid class structure. Furthermore, people tended to live farther away from one another and thus were organized more by county than by city or town.

In The Time Machine, what was the only form of life that the Traveler found on the earth by the end of the journey?

When the Traveler finally brings the time machine to a stop, he finds that he's landed on a beach infested with giant crabs. Understandably, he doesn't want to hang around, so he gets back inside the machine and travels even further into the future, stopping every hundred years or so to see how the planet has changed.
Eventually, after thirty million years, he stops completely. As he walks along the beach, the only sign of life he can see is some lichen. As well as being very cold, it's also very dark, as a large black disc eclipses the sun. The Traveler thinks that perhaps some other planet, such as Mercury, has passed between the earth and the sun. After he climbs back into the time machine, the Traveler spots a gigantic black blob-like creature with tentacles, slipping over the horizon. It's the only form of animal life on earth that he can find.

How does Harry Potter change or evolve throughout the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone?

Harry Potter experiences quite a transformation in the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In this first novel in the famous magical series, Harry Potter is introduced as a malnourished and emotionally abused child who is living with the Dursleys, his biological aunt and uncle and horrid cousin, in a rather boring English suburb. Harry, who has a peculiar lighting-shaped scar on his forehead, is living with the Dursleys because his parents tragically died when he was just a baby. The Dursleys treat Harry with disdain and cruelty. On Harry's eleventh birthday, that the Dursleys intentionally do not celebrate, he is introduced to the secrets of his past and his wizardly powers by Hagrid, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts, who is tasked with finding Harry and escorting him to Hogwarts. Once Harry learns that he is a wizard and that his parents were killed by the evil wizard, Voldemort, he sets off to Hogwarts with Hagrid to further discover who he truly is and to hone his magical abilities. This is the first major transformation for Harry. Once Harry arrives at Hogwarts, he soon realizes that he is very unique, even among other magical people. While he makes two very close friends, as well as a couple enemies, Harry soon is thrust into a confrontation with the dangerous Lord Voldemort, who is attempting to kill Harry and return to power. This is the second notable transformation for Harry, in which he must learn to use his powers to fight against Voldemort. He soon learns that he will not be able to be a normal young wizard like his friends as long as Voldemort hunts him.

What does the speaker compare his love to?

The speaker says that his love is "like a red, red rose, / That's newly sprung in June." This is what's called a simile, a figure of speech that compares one thing to another of a very different kind using the word "like" or "as." It's quite common in love poetry to use the rose as a symbol of love. Burns also emphasizes the passionate nature of that love by repeating the adjective "red." This isn't just any old love; this is love of a particularly burning intensity. And the passion with which he's been seized also seems to have come out of nowhere; it's sprung up suddenly like a new rose in June.
The speaker then goes on to describe his love as being like "the melodie, / That's sweetly play'd in tune." Once more, the intensity of this love is emphasized. There's nothing quite like a sweet melody to stir the passions. Crucially, however, this melody's played in tune, implying not just the sweetness of the melody but also the harmony that exists between the speaker and his lover.
http://www.robertburns.org/works/444.shtml

In Riders to the Sea, why was the mother unable to bless her son Bartley?

Maurya tries very hard to dissuade her son Bartley from going off to sell a horse. She and the rest of the family have been waiting for over a week to hear the fate of her other son, Michael, who is lost at sea and presumed dead. She pleads with Bartley not to go because if Michael is dead, he will be the only son she has left and she worries that he might die too. Dismissing her worries, Bartley is determined to go. She calls him “a hard and cruel man” for not listening to her when she is trying to save him from the sea. After he leaves, offering God’s blessing on her, his sister Cathleen chastises her mother for not giving him the blessing in return. Maurya makes no direct answer, but Cathleen soon realizes they have forgotten to give him some bread. She suggests that Maurya take it to him and say “God speed you” when she sees him, and her mother agrees.

How are Biff and Happy inverse?

Death of a Salesman is a 1948 drama written in two acts and a requiem by American playwright and essayist Arthur Miller and first produced in 1949. As it covers darker themes such as suicide, lies, identity, betrayal, secrets, anger, misconception of reality, tragic love, and abandonment, the play is considered a tragedy. The play has gained tremendous commercial success and critical acclaim and even won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. Death of a Salesman is considered one of the most influential and popular plays of the twentieth century. It tells the story of sixty-three-year-old recently demoted salesman Willy Loman, who lives under the illusion that he is a successful man, and his family, which consists of his devoted wife, Linda, and his equally unsuccessful sons, Biff and Happy.
I believe that the most interesting element of Biff and Happy’s characterization is that they represent two halves of Willy’s personality. Happy is the younger brother who has basically lived the majority of his life in the shadow of his big brother, Biff. He grew up wanting to get the attention of both of his parents, especially his father, and prove to them that he is a good and capable man. Unfortunately, his never-ending need for attention and approval essentially becomes his downfall, which makes his character quite one-dimensional. Career-wise, he might be more successful than his brother and better paid, but just like his father, he continues to live his life through lies and deception, refuses to accept his failures, and is unable to understand his true nature. Happy represents Willy’s entitlement complex and blind ambitions.
In contrast, Biff has always been the favored son, and Willy believes that he can achieve great success in both his personal and professional life, mainly because of the fact that his oldest son was and is very popular and well-liked by many. Thus, Willy wants Biff to follow in his footsteps and become a salesman. However, Biff has no desire to become a part of the corporate world and instead prefers to work with his hands. This leads him to experience a minor identity crisis, similarly to his father, who has spent his entire life questioning and trying to define his own identity. It also makes him jump from job to job, as he constantly gets fired for his kleptomaniac tendencies. Unlike his brother, Happy, Biff accepts the reality and doesn’t delude himself. Biff represents Willy’s vulnerability and sensitivity.
In fact, this seems to be the main and most important difference between the two characters. Biff accepts the truth and even prefers it in the end, and he manages to use his potential and change, while Happy (and Willy) choose to live out their lives in delusion, blinded by their own ambitions, egos, and false sense of importance. The only things that might connect the two brothers and their personalities are their big dreams and aspirations, their blatant selfishness, and their love and support for one another.

Why is Mitchell Stephens not concerned about Dolores Driscoll's guilt or innocence?

In The Sweet Hereafter, Mitchell Stephens is an attorney who plans to represent the families of those killed or injured in the bus accident. He is involved not in a criminal case but in a civil suit. The families are not pursuing criminal charges but will be seeking restitution and damages that will help with medical and other expenses. As Stephens starts to put the case together, he realizes that the state probably cannot charge bus driver Dolores Driscoll with a crime. There are multiple parties that can be held responsible, including the school district and the bus company; any awards made would come from their insurance or other funds already budgeted for such purposes. There would be no point in Stephens pursuing Delores, as he knows she has no money.

What is the interpretation of Blake's "The Lamb" through a focused discussion on a religious perspective that also includes the figure of the "noble savage"?

William Blake's "The Lamb" is a highly symbolic poem. The lamb, in the poem and more widely, symbolizes innocence and sacrifice. This is why Jesus was called the lamb of God, because Jesus was, according to Christianity, innocent of sin and sacrificed himself to save mankind. The poem is thus at once a celebration of the lamb as a beautiful, innocent creature made by God, as well as a celebration of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made.
The character of "the noble savage" is a stock character in literature who represents the prelapsarian innocence of man before man became corrupted by civilization. The lamb is, in this sense, a "noble savage" character—as was, of course, Jesus Christ.
This poem is taken from Blake's collection of poems entitled, "Songs of Innocence." In this collection, Blake celebrates the innocence of man but highlights the industrial revolution as the cause of man's fall from grace. Blake uses the lamb and Christ, and the figure of "the noble savage" that they both represent, to highlight how innocent man was before the industrial revolution. In his companion collection entitled "Songs of Experience," Blake then highlights, by contrast, the ways in which humanity has become corrupted and fallen from grace largely because of the industrial revolution.

How is modernism reflected in Animal Farm?

Through various artistic media, modernism sought to construct an alternative reality to the one undermined by the cataclysm of the First World War. Western culture was in a state of crisis, with the old certainties—moral, intellectual, and social—now being seriously challenged for the first time. This period of unrest gave rise to a variety of different political movements, such as Soviet Communism, which is the object of Orwell's satire in Animal Farm.
Traditional society, in the person of Mr. Jones the farmer, has failed, and the animals take this opportunity to destroy the old world completely and usher in a brave new utopia in which animals will finally be liberated. It is in the fractured aftermath of such radical upheaval—be it the First World War or the Bolshevik coup of October 1917—that modernism finds its materials, and which it then uses to explore the subjective responses of individuals caught up in the middle of social chaos. One sees this in how the different animals on the farm react to the new order of things, each one effectively having to forge new identities in the heat of rapidly shifting political realities.
Orwell's literary style in Animal Farm may not be modernist, but the events that take place in the story perfectly encapsulate the kind of social malaise that provided a catalyst for this most fascinating and complex of artistic movements.

Modernist literature, especially after World War I, showed disillusion with the state of civilization, a questioning of the notion of progress, an interest in language, and experimentation with literary form. Animal Farm does not exactly fit the ideal of a modernist novel, as it is written using traditional forms—fable, fairytale, allegory—but it does fit the first two characteristics, at least to some extent.
Orwell's fable is a critique of the modern world, especially of Soviet totalitarianism under Josef Stalin. Animal Farm shows no hope in progress but is, instead, a bleak tale of disillusion in which the early dreams that the rebellion would bring equality and plenty to all are crushed.
Animal Farm also focuses on language. Classic modernism is more concerned with experimenting with language than is Orwell, but he, like the modernists, is acutely concerned with the importance of paying attention to words and meaning—just like the modernists he doesn't want his audience to be lulled into complacency about language. He shows that much of the animal's downfall and subordination to the pigs comes because they are not vigilant or attentive enough to how language is used and abused.
All this being said, Animal Farm has modernist elements, but is not experimental enough to be a classic modernist piece in the vein of Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, or James Joyce.

George Orwell's novella Animal Farm is a prime example of modernism. This genre grew and was popular between 1910 and 1960. During this time period, the world experienced the horrors of several wars. The genre is typically characterized by a declining civilization and the questioning of humanity's survival. Often, modernist writers use irony and satire to show the isolation of a character or characters from the rest of society to point out the problems within that society.
Orwell's work is an allegorical political satire that shows readers the terrors of what happened when communist leaders Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky (represented by the characters of Napoleon and Snowball) rose to power in Russia in 1922.
Throughout the story, readers see an out-of-control government and wonder how the characters will survive such a flawed society. Like any other modernist story, Animal Farm does not have a happily tied-up ending.

Consider what it must have been to be an African American in the 1960’s.

In some respects, life for African Americans was considerably better in the 1960s than it had been in previous decades. The civil rights movement was rapidly gaining ground and had made significant advances, both legal and political, in its long-standing campaign for racial equality. Segregation had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education (1954); the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 ensured the federal enforcement of civil rights at the state level, where violations were most prevalent.
By the 1960s, African Americans had come a long way, but persistent problems remained. Although legal and political equality had now been largely achieved, there was still huge inequality between the races in terms of education, job opportunities, and life chances. For instance, if you were an African American citizen in 1968, you were more than twice as likely to be unemployed as a white American. Moreover, the median household income of African American families was less than 60% of that of their white counterparts.
By whichever measure you wish to use—the poverty rate, the infant mortality rate, incarceration figures—African Americans on the whole tended to be significantly worse off than the white majority. The huge chasm that opened up in the 1960s between white and black America generated massive social and economic problems, which, as the enclosed report illustrates, are not just still with us today but in many cases actually getting worse.
https://www.epi.org/publication/50-years-after-the-kerner-commission/

Why does the king dress up as a common man? What does this show about the character of the person the king is asking advice from?

The king puts on the clothes of a commoner because he doesn't want to overawe the old hermit. For what seems like an absolute eternity, the king has been trying to get answers to his three questions, but all to no avail. He summons the wisest men in the kingdom to his palace, and yet they cannot give him what he seeks. Perhaps the king senses that the wise men, feeling slightly intimidated by the king's presence and all the trappings of his enormous power, are simply telling him what they think he wants to hear rather than giving him the unvarnished truth.
Going out into the world dressed in ordinary clothes is one way of getting round the problem. Bereft of all his finery and royal regalia, the king will stand before the hermit as just another man. Hopefully, this will mean that the king and the hermit will be able to speak to each other with honesty, on equal terms. The king is effectively coming down to the same level as the hermit in order to pick his brains. He knows that, as well as having a reputation for wisdom, the hermit is also a simple man, and that being the case, it's better to maintain a suitably simple demeanor when seeking his advice.

How would you summarize An American Visitor by Joyce Cary?

An American Visitor is a novel written by Joyce Cary. The book was published in 1933. The novel centers on Marie Hasluck, an American journalist who visits British-controlled Nigeria. She believes in the idea of the "noble savage." She seeks to understand the indigenous population living under a colonial power.
The novel touches on various topics such as the effects of colonialism, particularly in East Africa, as well as the illusion of the "noble savage," the idea that indigenous people are one-dimensional who are purely innocent. The novel shows the complexity of human nature and that this generalization about particular groups of people is a false way of perceiving the world.
Marie's character is the personification of "white guilt," which is the attitude of guilt held by some white people toward nonwhites due to centuries of racist institutions. However, Marie also exemplifies the negative effects of white guilt, such as generalizing all nonwhites as "noble savages," thus taking away their humanity. Marie's perception also clouds her objectivity as a scientist and observer. She is not able to fully realize the complexity of human behavior.
Even Marie's perception of Nigeria as paradise hints at her utopian fantasies and idealization of foreign lands. The white prospectors are portrayed as greedy capitalists who want to claim territory from the Birri tribe of Nigeria. This portion of the novel is quite accurate, as historical records show that Nigerian tribes and lands were exploited by European colonists.
Despite Marie's tense relations with the white prospectors and colonial authorities, she falls in love with the redheaded district officer, Eustace Bewsher. The officer, out of all the characters in the novel, has the deepest understanding of the native Africans, which is why he is able to keep order without the use of force. He uses his intuition and persuasion skills to keep the military forces from using violence against the local populace.
Marie also meets evangelical ministers who successfully convert many of the tribe's people into Christianity. However, it is evident that the conversion to Christianity is also a form of colonialism.
The native characters in the novel also show complexity, which shatters Marie's idea of the noble savage. Instead, we see one of the local men physically abuse his wife. In the end, it was Bewsher, not the "American visitor," who understood the precarious social and political dynamics in British-colonized Nigeria.
In the end, Marie tells us that Bewsher was speared 12 times, symbolizing the fate of the British Empire in East Africa.
https://www.biblio.com/book/american-visitor-cary-joyce/d/520805613

What are the similarities between "The Open Window" and "The Umbrella Man"?

Vera, the "self-possessed" teenage girl who causes all the excitement in Saki's "The Open Window," and the anonymous twelve-year-old girl who narrates Roald Dahl's "The Umbrella Man," are both alike in being secretly mischievous and secretly amused. Their laughter is internalized. Somehow the fact that both these characters are young girls seems to soften the stories and make Vera and her counterpart more innocent. What would "The Open Window" have been like if the perpetrator of the practical joke on Framton Nuttel had been a fifteen-year-old boy? Perhaps it would have seemed more cruel, for some reason. At the time, boys were thought to be more cruel than girls. The same question applies to the girl-narrator of "The Umbrella Man." How would the story be different if the narrator were a twelve-year-old boy instead instead of a twelve-year-old girl? Both Saki and Roald Dahl chose to feature girls in their respective roles for some artistic purpose. In both cases the girls seem completely suited to the stories in which they appear.

What was the conclusion of free market and planned market economy in Poland?

Poland's borders were redrawn after World War II ended in 1945. Its new borders gave it a long seacoast and access to coal in Silesia. But the nation was thoroughly devastated by the long war.
After 1945, Communist economic policies—such as heavy industry and collectivized agriculture—were implemented. Poland did not participate in the Marshall Plan, and postwar reparations from Germany were not large enough to make a difference. Economic progress was minimal from 1945-1970.
The period from 1970 to 1980 is known as the Gierek decade. Attempts were made to modernize the economy and raise living standards by attracting foreign investment. Huge budget deficits hampered progress, however.
The 1980s were a period of great change. A charismatic Polish pope had visited and electrified the country. Solidarity emerged. The economy stagnated. Mikhail Gorbachev brought vast changes to the Soviet Union and its allies.
By 1990, the Communists were out of power, and massive economic changes were put into action. A new free-market system was largely successful, and the country enjoyed the highest economic growth in Europe. Poland joined the EU. But not all segments of the population benefited from the remarkable progress. In 2008, a severe global recession occurred, but Poland's economy weathered it better than most other nations.
Poland's transition from a communist to a free-market country was largely successful, but it was not painless.

What message does Granny give the men through her speech and actions in "Blues Ain't No Mockingbird"?

Granny makes certain from the beginning that the men know that she is in charge of her own property. When one man casually, smiling, tries to explain to her what he'd like to capture on film, she cuts him off. She doesn't care what the explanation is, and she isn't afraid to confront these men in her yard. Cutting people off in conversation shows a sense of power and importance. (That's why interrupting is so strongly discouraged in good manners from the time kids are young.)
Granny also conveys quite a bit through her facial expressions. She lifts them as she speaks, indicating both that she questions their intentions and that she is a serious force in this conversation. When the men tell her that they like her "nice things," she replies,

“I don’t know about the thing, the it, and the stuff,” said Granny, still talkin with her eyebrows. “Just people here is what I tend to consider.”

Her facial expressions here add additional strength to the message she is conveying.
When a different man tries to persuade Granny to allow him to film her property and tries to slyly convey her permission ("Mind if we shoot . . . ?" conveys a sense that permission is already granted, almost like a rhetorical question), he is met with

“I do indeed,” said Granny with no smile.

Granny has now lost her sense of pleasantries. Her smile has disappeared, and she is not being cordial. After explaining that she is not interested in their little project through both actions and speech, she expects the men to leave.
In short, Granny conveys through words and actions that she is a strong woman who won't cave to their desires for using her property.

What do the terms "syntagmatic" and "paradigmatic" mean?

Both syntagmatic and paradigmatic analyses contribute to the inherent meaning and understanding of a given language.
Syntagmatic relationships are created with the understanding that components of language fall in a certain order. Letters, words, and sentences in a particular order create meaning. This meaning is created from the lowest levels, stringing certain letters together and building to create meaning by sequencing paragraphs in a particular order. Sequence is a focal point in this area of thought.
Paradigmatic relationships look instead at the way groups of words relate to each other. Adjectives, therefore, can be substituted for each other:

We found a furry cat.
vs
We found a fluffy cat.

Pronouns are examined together:

I want pizza.
We want pizza.

All parts of speech are thus able to fall into similar subgroups, allowing for certain types of substitutions within these subgroups.
Being able to fluently interact with a language—including retrieval of information, creating meaning, summarizing text or events, and creating language with meaning—necessitates the use of both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations.

These two terms refer to contrasting ways to analyze language in structural linguistics. Within a given language, every item has both kinds of relationship with other items.

The syntagmatic relationship refers to syntax or sentence structure. These structures put limits on the placement of items and, in doing so, help the listener or reader make sense even of sentences that contain unfamiliar words. English sentences use subject-verb sequence, such as "he is," so a word following a subject will often be a verb, as in "Dogs eat." Some verbs will also be followed by an object, such as "kicks the ball."


Paradigmatic relationships refer to a word's relation with the same type of word, one that can have the same function and be substituted for it in the same structure: replacing "dogs" with "horses" yields "horses eat."


Paradigmatic relationships also extend to qualities of words unrelated to their function or syntactical location. "Bin," "thin," and "win" are related by minimal sound (phoneme), but "bin" is a noun, "thin" is an adjective, and "win" is (usually) a verb.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/paradigmatic-and-syntagmatic

Will lightning strike a tall tree or a small metal fence that is near the tree? Why?

In general, the factors that affect the location where a lightning bolt will strike includes the height of the object, a pointy shape, and isolation. Presence of a small metal object in the vicinity may not make any difference to where the lightning will strike. Tall trees are more likely to be struck by lightning as compared to a smaller metal fence nearby.
Kindly note that lightning does not make a decision on what to hit, and the details of Earth's surface like fences, poles, etc. are nearly invisible to it until it almost reaches the surface of the Earth. However, taller structures have a higher probability of getting hit by the lightning because they significantly reduce the insulating air gap between the clouds and the ground.

How do their jobs affect Moss, Aaronow and Levene?

There seems to be something draining and debilitating about the type of work these salesmen do. Ricky Roma has not been visibly affected yet because he is still young and full of energy and great expectations. But the other three principals, Dave Moss, Shelly Levene, and George Aaronow, all seem old before their times. It is almost as if they are being punished for all the lying and cheating they have to do in order to sell worthless or grossly overvalued land. They have to keep radically irregular hours because they need to get husbands and wives together on their sits. They have to get both signatures on the contract, and this usually means going to their homes at night, perhaps sitting there for hours making friendly conversation, and then either having a few drinks to celebrate or a few drinks to cheer them up because they failed to close. They do not eat regular meals at regular times. They gobble down short orders in restaurants that seem to stay open all night. The fact that they spend so much time eating and drinking at a Chinese restaurant seems to symbolize their de facto homelessness; it is as if they are living in far-away China. Dave Moss may have a wife and children but he says nothing about them. Shelly Levene seems to have no one except a grown daughter who is under intensive care in a hospital. George Aaronow gives the impression of being completely alone in the world. They are being driven by the office manager John Williamson and by the higher-ups Mitch and Murray who never appear in person. They are continually reminded that they should always be closing. They must dream about closing customers in their sleep. They are actually always closing because they are always thinking about closing, talking about closing, remembering their successful closings, and planning tactics for future closings of new prospects. Furthermore, they cannot be sure that the deals they close will stay closed. We see that buyers by law have three working days in which to change their minds. And many of them probably do, because it doesn't make good sense to buy land you have never seen. At one point Shelly Levene tells John Williamson, "A man is his job." If a man has a secure job that pays well and is socially useful, he can enjoy life and spend quality time with his family. But these men have fallen into a pit and can't get out. They are chronically depressed, overworked, and scared. They never have a moment in which they don't have at least one problem to worry about. Every time the phone rings it can mean trouble. Not only that, but they hate each other because they are all competing for some prize or just to hang on to their jobs. We pity all three of them, but Shelly Levene is the most pitiful because he is losing his Midas touch with advancing age. He is growing desperate and panicked, and these feelings create a poor impression on his prospects regardless of how he tries to hide them behind a mask of friendliness, cheerfulness, and supreme self-confidence. He is doomed, and his arrest for stealing the Glengarry leads only expedites his complete ruination.

How did Europeans and Americans justify slavery?

European colonists justified slavery on a number of grounds. Some argued that the institution was openly endorsed in the Bible. The first settlers were staunch Protestants who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. And so if the Bible endorsed slavery—"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ" (Ephesians 6:5–9)—then as far as the settlers were concerned, that was that. Slavery was seemingly divinely ordained, and so who were they to go against the will of God?
Widespread belief in the racial superiority of the white man was also an important factor in justifying slavery. The first American settlers, all of whom were white, regarded African slaves as "savages," uncivilized heathens from a mysterious continent in which all manner of strange, ungodly practices were carried out. As settlers didn't accept black Africans as their equals, they had no moral qualms about enslaving them. As far as they were concerned, this was a natural hierarchy, and they regarded slaves as subhuman.

Who is Marchbanks?

Eugene Marchbanks is one of the main characters in the play alongside Candida and her husband Morell. Candida explains who he is soon after arriving back home. She tells her father and her husband that Eugene is a nobleman who her friend James discovered sleeping on the embankment. She describes him as a shy, "dear boy" and has brought him back to stay with them.
When he enters the scene a moment later, Bernard Shaw describes him as follows:

He is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted, tormented expression and shrinking manner that show the painful sensitiveness that very swift and acute apprehensiveness produces in youth, before the character has grown to its full strength.

From the beginning, Bernard Shaw portrays Eugene as a very nervous young man. When Morell introduces him to his father-in-law, Eugene nervously backs himself against the bookcase.
Eugene admits to Morell that he is in love with his wife. At first Morell seems alright with it, saying "everybody loves her: they can't help it", but he becomes increasingly uncomfortable with it as the play wears on. In the end, Eugene asks Candida to choose between him and her husband. She chooses her husband because she thinks he needs her more.

In section 1, Winston explains that there are no laws in the society of 1984, yet people are arrested/tortured/vaporized all the time. How do you account for this? What is the irony here? Do laws protect freedom?

It is important to recognize that Orwell’s novel is, in reality, an allegory to the Soviet Union under the brutal Stalinist regime. Laws do not exist precisely because (and readers of Orwell should have this in mind when evaluating his narrative) the omnipotent Party that rules Oceania is a direct reference to the situation in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in which the Communist Party was considered the manifestation of the will of the people, operating within a society that considered itself to be governed by the liberated working men and women (the proletariat). As such, the formal codification of laws should have been hypothetically unnecessary, as any action taken by an individual in socialist society was theoretically representative of the will of the whole. In this scenario, society itself had (presumably) broken down all forms of social hierarchy and inequality.
In the Soviet Union, however, this was demonstrably not the case, and Orwell uses the fictional setting of Oceania to allude to the terror faced by people of the Soviet Union under Stalinism. As such, those people who are killed, vaporized, or otherwise disposed of are symbols of both the absurdity of utopian promises and the corruption of the Party leaders. For example, early on Winston Smith recounts a movie he saw in his journal, in which refugees (presumably people trying to flee Oceania) were mercilessly gunned down by attack helicopters. These people, once citizens of Oceania, are portrayed as counterrevolutionaries and thus anathema to the utopian project that the Party and Big Brother are trying to construct. The very fact that Smith is maintaining a diary at all is extremely dangerous, as discovery of forbidden paraphernalia such as personal journals is grounds for immediate execution. Another example from chapter 6 has Smith recollecting a stranger he had passed in the street:

Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom. He thought of a man whom he had passed in the street a few weeks back; a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five to forty, tallish and thin, carrying a brief-case. They were a few metres apart when the left side of the man’s face was suddenly contorted by a sort of spasm. It happened again just as they were passing one another: it was only a twitch, a quiver, rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter, but obviously habitual. He remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is done for. And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly unconscious. The most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep. There was no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see.

Here, even unconscious bodily movements are liable to betray one’s loyalty to society and doom them to extinction.
The overarching point Orwell is trying to make is that in Oceania, as it was in the Soviet Union, “law” in a formal sense has become obsolete. Instead it has been replaced by a kind of internal terror that has been deeply embedded in the psychology of every man and woman in society. This terror has hardwired a subconscious, mechanistic, imperceptible behavior in all of Oceania’s citizens so as to preclude the need for alternative forms of enforcing authority. People who break this pattern of behavior, even in the slightest, most inconspicuous way, are considered to be threats. Thus, it is not “laws” they are breaking but rather a specific kind of behavior that reinforces their own abject subordination.
The most horrible aspect of it all, however, is that the citizens of Oceania (as was the case of those in the Soviet Union) are taught that their behavior, their unbridled, euphoric love of Big Brother and the Party, are really just expressions of their own freedom. Through the megascreens and propaganda pamphlets throughout the city, people are led to believe that their daily actions create a society that is truly divine, free from crime, and the embodiment of human liberty and egalitarianism. Thus, their very existence has been turned into complete hypocrisy.

In chapter 1 of George Orwell's 1984, Winston explains that "nothing is illegal, since there are no longer any laws" (Orwell, 9); however, in this society, the government has unlimited power and unlimited control because nothing is illegal. Even though there are no actual written laws, there are still actions which the citizens understand are forbidden. These forbidden actions, like when Winston starts writing in the diary, essentially become unwritten laws by which the the citizens must live. The irony of (and complication to) this idea that nothing is illegal in Oceania is that if citizens do not follow these unwritten laws, then their punishment(s) can be as harsh as Big Brother chooses. Because Oceania no longer has any laws, there are also no longer legal protections for the citizens.

Is moral depravity better than forced morality?

This is such a difficult question to answer. One could argue in favor of either position based on the context of Anthony Burgess's novel, so I will do my best to explain both sides.
First, one could argue that the text indicates forced morality is better. Before Alex is reconditioned in prison with the Ludovico Technique, he is a mercilessly violent young criminal. He actually enjoys violence, his crimes only increasing in depravity, culminating with the gang rape that causes the victim to die. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, but after the experiment, Alex becomes a different person. He no longer has any desire to commit acts of violence. Burgess could be suggesting that forced morality might be good for society as a whole, if everyone abhorred violence in the way that Alex does.
However, the text also indicates that moral depravity is better. Despite Alex’s reconditioning, he is miserable after his release from prison. The State literally tortured him in order to produce his aversion to violence, which is not exactly ethical. Besides this, the experiment robbed Alex of his love for classical music. Furthermore, after the State reverses the experiment, Alex eventually gets tired of the violent life on his own. This suggests that Burgess is saying that the only true way to eliminate moral depravity is through individual choice and growth. The experiment to force morality upon Alex is essentially a failed one.
Looking at both of these explanations, you should be able to answer this question in regard to the novel.

Why do Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric go to Castle Rock in Lord of the Flies?

In chapter 11, Ralph, Piggy and Samneric (the identical twins, Sam and Eric) go to Castle Rock to retrieve Piggy's glasses. The glasses are usually used to light the fire, and Jack has stolen them. Piggy pleads with Ralph to get them back because:

I can't see no more and I got to get my glasses back.

Having the fire—the last remnant of civilization—is important to these boys because without it they can't send up the smoke signals that will, they hope, attract a passing boat that could rescue them.
The boys bring the conch shell to Castle Rock, wishing to remind others of Ralph's former authority. They are frightened and demoralized by how events have unfolded but are willing to take the risk of approaching Castle Rock.
Once there, they meet Jack's followers, painted as savages, and Ralph confronts Jack, accusing him of being a thief. Ralph demands the glasses back.

Why was Gringoire bitter?

Gringoire is bitter because the world has yet to recognize his talents as a playwright, but there's a good reason for that: he doesn't actually have any. Gringoire is the only person in the world who actually thinks he's any good, and the fact that no one else is able to appreciate him for the towering genius he thinks he is makes him incredibly bitter.
Like a lot of people who've failed in life, Gringoire is neither willing nor able to do anything constructive. Instead, he wants to destroy, to get his own back on a world that he believes has so cruelly rejected him and his art. This explains why he's so keen to arrange an attack on Notre Dame: in attacking the church, he'll be destroying a hated symbol of a society that has rejected and impoverished him. What's more, getting involved in such an act of wanton destruction will make him feel like somebody instead of the bitter, twisted nobody that he is.

What do the recklessness and gambling habits of the banker foreshadow?

We could argue that the banker's recklessness and love of gambling foreshadow the financial problems which he experiences later in the story.
When the story opens, the banker is clearly a very successful man. He is hosting a dinner party for his friends and is wealthy enough that he can afford to make a hefty bet with the lawyer. In fact, he is described in the text as being a "self-confident millionaire."
Moreover, the banker is clearly very excited at the prospect of the bet because he can afford to win or lose:

The banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted at the bet.

By the time the bet is due to finish, however, the banker is living a very different life. Thanks to his recklessness on the stock exchange, the banker no longer has millions to gamble away on a bet. We see this clearly in the following quote:

He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will enjoy life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy like a beggar.

By using the banker's confidence and recklessness to foreshadow his financial ruin, Chekhov demonstrates the importance of being sensible and cautious with money; otherwise poverty is sure to follow.

How does Hannah feel about her daughter Sula? (Pgs. 56-57 On pages 56–57 of Sula, How does Hannah feel about her daughter Sula?

It's a hot summer's day in July, and Sula's mother, Hannah, is sitting in the kitchen with two of her friends, Patsy and Valentine, chewing the fat about the challenges of raising children. Hannah's friends express regret at having kids and complain about just how much of a pain they can be. As for Hannah, she professes her love for Sula, but with the crucial qualification that she doesn't actually like her.
Hannah may know what she means, and Patsy and Valentine, too, but Sula can't believe what she's just overheard. That her own mother would actually say such a thing is something she just can't begin to comprehend. She stands by the window, absent-mindedly fingering the curtain while a sting in her eye starts to form, the kind of sting which, more often than not, heralds an imminent deluge of tears.

How does Paul die?

All we know about the circumstances of Paul's death is that he was killed on the front lines on an otherwise quiet day. His death was not part of a big battle or heroic action. Since the book is mostly told from Paul's point of view while he was alive, we do not have his own account of his death. Like everyone else it seems, we have to rely on the official military report that simply states "all quiet on the Western Front." At least we can assume that Paul died relatively quickly and without too much agony from the statement that follows which says that "his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."
Although the book does not describe how Paul died, the 1930 cinematic version of All Quiet on the Western Front does attempt to fill in the blanks. In the film, Paul is shot dead by a French sniper as he calmly and carelessly reaches out of his trench in an attempt to touch a butterfly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMlDPsRwZE4

The report of Paul's death is couched in the language of officialdom and bureaucracy. We're simply told that Paul "fell." This was a euphemism—a way of making something unpleasant sound a little nicer—commonly used by both sides in World War I to describe the deaths of their soldiers. Perhaps Paul was shot; perhaps he was killed by a falling shell or a burst of shrapnel. We just don't know. But one thing we do know is that, in the overall scheme of things, Paul's death doesn't mean all that much to the powers that be, the generals and politicians waging this terrible conflict. They're concentrated on the bigger picture, on the overall state of the war. From their strategic standpoint, all is quiet on the Western front, and that's all that really matters.

What information does the maid impart to Kate about Marlow's view about her, her father, and their house in She Stoops to Conquer?

The maid in Oliver Goldsmith's comedy of manners She Stoops to Conquer, Or, the Mistakes of an Evening—first appears in the play in the third act. She tells Miss Hardcastle (also known in the play as Kate) that her suitor, Marlow, believes that Kate is a barmaid, based on the dress she was wearing when she recently passed by him:

MAID: But what is more, madam, the young gentleman, as you passed by in your present dress, asked me if you were the bar-maid. He mistook you for the bar-maid, madam.
MISS HARDCASTLE: Did he? Then as I live, I'm resolved to keep up the delusion. Tell me, Pimple, how do you like my present dress? Don't you think I look something like Cherry in the Beaux Stratagem?

The Beaux Stratagem, written by George Farquhar, was a popular comedy first produced in 1707 but was still known and popular when She Stoops the Conquer was written in in about 1773. In The Beaux Stratagem, Cherry is the innkeeper's saucy daughter.
One reason that Marlow might take Kate for a barmaid, aside from her plain dress, is that he's been led to believe by the ne'er-do-well prankster, Tony Lumpkin, that the Hardcastle's home is an inn, and Tony sends them there to find lodging for the night:

TONY: What if you go on a mile further, to the Buck's Head; the old Buck's Head on the hill, one of the best inns in the whole county? . . .
LANDLORD: (apart to TONY) Sure, you ben't sending them to your father's as an inn, be you?
TONY: Mum, you fool you. Let THEM find that out.

Marlow and Kate had crossed paths previously in the play when Marlow first came to her home and they spoke to each other. Kate was well-dressed at the time, however, and Marlow has great difficulty talking to well-dressed, well-bred women and barely looked her in the face:

MISS HARDCASTLE: Was there ever such a sober, sentimental interview? I'm certain he scarce looked in my face the whole time.

When Marlow saw her again, she was plainly dressed:

MISS HARDCASTLE: And are you sure he does not remember my face or person?
MAID: Certain of it.

Kate decides to play the part of a barmaid, "to keep up the delusion," to get to know Marlow better:

MAID: But what do you hope from keeping him in his mistake?
MISS HARDCASTLE: In the first place I shall be seen, and that is no small advantage to a girl who brings her face to market. Then I shall perhaps make an acquaintance, and that's no small victory gained over one who never addresses any but the wildest of her sex. But my chief aim is, to take my gentleman off his guard, and, like an invisible champion of romance, examine the giant's force before I offer to combat.

The maid has some doubts:

MAID: But you are sure you can act your part, and disguise your voice so that he may mistake that, as he has already mistaken your person?

But Kate assures the maid that she can act the part, and speaks a few phrases in a barmaid's accent ("the true bar can't"):

MISS HARDCASTLE: Never fear me. I think I have got the true bar can't—Did your honor call? Attend the Lion there. Pipes and tobacco for the Angel. The Lamb has been outrageous this half-hour.

Marlow enters, Kate assumes the part of the barmaid, Marlow falls for her barmaid act, and the antics of mistaken-identity begin.

I need help with writing a response paper for the book/mini-series Testament of Youth.

Your response will depend on which of the book’s themes you identify as most important. In any film or television adaptation, there are always differences from the source material, so be alert for any changes the filmmakers made.
Vera Brittain’s memoir has long been considered a powerful statement about the devastating effects of war that also is a highly personal story of her individual experiences. You might be moved by the war-related aspects of the book. The book has earned a firm place in the World War I literary canon, among other works like All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms. Your response paper could focus on some of the themes of war—both the experiences Brittain has during the war and its effects on her, and her boyfriend Roland, as members of the “lost generation.” Does her despair at seeing “nothing left in the word” continue, or does she regain hope?
Brittain, of course, differed from the men who wrote about their war experiences, in that she served as a nurse. Her decision to serve was not what she expected to do with her life. She has interested modern readers in part because she was a feminist, and before the war, she had already started university, which was not what her family expected or wanted. The ways that her experiences in war affected her progressive principles would be something to look for in your reading. You could think about how becoming a writer intersected with her earlier life goals.

In Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too,” the speaker refers to himself as “the darker brother.” In “A Black Man Talks of Reaping,” the speaker refers to the white man’s children as “my brother’s sons.” Why is it significant that the poets used the word brother? How do the two poems use the word differently?

Langston Hughes is one of the great African American novelists/poets of the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. In brief, the Harlem Renaissance was a period in the 1920s in which black America began to celebrate its rich and vibrant culture by producing new literature, music, and intellectual styles. Hughes was one of the foremost representatives of this cultural movement. African American contributors to the Harlem Renaissance did not intend for their publications to isolate black American culture from the rest of mainstream society, but rather to showcase the capacity for black Americans to contribute to the cultural vibrancy of the nation as a whole.
Hughes uses the word “brothers” in both of these poems precisely to avoid producing something that could be interpreted as an expression of black exceptionalism. A Black Man Talks of Reaping is the more pessimistic of the two as it showcases the disparity between the work that a black man puts into harvesting vegetation in compared to what he is entitled to once the seed has grown. The poem I, Too, Sing America, is more progressive, and sends a message of hope for a better future. When Hughes says, “They’ll see how beautiful I am, and be ashamed,” the point is not to be hopelessly disparaging of white America in its entirety, but rather to argue in favor of breaking down the artificial social barriers racist sentimentality has created. For too long has the black man’s potential been disregarded by mainstream society. In both cases, Hughes calls the white man his “brother” in order to bridge the distance between white and black people generally and encourage a mentality in which Americans of all colors could look at one another eye to eye, as brothers.

Can we consider Dangling Man as a concept of freedom understood by James Baldwin?

In Saul Bellow's novel Dangling Man, the main character is "dangling" between civilian and military life, as he waits to be inducted into the army. One would think that the freedom of the civilian life is the ultimate state of freedom, whereas the military life is tightly controlled, monitored and regulated. However, the main character finds himself lost in the world. He has many choices in what paths to take and chooses to attain self-knowledge. However, he becomes disillusioned with the society around him and cannot seem to answer the question posed to him: How should a good man live? In the end, he concludes that entering the military life is freedom.
James Baldwin famously said that freedom is only appreciated when it is taken away from you. Baldwin also opined that we create our own restrictions and our own prison cells. An individual could be free—physically and legally—and yet find themselves bound by invisible chains of their own doing. In this sense, Saul Bellow's character found out that he has created his own prison by diving into marital affairs or becoming disillusioned by ideologies that kept him one-dimensional. Therefore, the military, to him, was a way out of the prison he had created in his civilian life.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/05/09/james-baldwin-freedom/

Please explain the following quote from Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father: I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.

This quote comes from Barack Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The quote refers to his struggles as a bi-racial child and adolescent to bridge the two worlds—white and black—that composed who he was, which seemed to be in constant conflict. He discusses the conversations he would have with his black friend Ray about "white folks," as if that culture were not a part of him, and then suddenly would remember his white mother and grandparents. He was half white. Yet it seemed very difficult to him to move from one racial perspective and language to another.
Since he was often perceived as "black" in American culture, Obama struggled with adopting a wholly black identity and felt he couldn't do that. He states in the memoir that his identity couldn't "end there." He believed, as the quote above suggests, that he could use language—"translation"—to bridge the gap between the two cultures; by bringing together the language of the two races he could find a personal identity that would cohere and incorporate all of who he was. This struggle animates his memoir and sends him on journeys, such the one to Africa, to try to form a coherent picture of who he is—from disjointed parts.

What was the legacy of British rule in America?

The United States owes a great deal to being a former colony of Britain. The United States speaks English. It places a great deal of responsibility into the hands of a bicameral legislature in a way similar to how Parliament governs. The United States believes in the rule of law and that everyone is born with certain rights. Much of what the colonists complained about during the buildup to the American Revolution was that their basic rights as Englishmen were being taken away.
The United States's foreign policy also owes a great deal to being a former British colony. Just as Britain during its imperial heyday felt compelled to take action all over the world whenever it felt its interests threatened, so does the United States. Britain and the United States have been on the same side in military conflicts for much of the last century. The United States and Britain also enjoy a close trade partnership. All of this is related to the legacy of British rule in the United States.

What does the shepherd offer his beloved in Marlowe's poem?

In the original Marlowe poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," the shepherd urges his beloved to "Come live with me and be my love." As with any young man trying to win over a young lady—or in this case a nymph—he paints a pretty picture of what kind of life they can enjoy together. He promises her a life of blissful ease among the joys of nature; they will recline on a bed of roses as the melodious birds gently warble their sweet song by shallow rivers. Who could resist such a wondrous rural idyll?
Well, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, the nymph could, actually. In his witty rejoinder to Marlowe, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd," he gives some pretty compelling reasons why the nymph wouldn't want to go off and live with the lusty young swain. For one thing, he's a mortal whereas the nymph is immortal. And everything that's mortal, no matter how ravishingly beautiful, will one day decay and die. The swain, the melodious birds, the pretty roses, all of them will suffer the exact same fate. So where does that leave the happy little life that the shepherd offers to his beloved? All things considered, there's really no good reason why she should ever consider acceding to the shepherd's request.

How do the humanities relate to the book?

Junot Díaz's best-selling novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, addresses many areas of the humanities, including (but not limited to) history, politics, art and culture, and gender relations.
Much of the plot of the story directly involves the Dominican Republic's culture and history, because the main characters and/or their ancestors hail from the Dominican Republic. Diaz introduces the audience to the history of the Dominican Republic in the twentieth century and its oppressive dictator Rafael Trujillo, who plays a role in shaping the life of Oscar's family. We find out many quirks of the culture, most notably "fuku," a sort of curse or witchcraft that dooms a person or a family.
A major aspect of the story is nerd culture, a sort of subsection of humanities, since the protagonist Oscar is very much into all aspects of nerd culture, such as video games, science fiction, and anime. Many aspects of this culture are referenced throughout the story, often without further explanation, leaving the reader to either understand the reference or be confused.
Finally, the story identifies many areas of gender relations, primarily in Dominican culture but also across the broader United States. While Oscar is not lucky with the girls, the narrator is, and relations between girlfriends, sisters, mothers, and aunts are clearly laid out and commented on. The "machismo" culture of the Dominican Republic is analyzed and criticized throughout the story.

Why are the Cobras after Maniac?

The answer to this question can be found in chapter nine. The Cobras is what John McNab and his friends call themselves. They think of themselves as a gang of sorts, and anybody that messes with one of the Cobras is technically messing with all of them.

"They called themselves the Cobras. Nobody messed with them."

The Cobras are after Maniac Magee because Maniac seriously embarrassed McNab in chapter seven. In chapter seven, McNab tries over and over again to strike out Maniac, but Maniac just slams pitch after pitch. McNab eventually gets frustrated enough to throw a frog instead of a baseball. Maniac bunts the frog and takes off toward first base. McNab and the rest of the fielders attempt to field the frog and get Maniac out, but Maniac succeeds in going around all of the bases and getting a home run off of the bunted frog. McNab can't stand having that kind of blemish on his record, so he decides that beating up Maniac is as good as striking him out. He enlists the help of his fellow Cobras to hunt Maniac down and beat him up.

What are the main arguments in the biblical Book of Job?

The main argument in Job is that it is important to maintain faith, especially in the times of greatest adversity. As a corollary, it shows that one should never give in to despair. Faith in God (in this case, Yahweh) is needed even more, Job's trials show, when everything seems most hopeless. Further, doubting God can bring his retribution for lack of faith.
Job was initially blameless and was being tested as part of a contest about the nature and extent of faith. He believed that he had done nothing that would justify all the misfortune, pain, and suffering he had to endure. And he was right. His real problems started when he complained too much about the unfairness, which was seen as questioning God and thus demonstrating a lack of faith. Ultimately he accepted the wisdom of God's will and, no longer feeling forsaken, did not succumb to despair.

Did Frankenstein overstep certain ethical boundaries as a scientist? Why or why not? Can you think of any real world examples where scientist take part in questionable research or experiments?

From a Christian perspective, which would have been the predominant perspective when the book was published in the nineteenth century, Frankenstein crosses an ethical boundary when he creates life. This was considered unethical because it defied God. Creating life was the privilege of God, not man.
In a broader sense, Frankenstein also acts unethically when he robs graves for recently deceased bodies, obviously without having any permission to do so. He also doesn't seem to give very much consideration to the wider implications of his experiments, and abandons responsibility for those implications when he abandons the creature.
As for real world examples of unethical scientific experiments and research, there are plenty of cases to choose from. In Nazi Germany, for example, experiments were carried out on concentration camp prisoners. At Ravensbrück, for instance, bones, muscles and nerves were removed from prisoners (without the use of any anesthesia) in order to study regeneration.
Another, more recent example of unethical science is the CIA-funded Project MKUltra. From 1953 to 1973, American and Canadian citizens were, without their prior knowledge or consent, given various psychotropic drugs and subjected to various forms of sensory deprivation and torture. The victims of these experiments were often from hospitals or prisons, and the CIA hoped to use these experiments to create mind-controlling chemicals that they could use against the Soviet Union.

analyze the last chapter which is chapter 30 in "From a Crooked Rib", mentioning the themes and main ideas.

Before the final chapter of From a Crooked Rib, Elba is a rural girl living in the capital of Somalia, dealing with the themes of control and freedom in a patriarchal society. She is wondering how to reconcile her strong desire for freedom with marriage. She meets a bright man, Atwill, in Mogadishu, and they decide to marry.
The marriage makes Atwill happy, and Elba is glad of that but is not as pleased with his decision to hire a hotel room in Mogadishu, so they can sleep together before they are married. Worse, Atwill leaves the country a week after the marriage, and this leaves Elba doubting her choice. A woman in her building urges Elba to marry a wealthy man, Tiffo, to get back at Awill for leaving so soon. Elba follows the suggestion and takes up with Tiffo, but this only leads to another crisis of confidence. If everyone is free to do whatever they want whenever they want, does this really lead to happiness?
In the end, Elba decides to tell Tiffo she is married and leaves him. Atwill returns, and Elba reflects that they both married each other of their own free will because they wanted to. They decide to be transparent going forward, and Elba realizes as she crawls into bed that she is hopeful for the future. Elba has come to realize that freedom and happiness come with limits.

Compare and contrast Pip in Great Expectations and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.

In terms of personality, these two are quite radically different characters—Pip is personable, friendly and well-liked, while Heathcliff is brooding, enigmatic and bad-tempered. So I think comparisons will mainly be drawn between the characters' life circumstances.
Both are orphans—but Pip is taken in by his own sister and her husband, while Heathcliff is a foundling, raised by the Earnshaw family, who are of a far higher social class than he is by birth.
Both characters are born into relative poverty.
Both rise to a higher social class due to the assistance of wealthy beneficiaries.
Both are treated as if they are little more than servants because of their class, originally—Pip by Estella, who thinks she is below him, and Heathcliff by Edgar.
Both fall in love with women of higher social classes.
Both are thwarted in their love—however, they deal with this in very different ways. Pip accepts that he and Estella will never be together, and they part on good terms; Heathcliff pursues a vendetta which ultimately consumes him with jealousy.

How might an exceptional manager balance being both effective and efficient?

Organizational skills are part of the qualities that would enable an exceptional manager to be both effective and efficient. Effective leaders know what needs to be done to ensure that the results are proven and reliable. Efficient leadership enables the workers to get the results in a timely manner enabling the organization to be more successful. To balance the two, a leader should promote an atmosphere of mutual respect and be an encouragement to the employees. An effective and efficient manager will be willing to go into the "trenches" with the employees and work side-by-side to promote learning for all involved. To be both effective and efficient, the manager must be willing to study the situation from all angles to ensure that both time and financial resources are utilized to meet the needs of the business.

Delegation is a significant tool that allows an exceptional manager to balance being both effective and efficient. Successfully leaders use delegation as a resource to more effectively and efficiently perform their duties and responsibilities. Outside of handling their job, an exceptional manager is tasked with ensuring their team members' tasks are also completed timely and correctly. With that, delegation provides a manager with the ability to get things done, encourage their employees to step up, and cultivate a collaborative working environment. When managers don't delegate and believe their way is the best and only way, it establishes a culture that lacks trust and accountability for lower level staff. In addition, without delegation a manager can become burnt-out and overwhelmed, feeling that they need to complete everything. Delegation assists the manager in balancing being effective and efficient and allows all team membership to flourish and showcase their abilities.

Creativity is an attribute that makes a manager both effective and efficient. Managers are often faced with challenges that may not have obvious or proven solutions. Therefore, they have to be creative and find ways of overcoming challenges to meet set targets and organizational goals.
Striking a balance between being efficient and effective in an organization requires managers to understand organizational policies, guidelines, rules, and regulations. It is important for managers to know their boundaries, especially when making decisions. Furthermore, a good interpretation of rules and regulations ensures that minimal errors are made on the job.
Managers must have a high level of emotional intelligence. They should be in a position to understand what their subordinates feel about various issues. Moreover, they should ensure that employees are comfortable with the tasks that they are performing. This high level of intuition is important when planning a project or assigning tasks as a manager will quickly determine the strengths and weaknesses of different team members.
An exceptional manager should be knowledgeable in his or her field of expertise. The manager must be in a position to answer any questions from his or her subordinates. Taking professional courses is advisable as it enables managers to be updated about their professions.

Why is Tom Joad so reluctant to leave Oklahoma?

His family is gone. His home is destroyed. His friends are nowhere to be found. Even though there is nothing tangible to keep Tom Joad in his old neighborhood, he has one primary reason for his reluctance to leave Oklahoma: parole.
"Ever'body's goin' west," Tom said. "I got me a parole to keep. Can't leave the state."
Curious, Muley asks:
"How they treat ya there in McAlester? My woman's cousin was in McAlester an' they give him hell."
Tom replies:
"It ain't so bad," said Joad. "Like ever'place else. They give ya hell if ya raise hell."
McAlester prison opened in 1908 and was a relatively young facility when Tom Joad was admitted. Tom had been there four years, and was released three years early (“Sure I been in McAlester. Been there four years.” - Chapter 2; ). Based on these dates, it is likely that Tom Joad was incarcerated in McAlester from 1933-1937.
The doors locked behind Tom just as the storms were increasing in intensity. According to PBS’s “Timeline: Surviving the Dustbowl. 1931-1934,
“Great dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area. The drought is the worst ever in U.S. history, covering more than 75 percent of the country and affecting 27 states severely.”
Before Tom went away, however, he was aware that some weather anomalies were occurring in Oklahoma. In 1932, PBS reports, fourteen significant dust storms had occurred. By 1933, that number had doubled.
The dust storms continued to occur, becoming even more frequent and powerful. On April 14, 1933, an horrific event known as the “Black Dustbowl” occurred, displacing some 300,000 tons of top soil and most greatly affecting the areas of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. Then, in 1934, just one year after Tom went away, the “Yearbook of Agriculture” announced that,
Approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production…. 100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil; 125 million acres of land now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil.
When Tom is dropped off by the trucker, in 1937, what had been some abnormalities at home had become unmitigated disasters, and not all of them, of course, were weather-related. Banks were seizing farms by the hundreds, forcing their residents to go elsewhere. As the land was unusable, these displaced families had to go elsewhere.
The novel does not reveal how much, if any, of this was known to Tom prior to his release but his dismay indicates that he was ignorant of most of the events of the prior four years.
Tom’s world from 1933 to 1937 was necessarily interior although because of his assignment to a work crew, he could not have been completely in the dark about the dust storms. Tom, like thousands of others, was a participant in prison labor. Prisons had been in existence in America for about 100 years by the late 1930s and had remained largely unchanged: most were terrible and inmates were given only the bare necessities to survive. Privacy was not an option. What did change was the numbers of people, mostly men, who found themselves behind bars in by the late 1930s; incarceration rates climbed from 79 to 137 per 100,000 residents between 1925-1929.
Prison labor had long been a part of life for the incarcerated, who, unlike free citizens, could be compelled to work. While there were large numbers of black men and other minorities assigned to chain gangs and other work, the numbers of white men forced to work was relatively low in comparison. However, by 1934, many more white men were conscripted into service. The reason for this can be found in the growing numbers of inmates crammed in too-small housing. Riots were flaring more and more frequently and prison officials lobbied Congress to create a work program and in 1934, the 73rd Congress approved the Federal Prison Industries.
It was into this mix of circumstances that Tom Joad was thrown. It is likely that Tom worked on a road crew, as evidenced by the location of the callouses on his hands, which the trucker who lets Tom ride with him observes:
“I seen your hands. Been swingin' a pick or an ax or a sledge.”
Road crew workers often worked from sunup to sundown. Given the location of the work, sometimes cots were set up and the prisoners guarded while they slept so that they could be back on the job as soon as there was enough sunlight to do so.
No one would want to return to prison. But in 1937, for Tom Joad, violating his parole meant a return to subhuman conditions and a life of brutal work.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/dustbowl/
http://www.michbar.org/journal/article.cfm?articleID=739&volumeID=58
Prisons: History - Modern Prisons - Incarceration, War, Imprisonment, and Prisoners - JRank Articleshttp://law.jrank.org/pages/1782/Prisons-History-Modern-prisons.html#ixzz3CY9Y1cDN

Why does Scrooge keep the carol in his office?

I'm assuming that you're referring to Scrooge's habit of keeping the coal-box in his office. The simple reason for this is that he's tight-fisted and doesn't want to spend any more money than he must on keeping the place warm. Scrooge has no problem with working away at his desk all day in the freezing cold. He doesn't even light the fire when he gets home, preferring instead to sit by the empty fireplace wrapped up in a blanket.
The same cannot be said for Bob Cratchit. He really feels the cold as he slaves away in the tank all day with only the light of a single candle to keep him warm. Scrooge is fully aware of this, but being such a mean old miser, he couldn't care less. He knows that if Bob had his way, he'd put a lot of coal on the fire to make the office nice and warm. To Scrooge, this would be an expensive extravagance, so he keeps the coal-box next to him where he can keep an eye on it.

What does this quote say about Santiago: “I could just drift [...] and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well"?

In The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, an aged fisherman has gone many days without catching anything, and as a result, he is regarded as unlucky, and the boy who befriended him is not allowed to fish with him anymore. However, through his simple but intricately detailed style, Hemingway makes clear that the old man is in fact a very good fisherman with an intimate knowledge of all aspects of the occupation, his equipment, and his surrounding environment.
The line "I could just drift..." is the beginning of an integral passage, coming as it does just before he hooks the immense fish. It highlights the old man's character and determination. When it says, "I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me," Hemingway reveals a moment of temptation, an easy answer to the arduous task of putting his entire focus and strength into his fishing. However, the old man quickly resists this temptation when he thinks, "But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well." He is acutely aware that despite the skills he has developed over many years he has not caught a fish in a long time, and he is determined to do his best whether he succeeds or fails.

This quote occurs on day two, paragraph 54. It actually makes up the entire paragraph, and it is an easy quote to just gloss over and not consider its importance. The quote shows readers a great deal about what kind of man Santiago is because the quote speaks to his unceasing perseverance in his craft. He isn't a lazy fisherman. He works hard at his occupation, and he simply refuses to give up. The fact that it is day 85 without a catch actually serves to focus Santiago even more. He doesn't have a sense of hopelessness. He has a determined focus to persevere, carefully watch the water, and get himself a catch. Santiago's efforts are actually immediately rewarded in the following paragraph. He sees his lines move:

Just then, watching his lines, he saw one of the projecting green sticks dip sharply.

In The Story of an Hour, how "free" was Mrs. Mallard before she knew about the train accident?

"The Story of an Hour" is one of Kate Chopin's most anthologized short stories. As with most of her work, it focuses on the plight of women and how they are very often held captive (essentially) to the wills of the men in their lives. Mrs Mallard is, in this story, no exception.
The tragedy of Mrs Mallard's existence is that it is only when she thinks her husband has been killed that she realizes how little freedom she had when she was with him; although she at first grieves his passing, she also comes to recognize that, without him, she could gain a freedom which has since been lost to her. Unfortunately, and ironically, this is not to be, as Mr Mallard turns out not to be dead at all—at which point shock and disappointment kill his wife.
Chopin describes her protagonist's lack of freedom before the accident by indicating how Mrs Mallard feels when she realizes that freedom is now coming towards her—a "thing" which seemed to "creep . . . out of the sky." Mrs Mallard has known so little freedom that she is at first terrified by it. Then she recognizes that she will no longer have her husband's "powerful will bending hers": his "private" will "imposed" upon her. This suddenly seems to Mrs Mallard a "crime" that she hadn't recognized before, even though she does not think it was always maliciously meant.

In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard's sister Josephine tells her that her husband has been killed in a train accident. Although she initially mourns, afterwards as she sits alone Mrs. Mallard begins to reevaluate how she really feels about her husband's death. Awareness awakens within her that she is not really devastated by the disaster, but rather set free.
As she spends the hour in contemplation before she learns that her husband is in fact alive, Mrs. Mallard realizes that before the accident, she was never really free at all. She loved her husband sometimes, but he had "a powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature."
It is only in that one hour when she supposes her husband to be dead that Mrs. Mallard is really free. She contemplates and looks forward to "a long procession of years to come" that she would live by herself and during which she could do whatever she wants. She wholeheartedly welcomes and embraces that freedom. She anticipates a long life, whereas before the accident she dreaded a long life.
So we can see that Mrs. Mallard did not consider herself free at all before the accident. Only after the accident when she was sure that her husband was dead did she consider herself completely and truly free.

Who discovered seafloor spreading?

Harry Hammond Hess, a geologist and Navy submarine commander (who later rose to the rank of Rear Admiral), proposed the theory of seafloor spreading. He proposed that the continental movement is a result of the spreading of the seafloor. In other words, it is the seafloor that is pushing the continents apart from each other. This work provided the much-needed mechanism for the "continental drift" theory proposed by Alfred Wegener.
According to Hess, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (an ocean ridge found along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean), is the location where new seafloor was being added to the Earth's lithosphere. This, in turn, pushed the continents apart. This also helped to explain how the Atlantic Ocean can get wider without dramatically changing the coastlines of the landmass.
Hope this helps.

Why do you think Vanetta’s public defender failed to mention that she was attending GED classes, providing childcare, and looking for housing every morning? How might that information have impacted her sentencing?

Like most poor people who end up in court, Vanetta has to rely on a public defender to make her case. Public defenders' offices in most states are notoriously understaffed and under-resourced, which severely impacts their ability to provide good quality legal counsel to their clients. And this is a possible factor in relation to Vanetta's case.
She's up before the court on a very serious charge: armed robbery. Despite making an impassioned plea on his client's behalf, the public defender neglects to mention that Vanetta's been getting up at 5 every morning to look for a place to live, attending GED classes, and caring for children. These are all potentially mitigating factors which one would've thought Vanetta's attorney might have raised. But he doesn't.
Possibly this is because he figured that such an approach wouldn't work with the judge. And it turns out that he's right. Because although the judge accepts that poverty was a factor in Vanetta's committing the crime, he doesn't treat it as a mitigating factor when it comes to sentencing. His reasoning is that Vanetta will still be poor if he lets her go, and what's to say she won't then commit another serious crime? So the judge sentences Vanetta to eighty-one months in jail.

What is the main theme of Across Five Aprils, and why is this the case?

I would argue that the main theme of the story is the effect that war has upon ordinary people. A casual glance at a history book might give us the impression that war is all about epic battles, glory, and acts of heroism. But there's another side to war, a much darker side in which the lives of innocent civilians are disrupted and destroyed. It is this side of war that is the main focus of Across Five Aprils.
In keeping with the book's perspective, we're never given any detailed firsthand descriptions of battle. Instead, the Civil War takes place at some distance from the Creightons and their neighbors, yet it still touches them deeply. Even in this quiet, remote corner of rural Illinois, it's impossible to escape the often horrific consequences of war.
On the home front, war undermines communities, turning people who had previously lived peaceably together against each other. Some members of the local community have got it into their heads that Jethro's brother Bill has joined up to fight for the Confederates. This wholly unfounded rumor makes the Creightons the object of suspicion. Some of their neighbors show their displeasure at what they perceive as the Creightons' treachery by setting their barn on fire. The message conveyed by this unpleasant episode is clear: though war can often inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things, it can also incite basically decent people to do things they would never normally do.

What losses did Antonio encounter in The Merchant of Venice?

We first hear the rumor that Antonio has lost one of his ships in the opening scene of act 3. Solanio and Salarino enter the scene discussing the news that one of Antonio's ships, carrying valuable cargo, has wrecked off the English coast. Of course, when Shylock arrives and hears the news he is overjoyed at Antonio's misfortune; now he might have his chance at revenge.
In the following scene, we learn that the situation is even worse for Antonio. Bassanio receives a letter from Antonio informing him that all his ventures have been lost at sea. Of course, since Antonio had borrowed three thousand ducats from Shylock—with his ships as collateral—he would now owe the moneylender a pound of his flesh, as these were the terms of their agreement.
The characters in The Merchant of Venice are acutely aware of the risks involved in shipping. We hear just how dangerous an investment shipping is from Shylock in act 1, scene 3 when he enumerates all the risks to Bassanio, ranging from pirate raids to storms at sea. It is almost as if Shylock expects Antonio to suffer the loss of all his investments.

Being a merchant at that time was a risky business. Just one single storm could be enough to destroy an entire fleet of ships with them their precious cargo. In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio suffers a similarly disastrous loss himself. In act III, scene 1, we discover that one of this merchant ships carrying a particularly valuable load has been wrecked upon the notorious Goodwin Sands, a sandbar off the south-east coast of England. Even worse is yet to come for poor old Antonio in the next scene. Bassanio receives a letter from him which relates the terrible news that he's lost other ships at sea. This is a disaster for Antonio, as it's now a virtual certainty that he won't be able to pay Shylock the money he owes him and so will have to forfeit a pound of flesh.

What does Macbeth's "life's but a walking shadow" speech mean?

Macbeth is utterly dejected by the end of the play and doesn't see much difference between winning the coming battle with the invading army or losing it. He doesn't care whether he lives or dies. What does he mean when he says that life is "a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more"? By "life," Macbeth--or rather Shakespeare speaking through his character--means all of us. We are all actors strutting and fretting our way through life, pretending to be something more than we know ourselves to be underneath the costumes and makeup. Some of us are better actors than others, and some not as good. But we are all acting. We are poor in the sense that we are always looking for a part, a gig. Without that role to play we are nothing. If we lose our jobs, we quickly realize our nakedness. Macbeth sees himself as an actor trying to play the role of a king, and he knows that he is just playing a part, strutting and fretting a little more than the others because he has to keep up appearances.

Write an entry about certain themes, details, or quotes that stick out from pages 70–93 in the novel.

The themes in these pages of Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road include the reciprocal filial love between the boy and his father as well as the dichotomy between "good guys" and "bad guys."
A nameless boy and his father are traveling along a road in a post-apocalyptic landscape, foraging for food and trying to stay warm by means of fire. The boy is young, and his father's protective instinct very great. Amid this landscape, the boy's father is ill, and the two survive on very little to eat, regularly encounter corpses left in homes, and sleep wherever they can find warmth and shelter (such as in an abandoned car).
When a dog joins them, the boy implores the father to let the dog come with them on their journey and not to hurt the dog, to which the father assents. The boy's love for the dog mirrors the love that his father has shown him.
When the father sees a group whom he expects to be marauders, he says, "keep your face down." The formidable group is described as follows:

Bearded, their breath smoking through their masks. Shh, he said. Shh. The phalanx following carried spears or lances tasseled with ribbons, the long blades hammered out of trucksprings in some crude forge up-country. The boy lay with his face in his arms, terrified. They passed two hundred feet away, the ground shuddering lightly. Tramping. Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that the women, perhaps a dozen in number, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites illclothed against the cold and fitted in dog collars and yoked each to each. (92)

The boy asks, "Were they the bad guys?" The father says that they were (93). The boy has an implicit trust in his father, and the father an instinctive desire to protect his young son.

How does the Boss treat George and Lennie?

The rude inquisition and verbal abuse that George receives from the Boss is intended to illustrate why George wants to own a place of his own. This particular boss is representative of many bosses who employ unskilled and itinerant farm workers. No doubt the Boss has to be tough because he is dealing with tough men and because he is demanding a lot from them for very little pay. A boss has to show "who's boss." Here is an example of the Boss's verbal abuse:
All right. But don't try to put nothing over, 'cause you can't get away with nothing. I seen wise guys before.
George has to stand there and take whatever the Boss dishes out. He has been taking it for much of his life. The fact that George has to get a job for Lennie as well as for himself makes his situation that much worse. George is characterized as intelligent, sensitive, independent, and spunky. He is different from the average bindlestiff who has been beaten down by life. The Boss considers George a "wise guy." This is how bosses in general would feel about men who seemed independently spirited. Such men could cause dissatisfaction among the other workers. George is obviously a cut above the others, judging from the fact that he is not only taking care of himself but looking out for another man as well. The Boss is more than just another character; he represents ranch owners and ranch managers in general. He is not a bad man, but he has to be tough, watchful, and hard-driving. He is dealing with a bunch of drifters who are all virtual strangers. No doubt he has had plenty of bad experiences with men such as these. In fact, the two men George and Lennie are replacing were pretty useless, according to Slim. Such drifters could be lazy, incompetent, dishonest, quarrelsome, and even dangerous. The Boss is judging George and Lennie in the light of all the bad experiences he has had in the past. George is a proud man. His main reason for wanting a place of his own is to get away from bosses forever.

Compare and contrast the similarities and differences between Grandma Lynn and Buckley in regards to how they deal with Susie's disappearance or death.

Before Susie goes missing, Grandma Lynn rarely visits the Salmon family, and when she does, she tends to create conflict. Despite her flaws, particularly self-absorption and alcoholism, Grandma Lynn cares deeply for her daughter and grandchildren, which is reflected in the aftermath of Susie's disappearance. When she learns of Abigail's affair, she attempts to make her daughter promise to break it off in order to spare the family from experiencing more pain. After Abigail leaves her husband and children for California, Grandma Lynn moves into Susie's room and does what she can to help care for her grandchildren.
Susie's youngest sibling, Buckley, is four years old when he learns that Susie has died. Grandma Lynn and his father, Jack, help him grasp the concept of death at a young age by telling him that Susie is gone and will never come back. Buckley believes that he sees and talks to Susie, who visits him at night. The reader is never informed whether this is real or merely a product of his imagination in his process to understand her death.
A definitive way in which Buckley and Grandma Lynn are similar is their awareness of Susie's presence after her death, although to different extents. Buckley has visions of his deceased sister, and Susie notes that Grandma Lynn is vaguely aware of her presence at certain times. Susie attributes this to the fact that Grandma Lynn is close to death herself (she ends up dying several years later):

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out. Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room.

Moreover, both Buckley and Grandma Lynn undergo character changes as a result of Susie's disappearance and death; Buckley grows up to be withdrawn and introverted due to the loss of his sister (though this is also associated with his mother's abandonment), and Grandma Lynn takes on a motherly role in the Salmon household.

How does the caretaker represent the contemporary society?

The caretaker represents various aspects of the contemporary society. The people in the contemporary society are characterized by selfishness, ungratefulness, joblessness, and poverty. These are all aspects that are exhibited by the caretaker, whose actual name is Davis. The old man is left jobless after leaving his job as a “kitchen helper” at a restaurant. Davis has nowhere to go and out of kindness, Aston decides to accommodate him. The caretaker represents the situation in the contemporary society where many people remain jobless. Most of these people do not have proper accommodation and cannot fend for themselves. However, even after Davis gets assistance from Aston, he has no regard for him. Davis, the caretaker, is presented as ungrateful and greedy. His ungratefulness is evident when he is offered a comfortable pair of shoes by Aston but declines, saying that “they did not fit.” Further, when Aston complains about the noises made by Davis, the old man calls him a “half-off,” and even pulls his knife at him. This shows Davis as an ungrateful individual who does not respect the hand that feeds him. This is a common occurrence in the contemporary society as most people tend to be ungrateful to those who have helped them in one way or the other. For example, in contemporary society it is common to find children disrespecting their parents who have toiled to give them education and ensure that they have a decent life. Additionally, the caretaker is depicted as a selfish and greedy individual. Davis is a self-centered person who only thinks about his gains without much regard for the people around him. The first instance of his greed is depicted when he asks Aston for more money despite having been given some money that evening. This shows that Davis only cares about his own welfare at the expense of Aston’s financial well-being. Contemporary society is characterized by high levels of greed and selfishness. This explains the increased cases of theft and corruption in today’s society. Thus, the caretaker clearly represents issues affecting contemporary society.

What is a theme in Robert Penn Warren's Flood: A Romance of Our Time?

As in many of Robert Penn Warren’s novels, Flood takes the search for identity as one of its central themes.

Perhaps an overlooked work in Warren’s output, this 1963 novel offers a clear picture of the author’s salient themes, narrative techniques and prose style. A good comparison piece when studying All the King’s Men, Wilderness or A Place to Come to, Warren’s Flood presents an opportunity for students and scholars to examine the existential and metaphorical cornerstone’s of the Pulitzer Prize winning author’s fiction.

In Flood, Bradwell Tolliver, the narrator and protagonist, struggles to sort out a functional identity by finding ways to come to terms with his past, an identity constructed over and against “the transparent, but real, barrier of History” that seems to bar him from achieving a stable sense of self. The crisis and pressures of personal history are given metaphorical weight by the impending flooding of Tolliver’s former home-town. Yet the deeper issue of self-knowledge is larger and more abstract than the metaphor suggests.
On an existential level, Tolliver is beset by a sense that his identity is somehow slippery or false, too fluid to be real. Even with his memories of the past and his preoccupations with the past, Tolliver feels about himself that “I’ve had a good many years to think things over, and I have decided that the worse terribleness under that terribleness is that you don’t know any center of you any more, you don’t feel you any more, and you are sick because everything is sliding out of focus, out of equilibrium, as when those canals go wrong in your ears.”
The fixation on self-realization and identity carries the novel from its first pages to its last and finds expression in many of the most inward and poetic passages of the novel. The fact that this fixation remains largely unresolved in the novel is demonstrated in its conclusion as Tolliver realizes, “I cannot find the connection between what I was and what I am,” and thus becomes a figure representing the human conundrum generated out of a consciousness of personal history that ironically and ineluctably fails to function as a consciousness of self.

What are some current challenges of people with disabilities face? Please provide statistics to support your discussion. Next, research and identify at least two organizations (one for each racial/ethnic group) that fight for equality, confront the challenges that people with disabilities face, and provide support to individuals with people with disabilities. Identify the people with disabilities, their mission statement, campaigns or programs they are involved in and their current work.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities defines the term ‘disability’ as follows:

“Persons with disabilities include those who have long term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.“

The disabled population (people with physical or mental impairments) and the people who suffer from chronic illnesses encounter a number of problems and hardships in their daily life. They are usually limited when it comes to accessing certain places, groups, and privileges, and face a plethora of challenges in many socio-economic areas.
These challenges can vary in complexity and range from physical, emotional, mental, and psychological, to educational, societal, cultural, economic, and medical. As far as physical challenges are concerned, some of the biggest problems disabled people face are accessibility problems, transportation problems, and eating in restaurants and dining establishments. For instance, people in wheelchairs can seldom access public bathrooms, or even their offices, because some of the buildings are not equipped with the proper equipment designed to cater the needs for the disabled people.
Transportation is also a challenge, as people with disabilities regularly come across some difficulties when using the affordable public transportation services. Some buses don’t have a wheelchair friendly space, or a platform so that people in wheelchairs can get on and off the vehicle; some buses only use visual announcement systems to inform the passengers of the next station, which proves difficult for people with visual disabilities; blind people and people with other visual impairments sometimes can’t even find the bus station, because there are no guiding tracks. Furthermore, people who suffer from chronic illnesses and must be careful with their choice of food and beverages, can rarely find a restaurant or a dining establishment that will offer them the right menu that will meet their dietary plans.
When we’re analyzing the emotional, mental, and psychological challenges that disabled people face, we usually distinguish two main problems: Self-esteem issues and the unavoidable need to depend on society, family members, loved ones, or friends. The disabled population occasionally faces discrimination and unfair treatment, especially children and teenagers. People who don’t know better will use derogatory language and insensitive remarks when talking with or about the disabled people. This, in turn, makes the disabled people feel very insecure and self-conscious, and many of them suffer from anxiety and low self-esteem.
People with disabilities face problems with their education as well, as many schools and educational centers don’t have the right programs that will meet the needs of the disabled population. Even though there are special schools and academies for the disabled, many of the impaired people can’t afford to go there, be it from financial reasons, as some of them are poor, or geographical reasons, as some of them live in remote and rural areas. Because they require special aid, many of the disabled people don’t have equal opportunities in receiving education.
Thus, many fail to get a university degree and get a proper job. Which brings us to the economic challenges. Disabled people cannot equally compete with the able bodied people in the work area. Many companies and organizations, especially the smaller businesses, don’t even hire disabled people, as they can’t afford to provide a disabled friendly environment. Sometimes, even though the disabled people have the same knowledge and skills as the non-impaired people, they will receive a lower income, as their employers assume that they’re not as productive as their non-impaired coworkers. Because of their low paychecks, many disabled people can’t fully cover their medical costs and must depend on social and government support.
Finally, disabled people face numerous societal problems as well. For instance, they can’t date properly or get married. This is mainly due to the fact the people question the ability of their disabled partners to properly care for their families. Some straight men even fear that disabled women might not be able to have children or take care of them the same way non-impaired women can. In some countries, it is even believed that marriage with a disabled person is a bad omen.
You can see various statistics about the information I’ve provided here, and here. You also mentioned that you need at least two organizations that “fight for equality, confront the challenges that people with disabilities face, and provide support to individuals with people with disabilities.” I’ve managed to find “The American Association of People with Disabilities” and the “End Abuse of People with Disabilities” organization, both of which have successfully carried out their missions in providing help and protecting the rights of the disabled community in the US. You can find more similar organizations here.