How long does the boy spend on the travels described in Sounder?

The book Sounder tells of a young African-American boy who searches for his lost and injured dog, Sounder, after it chases after the police officers who arrest the boy's father for theft. The dog was shot and injured but survived the attack and ran off.
The story begins at an undisclosed time during the year, but it is before Christmas time, and the boy and his father go hunting, so it likely begins sometime in that fall. The boy chases after his dog and goes on a variety of adventures throughout Christmas time and the following year. Over the year, his father is convicted, the dog is found severely injured; it is missing an eye and an ear and is unable to use one of its legs. The book wraps up just before the following Christmas, meaning the adventures in this book span roughly one year.

What was unusual about the Warsaw uprising?

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest revolt of Jews during World War II. It was less than a thousand Jewish fighters of two underground groups, Jewish Combat Group and Jewish Military Union, against at least three times that many elite German troops. What makes it more impressive is that the two Jewish groups were lightly armed, mostly with improvised home made weapons. They had less than 70 fire arms of any kind, all stolen or smuggled. They were mostly armed with gas filled bottles and improvised explosive devices, sometimes even rocks, bats, and pipes. The German troops, by contrast, all had machine guns and rifles, mortars, artillery, armored vehicles, and high explosives.
Jewish groups also knew they had no chance of winning. They chose to go down fighting rather than accept death in extermination camps. Against all odds, the uprising lasted nearly four weeks. German troops had to resort to blowing up building after building to defeat them. Most Jewish fighters were killed by the explosions, fire, collapsing buildings burying them, or smoke inhalation. Amazingly, several hundred did survive and went on to fight in other battles.

Did the southern states and the northern states have the same reasons for fighting the Civil War? In other words what did the two sides think they were fighting for, and, how have historians interpreted these issues?

For both the southern states and the northern states, slavery was the primary issue that brought about the Civil War. However, the reasons that slavery created an irreparable rift between the northern and southern portions of the United States were very different.
The agrarian economy of the South depended upon the institution of slavery for its continued prosperity. Although ostensibly the U.S. Constitution at the time allowed slavery, in the North, slavery had been abolished in state after state, and the movement to abolish slavery at a federal level was gaining popularity. After the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, southerners became concerned that the Republican Party would outlaw slavery throughout the United States, despite Lincoln's reassurances that this wouldn't happen. To ensure their independence and ability to sustain the institution of slavery, before Lincoln's inauguration South Carolina—followed by six other states—voted to secede from the Union.
Then-president James Buchanan refused to recognize the declarations of secession and determined not to give up federally-owned forts that were in the territory of the Southern Confederacy. When he assumed office, Lincoln was determined to preserve the Union. The war actively began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
In summary, we can see that the South's primary reason for fighting the Civil War was to preserve the rights of the states to maintain the institution of slavery, while the North's reasons involved the preservation of the United States as a Union.
https://www.historynet.com/causes-of-the-civil-war

Who is the protagonist in "A White Heron"?

In the short story "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, a young girl named Sylvia lives with her grandmother in a house in the midst of the woods. One evening while Sylvia is leading the cow home along a forest path, she comes across a hunter who is searching for a rare white heron that he intends to shoot and stuff for his collection. He ends up staying with Sylvia and her grandmother, and he offers Sylvia money if she will lead him to the elusive bird. At first Sylvia agrees, thinking of the things that the money could buy, but after she climbs to the top of a tall pine tree and spots the heron, she realizes that she does not want the hunter to take its life, rejects the money, and refuses to tell the hunter where the bird is.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a protagonist is "the principle character in a literary work (such as a drama or story)." By this definition, the protagonist of "A White Heron" is definitely Sylvia. The story is told mainly from her viewpoint, it begins and ends with her, and it is her decision at the end not to disclose the location of the heron that resolves the story and reveals its theme.

What new position does Mr. Hemings offer Julia, and how does she respond in The Shakespeare Stealer?

After Julia gives up the role of Ophelia in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, Mr. Heminges kindly offers her a job gathering money from members of the audience at the entrances to the theater. Although his intentions are good, the effect of his actions is unfortunate. Julia feels that she has been reduced to a "dung collector." In the end, she only keeps her new job for a week.
This scene shows the different levels of value attached to being a player and to being someone who merely works at the theater. The scene also shows that the theater is a hierarchical community in which some roles are conceived of as being more important than others. Most importantly, Gary Blackwood uses this scene to give readers insight into Julia's character.

If Changez’s narrative is read as a confession, what is he confessing to? If Changez’s narrative is read as a memoir, what are the most important and/or vivid details from the account of his life? And, as important, what are the significances of the details of his confession/memoir?

If Changez’s narrative in The Reluctant Fundamentalist is read as a confession, it can be viewed as the confession of an American Muslim who evolves into a religious fundamentalist and a political radical. The confession is that of an American who secretly loathes the American culture, its capitalistic society, and its political ideologies, particularly its foreign policies. It is the confession of a young man who has faced the personal effects of Islamophobia inside post-9/11 America.
If Changez’s narrative is read as a memoir, the most pivotal moment is the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The event not only marked a monumental turning point in American and global history, but also marked the beginning of a political and religious awakening among the disaffected Muslim youth of the world.
The details of what Changez experienced as a young Muslim in post-9/11 America illuminate a perspective that is essential in understanding Islamic zealotry. The details of his experiences during this time period also reveal the complex and tense dynamics between non-Muslim and Muslim Americans.

How was Ray Bradbury influenced by George Orwell's 1984 in writing Fahrenheit 451?

George Orwell's 1984 was first published in 1948, three years before Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Both are dystopian novels which present oppressive totalitarian governments, and both present dystopian futures in which people have become unwitting slaves to those governments. In both novels too, there is tight control over what people can read and think.
It is possible that Bradbury could have written Fahrenheit 451 without ever having read 1984. The similarities noted above could be explained by the fact that both authors lived through the same period of history. Both lived through World War II, and both were exposed to the tactics of totalitarian dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Franco. All of these dictators, but most notably Hitler and Stalin, used propaganda to influence or control what people read and thought. It is therefore not surprising that two authors who lived through this period of history would imagine and write novels about two reasonably similar dystopian futures.
However, there are other similarities between the two books which suggest that Bradbury had read and was influenced by 1984. For example, the two protagonists, Guy Montag and Winston Smith respectively, are both average, everyman characters who rebel against the government. Both are also employed (Winston as a records editor at the Ministry of Truth, and Guy as a fireman) in jobs which require the alteration or destruction of literature as part of the propaganda effort.
Another similarity between the two books, which may suggest that Bradbury was directly influenced by 1984, is the presentation of the antagonist characters. The main antagonist in 1984 is O'Brien, and the main antagonist in Fahrenheit 451 is Captain Beatty. Both men are highly intelligent, thinking men, but both renounce their intellectual independence and choose to sublimate themselves to the collective consciousness of their governments. In other words, both antagonists represent the suppression of the individual in the name of the collective, this being a common trait of the extreme ideologies (whether it be, for example, Stalin's form of communism, or Hitler's form of fascism) that both authors witnessed in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.
It is worth pointing out, however, when considering whether or not, or to what extent Ray Bradbury might have been influenced by 1984, that the styles of both books are markedly different. Orwell famously wrote in a very sparse, dry style, often drafting works again and again to remove superfluous words, whereas Bradbury wrote in a much more florid, dramatic style. So while Bradbury may have been influenced by 1984 in regards to theme and character, the style of writing remained entirely his own.

Ray Bradbury and George Orwell's novels share many similarities and Bradbury was clearly influenced by Orwell's approach to dealing with authoritarian regimes while creating a protagonist opposed to the oppressive government. Bradbury was greatly influenced by the way that authoritarian regimes use technology to oppress and threaten the population in order to maintain power. In 1984, Big Brother relies on the Thought Police to spy on citizens, closely monitors society via telescreens, and uses propaganda to manipulate the population. Bradbury adopts similar concepts by creating the Mechanical Hound and massive parlour walls, which oppress and manipulate the population. In both dystopian novels, citizens feel threatened by their governments and both protagonists challenge the authorities in order to live independently. Bradbury's focus on censorship was also influenced by Orwell's 1984. While Winston works for the Ministry of Truth fabricating official documents, Montag lives in a society where literature is illegal. Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 also examines a similar theme regarding the suppression of knowledge and truth by the government, which is a prominent aspect of Orwell's 1984.

What reason does Charles give for leaving home when he was fifteen

The fact that Dr. Charles Dunford left home at fifteen indicates that all was not well with his home life. But Charles doesn't talk about it all that much. In fact, he never really talks that much about his family in general, except for his brother GL, who is quite a colorful character to say the least. Whenever he is asked why he left home at such a young age, Charles always answers that it's because they didn't have a Negro high school and so he moved to Knoxville instead where he stayed with his cousin and went to school.
Given the time when the story is set, Charles' reasons for leaving home as a teenager seem perfectly valid. The system of segregated education in the South meant that it was often very difficult for African-American children to find a good school. So it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for someone as intelligent as Charles to move to a large town to further his education. But as later events demonstrate, this is only part of the story. Family tensions were also an important factor in Charles' decision to leave home.

What is Edmund Spenser stressing in his version of the Venus and Adonis myth in "The Garden of Adonis" from The Fairie Queene?

Spenser's version of the Venus and Adonis myth expresses his Neoplatonism. In very basic terms, Neoplatonists, taking their cue from the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato, believed that the soul was more real than the body. They believed that the eternal soul, which was the repository of truth, was effectively trapped inside the earthly body but would be released upon death to return back to where it once lived before taking on bodily form. There, in the realm of eternity, souls would await reincarnation.
In this particular canto of The Faerie Queene, the idyllic Garden of Adonis represents eternity. This is the place where all living souls are born. They then take matter from the pit of Chaos and descend to Earth in bodily form. Once every living thing has passed away, it returns to the Garden of Adonis, where it sloughs off its body like a snake skin, leaving only its soul, which awaits reincarnation. We can see here that, for Neoplatonists such as Spenser, the soul is prior to and superior to the body—which, unlike the eternal soul, is prone to decay and corruption.

Why does Hemingway make the hills look like white elephants? How does this symbolism relate to his overall message in the story?

It is the girl who first says that the hills in the distance appear to look like white elephants. After they order drinks, the couple begins to discuss something, without directly referring to it, but it seems as though they are discussing the possibility of her getting an abortion. The man, Jig, says to her "We'll be fine afterwards. Just like we were before." He says, "It's the only thing that's made us unhappy." He encourages her not to be afraid and says that he doesn't want her to do it if she doesn't want to. She seems most concerned that things will be "like they were and [he'll] love [her]." Neither the man nor the woman seems particularly forthcoming; they hardly even seem intimate.
A "white elephant" has become a common term for an unwanted gift that is hard to get rid of. It is really an allusion to a legend referring to the King of Siam (now Thailand), who would give rare white elephants as gifts to people who he did not actually like. On the surface, it seems like a really cool gift, but it was expensive to maintain an elephant. The gift recipient could not get rid of the elephant because it would offend the king, and so they would be financially ruined by the exorbitant cost of the animal's upkeep. In this story, then, the baby that the couple is considering aborting is the white elephant. The girl interprets the hills as looking like white elephants because their symbolism—being a costly and unwanted gift that doesn't feel like a gift but an obligation—matches the way she and the man seem to feel about their baby.

What were the nationality laws in the thirteen colonies?

The nationalization laws in the colonies were born of both Parliamentary law and colonial law. On the Parliamentary end, citizenship had previously been granted by Parliament. Individuals born in England were already considered citizens, but individuals born in the colonies had to be naturalized as English citizens. This initially required travelling back to England in order to obtain private naturalization from Parliament. This option was expensive, and various prejudices among members of Parliament hindered the process. The Naturalization Act required oaths of allegiance and supremacy from aliens, which would demonstrate their understanding of the superiority of the English. The act also required a religious test in order to bound out non-Protestants.
The Plantation Act allowed citizenship to be conferred in the British colonies in North America. If the individual resided in the colonies for at least seven years with no more than two consecutive months of absence, the individual was eligible to apply for citizenship. This act was meant to standardize the process of naturalization that was already ongoing in the colonies. The colonies had naturalization laws that were specific to each colony. The citizenship conferred on an individual was only valid within the borders of the colony, which created a strange hodgepodge of laws. The Plantation Act helped to limit the diversity of this situation.
In almost all of these instances, non-Protestants were barred from naturalization. Later laws eased some of the restrictions against Quakers, Jews, and other groups. Catholics were barred from obtaining naturalization.

Why did the boys stare at the copper?

Oliver and the other young boys at the workhouse are always hungry as they never get enough to eat. All they are ever given to is a small bowl of thin, disgusting gruel, ladled out of a large copper vat by the master and his assistants. One bowl of gruel's nowhere near enough, so when the boys have finished eating their meager rations—which doesn't take them very long—they can only sit and stare longingly at the copper, imagining what it would be like to eat more.
No one has the courage to ask for more gruel. That is until the boys hit upon the idea of drawing lots to determine who's going to walk up to the master after supper and ask for more. It's poor old Oliver Twist, of course, who draws the short straw. And so he it is who walks up to the master after supper, with his little wooden bowl in his trembling hands, and makes what, to the workhouse authorities, is such an impertinent request:

Please, sir, I want some more.

What are the main point of arguments in Narrative Empathy by Suzanne Keane?

I assume you are referring to Suzanne Keen's pivotal 2006 article, "A Theory of Narrative Empathy"—or possibly, to Keen's further writings on the subject. In any event, all of Keen's writings about narrative empathy are key to an understanding of the concept, and all of them cover the same major points: namely, Keen explains what narrative empathy is from her perspective and then makes various arguments about how humans are affected by it.
Below I will set out, in a bullet-point format, what I believe to be Keen's major arguments. Hopefully, this will give you a skeleton to work from.
The concept of narrative empathy is the tendency of humans to identify with, share the feelings of, and otherwise see things from the point of view of people in the narratives we read, watch, or listen to. A "narrative" in this context might be a work of fiction—in which case, the writer will have written with the goal of evoking narrative empathy in the reader or viewer—but it might equally be a work of "fact," where a news story, for example, is framed in such a way that we feel sorry for or angry with the participants. Keen notes that narrative empathy is not the same as identifying with a character: it is simply the first step of sharing a character's feelings or understanding his or her position.

Narrative empathy isn't the same as either sympathy or "empathetic aversion." Readers don't normally want to feel pity for a character that lasts after reading, and they certainly don't want to really share in the distress of a character, as this can be very upsetting and cause people to stop reading. It is key to narrative empathy that the reader feels immersed in the world of the text, such that they can understand the feelings of the people in that world, but also that the world feels distinct from their own. This enables "transportation," a state in which the reader can feel fictional emotions in a real way, which can be cathartic.

Both writers and readers can experience narrative empathy, and the two don't necessarily balance each other out. Readers will not necessarily empathize with a text in the same way as the author did while writing it.

Narrative empathy can be encouraged where people do identify with characters—that is, if they feel that there are similarities between themselves and the characters concerned. Readers may also, however, simply be more inclined to experience narrative empathy if they are more empathetic people in general, in which case identification may not be necessary.

There are certain techniques which studies have found increase narrative empathy. These include: texts which "channel" the perspective of a person, certain points of view, vivid settings, and "continued storyworlds." So, for example, if we read several books about the same set of characters existing in the same universe, our narrative empathy will become increased. This is partly why people enjoy reading or watching series—they don't have to develop narrative empathy all over again, because they are already used to the characters and setting.

You may also want to read Keen's Empathy and the Novel, in which she sets out her ideas about narrative empathy in much greater detail.

How did Abraham Lincoln hold the nation together after his election?

The key to understanding how Lincoln kept the nation together after his election is by examining two aspects of his presidency during that time. First, Lincoln's rhetoric during the war remained consistent in the fact that, above all else, the Union should remain intact. Northern abolitionists were calling for Southern blood, while Southern confederates demanded Lincoln gone. It is imperative to give appreciation to Lincoln's behavior, as he aimed to placate both sides. He acknowledged the evils of slavery but reassured the South by stating that his focus was to save the Union and not to necessarily destroy slavery:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."—Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, 1862

Another critical element to consider is the way he crafted the Emancipation Proclamation. Obviously from the quote above, in a letter written to Horace Greeley, abolitionists in the North were upset by the way Lincoln seemed to take a light approach toward slavery in the South. However, the Emancipation Proclamation eased that crowd's minds when it freed slaves in the rebellious states. Moreover, Lincoln was strategic in not freeing the slaves in the border states, out of the fear that they would join the confederacy. Once again, the rhetoric of Lincoln and the determination to preserve the Union allowed the nation to stay together in its darkest of times.
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm

Abraham Lincoln's election was the catalyst that launched the secession movement in the Deep South. Lincoln was not even on many Southern ballots and he won with a minority of the popular vote. Lincoln thought that the crisis in the South would blow over because it was only a minority of Southerners who demanded secession. Also, Lincoln did not want to alienate the border states. Lincoln promised to maintain all Federal installations including Fort Sumter. Lincoln did not ship weapons or reinforcements to Fort Sumter when South Carolina insisted on its surrender; rather, he shipped in food. He allowed the South to fire the first shot in the war, which it did when Pierre Beauregard's forces fired on the fort in April 1861.
At the war's start, Lincoln called for volunteers which led to the secession of the border states Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Maryland tried to secede but Lincoln instituted martial law there and even detained the pro-secessionist mayor of Baltimore in order to keep that state in the Union.

What were Eddie and marguerite saving money for in The Five People You Meet in Heaven?

Marguerite is Eddie's wife. She wants to be a mother and longs to have children, but she is infertile. Therefore, the couple hopes to adopt a child instead. This costs money, so Eddie and Marguerite try to save up money for the adoption.
In chapter 29, we learn that Eddie goes to the racetrack with Noel on his birthday. Eddie bets on horses and keeps winning. He hopes that betting is a quick way to double his money. However, it is risky because he could also lose it all. He calls Marguerite and tells her about all the money he is winning, but she wants him to be more responsible for the sake of their future child. After Eddie hangs up, Marguerite feels bad for yelling and drives to the racetrack to apologize and bring him home. On the road, she gets into a car accident and is hospitalized. The medical expenses deplete the money they had been saving for the adoption.

Please explain/summarize "Lawrence v. Texas." Why is jurisprudence important in this case?

The Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence vs. Texas was important because it invalidated previous Texas law about sodomy.
Jurisprudence is the science of law. Basically, jurisprudence determines the legal basis for a set of laws. Essentially, it determines the rules that should form the basis for these laws and also sets a precedent for how similar future cases should be decided.
Here is a short summary of Lawrence vs. Texas: On September 17th, 1998, John Geddes Lawrence invited Tyron Garner and Robert Eubanks to his home for a get-together. Garner and Eubanks were once lovers, and this fact will prove significant in what happens next. During the course of the evening, Eubanks became extremely upset after suspecting that Lawrence was flirting with Garner (his former lover). For his part, Eubanks had never gotten over his feelings for Garner.
Eubanks left to purchase something at the store. However, he soon decided to call the police and to report that someone was brandishing a gun at Lawrence's apartment. Eubanks knew that he was making a false report, but he did not care.
When police got to Lawrence's home, they found Lawrence and Garner in a compromising position. Both were promptly arrested and, later, tried in court for falling afoul of Texas's sodomy laws. Under the Texas anti-sodomy law, it was considered a Class C misdemeanor to engage in homosexual intercourse.
The two decided to sue for their rights and were represented by Lambda Legal in court. Lawyers from Lambda Legal argued that the Texas laws were unconstitutional and that they violated the equal protection clause enshrined in the 14th Amendment. The case was fought all the way to the Supreme Court.
Lambda attorneys asked the Supreme Court to determine whether the legal basis for the Texas sodomy law was unconstitutional. They basically asked the court to address 3 questions:
1) Whether the Texas sodomy laws violated the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment.
2) Whether the petitioners' criminal convictions regarding consensual same-sex relations violated their privacy and liberty.
3) Whether Bowers vs. Hardwick should be overruled.
In the end, the Supreme Court decided for Lawrence and Garner. In a 6-3 decision, the court decided that the Texas sodomy law was unconstitutional. The court also overruled Bowers vs. Hardwick. Judge Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. He argued that liberty extended to both heterosexual and homosexual couples.
Today, many gay rights advocates believe that the Supreme Court ruling paved the way for victory in the Obergefell vs. Hodges case. They maintain that when the Supreme Court rejected the legal basis behind the Texas sodomy law, it paved the way for later successes for gay rights. Meanwhile, others sided with Justice Scalia, who warned of the risk of opening the floodgates to laws permitting bigamy, incest, and bestiality. You might be interested in an article discussing the legacy of Lawrence vs. Texas.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/539/558.html

https://thelawdictionary.org/jurisprudence/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lawrence-v-Texas

What role did Herbert Hoover play in WWI?

Herbert Hoover was the 31st President of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. At the outbreak of World War I, Hoover worked as a mining consultant and financier based in London. That year, Hoover was appointed the chair of a committee of London-based American businessmen who organized the return of Americans trapped in Europe as a result of the war. Hoover established a separate committee, the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) in response to the food crisis caused by the German invasion. Private donations and government grants facilitated the CRB becoming an independent public relief organization with its own railroads, navy, factories, and mills.
After the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the US Food Administration. Hoover's responsibility was to support the nation's food requirements during the war. World War I had caused a global food crisis, resulting in a worldwide increase in food prices and mass-starvation in Europe. Hoover was responsible for preventing food shortages and stabilizing food prices in America—while the main objective of his position was to provide supplies to allied countries. Hoover was against the concept of rationing and instead set days when people were to avoid eating certain foods that were part of soldiers' rations.

How does Sergius characterise the secret of successful soldiering?

By this stage in the play—act 2—Sergius has become rather cynical about the profession of arms. Once he was quite hung-ho when it came to war, but now he believes that soldiering is "the coward's art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong and keeping out of the way when you are weak."
Sergius's astonishing change of worldview is a prelude to a new, more down-to-earth attitude to matters of the heart. In due course, he will utterly reject Raisa's romantic idealism and instead turn his attentions to the more earthy and unrefined Louka. In truth, Raisa never got to know Sergius; she fell in love with an ideal, not a living, breathing human being. Louka, on the other hand, is introduced to the real Sergius, the thoroughgoing cynic beneath the chocolate-cream soldier exterior. Now that Sergius has divested himself of a superficially romantic attachment to war, he no longer has to pretend to be someone he isn't, either in his personal or professional life.

What current news story today reflects on the issue of diversity, cultural differences, or multiculturalism?

I think a very important issue which is extremely topical, and which certainly pertains to questions of multiculturalism, diversity, and awareness, is that of President Trump's proposed wall between the United States and Mexico. As you are no doubt aware, this issue has been the driving force behind a very long federal government shut down in recent weeks.
The interaction between Mexico and the United States has long been a difficult and troubled one. On the one hand, there are millions of people of Mexican descent living in the United States; their culture is especially prominent in places, such as New Mexico and Texas, which were originally part of Mexico before the United States expanded into those territories. However, there is also a lot of fear and mistrust around the interaction of Mexican and Latino peoples with other cultures, which is perpetuated by the fear of drugs being trafficked into the United States via the Mexican border.
There are two sides, of course, to the Trump wall debate, and these two sides represent differing approaches to culture differences and protectionism.
Trump, and Republicans who support him, argue that the wall is to protect American values and opportunities, and to keep out dangerous criminals and drug runners. Most Democrats, and Republicans who oppose Trump, would argue that the wall is a physical representation of a mental cultural barrier which would divide the nation, encourage distrust of Mexican Americans and other Latino peoples in the United States, and which doesn't take into account the actual statistics about crime and drug trafficking. One view is that the wall is only the latest expression of a rejection of Mexican identities and culture that has continued since the Mexican-American war.
An alternative news story for 2019, which has been viewed in positive and negative ways by people of different backgrounds and parties, is the election of a more diverse Congress than the United States has ever had before. Six days ago, the most diverse Congress ever convened—including Somali American, Muslim, and Native American representatives, in addition to more women than ever before. Democrats see this as a massive step forward; after all, a more diverse Congress should better represent the will of a diverse American people. But others have criticized the wave of support for multiculturalism as a simple backlash to the rise of Trump populism and protectionism.
I have included some links below.
http://theconversation.com/how-walls-like-trumps-destroy-the-past-and-threaten-the-future-86263

https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2019/01/04/the-most-diverse-congress-ever-convenes

How does EVA improve our knowledge of performance over ROI, ROE, or EPS?

EVA, or "economic value added," is a measure of the value a company has added to itself by investing in capital expenditures and similar things. It is calculated by subtracting the cost of capital from operating profit and adjusting for taxes. In doing this, the company gets a sense of how much its revenue is increasing based on the capital it puts into equipment and other expenses.
This is beneficial for understanding ROI because it gives a financial measure for the economic benefit of every dollar spent on capital expenditures, machinery upgrades, and similar costs. ROI is "return on investment," and to understand it, you need to understand how much money you receive for every dollar you invest. If EVA is negative, it means that you are not earning extra revenue for capital expenditures; if it's positive, you can see that you are earning more, which correlates to a higher ROI.

Why does Orwell have the animals refer to each other as “Comrades”?

Animal Farm is a political allegory on life in the Soviet Union. Animalism is Communism, Napoleon the pig is Stalin, the shire-horses are the Soviet workers, Snowball is Trotsky, and so on. In the Soviet Union, people were encouraged to call each other "comrade." This is a common expression in the political Left; it is supposed to express friendship and solidarity. In the Soviet Union, it was also supposed to be an expression of equality; everyone in the country was formally equal, from Comrade Stalin to the comrade next door. In reality, however, some people were more equal than others, with the political elite enjoying a much higher standard of living than ordinary working people in what was supposed to be a worker's paradise.
In Animal Farm, as in the Soviet Union, the term "comrade" is cynically used as a means of covering up the glaring inequalities of the political and economic system. Like Stalin and the Bolsheviks, Napoleon shamelessly manipulates language to create an alternative reality. And in this alternative reality, all the animals on the farm are equal; they are all "comrades," engaged in a common struggle to build an Animalist utopia. But this crude manipulation of language simply masks the reality of a brutal, inefficient order, in which the pigs are firmly in charge of the farm and all the other animals are little more than slaves to be used, abused, and exploited.

How do Percy Jackson's experiences in chapter eight of The Lightening Thief align with hero's journey archetype?

In chapter 8 of The Lighting Thief, Percy experiences one particular stage of the Hero's Journey. While none of the things he faces in this chapter are as great as the challenges he will face later, the trials nonetheless do represent minor variations on stage 6: tests, allies, and enemies.In stage 6, the hero encounters new allies and obstacles that they must align with and overcome, respectively. This is also the stage where the hero learns the rules of the special world that he has entered. For Percy, this consists of his daily training at Camp Half-Blood, in which he finds tests (trying to keep up with wood nymphs in racing), allies (Annabeth teaches him Ancient Greek, Chiron attempts to teach him archery) and enemies (Clarisse destroys him in wrestling). He also expresses his frustration with the other challenges that he encounters:

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork or— gods forbid—Dionysus's way with vine plants. Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn't know what to make of me either.

Luke ends up serving a dual purpose, as in this moment he appears to be an ally. He teaches Percy how to sword fight and appears to be one of Percy's biggest cheerleaders. However, he eventually reveals his true self, and becomes Percy's greatest enemy.During the game of capture the flag, another trial in which Percy is out of his element, he begins to move further through the journey in the special world, and he finds out more information about the hero within. When he finds himself alone against Clarisse and her cabin mates, he is initially overcome by their numbers. However, when he falls into a stream, things begin to change:

He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans.
Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.
Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

Through this outcome of this test, Percy gains more insight into who he is and where he comes from. The water revitalizes him, but his true understanding doesn't occur until the very end of the chapter, after he is nearly killed by the hellhound. Percy is badly wounded, and comes close to dying, until Annabeth, having seen how water helped him recover from Clarisse's attack, orders him to get back in the stream:

I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me. Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped. "Look, I—I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry. . . ." But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head. "Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Turn . . ."
By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.
. . .
"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."

In a way, this final scene also works as an incomplete example of stage 8: ordeal, as Percy comes close to dying and realizes something about his heritage in the process. It does not function as a true example of ordeal because Percy's salvation comes about by accident. He does not use any knowledge gained to save himself. If anything, it was Annabeth's observations and knowledge that save him. Overall, the trials of the chapter all fall into the confines of stage 6, as Percy's more realized shift to hero is yet to come.

After World War I, why did democracy survive in some countries and not in others?

The aftermath of World War I involved momentous political, cultural, economic, and social change across the world. Political transformation occurred in most of the principal parties involved in the conflict; Germany, Great Britain, and Turkey all became electoral democracies between 1919 and 1923.
However, that is not to say that each of these democratic systems survived. After Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, adopting democracy through a constitution and free elections, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party gained control only fourteen years later. The Treaty of Versailles was based on assigning blame for the war to Germany, which was never accepted by German nationalists. The transition from Germany's brief democratic system to that of totalitarian Nazism is associated with support of nationalism over globalization; the Nazis' use of violence to influence the public, even while elections continued; and public dissatisfaction over economic circumstances associated with war reparations. Anti-Semitism was a large part of what would become Hitler's devastating campaign of genocide during World War II, but I am referring to the period leading up to this conflict, before the Nazi party put forth the "Final Solution."
Great Britain's electoral democracy has continued since World War I and, in fact, had been shifting toward democracy since the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution caused aristocratic influence to decline and population to increasingly become concentrated in urban areas. Urbanization resulted in a new middle class, which desired fair wages and working conditions. As a result, the middle class wanted fairness and equity in elections, improved representation in government, and parliamentary accountability to the public. After World War I, there was an increase in both male and female suffrage. Men opposed residence qualifications of voting and believed they should be entitled to vote, as they had served their country; women also believed they should have the power to vote, as they had served their country too.
Interestingly, Turkey was the only power during World War I to change the terms of its defeat and negotiate with the Allies as an equal. Turkey was originally part of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after the armistice was signed in 1918. According to the conditions of the armistice, Turkey as a nation was to be eliminated, with the exception of a small region. A Turkish national movement was established, leading to the creation of an independent, sovereign state. The 1923 Turkish general election established a republic; to this day, its constitution declares, "the Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state." While nationalism was linked to Germany's rejection of democracy, for Turkey, nationalism was a catalyst for this form of government.
America's role in World War I is also linked to democracy. President Woodrow Wilson not only promised that it would be a "war to end all wars" but that the war would "make the world safe for democracy." American democracy had already been established through its Constitution, though universal suffrage was achieved after the war. Similarly, Canada became a democratic country when the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined together in 1867, while universal suffrage came later. For these countries, democracy evolved before and after World War I, as a continuation of ideals that are comparable to those previously discussed in relation Great Britain.
World War I can be seen as a conflict that saved democracy—but it would take another three decades and an even more devastating war to consolidate democratic institutions and establish the peace that the treaty of Versailles initially sought to achieve.

Compare "Sonnet 116" and "Prayer Before Birth."

These two poems are not obviously comparable. "Before Birth," by Louise MacNeice, is spoken from the perspective of a yet-to-be-born baby and is about the horrors of the world which the baby worries about being born into. The poem was published in 1944, during World War 2, and reflects the horrors of that war. On the other hand, Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116," first published in 1609, is about how love should be absolute and unchangeable, as opposed to relative and dependent upon circumstances.
Both poems might be read as reflections on the nature of love. In "Before Birth," the speaker pleads with perhaps its mother, or perhaps the world in general, to love and protect it against the worst aspects of the world. The speaker asks that the mother, or the world, "hear me . . . console me . . . provide me . . . forgive me." She is, in other words, asking to be loved, which encompasses being heard and listened to, as well as being consoled, provided for, and forgiven. In "Sonnet 116," the speaker describes love, metaphorically, as "the star to every wand'ring bark." This is likely a reference to the northern star, which always seems to be in the same place in the sky and which sailors in the northern hemisphere used to use as a reference point for navigation. The metaphor implies that love is constant and that love offers guidance. Later in the poem, the speaker asserts that "love alters not with his brief hours and weeks," enforcing the point that love is constant and dependable.
Stylistically, both poems are built upon metaphorical images. As well as the northern star metaphor noted above, "Sonnet 116" metaphorically describes the troubles that one might endure in life as "tempests" which love can guide one through. Shakespeare also describes those who may be lost without love as "wand'ring bark(s)," implying that a person without love is like a boat lost upon a vast ocean. In "Before Birth," MacNiece uses a series of metaphorical images to describe the fears that she has and that she wants someone's love to protect her against. For example, she describes the "tall walls" that she worries "the human race" may try to confine her between, which could be a reference to the prejudices which the human race draws upon to divide itself. This would have been an especially relevant concern in 1944. MacNiece also worries that life may turn her into "a cog in a machine" or, in other words, a person stripped of her individuality in order to better fit in. This concern is reminiscent of an image from Charlie Chaplin's 1936 movie, Modern Times, in which Chaplin's character is drawn into a vast machine and pulled along a system of interlocking cogs. Clearly, this fear of being reduced to but another metaphorical cog in the machine was a prevalent concern of the time.
Another possible point of comparison is that both poems end with something like an ultimatum. In "Before Birth," the speaker says that either she is protected against "them," meaning those in life who would turn her into a cog or confine her between walls, or else she should be killed. Likewise, in "Sonnet 116," Shakespeare declares at the end of the poem that either he is right about love, or else everything he has written must be dismissed. The fact that both poems end with ultimatums points to how certain each speaker is about their main proposition. In "Before Birth," the speaker is adamant that life will not be worth living if she doesn't have someone to love her and protect her against its worst aspects, and in "Sonnet 116," the speaker is convinced beyond doubt that love really is absolute, constant, and unchanging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdvEGPt4s0Y

How does the old man kill the great marlin in The Old Man and the Sea?

The old man, Santiago, has not caught a fish in 84 days, a long time.
He goes out to sea in his boat and drops his baited hooks in the water. A giant marlin nibbles at the sardines arranged around a hook until the hook catches in his mouth. At this point, Santiago has him, and he waits for the fish to tire so he can kill it. The marlin rears out of the water, and Santiago sees it is so big it is two feet longer than his boat. Santiago feels he must not let the marlin know it is stronger then he is. Although very tired, Santiago eats smaller fish and waits for the marlin to weaken.
On the fourth day, the marlin wearies, and Santiago can use his harpoon to kill the giant fish.

What was Johannes Gutenberg's profession?

Johannes Gutenberg was a German inventor and printer born in the later years of the last decade of the fourteenth century. Not content to continue printing using the traditional, incredibly time-consuming method of carving wooden blocks in reverse to use in the printing process, Gutenberg began to experiment with different innovations. Although the printing press had already been invented many centuries earlier in China, Gutenberg replaced wood with metal and large blocks with single, smaller metal pieces, one to a letter: this is called moveable type. He also created his own ink that would adhere more perfectly to metal rather than to wood. In 1452, Gutenberg began to print copies of the Bible, suddenly making the religious text more accessible and affordable and leading to the increased production of books in general as his new technology spread across Europe.

What does Happy do to the executive for whom he works in Death of a Salesman?

In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman Harold "Happy" Loman is a near carbon copy of his father, Willy, the modern tragic hero of the play.
Hap is self-delusional, with no real sense of self-awareness. He's overly self-confident and exaggerates his own abilities. He embellishes the truth and tries to puff himself up to his family and friends, claiming, for instance, that he's the assistant buyer for the business where he works, but he's really only the assistant to the assistant buyer.
Hap is quite the ladies' man, too, just like Willy was in his younger days, but Hap is indiscriminate and has no conscience about it, whereas Willy is trying to forget his affair with "the Woman" that his other son, Biff, discovered when he was just a kid.
What Hap does to get even with the executives who he despises for acting superior to him—which is every executive with whom he works—is to seduce their fiancées.

HAPPY: Sure, the guy’s in line for the vice-presidency of the store. I don’t know what gets into me, maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of competition or something, but I went and ruined her, and furthermore I can’t get rid of her. And he’s the third executive I’ve done that to. Isn’t that a crummy characteristic? And to top it all, I go to their weddings! Like I’m not supposed to take bribes. Manufacturers offer me a hundred-dollar bill now and then to throw an order their way. You know how honest I am, but it’s like this girl, see. I hate myself for it. Because I don’t want the girl, and, still, I take it and—I love it! (Death of a Salesman, act 1)

Please give me three contrasts between the characters Ralph and Piggy that show DEEP thinking, along with evidence to support them (please no dialogue). Please don't say anything having to do with them physically, Ralph being confident while Piggy is awkward, or the amount of respect they get from other boys.

William Golding represents many concepts through the characters within Lord of the Flies. Each character and their subsequent actions are crafted very deliberately in order to build a representation that extends far beyond the boys on the island. Both Piggy and Ralph are important to the symbolism created in the book, and Piggy's relationship with Ralph throughout their time on the island is directly responsible for Ralph's evolution in the novel.
In the initial chapters of the novel, Piggy possesses far more kindness than Ralph does. The examples of this are in the first two chapters. As the group of boys first assembles, Piggy takes time to try and learn who each of the boys are, including the group of boys known as the littluns, who are largely forgotten and ignored by the older boys. When the older boys want to run off and explore, it is Piggy who stays behind to keep an eye on the littluns. Conversely, Ralph is cruel in the beginning. He tries to keep Piggy at arms length, and even shares his nickname in order to get a good laugh.
Piggy is also more articulate than Ralph, especially as the novel progresses. The more chaotic the novel becomes, the more difficult it is for Ralph to convey his ideas. After the "attack" by Jack's tribe in Chapter 11, Ralph becomes confused, and cannot clearly get his point across as they are discussing what needs to be said to Jack. It becomes noticeable enough that it even begins to change Sam and Eric's opinion of Ralph. Even while this happens, Piggy, ever loyal to Ralph, gently prods him in order to remind him of his point. Piggy never waivers in what is needed, and guides Ralph back to their purpose when he starts to stray.
Piggy is also more steadfast than Ralph. From a symbolic perspective, Piggy is meant to represent intellect and reason throughout the novel. These are concepts that require a great deal of understanding and mental strength, which are represented in Piggy's unwavering actions. No matter what happens, Piggy stands behind the idea of Ralph as the leader, and the power of the conch and the rules associated with it. Ralph, on the other hand, is not as able to stand strong on his ideals. He questions his choices and is more easily swayed by the actions of the other boys, such as when he goes hunting with Jack's tribe. Ralph is representative of the everyman, and therefore he must struggle in places where Piggy can stand strong, just as many readers may struggle with the decisions they are faced with each day.

What is the white man's destination?

The unnamed white man is traveling up river, deep into the heart of the Indonesian rainforest. It is there that he stays overnight with his Malayan friend Arsat. We know that the white man has made many journeys up and down river over the years, although to what purpose we can only guess. The most likely explanation is that he's some kind of trader who needs to make regular journeys by boat as it's the only means of transport available in this remote part of the world.
On many of these journeys the white man has slept overnight in Arsat's hut, where the Malayan has been living with what the narrator describes as a "strange woman." During his latest visit, the white man discovers that the woman, called Diamelen, is seriously ill. As Arsat laments over the fate of his lover, he tells the white man the extraordinary story of how he came to meet her.

What does Aristotle’s “sleep-test ethics” look like, and how does it differ from the common test?

Aristotle's sleep-test ethics is a fundamental theory which states that people who sleep soundly after making an ethical decision, have probably made the right decision. On the other hand, it assumes that people who have made the wrong decision will likely lack sleep. It relies on personal instincts and insights when approaching an ethical decision. However, it differs from other ethical theories which define the steps one should follow when making an ethical decision. For instance, Kantian ethics states that ethical decisions are those made from a sense of duty, as opposed to expectations of rewards. Additionally, the utilitarian theory states that ethical decisions are those which benefit most people in society. The sleep-test theory therefore deviates from other ethical theories since it does not provide the criteria for making ethical decisions; it only provides a measure of assessment on whether the decision made is ethical (through the ability to sleep soundly). This presents fundamental weaknesses since external factors may affect the ability to sleep. For instance, a person who has made an ethical decision but is physically unwell, may still find it difficult to sleep. The sleep-test ethics is therefore seen by many as failing to address the critical steps that should be followed when making an ethical decision.
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"Sleep-test ethics" refers to a concept of ethical evaluation that is based on one's personal instincts, which could also be called one's "gut feelings" or "moral compass." The idea is that if someone can (theoretically) sleep with sound conscience after taking some action, then that action must have been morally just. Of course the idea shouldn't be taken literally, as one's ability to sleep well is not a direct reflection of morality or the consequence of any one action.
The strictest interpretation of sleep-test ethics, called "me-ism," holds that morality is completely subjective to the evaluator, and thus whatever feels right for someone is morally right (to that person).
Greek philosopher Aristotle subscribed to a version of sleep-test ethics, placing value on one's innate sense of morality. Where he differed from either general or strict interpretations of the concept, though, is that he believed several variables must be controlled for the moral evaluation to be accurate/valid. The issue at hand could not be an individual compulsion. The evaluator must be of a certain level of quality, mature and thoughtful, of good character. Ultimately, he believed moral instinct was secondary (and even reactionary) to logic, common sense, and relevant facts. Further, he believed that correct moral intuition drew upon socially acceptable behavior and customs. In summary, Aristotle's sleep-test ethics were a far cry from the typical concept—a highly (and scientifically) regulated, elitist/meritocratic version of the idea.

State the possible meanings for the word "blues" in the title and relate this to the poem itself.

The word “blues” in the poem’s title refers to blues music, a genre of music invented by African Americans associated with communal sadness and specific sounds. Blues music is often played, or sung, as a means of soothing or ameliorating the sorrows of the singers, musicians, or audience. This is relevant to Auden’s poem, which is an elegy for a lost loved one. The poem seems to have been written as a way for Auden to process, and cope with the loss of a man he describes in the poem as “my North, my South, my East and West.”
The poem is also written in rhyming couplets (“West . . . rest," "song . . . wrong”), which lends a musicality and rhythm to the poem, reflecting the rhythm of traditional blues music. In fact, traditional blues music is characterized by repeating chord progressions and cycles, and this repetitive rhythm is echoed by the repeating couplets in Auden's poem.

How does the political divide between parties (Republican vs. Democrat) affect the Intelligence Community, now and in the future?

According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the political divide has become far more polarized since 1994. While there used to be a greater share of “split-ticket voters” who voted for both Democrats and Republicans, Americans have started to show more consistent ideological thinking. They are also showing more animosity toward the opposition: 27% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans believe that the other party is a “threat to the nation’s wellbeing.” And this survey was taken two years before the 2016 election!
Party affiliation has become a quick label used to define a person’s entire belief system, from economics to morality. It seems reasonable to infer that this is why more people are getting passionate about politics, even if they do not necessarily care about the electoral or legislative processes. Although many—Pew suggests most—people do care about the implications of their vote on American society, an increasing number care only that their side wins. This isn’t just manifesting in who gets elected, it’s also leading to more ideological behavior in government departments and agencies, including intelligence. Let’s look at how political divisions affect the intelligence community via the president and via the public.
The leaders of most government-affiliated intelligence agencies are nominated by the president and confirmed to their appointments by the Senate. The president is not going to (intentionally) nominate people who will interfere with policy goals, so they usually choose nominees with similar ideological beliefs (checks and balances are important here, as Congress can block a nominee from being appointed). There is an incentive for the appointee to do as they are told: intelligence leaders can be dismissed from their position if they do not comply with the president’s orders, as in the case of former FBI Director James Comey.
Comey was appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat, even though Comey is a Republican. This choice was likely made as a symbol of bipartisanship, and because it would be easier to get him confirmed. It’s worth noting that Comey was preceded as FBI Director by Robert Mueller. Mueller, also a Republican, was chosen as independent counsel to investigate allegations of Russian interference during the 2016 election. Although he shares the president’s party affiliation, Democrats have supported him because they value his record of integrity. It also helps that Mueller is considered to be ideologically incompatible with Republican President Donald Trump, another effect of polarization.
The political divide does not just affect the intelligence community by means of the president, however. Americans who identify more closely and consistently with a political party tend not to trust the opposition’s “fake news.” Hard-right leaning Republicans are less likely to accept the facts as presented by a Democrat-appointed CIA Director, and vice versa. It used to be assumed that appointees would naturally lean liberal or conservative, but that they would not undermine their office with inappropriately partisan intentions. The increasing ideological divide has led to an erosion of this trust. If trust is not rebuilt, what is now a fog of suspicion could become an impasse where the intelligence of one party is viewed as nothing more than propaganda by the other.
Shared trauma has a tendency to unite people, and nationalism usually surges in the aftermath of attacks against fellow Americans. This is especially true of terrorism. Following 9/11, the intelligence community’s ability to collect information on citizens and foreign nationals was expanded. The public, especially Republicans, generally supported this as being in the national interest; however, they did not know how much intelligence was being gathered until a former NSA and CIA employee, Edward Snowden, leaked classified material that he felt was in the public interest. The response to the Snowden files, as well as other leaked documents, has largely fallen along party lines: conservatives tend to believe the leaks are treasonous, while liberals tend to believe the intelligence community has been operating a “surveillance-industrial complex” that violates personal freedoms. Because the intelligence community relies on congressional approval for how and what they collect, voter ideology and divisiveness will affect future intelligence operations.
https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/

How do Gregor’s parents view their children?

Mr. and Mrs. Samsa’s view of their children has to be analyzed before and after Gregor’s transformation, especially in Gregor’s case. While the reader doesn’t meet the family until after Gregor’s transformation, Kafka indicates that Gregor’s parents primarily valued Gregor for his financial role in the household. Gregor’s first interaction with one of his parents in “The Metamorphosis” is with his mother, who is concerned that Gregor hasn’t left for work yet. Compare his mother’s inquiry about getting to work with his sister asking if there is anything wrong: his parent is worried about Gregor getting to a job, while his sister is asking about Gregor’s health. It is worth reviewing the text and finding Gregor’s own descriptions of his parents. What does Gregor say about his parents’ role in his staying at a stressful, unrewarding job?
Once Gregor’s parents realize that he has changed into an insect, they usually act with confusion and disgust in the few instances when they directly acknowledge Gregor. In conversations about Gregor, they seem frustrated that the family has lost its breadwinner and annoyed that Mr. Samsa has to get a job. Note once again how Gregor’s parents consider Gregor primarily in terms of his productive value rather than expressing concern about their son’s transformation. Grete is once again kinder to Gregor, bringing him food and even moving furniture to give him more space to move around.
Gregor’s parents primarily see their children in practical terms. Gregor is/was the financial support, and Grete is there to help with household chores, including caring for Gregor in his strange new body. Grete, both by virtue of her position in the household and her role in the story, receives even less attention from the Samsa parents. It is not until after Gregor’s death that the parents express even small signs of affection toward their daughter. Even at that point, they value her in practical and superficial terms, praising her physical beauty and thinking about when she can be married off to someone else.
The parents’ utilitarian view of their children resembles how someone might run a business. Early on, Gregor thinks about his own line of work and how his boss would react to his missing work. Is there an analogy between Gregor’s parents at home and the authority figure at work? Kafka frequently wrote about the cold, bureaucratic society around him. What possible connections could there be between such a society and the family unit? Is Kafka trying to make a point about the larger social and economic system?
http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/kafka/metamorphosishtml.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbahr1/2017/04/13/franz-kafka-anti-bureaucrat/

What happens to the elderly woman whose house was burned by a fireman?

In Part One, Montag responds to a routine alarm regarding a citizen possessing a large stash of books, which are illegal in Bradbury's dystopian society. When Montag and the other firemen arrive, Captain Beatty slaps the woman's face after she refuses to disclose the location of her book collection. The firemen end up discovering the collection of books in her attic and Montag suddenly steals one of the books before he helps the firemen pump kerosene all over the books and throughout the rooms in her home. As Montag is leaving the home, the woman crouches down beside her books and refuses to leave. Beatty warns her that the entire house is about to go up in flames but she refuses to budge. Montag also attempts to persuade her to leave but she ends up holding out a kitchen match. As Montag and Beatty slowly leave the house, the woman waits until they are a safe distance away before lighting the kitchen match. The woman commits suicide by lighting her own kerosene soaked house on fire.

Discuss Eric Erikson from a biological perspective.

Psychologist Erik Erikson created theories of child development based on psychosocial development. These theories were based on, but also significantly departed from, those of Sigmund Freud. Erikson posited eight stages, marked developmental milestones that correspond to chronological age and are marked by significant events, especially crises. By overcoming challenges, the healthy child moves on and is equipped to confront the next milestone, thereby advancing toward maturity. Adolescence, in particular, produces an identity crisis that the child must successfully negotiate; otherwise, unfinished business will impede healthy adult development. Erikson was influenced by anthropology as well, building on ideas that Margaret Mead put forward and conducting fieldwork with Native American cultures.
Although Erikson’s contributions were welcomed for their further attention to social and cultural factors, his theories were also criticized for their interpretation or neglect of biological factors. Feminist scholars in particular found Erikson’s continuance of Freud’s emphasis on males as the norm exclusionary and argue that Erickson inadequately accounts for female differences in development. Notable here was the emphasis on the penis and son-mother attachment and separation. While early feminist critics such as Carol Gilligan based their objections on and female biological “hard-wiring” differences, those who followed noted the paucity of research into such innate distinctions and encouraged further studies of both biological and social influences on gender.
Recent critiques have drawn further attention to the heteronormative character of the underlying assumptions. Furthermore, the idea of the norm and the stages beginning at birth ignores the prenatal factors, including genetics, that make all newborns different.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-Erikson

What makes a man's power feeble?

In this poem, the speaker explains to his lover that he must leave, though not because he has grown weary of her or believes that he can find a better lover out there in the world somewhere. He just has to go on some kind of trip, but he explains, however, that since he "Must die at last," it probably is not a bad idea to get used to the idea of parting from one another. If such short-lived partings are hard, imagine how difficult it will be when they are parted by death.
The speaker goes on to say that man's power is "feeble" because

[...] if good fortune fall, [he]Cannot add another hour,Nor a lost hour recall!

In other words, even when a man experiences really good fortune and luck, he can do nothing to prolong that good fortune nor to recall any good times that have already passed. We can do nothing to gain more time or luck for ourselves, and, thus, our power is "feeble" as a result.

According to John Donne in this poem, a man's power is feeble because his fortunes, either good or bad, are things which affect him and which he cannot defend himself against. Should a man encounter "good fortune," this still will not add even a single hour to his life, nor can it get back again an hour which he has already spent. Meanwhile, if "bad chance" should befall a man, there is nothing he can do to prevent it from overcoming him. The power of man is feeble in comparison to the forces of the universe. Man is only a small being in the wider scheme of things.
Donne says these things in order to influence the subject of the poem not to "waste" their life by spending time away from him when they could be together. Like several other John Donne poems, this is a type of "carpe diem" message which plays upon the transitory nature of man's existence in order to encourage a beloved to pass time in the company of the poet, knowing that both their lives are short.

What is the summary of "Letter On Art" by Louis Althusser?

Louis Althusser's "Letter on Art" was a published open letter to Andre Daspré, a literary critic. It was written in response to an article Daspré published in La Nouvelle Critique, a journal of literary criticism, in 1966. Essentially, Althusser takes exception to how Daspré has characterized his position in the article, but the real significance of the letter is that it essentially summarizes Althusser's understanding of the relationship between art and "ideology." Essentially, Daspre has written that Althusser believes art is really nothing more than ideology, which Althusser describes as simply a reflection of the relationship between the state, the means of production, and the subject (or citizen) of that state.
This would suggest that all art is nothing more than a means of getting people to do what the state wants them to do, to accept their place in the world as part of the natural order of things. Althusser states that he does not "rank real art among the ideologies," though art does have a "particular and specific relationship with ideology." What he means, in layman's terms, is that real art (he distinguishes between high art and other forms) does not simply produce this relationship. Rather, it allows us to "see," "perceive," and "feel" the reality of ideology. Art—especially literature, which is really the focus of the letter, does not in itself represent a critique of society, but it rather allows us to see reality.
But he goes on to say that to really understand art, one has to gain a "knowledge" of art, which means reflecting, in a Marxian sense, on the conditions and the "mechanisms" that allowed the art to be produced in the first place. In other words, to understand the relationship between art and ideology, we must understand the material conditions and contexts that underlay the work.
http://www.rlwclarke.net/Theory/SourcesPrimary/AlthusserLetteronArtinReplytoAndreDaspre.pdf

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/althusser/

How is William Blake's poem "The Tyger" a by-product of the Romantic era and still relevant today?

Though Blake is often considered part of the Romantic movement, his work is unique and does not wholly fit in with the trends of his time. Much of his poetry predates Wordsworth and Coleridge but cannot even be classified as belonging to that transitional period in English poetry between the classical (or neo-classical) and Romantic eras. Still, "The Tyger," as a representative poem from his Songs of Experience, does express themes not inconsistent with the late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Zeitgeist.
Blake often deals with dichotomies of human thought and feeling. He also tends at times to use an inverted vocabulary in which words take on the opposite features of their conventional meaning. That which is characterized in seemingly negative terms is often a positive symbol for Blake. In his life as well as his work, he was an iconoclast and a rebel, and this part of his character marks him as typical of the Romantics. The tiger/tyger of his poem stands for that defiant, subversive side of human nature that other poets who came a few decades later, such as Byron and Shelley, reveled in. It also symbolizes the rejection of religious norms which typifies the Romantics:

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile, his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

The God who created the Tyger is not the God of tradition or one of peace. The animal is an emblem of ambiguity, existing in some new world "beyond good and evil," to use the terminology of Nietzsche from nearly a century later. Blake celebrates this violent spirit which defies convention and creates its own set of rules. In asking what immortal hand or eye could frame the "symmetry" of the Tyger he is almost stating that the beast is beyond the power of the Creator to control it. Even the unconventional spelling is emblematic of this defiance of norms, this uncontrolled being that creates its own values and jettisons the past.
Is this relevant today? For decades we have lived in a world of constant flux, in which societal norms have been reevaluated, rejected and altered over and over again. In some ways Blake, in his standing as a sui generis artist (and his art encompasses not just writing but painting as well), would fit into our time better than would his contemporaries, the "true" Romantics. The Tyger's "forests of the night" are a realm of ambiguous meaning, dangerous but alluring in their darkness. In our time, when so many of the older values and belief systems have been questioned and overturned, Blake's Tyger could very well be symbolic of the new human spirit of our age.

"The Tyger" is relevant in the sense that it reminds us of the enduring mysteries of creation. This is one of the key themes of Romanticism, which sought to enchant the post-Enlightenment world.
Although natural science has made huge strides in telling us about the natural world, there's still much about it that we don't know. Indeed, one could argue that there will always be something about nature that we will never know, however much progress science makes.
Whenever we're confronted by a particularly awesome spectacle in nature, whether it's a tiger or a mountain or a dense jungle, we can't adequately put the experience into words. We could describe what we see in scientific terms, but there will always be something special, something unique about the experience that can't be captured by the factual language of science. Only art can do this, and Blake's most famous poem amply demonstrates this fact.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger

Does the ACLU defend the Second Amendment? If yes, why? If no, why not?

The question is somewhat complicated by the many different issues related to guns, gun control, and the Second Amendment Rights. The Second Amendment reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The ACLU asserts the right to keep and bear arms is a collective right; not an individual right. The distinction is important in understanding how the ACLU views the Second Amendment. Reading information from the ACLU website and other materials the ACLU believes the word "militia" is incredibly important to how the Amendment is interpreted. The ACLU points out that until the Supreme Court decision in the case of D.C. v. Heller in 2008, the Supreme Court held the same view. In the Heller case, the Supreme Court affirmed the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms (5 to 4 vote). A person does not have to be associated with a state militia to have the right to own and carry a firearm. The ACLU believes the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment incorrectly in the Heller case and the decision, in this case, does not offer the same protection to gun manufacturers or sellers for example.
The answer is the ACLU defends the Second Amendment from a different perspective than gun right's advocates who assert gun ownership and strenuous gun regulation violates the Second Amendment in virtually every instance.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/civil-liberties/mobilization/aclus-position-gun-control?redirect=blog/mobilization/aclus-position-gun-control

https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment-0

Why was Steerforth sad and angry with himself in David Copperfield?

When David begins school at Salem House, James Steerforth takes him under his wing (Chapter 7). David is enthralled by Steerforth’s winning ways and cannot see how selfish and manipulative the other boy is. Steerforth, whose family is well-to-do, has a superior attitude that extends beyond the other boys and to the teachers.
He learns that Mr. Mell is not only poor himself, but has a destitute mother who lives in an alms house. One Saturday in class, Mr. Mell loses his temper when the boys are goofing off. Steerforth, who is whistling, talks back to Mell when the teacher tells him to be quiet. Mell also calls him out for exercising too much influence over David. Steerforth gets embarrassed and then angry, and in response to Mell's further criticism, calls the teacher "an impudent beggar."
https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/166/david-copperfield/2941/chapter-7-my-first-half-at-salem-house/

How does the speaker reveal his character traits?

As in most poetry one can learn more from the tone in which a poem is written—based on the choice of words and the manner in which they are put together—than from simply the literal meaning of the language used.
The tone of "To His Coy Mistress," in our parlance today, can be termed "laid back." Though the substance of the poem is that, to put it simply, a man is pleading with a girl to begin a relationship with him, his tone does not reveal any sort of agitation or urgency about it. We can imagine him, based on the way he phrases his requests to her, to be smiling gently, quite differently from either men who take a desperately passionate approach or those who use the desperately whining method of getting across their pleas. This is true even with the rather gruesome imagery he conjures up that

worms shall try
That long preserved virginity.

The finality with which he states that

The grave's a fine and private place,
But none there do, I think, embrace

has nevertheless a mild, regretful lilt to it. It's as if even if she says no, his attitude will happily be, "Oh, well, that's the way it goes," without bitterness or anger. Although one could charge him with displaying a manipulative attitude toward women.
An interesting commentary many decades ago by C.S. Lewis compares Marvell with his predecessor Donne, implying that, if I may paraphrase loosely, Marvell links himself to Donne's technique but does Donne one better by discarding the acerbic, desperate tone of Donne. The poem Lewis uses for his example is, unsurprisingly, "To His Coy Mistress." Lewis's larger point seems to be that Donne, unlike many of his contemporaries and successors, has not moved into the modern age in his attitude to women. This is a valid point, but Marvell conveys a much more progressive tone with regard to women, to life, and to the choices we're presented with, than not just Donne but many other poets of his age and later.

What goals did Colonel Murphy accomplish in The Other Wes Moore?

Colonel Billy Murphy is the commander of cadets at Valley Forge military academy. The author Wes Moore describes him as one of the most intimidating men he's ever met. But though firm, he's also fair.
Over the course of his studies at Valley Forge, Wes learns a lot of valuable life lessons from Colonel Murphy during the many little talks they have. In one such chat, Murphy teaches Wes about the impermanence of life, something that a trained soldier such as himself understands all too well. He tells Wes that when it comes time to leave military school, or a job, or even this Earth, you should've worked hard to make sure that your time mattered. Everything must end, but while it's in progress, you need to do whatever it takes to make every precious moment count.
Murphy's stirring words resonate with Wes, encouraging him to stick it out at Valley Forge and do his level best. They've stayed in his mind ever since, inspiring him to make the most of his life at every turn.

In Johnny Tremain, what is the role of religion in the lives of most Bostonians?

Mr. Lapham and the other people who live with Johnny Tremain in Mr. Lapham's house read (or, if they are illiterate, listen to) the Bible each day and appear to be quite religious. Johnny reads a chapter from Leviticus at the beginning of the book, and Mr. Lapham directs him to other passages about the dangers of being prideful. Johnny reads the Bible with an eye toward its messages, and Mr. Lapham quizzes Johnny about God's intent. Mr. Lapham wants to instruct Johnny in the virtues of humility, as he feels that God would not like Johnny's arrogance. Mr. Lapham does not work on Sundays and closes his blacksmithing shop and refuses to light the furnace. Later, when Johnny lives with Rab, he also attends church on Sundays, and they listen to sermons about the political events in Boston at church. Most Bostonians appear to be religious churchgoers who read the Bible to glean God's messages for their lives.

Identify an allusion in Around the World in Eighty Days.

In a long stream of historical allusions, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) is the first personage Verne uses to add substance and believability to his fanciful tale. Sheridan was the owner of London's Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. A poet and playwright noted for The School for Scandal and others, he also had a political career as a Whig MP, a Member of Parliament, House of Commons, for Stafford, England. He is buried in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey.

What is the frame narrative in Rumble Fish? Why might this be important for the reader?

The frame narrative of Rumble Fish occurs with Rusty James telling his old friend, Steve Hays, the details of his story. The novel begins long after the main events of the story actually take place, with Rusty James and Steve Hays meeting on the beach. As they begin to reminisce on their shared past, the novel transitions into its frame narrative, stepping back five years into the past.
A frame narrative is a form of literary structure in which one story is essentially contained within another story; frequently, as in Rumble Fish, the details of the inner story are told directly by a character in the outer story.
There are several different reasons why S. E. Hinton would employ a frame narrative in Rumble Fish. One possibility is that by creating the frame narrative, Hinton is able to explicitly show that Rusty James considers the events of the story to be significant. Since he is retelling the story, it can be surmised that each detail is something he considers to be important.
Another accomplishment made by using the frame narrative is that it immediately sets the protagonist, Rusty James, at a point in the future that the reader has to work to get to. It is made clear that Rusty James has recently left the reformatory. By then jumping back five years, the reader is left to slowly piece together why and how Rusty James spent time in the reformatory.

To what civilized people does Odyssues tell the story of his wanderings in The Odyssey?

Odysseus tells the epic tale of his wanderings to the Phaeacians. He is the honored guest of their king, Alcinous, who invites Odysseus to a sumptuous feast in celebration of the sea-god Poseidon (who, it has to be said, isn't Odysseus's favorite god. After all, he wouldn't have winded up in Phaeacia had it not been for Poseidon's ruthless vengeance).
The Phaeacians are indeed a civilized people, but they also have a reputation for being a tad xenophobic—that is to say, they have an irrational hatred of foreigners. That's why Odysseus's divine protector, the goddess Athena, shrouds him in a magical mist that protects him from being harassed. The implication here is that most visitors to this kingdom tend not to be hospitably received.
Even though the Phaeacians break their normal habits and show Odysseus the hospitality to which he's entitled, our hero still doesn't relax completely in their presence. Nor does he reveal his true identity as he recounts his epic tale. Even so, King Alcinous knows there's something special about his honored guest. He's so impressed by Odysseus that he graciously offers him his daughter's hand in marriage. For obvious reasons, however, Odysseus must politely decline.

What is Troy White's physical appearance in the book Deep Zone? What page is this information found on?

One of the strange things about Deep Zone is that the author, Tim Green, has chosen not to describe the physical appearance of his main characters. On page 140, he does say that Troy is wearing a blue jersey with white numbers, but he provides no clues as to the color of his eyes, hair, or skin. On page 158, Tate tells Ty that he and Troy White look alike (they will later find out they are actually cousins), but unfortunately, the author doesn't tell us what Ty looks like, either.
One reason for this may be, as he states in his dedication, that the main characters are based on his sons. He might not want to embarrass them by giving away their identities.
He does provide one hint as to what Troy White might look like. On page 160, he writes that Troy plays in defense for his football team as a free safety. The free safety is the last line of defense, so he must be a strong and relatively large man.

Now that you have watched Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 film version of Much Ado About Nothing, you should have noticed some important differences between the film and the play. For example, Branagh has changed the setting of the play from the urban environs of Messina and moved the action out to the countryside. This is actually a very significant difference. Remember that Leonato is the Governor of Messina. Therefore what is happening with the marriage of his daughter also affects his political life, and his livelihood. That, of course, impacts everyone in his household from the servants on up. In what ways might moving the setting of the play away from the physical seat of political intrigue and power have on the tone of the performance?

While it is possible to read Shakespeare's comedies with overlapping concerns of the political, the cultural, and the personal at play, Much Ado About Nothing seems to use the political context of Don John's disloyalty to his brother mainly as a precondition for the gathering and as another depiction of disloyalty.
Whether a director is staging in a theater, filming within Messina, or filming in the country, as Branagh does, it seems a stretch to say that the location of Messina would offer a lot more to the text. Branagh loves beautiful settings, and the broad panoramic vistas he includes early in the movie set a tone of playfulness and inconsequentiality to the war recently ended. It creates something of an inversion to the tone used in As You Like It, where the latter scenes in the forest offer more creative playfulness. In Much Ado, the opening half is filled with romance and frivolity and wit, while the second half tends to feel more claustrophobic as Don John's plot against Claudio takes effect.
The movie tends to offer darker and smaller spaces for the scenes in the latter part of the play to represent this smallness of spirit that accompanies the disloyalty and accusations against Hero. While Hero's slander might affect Leonato's reputation, it would likely not affect his power in the near term, though having an heir to his fortunes would be a matter affected by Hero's death or her sullied name.

How does Nick's decision at the tea reflect that he follows his father's advice to not criticize others? Analyze it. Does Nick explain his choice? What are the consequences of his silence?

In chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby, Nick invites Daisy over to his house for tea so Gatsby can see her again after all these years. Although he also feels slightly embarrassed, Nick tries to remain polite and accepting of the whole situation.
In the previous chapter, Jordan Baker told Nick about Gatsby's romance with Daisy. Nick knows that Gatsby did not have the advantage of an old-money family and therefore was unable to marry Daisy.
So, Nick invites Daisy over and tells her not to bring Tom, but he does not tell her that Gatsby will be there as well. This way, she is not the one to make the decision to see Gatsby or not; she can't back out because of fear. Gatsby and Daisy meet in Nick's living room, and after they greet each other there is a long pause. Nick feels awkward in the hall, so he goes into the room where there is more awkward silence. Nick observes how awkward Gatsby and Daisy feel. He tries to release the tension by asking them to help him make tea, but then Finn brings some in. He chats with Daisy for a bit as they drink and then excuses himself so they can be alone. When Gatsby follows him, Nick says,

“You’re just embarrassed, that’s all,” and luckily I added: “Daisy’s embarrassed too.”

He tells Gatsby to go back into the room and then walks outside for a bit. After some time, he goes back in:

I went in—after making every possible noise in the kitchen, short of pushing over the stove—but I don’t believe they heard a sound. They were sitting at either end of the couch, looking at each other as if some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy’s face was smeared with tears, and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.

Nick tells them it's stopped raining, and Gatsby invites them both over to his house.
All of Nick's actions reflect how he is very careful around the two and conscientious of their history. When he does talk, it is only an attempt to help them diffuse the tension. Embarrassment seems to be the only explanation Nick directly offers for his actions during the tea. Otherwise, he does not directly say why he invites Daisy or why he leaves to give them alone time. We can infer it is because he wants to help Gatsby, which has the consequence of setting their affair into motion and ultimately leading to the final events of the book.
Nick does not judge Gatsby and Daisy during the tea, because he too feels awkward, and he understands their history. By inviting them to tea, and walking out to give them alone time, he helps rekindle their romance.

Can we be sympathetic towards the Marquis?

It's difficult to have much in the way of sympathy for a murderer, especially a triple murderer like the Marquis. More to the point, it's eerily obvious that the Marquis is also a sadist—a nod to the notorious Marquis de Sade, from whose name we derive the word—a man who genuinely enjoys inflicting death and pain on the unfortunate women in his life. This is a man with an extensive collection of sadistic pornography as well as a chamber—the bloody chamber of the title—packed to the gills with diabolical instruments of torture. And if this weren't enough, the walls of his castle are bedecked by macabre paintings of dead women. The Marquis may be many things, but sympathetic he most certainly isn't.
At the same time, we don't know how the Marquis came to be this way. Perhaps he has some mental health issues of which we're unaware; perhaps there was something in his upbringing that created such an unspeakable monster. None of this would excuse his atrocious behavior in any way, but it would at least provide something by way of an explanation. Even so, neither the Marquis's background nor any potential mental health issues he might have would serve to elicit much sympathy. He is not the victim in all of this.

Does Montresor have an internal conflict?

In the opening paragraph of the story, Montresor says:

At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled...
Poe seems to have inserted the paragraph, and these words in particular, in order to establish that Montresor did not have an internal conflict. Poe's story is clearly to be about Montresor's external conflict: the problems he has in luring Fortunato off the streets and down into his doom without being recognized or ever suspected.
Montresor encounters Fortunato when his proposed victim is drunk and unaccompanied. Montresor has the problem of getting Fortunato to accompany him to his palazzo immediately without being recognized himself. Poe ingeniously helps his character solve the problem of avoiding being recognized by making Fortunato so conspicuous in his jester's costume, complete with a cap with jingling bells, that he attracts all the attention while Montresor in his black cloak and black mask is like a shadow. Many people will remember seeing Fortunato on the night he disappeared, but nobody will remember seeing anybody with him.
Montresor has concocted a story designed to get Fortunato to want to proceed voluntarily to Montresor's palazzo immediately. Montresor himself acts as if he is in a big hurry. Why? He has bought a big cask of Amontillado sherry and had it delivered to his palazzo. It is already bought, paid for, and delivered. Why is it so important that it should be judged by a connoisseur right away? This is the finely honed falsehood Montresor uses:
I said to him—“My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”
“How?” said he. “Amontillado, A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!”
“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”

“Amontillado!”
“As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me—”
Why should Fortunato want to go to Montresor's palazzo at this late hour, when he is drunk, inadequately dressed, and has a bad cold? The answer is that Montresor has told him he is on his way to see Luchesi. If Fortunato should put Montresor off, then Montresor would go straight to Luchesi, and Fortunato would have a competitor in bidding for the cargo of wine. Montresor is a poor man and could only afford to buy another one or two pipes, but Luchesi, presumably, is capable of buying an entire cargo. So Montresor's ploy succeeds. Fortunato says:
“Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person,I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
Fortunato is wearing a "tight-fitting" costume. He is obviously not armed. But Montresor has a rapier under his cloak. Once he gets Fortunato down the stairs into his wine vaults, his victim is at his mercy. He can kill him any time he wants—but he would like to lead him all the way to the niche where the old chains are fastened to the granite wall. That would save him the trouble of dragging a body through the catacombs. Once he entices Fortunato to the spot where he can seal him behind a stone wall—for which he has the materials already prepared—his conflict is resolved and the story is nearly at an end. The whole story has been about an external conflict. Poe puts any doubts, fears, misgivings, etc., behind Montresor with the words, "At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk"—so that Poe does not have to deal with an internal conflict and an external conflict at the same time.

What is the setting of Romeo and Juliet?

The setting is Verona and Mantua, Italy, during the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

What does Sheila feel for Eva Smith when she first hears about her sacking and her suicide?

When Sheila finds out that Eva Smith, a former employee of her father's, committed suicide after being sacked, her initial reaction is, according to the stage direction, "rather distressed." This suggests that her reaction is appropriate, albeit somewhat restrained
Sheila starts asking questions about Eva, like how old she was and whether she was pretty. When she finds out that her father sacked Eva for asking for a pay rise, Sheila says to him that she thinks it was "a mean thing to do." She also tells her father, reproachfully, that girls like Eva "aren't cheap labour—they're people." Here, then, Sheila seems to sympathize with Eva Smith.
Sheila can at this point afford to be a little self-righteous in her criticism of her father, given that she has not yet discovered her own role in the death of Eva Smith. The moral righteousness she demonstrates in her initial reaction, and the sympathy she expresses for Eva, seems somewhat hypocritical and disingenuous, however, when we subsequently find out about how she herself treated Eva Smith.

What is Uncle Ben Loman's role in the story?

The main reason for Willy's older brother Ben being in the play is that he gives Willy someone to confide in. Stage plays rely heavily on dialogue. If Willy didn't have Ben to talk to about his private thoughts, there would be no way to convey such information to the audience--except for resorting to soliloquies, as in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Soliloquies seem unnatural because they are unnatural. They would seem especially out of place in drama that is naturalistic like this one. Yet somehow it does not seem unnatural for Willy to be holding conversations with Ben when we are well aware that Ben is only present in Willy's mind. Evidently this is because this is something we all do--or most of us, anyway. We imagine ourselves having conversations with "important others" in our lives, often trying to justify or rationalize what we have done, or what we intend to do, or what we failed to do. These important others will usually include fathers, mothers, former friends, and former lovers. They also come to us in our dreams. Whoever they are, they are people who made their mark on us. They still live inside our minds, even though many of them may be dead.
A good example of Willy's relationship with Ben is found towards the end of the play, when Willy seeks his brother's approval of his plan to commit suicide in order to let his son Biff collect the $20,000 premium. Willy will fake it to look like an accident because the policy pays double indemnity.
WILLY: Can you imagine that magnificence with twenty thousand dollars in his pocket?....Imagine? When the mail comes he'll be ahead of Bernard again!
BEN: A perfect proposition all around.
WILLY: Did you see how he cried to me? Oh, if I could kiss him, Ben!
BEN: Time, William, time!
WILLY: Oh, Ben, I always knew one way or another we were gonna make it, Biff and I!

In The Darkest Minds, what is the overall goal in the camps besides torture?

Ostensibly, the camps in "The Darkest Minds" are meant to cure and classify the children. When they are first separated into these camps, the leaders claim that they are trying to cure them of the disease that wiped out the remaining child population and gave them supernatural abilities. In addition, they said they would be categorizing them according to the danger of their abilities.
Beneath the surface, however, their goals were much more nefarious. The leaders were part of an organization called The Children's League, which was attempting, through the camps, to militarize and weaponize the children to use as an army for the organization's bidding. This clandestine task force had been manipulating and guiding the children so that they could soon swoop in and take control of them for their military force.

"He told me that the national symbol of the Indian people in Guatemala was the quetzal, a beautiful green bird with a long, long tail. I told him I had seen military macaws at the zoo, and wondered if the quetzal was anything like those. He said no. If you tried to keep this bird in a cage, it died." Identify other images in the novel with which this image connects so as to act as a motif running throughout the story.

“If you tried to keep this bird in a cage, it died.” According to this quote, being caged—without freedom—can cause something to die. If you look at the concepts of death and lack of freedom as figurative language, the “something” that dies could be a person, a skill, a trait, or just about anything. To broaden the statement, you can liken “death” to “loss.” The question becomes Where else in the novel does a lack of freedom—a limitation or restriction—cause something to die or be lost?
Here’s a generic example: A parent decides to not allow their child to play sports (the restriction, or lack of freedom). As a result, the child loses several things—not only the chance to develop athletic skills, but the chance to make friends and to learn to work as part of a team. Each loss has the potential for additional negative effects in the future.
A direct example of this is what happened to Estevan’s daughter, Ismene: Being metaphorically caged by the government’s actions—forced to either give up the names of members of the teacher’s union or lose his daughter—would have caused a loss no matter what he decided to do. As it stands, Estevan and Esperanza lost their daughter.
The theme of human rights—and the loss of them—is applicable here. Since the quetzal is "the national symbol of the Indian people in Guatemala," I'd recommend focusing on places in the text where those people have lost freedoms.