How does the statement below apply to Hamlet and Life of Pi: This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

The line quoted is spoken by Polonius in Hamlet as part of the advice he gives to his son, Laertes, who is leaving home. The irony of the speech, especially this line, is that Polonius does not uphold the principles he recommends to his son. Laertes returns home late in the play to find both his father and his sister dead; Hamlet has killed Polonius. Laertes does behave according to these principles: he challenges Hamlet to a duel to avenge Polonius's death.
The entire play centers around Hamlet's efforts to be true to himself as he simultaneously tries to avenge his father's death and behave as an ethical person. He does not totally succeed. To accomplish his goal of revenge, he pretends to be mentally ill and thus deceives everyone around him. He hesitates to kill Claudius at prayer—a moral decision but one that blocks him from achieving revenge. Finally, at the end, he does achieve Claudius's death but only by sacrificing himself.
In Life of Pi, Pi struggles to stay alive in the boat by outwitting the other characters. Unlike Hamlet, who feigns mental illness, Pi seems to be living in a fantasy world. He engages with fellow passengers that are animals, including the tiger Richard Parker that Pi must keep away from him.
In the end, Pi reaches safety and tells this story to the investigators; predictably, they do not believe him. Pi then offers a more logical explanation. Pi did stay true to himself in the sense of achieving his goal of reaching safety, and like Hamlet he paid the price for causing other people's deaths; unlike Hamlet, however, Pi survived.

How do the riding experiences of the both children differ in The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse?

In the short story "The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse" by William Saroyan, nine-year-old Aram, the narrator, discovers that his cousin Mourad has stolen a magnificent white horse. Mourad takes him for a ride, and then each of the boys rides the horse solo.
Aram explains that Mourad is thought to be crazy by everyone in the family except him, although the specific motivation for this is not clarified, except that Mourad loves to sing loudly, has a way with animals, and "enjoyed being alive, more than anyone else who had ever fallen into the world by mistake." Aram justifies the fact the Mourad has stolen the horse by considering that at least he had not sold it.
The boys take the horse out of town and into the fields, and for a time they let it run with both of them on it. Mourad has Aram get down, and when he takes off alone on the horse, he is in full control.

The horse stood on its hind legs, snorted, and burst into a fury of speed that was the loveliest thing I had ever seen.

When Aram climbs up onto the horse for his solo ride, however, he does not have the ease and control that Mourad has.

Instead of running across the field to the irrigation ditch the horse ran down the road to the vineyard of Dikran Halabian where it began to leap over vines. The horse leaped over seven vines before I fell. Then it continued running.

So we see that the riding experiences of the two children differ greatly. Mourad, who has a way with horses, rides with ease and grace. Aram, on the other hand, has little control over the animal and gets thrown every time he tries to ride. Aram does not learn to ride before the boys feel compelled to return the horse to its rightful owner.

What was the federal government’s attitude towards business in the 1920’s?

Throughout the 1920s the federal government's attitude towards business was very much hands-off. The prevailing economic and political orthodoxy held that the economy would thrive if government adopted a laissez-faire approach, that is to say a light-touch approach to regulation that would give American businesses the maximum freedom in running their own affairs.
The Republican administrations of the 1920s saw themselves as the friends of business, especially big business, and vigorously pursued business-friendly policies such as low taxation and refusing to intervene to support falling farm prices. The thinking behind such measures was that direct intervention in the running of the economy would do more harm than good. Instead, the government should do no more than cut taxes, set the rules of an appropriately light-touch regulatory system, and stand back to allow businesses to make profits, increase investment, and create jobs.

What was Curley’s wife dream? What does her dream have in common with George and Lennie’s? Was either attainable?

One of the main themes in this novel is The American Dream and the ability to attain it. Curley's wife wanted to become a famous actress in movies, or pictures. She wanted to be able to provide for herself and become rich and famous.
George and Lennie had a dream of owning a farm, where they too, could provide for themselves and not rely on anyone else.
Both of their dreams were their"American Dream" and they both wanted to be self-sufficient and not worry about making ends meet. Part of the American Dream is doing what makes you happy. Curley's wife thought that being famous would make her happy, while George and Lennie thought that running their own small farm would make them happy.
Now were both of these dreams attainable? Of course, but based on some life choices, their dreams became unattainable. Curley's wife decided she would be better off getting married and quickly regretted her choice. George and Lennie were on the right path to achieve their dream, but things took a wrong turn when Lennie killed Curley's wife. One could argue that George could continue on with achieving the dream of the farm, but he might feel like he is missing a part of himself after losing Lennie.

Like just about everyone else on the ranch, Curley's wife has her dreams. In her case, it's to make it big in the movies. Years before, a traveling show came to her hometown and one of the performers told her that she ought to come with them. Unfortunately for Curley's wife, her mother prevented her from going, and so that was the end of that. But from that day on, she's spent a lot of time brooding on what might have been.
As to the question of whether her dream is realistic, she certainly seems to look the part of a Hollywood star—glamorous, sexy, and with a magnetic personality. In that sense, one could that her dreams are more realistic than those of George and Lennie. They have their dreams all right, but they don't have anything that might help them make those dreams come true. George is a poor, itinerant farm worker, and Lennie has the mental age of a child.
In this society, hard work and dreams count for little; more often than not it's luck that helps you to get on in life. As Curley's wife has been blessed with the gift of good looks, it's fair to say that her dreams of Hollywood stardom, though something of a long short, are more attainable than George and Lennie's fantasy of having a ranch of their own.

According to liberal theories of international relations, what are the causes of war between states. According to their perspectives, will there be war between the US and China in the twenty-first century?

Liberalism in international relations theory is the more sanguine counterpart to realism (or "power politics"). It rejects the notion that the relative power of a state is the determining factor for whether a state goes to war. Liberal theory holds that states very often behave (and have reason to behave) in ways that are contrary to how it might in a unmitigated power struggle. Circumstances that affect whether a country chooses to go to war include the following: (1) whether that country is a democracy, (2) the status of free trade among the different states, and (3) the existence of international institutions whose aim is to normalize trade and promote a shared value system (such as the UN). If one or more of these circumstances are not present, nations are more likely to engage in war.
China can rise peaceably according to a liberal theory of international relations. In fact, many people cite the rise of China as evidence to support a liberal view of international relations, as the country's increased power owes to economic expansion, itself the result of liberal trade policies. China has sought more interdependence in its economy and has begun to view the US as a trading partner and primary supplier of goods and technology, rather than an inimical competitor. Finally, China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, so it is bound to a major international institution. The economic nature of China's rise to power, coupled with its slow but promising transition to a democratic structure of government (and attending democratic ideals), suggest that there will not be a war between the US and China according to liberal theories of international relations.

How are the themes and plot of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" intertwined with the speaker's feelings?

The plot that Keats develops as he muses in this lyric poem is intertwined with the suggestion of his feelings and themes. The central feelings the Grecian urn inspires in Keats are wonder, "dost tease us out of thought / As doth eternity," and conflicted envy, "and for ever young; / All breathing human passion far [greater than]." The themes that dominate are the awareness of the lifelessness in eternal beauty, "Cold Pastoral! / ... / Thou shalt remain," and the transience of human experience, "old age shall this generation waste."


The first and second stanzas describe a wedding and are connected by the urn's wedding theme: "unravished bride." In the first stanza he speaks of the bride as one who, caught in woods of timelessness as a "Sylvan historian," can express the meaning and beauty of the urn better than his poetry, his "rhyme," can. In the second stanza Keats speaks of "melodies" of "pipes and timbrels" and of the groom, the "Bold lover," who, frozen in time, can never consummate his wedding with a kiss nor his marriage with a bridal night: "Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss." Keats consoles him with the knowledge that his love and her beauty can never fade.


When speaking of the music of the piper, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter," Keats' thoughts relate to the spirit mentioned, "Pipe to the spirit." Real tunes are flawed. Those piped on the urn to the "spirit" are without flaw. Yet Keats sees that their flawlessness is a flaw in itself since the melodies have "no tone," no music. Keats also foreshadows in the line "never, never canst thou kiss" the idea of the "Cold Pastoral!" of the urn's "marble" that is flawed by being without warm, flowing life, like the music is flawed for being without music.


The second, third and fourth stanzas develop the theme of the flawed nature of lifelessness in beauty: each marble, immobilized scene on the urn is flawed while flawless. The town following the priest of Hymen out to the marriage with the wedding's sacrificial young cow is frozen in flawless beauty, but the town is flawed by being desolate, without any who will ever return. The "more happy, happy love" is "for ever warm" "panting" and "young" and it is "far above" [far greater than] all "breathing human passion" since it is flawed by being fragile and changeable. The bride, groom and piper are frozen in purity, beauty and musicality, yet the tune is toneless, the kiss is undelivered, and the bride is ever a virgin. The love shown on the urn is unlike human love that suffers emotional, spiritual and physical depletion: "a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, / A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."


Turning to the theme of Truth and Beauty, Keats ends his narrative of musings by addressing the urn--decorated all over with forest, men and maidens--and accusing it of escaping understanding through contemplation in just the same way that eternity escapes understanding through contemplation: neither the urn nor eternity can be known through contemplation and musings. He ends by recording the message the urn gives in reply to his accusation: "Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty." The paraphrase helps focus what Keats means:


PARAPHRASE: The urn answers back, "All you need to know is that Beauty [the urn] is eternal, outlasting all other things after they are dead and gone, and Truth shows itself [love, nature, religion, marriage] in the Beauty that survives. This is all you can know; musing and contemplation can gain you no more knowledge than this."

In what ways were African Americans especially affected by the New Deal? What were the strengths and limitations of Roosevelt's policies as they applied to African Americans?

The New Deal is a collection of 1930s reforms sponsored by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that aimed to address and correct the underlying economic causes of the Great Depression. The New Deal's outlined goals were to provide relief for the poor, stimulate economy recovery, and also promote long-term economic reform. Though his wife, Eleanor, was a vocal civil rights activist, FDR himself did not expressly align himself with civil rights issues for fear of alienating Southern white voters.
That said, many African Americans felt that the era of the New Deal benefitted them in practical ways. During the depression, they were the last hired and first fired. Within the agencies established by the New Deal, African Americans represented a sizable population. For example, African Americans composed about 11% of the Civilian Conservation Corps and 15% of the Works Progress Administration (representing about 350,000 individuals in each institution). Moreover, the Public Works Administration established a quota for the hiring of black laborers. Lastly, the National Youth Administration employed many African Americans as administrators and addressed itself to the conditions of black children.

In Breathing Underwater, what reason does Tom give Nick for not giving him a second chance?

At the beginning of the story, Nick is found guilty of beating up his girlfriend, Caitlin. After this, his best friend for about ten years, Tom, refuses to speak to him. Nick and Tom had been best friends "since first grade," which is when Nick figured out that "Tom's peaceful house was the best place to escape (his) father."
Nick asks Tom to give him a second chance, saying, "You'd think your best friend would give you a second chance." Tom says in reply, "I don't even know who you are . . . My best friend . . . wouldn't do what you did." In other words, Tom refuses to give Nick a second chance because he simply does not want to be friends with someone who could, and did, beat up his girlfriend. Tom's refusal may also be influenced by the fact that, during the trial, Nick initially denied having beaten up Caitlin, making the process for her all the more painful.
Nick thinks that Tom, "who knew (him) better than anyone . . . should have stood by (him)." However, after Tom refuses to give Nick a second chance, Nick says that he "was stupid thinking (he) could work things out with Tom," and he acknowledges that he is now on his own.

What topic sentence can I write to start a research paper on Flannery O’Connor?

I returned this question to you and am glad you clarified it. Since you are writing on Flannery O'Connor rather than a specific work she wrote, one way to begin would be to investigate what motivated her to write the kind of stories she did.
Two possible choices of topic sentences to get you started could be as follows, but keep in mind you will need to adjust your topic sentence to any specific requirements of the assignment and make it your own:
One possible topic sentence: Flannery O'Connor's Roman Catholicism and suffering as a person who had lupus motivated her to show readers that God loves and pours his grace on all people regardless of how terrible they seem to the rest of society.
Alternatively, you might say something like: At first glance, readers might be repelled by Flannery O'Connor's wide array of fictional misfits, but learning about her life can help readers understand how deeply her Catholic faith influenced her stories.
O'Connor's writing is often referred to as grotesque because of how unusual or marginal many of her characters are. Why did she write about racists, misfits, sociopaths, killers, disabled people, ignorant people, and ugly people? How does this connect with her devout Roman Catholicism and suffering from lupus, which killed her at a relatively young age?
Basically, you will be writing about O'Connor's life because she is considered a great American writer. Therefore, you will want to show how her life influenced her work. If you are not interested in her religious faith, you might instead examine how being a Southerner or a woman influenced her writing.

How does the central idea develop throughout the sermon?

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached by Jonathan Edwards in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741, is perhaps the most well-known sermon of the Great Awakening, 1738 to 1742, a period during which Puritan leaders were trying to re-light religious enthusiasm among their congregations. The sermon, subtitled "Mr. Edwards's Sermon on the Danger of the Unconverted," is a masterpiece of rhetorical skill in service to Edwards's Puritan belief system, in this case, centered on the dangers of damnation his congregation was exposed to every minute of their lives. An often repeated story about this sermon is that several listeners fainted during Edwards's exhortation.
The sermon's central theme—that an angry God is about to send each person to Hell but is withholding that terrible event—begins with the mildest image in the sermon, one that sets the stage for each person's imminent danger from God's wrath:

The Expression that I have chosen for my Text, Their Foot shall slide in due Time; seems to imply the following Things, relating to the Punishment and Destruction that these wicked Israelites were exposed to.

A mild image, to be sure, but Edwards follows this by reminding his listeners that their slipping feet expose them to "sudden, unexpected" destruction, the first warning that they have no control over when they will fall into Hell. One of the main tenets of the Puritan belief system is that all mankind is already damned at birth (Original Sin—Adam and Eve's failure to obey God) and that only by God's grace are they kept out of Hell. And God, as the sermon's title states, is not the loving New Testament God but an angry, even hostile, God who is as ready to punish as he is to save.
As Edwards escalates the imagery, he increases the tension between his congregation's presumed concept of their safety and their real and unsuspected danger:

Unconverted Men walk over the Pit of Hell on a rotten Covering, and there are innumerable Places in this Covering so weak that they won’t bear their Weight, and these Places are not seen.

Edwards carefully and methodically presents images of increasing violence, all leading to damnation, in an attempt to convince his listeners that an invisible world exists all around them whose main purpose is to cast them into Hell at any moment.
Should any of Edwards's listeners believe he or she is immune to God's wrath, Edward dispels this notion in a frightening image:

The Bow of God’s Wrath is bent, and the Arrow made ready on the String, and Justice bends the Arrow at your Heart, and strains the Bow, and it is nothing but the meer Pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any Promise or Obligation at all, that keeps the Arrow one Moment from being made drunk with your Blood.

This is perhaps the most threatening and violent image in the sermon, an image calculated to reinforce Edwards's central argument that each of his listeners is in the hands of an angry and even capricious God, who is not obligated to either save a sinner or strike a sinner down in a gruesome way—"drunk with your blood."
Edwards's use of increasingly violent images reinforces his congregation's belief that they are subject to a wrathful God who might, depending solely upon his whim, cast them into Hell or save them. The security some may have felt in their righteousness is shattered by God's metaphorical arrow.

In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards builds to his central theme by breaking his sermon into three main sections.
The first section lays the groundwork by quoting from Deuteronomy, an Old Testament verse that emphasizes God's attitude towards sin. This verse prepares the congregation by giving them something that they are familiar with as the introduction.
Edwards's second section builds on this groundwork by introducing different points that all have the same underlying message: God is the final judge, and He hates sin.
This all leads to the last section of the sermon, where Edwards's central idea is fully fleshed out as he makes the sermon personal for his parishioners. He reminds them that they are sinners, and unless they change their ways, they too are going to Hell.

Choose two therapeutic orientations and compare/contrast them: psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, interpersonal, eclectic (or you can pick another less popular type of therapy if you want a challenge) Compare them for: 1. What leads a client to have problems? 2. What specific techniques are used? 3. What leads to change?

I will analyze the concepts of psychoanalytic therapy and behavioral therapy to observe their similarities, methods of action, and types of change expected.
First, to analyze the two different frameworks, we'll look at how they view different problems and what causes them to arise. In this psychoanalytic framework, the unconscious mind, lying below the surface, gives rise to actions and thoughts in the conscious mind. This framework essentially takes the stance that things we don't focus on can sometimes embed themselves deep into our psyche or are even born into our psyche without our knowledge. In behavioral therapy, however, it is believed that actions and feelings are learned or trained behaviors, as well as natural, instinctual behaviors, and they must be guided and corrected.
The two ideas actually share a lot in common, but the terms and rationale behind them varies slightly.
Treatment in psychoanalysis involves in-depth probing and discussion to tease out the subconscious thoughts and feelings, sometimes by deeply analyzing events from childhood or giving a detailed psychoanalysis of vast swathes of one's life. In behavioral therapy, the process of treatment is much more active: one attempts to engage in behaviors, using positive reinforcement to retrain the natural impulses of one's mind. The focus here is less on the mental origin of a behavior and more on the mental pathway that has been formed, for whatever reason. Whereas psychoanalysis attempts to find a root, somewhere in the psyche, of an issue, correct that root, and hope that the stemming actions will change, behavioral therapy forces the behavior to fit into a mold, much in the same way a physical therapist might have someone wear a corrective brace. It doesn't always matter to them the way a problem formed—it is just necessary to correct it. Once it's corrected, it may be beneficial to go back and find the root to prevent it from reemerging, but in the meantime, they wish for the problem to be fixed more than for an answer to be found.

What was the status of slaves after the Civil War?

In 1865, before the conclusion of the Civil War, Congress established an institution called the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman, and Abandoned Lands, later referred to simply as the “Freedmen’s Bureau,” within the War Department. This department would last well into the post-war period, through the Johnson Administration. The Freedmen’s Bureau made as its mission the provisioning of emancipated slaves all manner of material and social assistance to help them begin to create new lives and establish independence for themselves and their families. The federal government funded the Bureau to provide former slaves with clothes, fuel, new living quarters, and a suitable education for them and their children. Furthermore, representatives of the Freedmen’s Bureau helped negotiate labor contracts with potential employers of freed black men and women and helped them become incorporated into Northern medical and administrative networks.
Unfortunately, Congress was unwilling to enact measures to deal with the deeply imbedded racism and social prejudices that these former slaves had to contend with after emancipation. Therefore, while the Bureau provided legal recognition to black Americans in the abstract, it did little to alleviate the animosity many former plantation owners and other white Americans felt about the erosion of the plantation economy and entire pre-war cultural hierarchy. Thus, legally, former slaves enjoyed a protected status, but practically they were still targets of indiscriminate persecution. For example, in the South, certain unwritten practices known as the “black codes” characterized the ways in which former white slave owners treated emancipated black residents who decided not to move North. Southern legislatures, particularly in former slave-states like Mississippi, passed laws forbidding emancipated blacks from marrying interracially, practicing certain trades, or owning farmland. Furthermore, white lawmen often turned a blind eye to violence and discrimination committed against black freemen, leading to the rise of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Ultimately, though emancipation freed former black slaves on paper, life in former slave states was still extremely repressive, and many suffered as a result.

Discuss the themes of "Work Without Hope" and how they might relate to themes developed in Nectar in a Sieve.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s sonnet “Work Without Hope” was published in the 19th century. The poem essentially contrasts the speaker with the purposeful work that nature performs at the beginning of spring. The speaker feels useless and directionless because, unlike the birds and bees he observes, he doesn’t feel as though he is working toward any important goal.
The novel Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya takes its title from this Coleridge sonnet. Markandaya also uses the final couplet from this sonnet as an epigraph. The meaning of the quote means that people must have hope in order to keep moving forward in life. In the novel, the title character Rukmani experiences numerous hardships during her marriage to Nathan, including infertility and hunger. Throughout each obstacle, Rukmani keeps moving forward by clinging to a quiet hope that her life will get better. This connects to the theme of the sonnet because Rukmani often feels that her efforts are fruitless, yet her ability to become hopeful for the future is what ultimately leads to her peace.

Is the Ghost honest?

Although rarely discussed throughout the discussion of Shakespeare's Hamlet, this scene introduces a very interesting topic and, in fact, one that is interwoven throughout the entire five acts of the play: is the ghost honest? Keep in mind the intense Roman Catholicism of the time and the teaching that any strange form (such as the ghost who is presumed to be Hamlet's dead father) is often explained as some unsettled soul from Purgatory. Purgatory, if the reader is unfamiliar with the teaching, is the place where souls not fully in the state of Grace must go to be "purged" or purified before they are able to enter heaven and experience the Beatific Vision of God. Roman Catholics are also quite familiar with the antithesis of the holy—the demonic. Hamlet invokes the Church teaching when he says that it might very well be "a spirit of good health," in other words one from Purgatory that has a job to do before entering heaven. Interestingly enough, Hamlet also invokes a different Church teaching when he says that the ghost just might be a "goblin damn'd," meaning a demon sent from hell in order to lead him astray. At this point in the play, readers remain unsure as to the nature and the honesty of this ghost. However, take note of the following things that are very interesting:
The ghost only appears at night (and on gloomy nights, at that).
The ghost "beckons [Hamlet] to go away with it. . . alone." None of Hamlet's confidants are allowed to accompany him. Does this mean the ghost has something to hide?
Hamlet's friends (who we already know are honest) urge Hamlet both emotionally and physically not to go with the ghost. Horatio is so adamant that he physically retrains Hamlet saying, "Be ruled. You shall not go."
As Hamlet leaves with the ghost, one of the most prominent quotes taken from the play is used by Marcellus: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Truly, this is not the first time the reader must visit this idea of the question, "Is the ghost honest?" One must read the ghost's actual words and directive to Hamlet in order to decide further. This, of course, comes in later scenes of Shakespeare's play.

A blank occurs when a jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict.

In the United States legal system, a jury that is unable to reach a unanimous verdict is called a “hung jury.” The jury is charged with voting on a verdict and presenting it to the court. Typically, the jury will attempt to reach a unanimous verdict before presenting its decision to the court, but occasionally the jury, despite honest efforts, will be unable to reach a unanimous decision. When this happens, the jury will inform the court that it has does not have enough votes for a single verdict.
After the jury informs the judge that it has been unable to reach a unanimous verdict, the judge will usually encourage the jury to try again, in order to avoid the possibility of a mistrial. In federal court, a judge might issue an Allen charge, which instructs the jurors in the minority to reconsider their vote. If, after further deliberations, the jury is still not able to reach a single verdict, it will be considered a “hung jury” and the judge will declare a mistrial. This does not happen very often.
The consequences of a mistrial depend on the type of case and the court in which it is being tried. If the case is a civil case, then a mistrial means that the plaintiff can decide whether to bring the case again, or drop the case completely. If the case is criminal, then the prosecutor can decide whether to retry the defendant, dismiss the charges, or negotiate a plea bargain with the defendant. In any criminal case, retrial of the defendant must comport with the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The prohibition against retrying a defendant for the same charges does not typically apply when there is a mistrial due to a hung jury and a defendant may usually be retried on the charges about which the jury did not agree.

A mistrial occurs when a criminal jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict. A mistrial does not mean the case is over, but only that the prosecution must determine whether the case is worth retrying, both from a monetary and a substantive standpoint. To assist the prosecution in making that decision, the jury can be polled such that each juror is questioned as to his vote. Attorneys for both the prosecution and defense further have the opportunity to speak with the jurors - if they are agreeable - to discuss their opinions as to the effectiveness of the evidence presented at trial.
In civil matters, a unanimous verdict is not required so unless there occurs misconduct during the course of the trial, mistrials are seldom ordered by the court.

In the American criminal justice system, if the jury remains hung, that is to say it cannot reach a unanimous verdict, then the result is a mistrial. This does not, however, mean that the case cannot be retried. Indeed, the relevant legal precedent—United States v Perez (1824)—established that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment does not automatically prevent such cases from being retried.
According to Mr. Justice Story, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, courts should always exercise considerable caution in discharging a jury in cases where they are unable to reach a verdict. Nevertheless, they do have that discretion, but when it is exercised it does not prevent further legal proceedings from taking place. In the case of Perez, he remained in custody despite the collapse of his original trial, ready to be tried again under the same indictment.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/22/579.html

How much does our personal behavior developmental history affect our moral behavior?

The development of a human's personal behavior, or personality, begins between approximately one and two years old. A person's behavioral development is affected by many factors, including firsthand experiences and being taught directly by those around them, such as school teachers.
People also learn indirectly from others via observation. When a child between one and five years old observes particular behaviors, they may mimic these behaviors until they become part of their own personality. This is the most common and fundamental form of learning among many animals, including humans.
For this reason, if one learns what society perceives as "unacceptable" behavior, then this will dictate the person's individual "moral compass." People learn ethics and morality through rules—such as those found in a household or school—and through laws. Moral standards are also taught by other people. When a toddler plays with matches inside the house, for example, the child will be reprimanded and taught that this is an unsafe action.
Depending on any individual's personal experiences, or what they were taught, their behavior could be considered morally sound or immoral. For instance, if a violent parent teaches their child that using violence is not wrong, and they reinforce this idea throughout the child's developmental period, that child will grow up to become an adult whose ideas clash with society's moral code.
https://depts.washington.edu/isei/iyc/crnic_17_3.pdf

https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/Bandura1999HP.pdf

What was a funny moment in Born on a Blue Day?

There are many small moments of humor scattered throughout the autobiography Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. Tammet is a man of unfathomable genius—he is a high-functioning autistic savant, which is a near-impossibility probability-wise. And yet he exists, with synesthesia that gives him the ability to perceive numbers and words as landscapes of shape, color, and texture and that allows him to rapidly learn new languages (for instance, when he became fluent in Icelandic, recognized globally as one of the hardest languages to learn, in only 9 days) and analyze numbers.
A brief moment of humor is had when he, as a young child, goes to the library to look at books. He assumes that, since these books all have names on them, somewhere in the library there must be a book with his name on it. Obviously, there was not, but his moment of confusion and disappointment is very humorous in his naïveté.

Why does the poet ask questions in "Still I Rise"?

Maya Angelou, a black woman, is writing in defiance to the way white people have written about and described the black experience. She calls the white version of black history "bitter, twisted lies." She also writes to express that she is rising above white attempts to enslave and destroy black people.
To defy how white people have characterized black people, Angelou asks a series of rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions have only one possible, very obvious answer. They are used not to invite a reader to ponder a question, but in order to emphasize a point.
Angelou hurls her rhetorical questions at white people. She asks if her "sassiness" and "sexiness" upsets them, if her "haughtiness" is offensive, and if white people want to see her broken and tearful, with a "bowed head and lowered eyes."
The obvious answer is yes, white people are offended if black people show assertiveness, sexuality, and pride. They do want to see black people broken and defeated.
However, Angelou says, she is going to persist in doing what offends and upsets white people, because by doing so she is refusing to let them define her and defeat her. No matter how many lies white people tell or cruelties they perpetrate, she will "rise" from oppression into being her own person. She doesn't want white people to be comfortable, and she asks questions that make them feel discomfort about who she is.

Are there Gothic elements in the story?

Published in 1892, Gilman’s story is generally interpreted as a study of the protagonist’s descent into psychosis and as a condemnation of the “rest cure,” a treatment for nervous disorders that originated with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. Gilman’s personal experience with Dr. Mitchell and his rest cure supports this interpretation of the story, as does the narrative’s content; the unnamed narrator (often identified as Jane), steadily deteriorates during a rest cure and fears being treated by a physician named Dr. Weir. The story is also interpreted as condemning the submissive role women were expected to play in marriage, not an uncommon literary theme at the turn of the century.
Another influence is evident in the story, however—the popularity of Gothic literature in the 1800s. Gothic elements are introduced immediately in Jane’s description of the setting—the “ancestral halls” of a “hereditary estate.” The secluded old mansion, set among shadowy, walled gardens, is reminiscent of the settings of many gothic tales. The shattered greenhouses, lying in disrepair, and the abandoned gardeners’ cottages suggest ruin and decay, familiar motifs in gothic literature. In her first journal entry, Jane notes that there is something “queer” about the mansion’s being uninhabited for so long and rented to her husband so inexpensively. The mansion reminds her of a haunted house; she sees “ghostliness” in it. Jane insists “there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.”
Other conventions of Gothic literature are found in the story, as well. A troubled heroine trapped in a strange setting tells her own story as it develops. Her domineering husband imprisons her, consigns her to a room with barred windows, and abandons her for long periods of time; a housekeeper watches her intently and reports her behavior to him. Her husband professes love and concern for her, but he denies her perception of reality and systematically imposes his will in ways that harm her. No longer trusting her husband or the housekeeper, she struggles to save herself. In the context of Jane and John’s nineteenth-century society, the scenario seems more tragic than sinister, but it’s consistent nonetheless with the plot of many Gothic stories and novels.
Considering what’s not in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it’s doubtful that Gilman set out to write a Gothic tale. Jane doesn’t explore dark, secret passages by the flickering light of a candle held in a trembling hand. She isn’t seized with terror and compelled to run from the mansion into a violent storm. Gilman instead creates a complex protagonist, with the story’s Gothic elements illustrating Gilman's artistry as a writer. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is not a political tract, nor is it an essay on women and marriage; it is a short story, a sophisticated piece of fiction that leaves readers wondering.
Has the old mansion stood empty for many years because of legal entanglements, or is there another reason no one chooses to live there? Who previously occupied Jane’s bedroom? Was it a nursery, playroom, gym, and boys’ school, as she conjectures in an attempt to explain its unusual features, or were there other reasons to bar the windows, bolt the bed to the floor, and install “rings and things” in the walls? Are the rings perhaps the kind to which chains could have been affixed? Was it children who gnawed repeatedly on the bedstead? One wonders when reading Jane’s account of biting off a piece of it. Is the estate a former asylum, or is it the home of someone else who once was driven mad in the bedroom? Whatever the room used to be, the reader knows one thing for sure: Jane is not the first person to tear the yellow paper from the walls. The story is filled with specific details about the bedroom, but they create ambiguity rather than clarity.
Reading Jane’s journal leaves the reader with a final question. Is she an unreliable narrator recording her own descent into insanity at the hands of a domineering husband, or is she a reliable narrator overwhelmed by supernatural forces and ultimately possessed by a demon? The answer, however, is unimportant. Jane is destroyed either way, and whatever it is that extinguishes her spirit and steals her life is truly evil.

In section 6 of Song of Myself, how does the image of grass represent the cycle of life and death?

In Section 6 of "Song of Myself" Whitman uses the imagery of grass to explore the theme of death and rebirth. The child asks the speaker what seems like a fairly simple question: "What is grass?" But the speaker is unable to give a definitive answer. Instead, he can only offer possible suggestions, one of which is that the grass is itself a child, growing out of the realm of death into a new life.
Grass indicates the presence of life, even in the setting of a graveyard. The grass sprouts from among the graves, this "beautiful, uncut hair" showing us that there is really no death. And even if there were such a thing, it would merely lead towards new life. That's why for Whitman grass is a sign of hope corresponding to his naturally optimistic disposition.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

What is one new piece of information that has come to light since Diamond's work was first published?

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond seeks to answer why Eurasian peoples harnessed guns, germs, and steel first and used these to expand globally. His answer is based on Eurasians building stable towns and then societies first due to their early mastery of agriculture. The rise of agriculture was in turn predicated on having plants and animals that could be domesticated for human use, which was true in only a small number of regions globally. The spread of agriculture primarily occurred in an east–west direction, because these regions had similar growth conditions. The east–west orientation of Eurasia thus supported rapid growth of agricultural societies, which in turn led to them building stable civilizations that could produce the technology that led to their global domination. The final piece of the puzzle on why Eurasians ended up the dominant global power was that they had increased microbial resistance to the major diseases of humanity, as many of these diseases came from the animals they had already domesticated.
In a 2012 series of papers on the rise of agriculture in the Journal of Anthropological Research, the Indian subcontinent was found to be a region where agriculture arose and that Diamond had not previously discussed. Since Diamond's first publication, there has also been much new research on the relationship between the spread of languages and the spread of agriculture. Some of this research has suggested that language can spread long distances even in the absence of agriculture. The phenomenon of east–west preferential spread had not been definitively demonstrated when Diamond first published his work, but it has been shown to be accurate in more recent studies. In economics there have been new developments that show that the rise of agriculture can explain much of the difference between rich and poor nations.
In summary, there have been many extensions of the thoughts in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Only some of the suppositions Diamond proposed have been shown to be accurate, but little of the new work directly overturns the core of Diamond's ideas.
http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel.html

What were the key events that led to growing colonial support for independence?

The Sugar Act of 1764. This was the first attempt by the British to raise finance from the colonists to pay for their own defense. To that end, the British imposed a levy on exports of iron, lumber, and other goods. The measures were deeply unpopular with American colonists as they made it more expensive for merchants to engage in foreign trade.

The Stamp Act of 1765. Under the terms of the legislation, a tax was placed on all legal documents, newspapers, and pamphlets printed on watermarked or stamped paper. As with the Sugar Act, the stated purpose was to raise revenue to help defray some of the costs of the colonies' defense. But the colonists themselves were unhappy with the Stamp Act, seeing it as an attack on free speech, as disseminated through ideas and opinions in countless books, pamphlets, and newspapers.

The Townsend Revenue Acts of 1767. Named after the British Chancellor of the Exchequer this particular piece of legislation imposed duties on tea, glass, paper, and paint to help pay for administering the colonies. The duties were widely hated and colonial assemblies convened to condemn taxation without political representation in the British Parliament.

The arrival of British troops in 1768. This was seen by many American colonists as a provocative measure. Although the British government claimed to have sent troops to quell civil disturbances, opponents countered that this was more to do with suppressing popular dissent than with restoring order to the colonies.

The Boston Massacre of 1770. Simmering resentment over the stationing of British troops on American soil boiled over into a skirmish between a mob of citizens and a group of soldiers guarding the court house in Boston. Five civilians were killed after the soldiers fired into the crowd.
Last, but not least, the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Angered by the passing of the Tea Act, which exempted East India Company tea from import duties, a group of American patriots, disguised as Mohawk Indians, dumped £9,000 worth of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.

Compare and contrast social darwinism and survival of the fittest

Social darwinism refers to the white supremacist, colonial concept that non-Europeans are inherently inferior to Europeans, specifically Western Europeans. Social darwinism was aggressively spread by racist pseudo-scientists and sociologists who were interested in promoting a white supremacist worldview and justification for horrific colonial acts, such as slavery, land theft, political, social and economic oppression of non-white people, and outright genocide. The term "social darwinism" is inappropriately derived from Darwin's theories of evolution and his concept of "survival of the fittest". This term does not exclusively mean that the strongest and fastest animals survive, but also refers to how strong packs/herd/interspecies relationships aid in survival. As such, many biologists were deeply offended by the term "social darwinism" and correctly pointed out that the term was nothing more than pseudo-scientific racism.

Social Darwinism was used an a way to explain how certain people "prospered" and others did not. Herbert Spencer was credited with the term. Social Darwinism encouraged racism and imperialism as it stated that certain groups of people who were not Anglo-Saxon White Protestants were destined for lesser things in life. In time, according to Spencer, the "lesser" groups would either change or their way of life would totally die out. Spencer's goal was for laissez-faire governmental practices in economics and politics that would let "nature take its course" and would let business dominate. Proponents of Social Darwinism rarely cited Darwin in their arguments.
"Survival of the fittest" was a Darwinian argument applied to living things. It is similar to Social Darwinism in that it implies that in life there are "winners" and "losers." However, "survival" does not necessarily mean biological success, as many species are "successful" by producing food and shelter for other species. Many Darwinists criticize Social Darwinism as an attempt to justify treating other groups inhumanely.

Several characters in the play All my Sons believe in forces outside their control that influence the events of their lives. Please discuss the significance of this theme.

The characters in All My Sons who most believe in forces beyond their control are Frank Lubey and Kate Keller.
Frank is portrayed as a believer in astrology. He enjoys making people's astrological charts. At Kate's behest, he makes one for her son Larry and interprets it to mean that he could not be dead.
Kate is clinging desperately to the belief that her MIA son is still alive. Her faith in his survival has long ago passed the limits of any reasonable expectation. Kate has adopted a fatalistic belief in the idea that he escaped alive when his plane was shot down. Her interpretation of God is that he would have protected her son, especially if Joe was responsible for the plane's malfunction.
Kate constantly interprets everyday events as signs or portents. Her beliefs tend toward the occult, and she asks Frank to make Larry's chart.

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is an exploration of redefining the supposed normalcy of people and the world." In what way is this achieved in the text?

The novel’s author, Mark Haddon, encourages the reader to delve deep into the concept of “normal,” especially through placing an autistic boy in the position of protagonist. With the events presented through Christopher’s eyes, the novel generally inverts common perceptions. Haddon implies that many people’s everyday understanding of what constitutes “normalcy” is, in fact, biased by their limited approach to cognition. Although many people would see Christopher’s way of understanding the world as “abnormal” or “deviant,” Haddon does not present the boy that way. Christopher approaches the subject of the dog’s death with a clearly logical point of view. He evaluates the evidence at every step of the way and makes logical conclusions based on his understanding of each event or clue as it leads to the next. Tackling the daunting tasks of solving the mystery of the dog’s death leads Christopher into a greater and more troubling mystery—the reason that his mother went away.

Analyze Cleanthes' argument from design and Philo's critique of it. After reading both, do you find the argument from design convincing?

Cleanthes and Philo are two characters from "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" by David Hume, one of the most significant philosophers of the Enlightenment. It is notable that there are three main protagonists in this debate, who each represent different perspectives. Between the two aforementioned, Cleanthes is an avowed theist and, moreover, one who is arguing for a rational God who can be understood in human terms. Philo, on the other hand, argues that God is something so far beyond human understanding as to make any knowledge claims thereof impossible.
Cleanthes's argument for design is one that both results in and follows from that fundamental assumption—God is rational and, moreover, intelligible by human terms. Ultimately, it derives from the observation that the world seems to have a certain order to it. In a very Enlightenment-minded comparison, Cleanthes compares the world to a kind of machine, where everything seems perfectly balanced to the point where one has to assume it had to have had a creator. Moreover, Cleanthes asserts that this creator had to be rational and intelligent in order to devise such a project.
This is fairly typical of the design argument (it is not too different from the more famous Watchmaker analogy). Perhaps more interesting are the arguments that David Hume invokes to challenge it, some quite well known, such as the argument from evil—can we truly call God simultaneously good and all-powerful, given all the suffering present in the world? And if we can't, what does this say about Cleanthes's case for a rational God? But the most important and fundamental argument which tends to serve as Philo's cornerstone in his case against Cleanthes is his use of Humean skepticism.
Hume's contributions to philosophy are really centered around two key themes—empiricism, the idea that knowledge can only be gained through sensory data, and skepticism, the idea that ultimately, knowledge claims themselves are precarious, perhaps even illusory. Both of these cornerstones appear in the "Dialogues." Ultimately, Philo rejects Cleanthes's entire approach, arguing that any such suppositions are coming out of a position of ignorance. We have no experience of or insight into the nature of God, and Cleanthes, in making his argument from design, is doing nothing more than reading human qualities into realms it cannot speak upon. Philo contrasts these claims with those made from common sense or derived from scientific insight. In both cases, human knowledge is always inevitably derived from things people have actually observed or experienced, and it is only from that experiential, empirical level that any conclusions can have validity.
But this is just the beginning of Philo's dispute against Cleanthes. He attacks the analogy of the machine (which requires a creator) by offering other, very different analogies that themselves would render very different conclusions. For example, Philo asks, what if, instead of comparing the world to a machine, we were to compare it to something biological? Is this truly an inferior analogy—to say that the world is still closer to a biological organism, something alive, than it is to say it is comparable to a machine? But if we were to take that comparison as our starting point, then suddenly we need not look for a creator. Rather, we would seek out models of germination or birth to explain the world's origins.
This leads to your second question—how do these arguments impact the argument from design? Personally, I do think the design argument is suspect, especially in the manner Hume presents it. This entire mechanistic vision of the universe is grounded in Newtonian physics, which has been challenged by the rise of quantum mechanics and relativity. So, it begs the question: does any comparison between the universe (for we'd be talking about the universe if we were judging this question from a modern twenty-first-century perspective) and a machine even make sense anymore, given the current state of science? In any case, as to your question concerning the argument from design, I do think you would be better served by measuring the various arguments against each other and coming to your own conclusions as to which case is the stronger.

The story "All Summer in a Day" opens with the question "Ready?" What are the characters getting ready for?

Ray Bradbury wrote the short story "All Summer in a Day" in 1954, when all that was known about the planet Venus was that it has heavy constant cloud cover and rain storms. Bradbury imagined Venus to be like a rainforest. Today we know that it has little water—its water was boiled away by runaway global warming. It is mostly carbon dioxide with sulfuric acid. The storms are actually slow moving at the surface and much faster at high altitudes. The atmosphere is so heavy the pressure is like being a mile below the ocean on Earth—impossible for humans to live on.
The characters in the story are waiting for the return of the Sun which comes roughly every seven years. For most of the children, they are waiting for a chance to lash out at Margot, a girl from Earth who remembers the Sun. They distrust both the predictions and Margot's memory.

Bradbury's short story "All Summer in a Day" is set on the planet Venus, where it rains constantly and the sun only shines for a brief period of time every seven years. At the beginning of the story, an elementary class full of children, who have grown up on the planet Venus and have never seen the sun, anxiously wait for the rain to stop. They are "ready" to finally experience sunlight for the first time as it shines on their gloomy, rainy planet later in the day. They are also excited to finally be able to leave their underground classroom to play outside for the first time. The only student that remembers what the sun looks and feels like is a quiet, sensitive girl named Margot, who is slightly older than her classmates and grew up in Ohio before traveling to Venus with her parents. Unfortunately, the elementary students resent Margot for her experience and knowledge regarding the sun and end up locking her in a closet while they enjoy the warm sunlight. Tragically, Margot does not get to experience the sunlight, which she desperately desires to see and feel.

How were the American colonies affected by the changes in governmental power in England between 1642 and 1689?

Beginning in 1642, England found itself in a state of civil war between the English King and parliament. The effects of the war would be felt in the American colonies, which were under British control at the time.
Under the rule of Charles I, royal colonies like Virginia were expected to support the King. They did, however, have a bit more freedom as it pertained to trade and commerce. King Charles I would be defeated, giving way to a republican Commonwealth government. Under the Commonwealth, England forged a new, closer relationship with the colonies. The colony of Virginia opposed the new government, and stated that Charles II was the rightful ruler. Virginia was eventually forced to submit to the control of the Commonwealth in 1652.
In 1660, Charles II would ascend back to the throne. Virginia was viewed positively by the government of Charles II, as they had attempted to oppose the Commonwealth government.
With the Glorious Revolution in 1688, England would again undergo changes. The establishment of the English Bill of Rights would eventually have a significant impact on the establishment of the American Bill of Rights. It would also be during this time period that some of the early seeds of the American Revolution would be sewn.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Glorious-Revolution

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/English_Civil_Wars_and_Virginia_The

Who is Agatha in Saint Maybe?

Agatha is the eldest child of Lucy Dean Bedloe, and she is described as serious and unattractive. She takes on a motherly role to her own mother and her siblings, and she often takes on responsibilities that are beyond her years. This is a result of her mother's fears and inability to handle the stress of single parenthood. Lucy takes sleeping pills to help deal with her hard life as a mother and her inability to find another man to take care of her and her children. Agatha sees and understands that Lucy is ill-equipped to act effectively in a parental role, and so takes on the role herself as best she can. This fits excellently into one of the recurring themes of this novel, that the "perfect family" is a myth. Hope this helps.

How does Browning try to convince the reader that attempt is more important than the ultimate achievement of experience in life in the poem "The Last Ride Together"?

The speaker in “The Last Ride Together” is not necessarily the same person as the poet. The speaker addresses the poem to his lover as he tries to convince her to take one last ride with him before they part. This ride may literally be a horseback ride, but it has often been interpreted as metaphorically representing sexual liaison. Although the lovers will no longer be together, the speaker is philosophical about the times they have had and reminds his mistress of the efforts he expended in winning her love. He compares romantic contests to other areas of endeavor in life. In their previous rides, he says, his spirit was opened to new ideas, which he calls regions and cities. Most efforts are unsuccessful, and most labor does not yield a product. Anticipating the goal is also worthwhile, he says; the amount that is accomplished is small when we set it alongside to what remains to do: “contrast / The petty done, the undone vast.”

What is the central idea of the poem?

The poem "Fire and Ice" was written by Robert Frost, originally published in 1920. In "Fire and Ice," the speaker explores two powerful emotions or motivators that he thinks could potentially bring about the destruction of the world. This includes fire, which represents desire in all its intensity, and ice, which represents hate in all its cold and bitterness.
The speaker himself admits that his exposure to the intensity of desire has led him to believe that it may be the force that ends the world.

From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.


He then admits though that the world ending from hatred is also completely probable to him. Exploring the intensity of these emotions and how they relate to the prominent issues facing our world today, such as climate change, dangerous egotism, war, and xenophobia, will allow for a very competent analysis!

Characterize the pedestrian. What do we get to know about him and his feelings?

Leonard Mead—the eponymous "pedestrian"—is a writer, a book-loving intellectual, which makes him an eccentric figure in this TV-obsessed dystopia. What makes him even more eccentric—not to mention dangerous—in the eyes of the authorities is his love of long walks. In this society, there's just no purpose to this activity. Walking along the empty highways and byways is an absolute pleasure for Leonard. Everyone else is at home watching TV, so the streets are completely silent and deserted. All alone in the world, Leonard is in his element.
Leonard has a self-deprecating sense of humor. We see this when he's confronted by the robot police car and it starts asking him all kinds of personal questions, such as if he's married, to which Leonard responds,




Nobody wanted me.







But it's said with a smile, so we can reasonably surmise that Leonard doesn't take himself too seriously. At the same time, Leonard has a sense of his own importance as a human being, which further sets him apart from the rest of society. As a proud non-conformist, he's unwilling to bend to society and all its petty rules and regulations. He shows his defiance when he protests against the stern robotic voice of the police car ordering him to get in. Sadly, his protests are all to no avail, and the staunchly individualistic Leonard is whisked away to a psychiatric research institute.

Who is the perpetrator in The Book Thief?

In general, The Book Thief's perpetrator, or antagonist, is not just one person. The main group of people who would be considered the antagonists in The Book Thief are the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler. The Nazis are the main reason that characters like Liesel, Max, and Rudy suffer. The Nazis, because of censorship, have instituted the public book-burnings. Before Liesel stole a book from one of these book-burnings, she was just another kid growing up in Nazi Germany. Stealing books gives her a sense of purpose. Also, it is alluded to that the Nazis might be responsible for taking Liesel's mother away, since she may have been a communist. After this, Liesel states that she hates Hitler.
Hitler and the Nazis are the reason Max, who is Jewish, has to go into hiding, not only putting himself at risk but also putting Liesel, Hans, and Rosa at risk if they are caught hiding him. Rudy goes through a lot at the hand of the Nazis, too. Because he is smart and a great athlete, he catches the attention of the Nazis who are in charge of recruiting for a special school for Hitler Youth. His father is taken to the military in his place, since his mother does not want him to leave Himmel Street. Ultimately, Rudy dies in a bombing.
The Nazis are not just one person, and the suffering they caused, although mostly thought about as happening on a grand scale, happened to individuals. The characters in this book, albeit fictional, are just some of those individuals.

Why would an Igbo who killed a christian have to flee from the clan?

Because Okonkwo had been in exile for so long, he did not realize the extent to which British rule had taken hold in Umuofiya. Viewing the British administration and their Christian churches and schools as a temporary phenomenon, he expects that he and his followers can drive them away. The majority of the people have either converted or accept the presence of the Christians and understand the close connection between religion and rulership. The Igbo men’s crime of burning the church is inexcusable in British eyes. The situation escalates, including the arrests and beatings.
By the time Okonkwo is released, he has chosen his path. Based on the intensity of the British and their followers’s retaliation for burning the church, he knows that killing the messenger will bring down the full wrath of the administration. The others in the clan, even if they did consider him justified, fear the immediate reprisals and anticipate the longer-term consequences. They cannot take the chances of even seeming to support him. He no longer has a place in his clan.

In what ways is Tess of the D'Urbervilles a social tragedy, even an industrial tragedy?

Tess of the d'Urbevilles is a social tragedy in that it shows how, at that time in English history, one's fate was inextricably bound up with one's class. Tess may fondly imagine that she has blue blood coursing through her veins, but in actual fact she's trapped by her lowly status in society. Therein lies her tragedy: no manner how hard she struggles to break free from her humble background, she will never be able to do so.
The book is also an industrial tragedy in that it shows how the burgeoning industries of nineteenth-century England do not provide a means of escape for those born and raised on the land; they simply replace one form of crushing poverty with another.
Tess's ancestral land has been scarred by the Industrial Revolution. The land now exists purely and solely as a resource for the growing towns and cities. It is no longer something to be valued in and of itself; it is there to provide goods and commodities for the rapidly expanding urban settlements. That being so, the poor folk of the countryside are caught between a rock and hard place. They can either stay and work the land or move to the towns and cities to toil long, hard hours in the factories. Either way, they'll be exploited and impoverished by the new industrial economy.

What are major themes?

In literature, a theme is the overall lesson that the writer wants the reader to learn from the book based on the actions and the events of the story. A single work of literature can have many themes, but it is usually based on the individual reader. Clues to discovering the theme of a work can be seen in what the characters learn in the story; for example, one of the themes of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird is to not judge a person based on their outward appearance but rather their inward character. We can see this by how Scout, the protagonist, treats and interacts with Boo Radley, Walter Cunningham, Jr., Tom Robinson, and Bob Ewell, to name a few. We can also determine theme based on recurring ideas that a present in the story. For example, Atticus Finch teaches the lesson of treating others equally in To Kill a Mockingbird when he takes the case of a black man in 1930's America when tension between races was high. We can also see that theme of treating others as equals is present by how he treats Walter Cunningham, Sr. and Bob Ewell and by how he teaches and corrects his children.

In literary terms, major themes are—as they sound—the most prominent and usually the most important themes that are present throughout a novel. Typically, these themes are consistently present for the duration of the novel and are obviously presented. They are not subtle or difficult to detect. For instance, some of the major themes of To Kill A Mockingbird include racism, prejudice, and loss of innocence. These themes are present throughout the novel and consistently tie into the plot and story line.
Major themes of a novel are often the most important concepts that an author wants readers to focus on and ponder. Major themes can also be reflected in the genre of literature. For instance, a major theme of a romance novel is love. A major theme of a book on the civil war is, of course, war. However, major themes can still be incredibly specific to a novel through the manner in which they are represented and through the story that is told.

Children and teenagers act more impulsively than adults partially because of what?

The developmental stages of school-age children and teenagers explain their tendency to be more impulsive in their actions than adults.

The phrase social cognition generally refers to “the various psychological processes that enable individuals to take advantage of being part of a social group”
(Social cognition. Frith CD Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2008 Jun 12; 363(1499):2033-9, p. 2033)
This applies to both school-age children and adolescents.

1. Children ages 6 years to 12 years find acceptance among their
peers more valuable than anything else. To be welcomed or to belong, school-age children are willing to participate in specific behaviors. They may experiment on behaviors such as stealing, lying, or cheating. School-age children perform such impulsive behaviors as they learn and work out the rules set by society, friends, family, and school. At this stage of development, the child already has the confidence to face any trial. This feeling of individual power assures the child that he or she can be creative, get results for hard work, and solve issues without help.
2. Teenagers are susceptible to exhibiting risk behaviors because of peer pressure, weak self-control, and certain behaviors that seek various sensations. This boldness is usually a challenge for adults. Consequences for such actions are constant sources of financial, mental, and emotional stress. Teenagers also have the capacity to think more about how other people regard them. This mindset, together with their physical and emotional transitions, cause the teen to think that people think about what’s in their heads and not about who they are. In their minds, they have an audience that is real. They base their behavior to match what their so-called “imaginary spectators” expect of them.
School-age children and adolescent stages are the bridges on which children of six or five years cross to reach adulthood. Impulsiveness is part of their discovery as they become more of the person they are truly meant to be.

There are actually several theories around to attempt to explain the impulsive nature of many teens. This is one of those scientific research areas that is always evolving over time and is constantly being fine-tuned through further research. It has also been noted in scholarly journals that it is important to classify what exactly constitutes impulsivity, as that looks different from child to child based on interests and overall personalities. Here are some current ideas that scientists are still working on:
1. The immaturity of the prefrontal cortex. Up until about a decade ago, it was standard belief that teenagers (and younger children) acted impulsively because the prefrontal cortex region of their brains was underdeveloped (and would reach maturity around age 25). Scientists agree that this region of the brain affects decision making, social choices, personality, and some cognitive functions. Researchers looked at sophisticated images of teenagers' brains as they developed into young adults and noticed that there were significant changes in this area of the brain throughout that decade of life and determined that as this region changed in development, teenagers grew in their abilities to regulate their behaviors and curb their impulses. Eventually researchers noticed a discrepancy to this theory: teenagers who know the bad outcomes of their risky behaviors ahead of time are less likely to actually engage in potentially risky behaviors. (Younger children do not show this same tendency.) So it seems that there is more than an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex that creates impulsive teenagers.
2. Rising levels of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter that conveys information from nerve cells to the nervous system. It is also associated with rewards, compulsion, and pleasure (among other things). Because teenagers are experiencing a surge in dopamine levels as they grow, they have a tendency to reach out for experiences that are novel and exciting.
3. Teens simply lack the wisdom of life experiences. This isn't an especially complex idea, but there is validity to the claim that people learn from their mistakes. And as they learn from giving in to impulsive choices that lead to bad outcomes, they also learn to make different choices when similar situations arise. This doesn't mean that teenagers necessarily lack the biological structures to curb impulses; it simply implies that they haven't made enough poor choices along the way to know to choose differently.
The famous marshmallow test has been updated using money as the tangible reward. When participants are given the option of either receiving a smaller monetary sum immediately or a larger sum after a time period has passed, teens more often choose the immediate sum of money than do adults. Again, this likely varies depending on both the background of the teens and each teen's personality, which is why studies on impulsivity are so difficult to classify. What creates impulsive behaviors in one teenager or child will not create strong reactions in another. The complexities of the human brain are always being studied to assess the reasons behind various human behaviors.

What is Walter trying to say when he refers to African Americans as "the world's most backward race of people"? Does he seriously believe this?

Walter Jr. is depicted as a desperate dreamer who is fed up with his current occupation and desires to become a successful businessman. Walter Jr. dreams of using Mama's insurance money to invest in a liquor business, in an effort to eventually become financially stable. However, Mama and Beneatha do not support his dream, which pushes Walter Jr. to the edge.
During a conversation with Beneatha, Walter Jr. criticizes her for wanting to use some of Mama's insurance money to pay for her college tuition. Walter Jr. opposes Beneatha's dream of becoming a doctor and believes that she should become a nurse or marry a wealthy man. At the end of their argument, Beneatha praises Mama for opposing Walter Jr.'s dream and calls her brother a nut. As Walter Jr. is leaving the apartment, he looks at his sister and wife and says:

The world's most backward race of people, and that's a fact. (Hansberry, 41)

Given the tense situation and heated mood of the argument, one could argue that Walter Jr. made this comment out of frustration and anger. Walter Jr. is simply upset that none his family members will support his dream and his comments emphasize his negative mood. Therefore, Walter Jr. probably does not genuinely believe African Americans are the most backward race of people and was simply speaking out of frustration, anger, and disbelief.

Prediction is Connection (text-to-text OR text-to-world) in The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Need to develop reading strategy prediction.

Formulating predictions as a reading strategy will help you, as a reader, think critically, develop inferences, form conclusions, create inquiries, reflect on factual information from the text, etc. So, the practice of predicting actually helps a reader's comprehension and analysis of a text.
In relation to The Pearl by Steinbeck, you might want to begin with predicting some of the answers to the following questions:
Why is the name of the novel important?
Do you think this title refers to an actual pearl or does the name represent a person, place, etc.?
Where do you think the novel will take place?
What do you think the novel will be about in general?
Once you begin to read the book and are familiar with the characters, you may want to consider the following questions or statements in order to make predictions about the book:
What do you think the main themes of the novel are?
What do you think will happen to Coyotito once the scorpion stings him?
Once Kino finds the pearl, how do you think his family's lives will change?
Is there a basic good versus evil message or moral of the story; if so, how will Steinbeck show this?
Does gaining something valuable always bring great hope, peace, and happiness? Why or why not?
When Kino has a difficult time selling the pearl, what do you think he will do with it?
Why do you think Steinbeck wrote this novel; what was his message to readers? Who do you think his audience is specifically?

What emotion is Jonathan Edwards trying to invoke in order to motivate people to live a good Christian life in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"?

In this sermon, Edwards strikes a chord of terror in his audience in order to convince them to accept Christ and therefore avoid the nightmares of Hell. He uses numerous images in order to elicit this emotion:

The Devils watch them; they are ever by them, at their right Hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry Lions that see their Prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back; if God should withdraw his Hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one Moment fly upon their poor Souls.

In this quote, Satanic angels are said to be lurking around those who haven't accepted Christ. He compares them to lions in search of prey, therefore making them more powerful than humanity. All that restrains these demons from taking the souls of those whom they seek to devour is the hand of God, who constantly holds them back. Edwards asserts that this could happen at any moment, and the "lions" would then be unleashed on the souls of their victims, taking them to the depths of Hell.

The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider . . .

This image of God dangling unbelievers over the depths of Hell like a spider is a vivid and symbolic image. It both produces an image of helplessness (the spider is totally at the mercy of the hand which holds it) and conveys the symbolic representation of God's distaste with unbelievers. Spiders are vile little creatures, pretty much "loathsome."
Through strong tone and striking imagery, Edwards seeks to convey to his congregation the importance of living in accordance with God's will and under His principles.

In The Giver, how long was Rosemary the Receiver before receiving her first bad memory?

Ten years before Jonas is selected for training, Rosemary had been in this same position. The Giver grew to love her, just as he loves Jonas. Rosemary was so eager to learn, and the Giver initially only gave her happy memories as he so loved the sound of her laughter. After five weeks of this, Rosemary really pressed the Giver to give her painful memories, too. She felt that it was her duty to share in the burden of the pain since this had been the job chosen for her. The Giver tries to explain his conflicted emotions about memories that he had to transmit to Rosemary:

"I didn't give her physical pain. But I gave her loneliness. And I gave her loss. I transferred a memory of a child taken from its parents. That was the first one. She appeared stunned at its end." (Chapter 18)

The Giver couldn't bear to impress physical pain on her, so he began with emotional pain, and he even chose those memories carefully at first. The Giver continued this painful part of Rosemary's training by always trying to mix in some happy memories with the painful ones. However, after an especially difficult training session, Rosemary stood up, kissed the Giver on the cheek, and left.
We know that Rosemary had those 5 weeks of happy memories in her training, and we know that she spent a short time working through some painful memories after that. We also know that when she was released, those painful memories came back to the community but that there were just a few of them. We can therefore guess that Rosemary's entire training likely lasted less than two months in total.

How does the poet use color images to convey meaning and feeling?

There are only three references to color in this poem, but they serve to emphasize the division between blacks and whites in the Southern society the poem describes. The titular "dark girl" seems to be the speaker in the poem, lamenting the lynching of her "black young lover." The positioning of the adjectives here is telling: in English, our usual tendency is to put adjectives of age before adjectives of color—so, "young black lover" would be a more natural construction. In this instance, however, the fact that the girl's lover is black is what has led him to this fate. In foregrounding his blackness, the speaker draws attention to the fact that it was his blackness which defined him in the eyes of those who killed him, and his blackness which affected how he moved through the world.
The other color descriptor in the poem is applied by the girl to "white Lord Jesus." Like the descriptor of her lover, this is the third line of a stanza, meaning that parallel structures force us to see these lines as points of comparison for each other. Since Jesus is described as "white," he is drawn in opposition to the "black" lover: Jesus's whiteness here defines him, much as the lover's blackness has the same effect for him. The girl thinks of Jesus as "white" in the same breath as she asks him in despair what the use is in her prayers. The chilling effect of this is to suggest that the girl, seeing Jesus as someone who has been claimed by whites as a representative of their kind, can no longer understand how he can help black people. Jesus, in allowing the black man to be hanged, seems to be looking out only for white people, not for the blacks who are dying due to racial injustice.
Of course, Jesus was not a white man, but in imagining him as metaphorically white, the speaker has cast herself outside of his arena of concern. "White" Jesus, in a world which treats blacks in this way, seems not to care about his black children.

Tom and Gatsby have a confrontation in the hotel room. List at least five details of their converstion.

During Tom and Gatsby’s fight in chapter 7, five details are revealed:
Tom criticizes Gatsby for being new money and a fraud, starting by making fun of how he always says “old sport.”
Tom then hints that Gatsby lied about attending Oxford and intimates it couldn’t be true given how new-money he looks (i.e. dressing in pink suits). Gatsby says that he did attend Oxford, for five months, in an army exchange program after the war. Therefore, we know Gatsby has been stretching the truth, as he wasn’t formally accepted into a degree program nor did he graduate.
Tom asks Gatsby about his relationship with Daisy, and Gatsby says that Daisy loves him and not Tom. Tom draws upon his history with Daisy to persuade her back to him
Tom also accused Gatsby of being a bootlegger.
Gatsby tries to get Daisy to say she only loves Gatsby and never loved Tom, but she can’t do so, since she at least once loved Tom.

List four ways in which Victor’s character parallels Hitler's style of leadership.

First, Victor quotes Hitler when he says there's no shame in wanting more. Everything he does, he does because he lives by this belief. Victor says, "'Wanting more is our fundamental right as Germans. What does our Führer say?' He answered his own rhetoric. 'We must take what is rightfully ours!'"
Second, Victor leads with intimidation. When Rudy disagrees with what he's given in the apple orchard, Victor attacks him. Later, he threatens him. He's cruel and mean in order to create an environment where people are scared to disagree with him or question his leadership.
Third, Victor was charismatic. In order to get people to follow you, you have to be able to inspire them to do so. Like Hitler, he was capable of getting people to follow him.
Finally, Victor desires power and influence. Liesel thinks that the boys didn't used to steal and wonders why. Then she realizes that "they liked to be told, and Viktor Chemmel liked to be the teller." He uses other people to achieve his evil ends.

Aristotle believed that to be an effective speaker, one must be audience-centered. This philosophy still holds true today. What did he mean by this and why is this important?

Aristotle's model for communication focuses heavily on the importance of understanding one's audience. In order to employ effective audience-centered communication, the speaker must employ ethos to gain their trust, pathos to make an emotional connection, and logos so that they can best understand the speaker's point. In order to achieve all this, it is critical to have a deep understanding of who you are talking to.
This is as relevant today as it was during Aristotle's time. I would guess that all of us have been subjected to a speaker at some time who did not understand how to make this important connection with their audience. It is all too easy to ignore or dismiss what that person is trying to communicate if they fail to achieve even one of the elements of good rhetoric mentioned above.
Effective speakers must strive to know what their audience expects and wants to hear, as well as how to best connect with them. Failing to do this results in a failure to properly communicate and make one's point. As a result, Aristotle, as well as all effective and accomplished public speakers, spend a lot of time, energy, and focus on getting to understand their audience. Failing to do so makes any speech ineffective, no matter how valid its argument.

Being audience-centered is one of the crucial elements of delivering a powerful speech. Simply put, Aristotle knew that he had to craft and present a speech that would appeal to his listeners. If he could not grab their attention, then his speech would fall on "deaf ears" and he would not be able to persuade or to motivate them to consider his ideas.
In today's world, before we speak in front of an audience, we need to have some basic knowledge of who will be listening and what their needs are. This helps us to fine-tune our speech and also helps us gauge how to deliver it.
Being audience-centered also involves eye contact with the listeners. Making eye contact keeps the audience engaged with you, the speaker. Speaking over their heads, or looking down at the ground does not keep the audience involved.
Preparing a well-written speech is but one part of being an effective speaker. Knowing the audience and remaining connected with them, being audience-centered, is what makes the speech powerful.
Aristotle's philosophy remains strong today in the world of public speaking because it is a highly useful tool for delivering effective speeches.

People are interested and most keen on listening when they are engaged. Aristotle's "audience-centered" philosophy, conceived in he 300's BC, discerns that a successful speaker recognizes the needs of their audience, leveraging information to them and taking into account the reason listeners chose to be present to the information being shared. Aristotle's philosophy continues to resonate these many centuries later as people continue to gravitate towards speakers that resonate with them in both agreement and opposition. Humans are curious, inherently born to thrive and evolve, we often gather together to share and learn, most especially when information is being shared by a speaker that has formulated information that resonates with their audience. To speak with no regard for the needs of an audience, is to waste the time of the speaker and all individuals involved. Information, skill, agendas and the world conversation in general continue to shift and evolve; however, the task of a skilled speaker, remains threaded in Aristotle's centuries old philosophy of "audience-centered," where a cycle of communication is created by a speaker who has formulated and acted upon their intention of authentically engaging and leveraging information to their audience, ultimately creating interest in their listeners.

Aristotle simply means that, when preparing a speech, it's important to bear in mind your target audience, the people who are actually going to hear you speak. This is a very important consideration to take into account if the speaker is going to get his message across effectively. Like most ancient thinkers, Aristotle was a firm believer in the importance of rhetoric, or the art of persuasion. And the primary purpose of making a speech is to persuade your audience of the point that you're making. Hence the necessity of the speaker's focusing his attention on the potential reaction of his audience when writing and preparing a speech.
These days, rhetoric tends to be associated in the popular mind with empty words and shameless manipulation, the province of insincere politicians who will say anything to get elected. Yet Aristotle's rhetorical model of communication still has something to say to us in this more skeptical age of ours. So long as someone has something to sell, whether it's a policy platform or a new brand of detergent, they will need to persuade other people of its benefits. And this is where focusing attention on audience reaction comes in. No amount of fine speeches or fancy words will make the slightest bit of difference to whatever it is that's being communicated unless the potential audience and its needs are taken into consideration by the speaker.

What is nth term for the sequence 7, 11, 19, 23, 31, 35?

We are asked to find the nth term (general term) of a sequence that begins 7, 11, 19, 23, 31, 35 . . .
First a general note that there are an infinite number of sequences that begin with these six numbers.
We observe an alternating pattern: starting with 7 we add 4, add 8, add 4, add 8, then add 4. Assuming this pattern continues the sequence would continue 43,47,55 . . . One way to describe such a sequence is to define it in a piece-wise manner.

a_{n}={ (6n+1, " if " n "odd"),(6n-1," if " n "even"):}

So a1=6(1)+1=7, a2=6(2)-1=11, a3=6(3)+1=19 etc...
We can write this in closed form as:

a_{n}=6n + (-1)^(n-1)

Where did the 6 come from? Consider the interleaved sequences: one sequence is 7,19,31 . . . and the other is 11,23,35 . . . For the first sequence we have n=1 a(1)=7; n=3 a(3)=19; n=5 a(5)=31—the underlying model for (1,7), (3,19), (5,31) is linear with a slope of 6. Likewise we have (2,11), (4,23), (6,35) which also is linear with a slope of 6. The first sequence is given by 6n+1 and the second sequence by 6n-1.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Sequence.html

What are David McClean's observations of the family in "The Veldt"?

David McClean is the psychologist that George and Lydia Hadley invite to look at their nursery. He thinks that George and Lydia have spoiled their children "more than most." He also says that they have let their nursery replace them as parents. "This room," he says, "is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents."
Although he says that George and Lydia have spoiled their children, David McClean also says that by punishing their children, George and Lydia have changed from "Santa Claus" to "Scrooge." He criticizes them for this, remarking, unhelpfully, that "Children prefer Santa." The fact that he seems to contradict himself, criticizing the parents on the one hand for spoiling their children and criticizing them on the other for punishing them, suggests that David McClean's observations of the Hadley family are not worth paying too much attention to. He is a foolish, pretentious character, and we are probably not too sorry to see the vultures circling over his head at the end of the story.

What is the legacy of Manifest Destiny? In other words, what "gifts" did it leave Americans—good and bad?

Manifest Destiny was an idea that sprang up in the early to mid-nineteenth century. It asserted that it was obvious that the destiny (fate or God-given imperative) of the United States was to control the entire central portion of the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
The positive gift (at least to white Americans at the time) of this ideology was that it led to the United States coming to control this vast territory. The obvious negative "gift" was that the idea of Manifest Destiny was tied to notions of white supremacy. White Americans felt that they had the right to rid the land that they felt was manifestly or obviously "theirs" of its pre-existing occupants, the many Native tribes with robust cultures that already populated this territory. Instead of negotiating with the Native Americans to coexist peacefully, white Americans committed calculated and careless genocide against the Native tribes.

In The Other Wes Moore, what ways did growing up without a father impact both men?

The author Wes Moore's father was a broadcast journalist who died when Wes was only little. This had the effect of depriving him of some much-needed discipline in his life. Without a father figure in his life, Wes went off the rails, getting involved in all kinds of trouble with his friends on the means streets of the Bronx. It was primarily because she wanted to restore some discipline to Wes's life that his mother Joy sent him to Valley Forge military academy. There she hoped he would learn how to be a man and take responsibility for himself.
The other Wes Moore never knew his father, Bernard. A violent, abusive drunk with a chronic inability to hold down a steady job, Bernard abandoned Wes's mother Mary when she was pregnant. When Wes was eight months old, Bernard showed up on Mary's doorstep, loudly demanding to see his son. But Mary wouldn't let him in, and that was the last time Bernard made any attempt to reach out to his son.
The lack of a father figure has had a devastating impact on Wes's life. Without a father, he's had to look up to his older brother Tony for guidance. But as Tony's a drug dealer, he's not best placed to fulfill that role. And so there's a terrible sense of inevitability about the way that Wes falls into a life of crime himself, which culminates in his conviction for first-degree felony murder.

Why was Farquhar captured? Why did the Federal scout lie?

Based on what the Federal scout tells Peyton Farquhar in part II of the story, we have to make some assumptions, because we are never told explicitly why this man is being hanged. The Federal scout is "gray-clad," which tells us that he is wearing a Confederate uniform (in the American Civil War, the Confederate soldiers wore gray, while the Union army wore dark blue). This compels Farquhar to trust him, because he believes they are on the same side. The soldier tells Farquhar about how dependent the Union war effort is on the railroads and how anyone who interferes with the railroad "will be summarily hanged" by official army order. This seems to provide clear evidence that the railroads are vital, and so a Southerner who wishes to thwart the Union army could do great damage to it by disrupting the railroad.
Farquhar takes the bait and asks what kind of damage a person could do if he could sneak past the guards at the Owl Creek Bridge (the bridge from which he's being hanged in parts I and III), and the soldier explains "that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder." We can assume that this is what Farquhar did, and because the soldier was actually a Federal scout, he informed his regiment, and they caught Farquhar red-handed attempting to burn the railroad bridge down. Therefore, the scout lied because he was trying to trick Farquhar into acting against the Union so that he would be caught.

Explain how Krebs's war experiences are present throughout the story even though we get no detail about them.

In "Soldier's Home" by Ernest Hemingway, the protagonist returns home after World War I and finds himself permanently changed. He can no longer relate to the people in his community or even to his own family. In true Hemingway fashion, the trauma itself is glossed over. Instead of describing the horrible events in Krebs's tour, the locations where he fought are briefly named: "Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel and in the Argonne."
You should consider the many ways Krebs has trouble getting close to other characters. He returns to a town that is uninterested in his experiences. Krebs embellishes his stories so that people will listen to him. He spends his days doing small tasks by himself, such as reading, playing the clarinet, and going on walks. Isolated, Krebs does not want to summon the energy to find a girlfriend or get a job.
Notice how this struggle is elevated with his family. Krebs talks to his "best sister," someone he genuinely "liked." Yet he remains listless when talking to her and can only muster a "Maybe" when asked if he will watch her play baseball. Later Krebs upsets his mother when he honestly tells her that he does not "love anybody." Krebs's wartime experiences smother his feelings of lust and love. Even though the story does not cover the war in detail, it does revolve around the effect it has on Krebs.

In the book "Games at Twilight", what details do you notice that show this story is not taking place in the United States? Is Ravi’s experience unique to his culture?

"Games at Twilight" is a short story written by Anita Desai and published in 1978. While the setting in terms of a country is not specifically given to readers, the text does give readers enough information for a reader to confidently assume that the events in the story are not taking place in the United States. The opening lines of the story tell readers that the children have all had their afternoon tea. That is not a typical American activity. Another hint comes in the second paragraph. We are told that the children beg to play out in the "veranda and porch." Houses in the United States can have those things, but they aren't common for much of the country. Additionally that phrasing isn't common among children from the United States. None of that is definitive proof, but paragraph four finally gives readers a very specific item that likely places the story in India.

"No—we won’t, we won’t,'' they wailed so horrendously that she actually let down the bolt of the front door so that they burst out like seeds from a crackling, overripe pod into the veranda, with such wild, maniacal yells that she retreated to her bath and the shower of talcum powder and the fresh sari that were to help her face the summer evening.

The woman in the story finally lets the children outside, and she then quickly retreats to the house. Notice what she puts on. She puts on a fresh "sari." A sari is clothing worn by women in India. It is a drape of varying lengths that is typically wrapped around the waist with one end draped over the shoulder. A bit later readers are told about eucalyptus trees. Those are common in southern California, but the parrots that fly out of them are not common to the United States.

Then, perhaps roused by the shrieks of the children, a band of parrots suddenly fell out of the eucalyptus tree, tumbled frantically in the still, sizzling air, then sorted themselves out into battle formation and streaked away across the white sky.

I also think that the children's names help readers understand that the story is not taking place in the United States. Mira, Ravi, Raghu, Anu, and Manu are not typical American names.
As for the second question being asked about Ravi's experience being unique to his culture, I would have to disagree. Ravi is scared of a bigger bully type character, and Ravi dreams that his heroic hiding spot will earn him many adoring fans.

To defeat Raghu—that hirsute, hoarse-voiced football champion—and to be the winner in a circle of older, bigger, luckier children—that would be thrilling beyond imagination. He hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels.

I think that imaging yourself as a conquering hero is a fairly standard childhood dream regardless of the society and culture.

What is a reaction to or review of Jennifer L. Morgan's Laboring Women?

Morgan's book, entitled Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery,is an in-depth examination of the role of women in early American slavery during the Colonial period. It highlights how women's specific roles in slavery as agricultural laborers and as child-bearers meant that their experience of being enslaved was much different to that of men.
Her research is very detailed and focuses upon the experiences of enslaved African women. She explores their role in West African societies, their experiences during the middle passage, and their lives on plantations in the Americas.
The general reception of the book has been favorable. Scholars have commended her on her meticulous research and suggested that the book is a great contribution to our overall understanding of the mechanisms of slavery in early American History. Some have suggested that her work challenges existing ideas about slavery, particularly considering the role of women in slave resistance.
However, the main criticism of the book is that despite painstaking research, the central idea that African women experienced slavery in many different ways to men is not a new one. Several scholars have suggested this difference has already been explored by other historians, and therefore Morgan's ideas are not unique.
However, the scope of her research is impressive, and she is praised for covering a wide geographical area from West Africa to the Caribbean to mainland America.
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2018/march/historian-jennifer-morgan-on-race--gender--and-how-the-past-info.html

https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14030.html

Why is Jimmy Valentine portrayed as exceptional?

The first thing that makes Jimmy Valentine exceptional is that, upon his release from prison, he took the time to give some of the meager amount of money that he had been given upon his release to a blind man. This shows the reader that despite his criminal tendencies, he is a generous man.
The meticulous approach that Jimmy had taken to his career as a "safe breaker" also makes him exceptional. The story tells us that Jimmy's tools of the trade were second to none, and up until Jimmy fell in love and changed his identity, he was rather adept at not getting caught.
Despite his criminal tendencies, Jimmy repeatedly shows how generous he is. After establishing his shoe store in Elmore and determining that he would not be returning to his former life of crime, he didn't just throw his tools away—he expressed his intention to donate them to a friend who he believed could make use of them.
When little Agatha inadvertently gets stuck in her grandfather's new safe, Jimmy proves conclusively that he is exceptional by blowing his cover to rescue her.

Throughout "A Retrieved Reformation" O. Henry takes pains to show that, although Jimmy Valentine is a criminal, he is also a good-looking, intelligent, enterprising man with good taste in clothes, good manners, and possessing an engaging personality. Even in the first sentence, O. Henry writes that:
A guard came to the prison shoe-shop, where Jimmy Valentine was assiduously stitching uppers.
Jimmy does not have to be working so "assiduously." There is no one watching him. However, that is part of his character. He works hard at everything he does. He is so intelligent that he has learned a lot about the shoe trade during the short time he has been in prison. O. Henry's purpose in making Jimmy such an exceptional character was to highlight the theme that a person who can be a successful crook can be equally successful as an honest citizen. Even the warden likes Jimmy. He jokes with him and tells him,
Brace up, and make a man of yourself. You're not a bad fellow at heart.
Everybody likes Jimmy. The narrator says of him:

When a man with as many friends on the outside as Jimmy Valentine had is received in the "stir" it is hardly worth while to cut his hair.
Jimmy had been sentenced to four years in prison for a "job" he did in Springfield. He only served ten months because he had so many friends on the outside.
When Jimmy falls in love at first sight with Abigail Adams in Elmore, Arkansas, she is also smitten with him.
Jimmy Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became another man. She lowered her eyes and coloured slightly. Young men of Jimmy's style and looks were scarce in Elmore.
It is because of Jimmy's many attractive qualities that—though a stranger in a small town—he is able to ingratiate himself with Abigail and her family so quickly. It is also because of these qualities, along with his brains and industry, that he is able to become a successful businessman in a short time. It only takes the love of a good woman to make him change overnight into an honest citizen.
Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phoenix that arose from Jimmy Valentine's ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.
Even Ben Price, the detective, likes Jimmy. Ben probably likes him even more when he sees what a noble sacrifice the erstwhile safecracker is making in order to save the life of the little girl who accidentally became locked inside the supposedly burglar-proof bank vault. The reader is led to like Jimmy, too, and does not want to see him lose his fiancee, business, and reformation by being carted off to prison. We know that, as the warden told him, he is not a bad fellow at heart. We are delighted with O. Henry's surprise ending when Ben Price decides not to do what the reader expects him to do.
"Guess you're mistaken, Mr. Spencer," he said. "Don't believe I recognize you. Your buggy's waiting for you, ain't it?"