What were the goals of the 1860 Republican party platform?

The goals of the 1860 Republican Party were based primarily on the "Slavery Issue" and States Rights. Republican presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, had been an opponent of slavery since his days as an Illinois State Representative and a member of the Whig Party in 1834. Lincoln continued his opposition to slavery as a U.S. Senate candidate under the newly formed Republican Party in 1858. That election set the stage for his nomination to the U.S. Presidency in 1860 where he campaigned against a divided Democratic Party leaving Stephen Douglas as Lincoln's challenger.
Lincoln's main campaign goal was to keep the nationalist Northern Union and the Republican Party unified and not splintered like the Democratic Party composed of Northern and Southern state factions. With this strategy, the Republicans could then focus on introducing legislation in the next Congress that would end slavery in all states.
The official Republican Party Platform of 1860 consisted of 17 declarations, such as preserving the Union, keeping the Western Territories free of slavery, and eliminating slavery itself -- as well as the oppressive Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The platform also called for protective tariffs, internal improvements, freedom of immigration into the U.S. with eventual rights of citizenship, enactment of the Homestead Act, and construction of a Pacific Railroad across the nation -- all vital goals to a prosperous expanding United States.

By 1860 the biggest issue ion America was slavery. U.S. Representative from Illinois Abraham Lincoln won the Republican Party's nomination at its second convention and defeated Democratic Party challenger Stephen Douglas. The platform emphasized equality, abolition of slavery and preserving the Union.
Republicans for Lincoln opposed expansion of slavery in western territories while favoring civil rights for African American slaves. The party supported the admission of Kansas as a new "free state." Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861. Another main component of the platform was the Homestead Act, which allowed individuals to acquire free land from the government in exchange for cultivating it.
The platform contained 17 clauses, each one dealing with issues of the time period leading up to the Civil War. The opening clauses established the need for a new party to counter the Democratic Party, in which states threatened to secede from the Union. The platform further criticized the corruption of the current Democratic administration, headed by President James Buchanan. Republicans also called for the expansion of the railroad system to reach the Pacific Coast.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/lprbscsm.scsm0716/

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1860

For the first time in our country's history, millennials have become the largest voting bloc in the United States. However, they do not flex their muscle at the voting booths and nowhere is this truer than suburbs such as Nassau County. What explanation is there for the lack of interest by the millennials for the voting process? How can this population be mobilized to take an interest in themselves as candidates, for the politicians that are currently in office or the civic groups that are founded in their communities?

As the opinion piece from the Chicago Tribune below explains, millennials don't vote for several reasons. The author makes the point that the technology to register to vote (usually done by mail) and to cast a vote is outdated, and it is technology that millennials cannot relate to. In addition, the main parties generally do not encourage millennials to vote. New York state, where Nassau county is located, requires people to be registered as a Democrat or Republican to vote in primary elections. This requirement could be a turn-off to many young voters, who, for example, might not want to be affiliated with a major party.
To encourage millennials to vote, the technology required to cast a vote could be friendlier to them (for example, it could allow them to register to vote online). In addition, there needs to be better campaigns to mobilize them to vote, perhaps using celebrities that appeal to millennials.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-voters-millennials-nonvoters-porn-joe-biden-voter-turnout-1105-story.html

What objects did Holmes take out of the small box?

Sherlock Holmes has hit upon a characteristically ingenious plan to retrieve the compromising photograph in Irene Adler's possession. First of all, he pretends to be an injured clergymen set upon by a gang of ruffians outside Miss Adler's house. As Holmes hoped she would, Irene takes pity on him and has him carried into her sitting room. While Holmes pretends to recuperate on the couch, he motions with his hand for the window to be opened so he can get some air. That's the signal for Dr. Watson, who's waiting outside, to spring into action. Through the open window he throws a plumber's smoke rocket. Inside the house there is complete pandemonium; everyone thinks that the place is on fire. It is Holmes's considered opinion that, in the event of a fire, a woman will always try to secure her most precious items. For Irene Adler, that means the photograph of her and the king. From a safe distance, Holmes observes Irene rush to a secret recess behind the sliding panel above the bell-pull. Holmes is ready to make his move and retrieve the photograph, but the sudden unwelcome presence of a coachman in the house means that he'll have to come back later.
When he does so the next morning with Watson and the king in tow, Holmes is surprised to discover that Irene has hastily left with her husband. The master detective makes straight for the secret recess behind the sliding panel above the bell-pull. Inside, he discovers a letter from Irene personally addressed to him. In it, she says that she's taken the compromising photograph with her, but will only use it to defend herself. She loves her new husband and has no intention of making life difficult for the king. Accompanying the letter is a photograph—not the photograph, of course—but a photograph of Irene Adler in evening dress. The photo may not mean very much to the king, but for Holmes it's clearly very important and he asks the king if he can keep it. The king is only too glad to accede to Holmes's unusual request. From now on, that photo will be a memento of the time when the world-famous detective was outsmarted by a woman; and not just any woman, either, but "the woman," as Holmes will always refer to Irene Adler from this day forward.

Where does the play open?

Act I, scene 1 of Twelfth Night opens at Duke's palace in the kingdom of Illyria, with Curio, other attendants, and musicians waiting on Orsino, the Duke of Illyria. As many scholars have noted, Illyria is a land, perhaps a little like Belmont in The Merchant of Venice, that is a characterized by romance, along with what Shakespeare scholar David Bevington calls a "carnival atmosphere," (which indicates norms are going be turned upside down) and sensual pleasure.
Romance is a predominant theme in the opening scene, as the Duke pines with unrequited love for Olivia, a woman who, in this somewhat whacky world, is planning to shut herself up in convent-like mourning for seven years. Sensual pleasures are a part of this first scene, in which Orsino has his musicians play for him to help him cope with his unrequited love for Olivia. Establishing a sensual atmosphere from the start, the Duke asks for a "surfeit" of music. He says that if music be the "food," or fuel, of love, he wants so much music that he will get sick of it and therefore get sick of love itself.
The opening scene very much sets the tone and mood for the gender-bending romantic comedy that will follow. This duke seems not a bit interested in politics or warfare—he is only interested in love.
Illyria itself was far from England, on the Adriatic sea—a good location for a shipwreck.

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night begins with a shipwreck on a desolate and foreboding jagged coastline. Geographically, the story opens on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, which was once called Illyria. This was the name given in ancient times to that specific region along the Adriatic coast, which today consists of the countries Bosnia, Albania, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Montenegro. Other locations at the beginning of the play—which is also where the majority of the story is set—are Duke Orsino's palace, Olivia's house, and the adjoining gardens. All of these locations are in and around Illyria. William Shakespeare decided to open Twelfth Night, as well as set the rest of the narrative there, because the name sounded exotic to the English crowds who watched his plays.

What does Gatsby mean when he says Daisy's voice is "full of money"?

Certainly, I think the interpretation of this line as meaning that Daisy's voice is indiscreet has a great deal of merit. When Gatsby says that her voice is full of money, Nick says,

That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . .

Daisy's voice seems to be full of qualities associated with having lots of money. She makes no effort to modulate her tone, because she's really never had to be concerned about people not wanting to hear her. She has a certain sense of entitlement because she's been brought up to believe that she is important, and she speaks like it. Further, as someone who's never had to worry about where her next meal is coming from, or how to pay the gas bill, for example, the kinds of concerns she's had have been much less significant than those of the lower classes. She's been relatively untouchable, not subject to the everyday and commonplace cares that most people have, because she's always had money. The "charm" of her voice, the "song of it," seems to convey this.

Before the party leaves Tom's estate and heads into the city, Daisy calls from an upper window to ask if they should bring anything to drink with them, and Gatsby comments to Nick that he cannot say anything in Tom's home. When Nick mentions that Daisy has an indiscreet voice, Gatsby says, "Her voice is full of money" (Fitzgerald, 128). Gatsby is essentially indicating that money and wealth are inherently a part of Daisy's character and a major influence in her life, and this is revealed in her tone of voice. Daisy hails from an affluent family and married Tom Buchanan because of his immense wealth. Her primary goal in life is to maintain her upper-class social status, which is something Gatsby notices in her voice. According to Gatsby, the sound of Daisy's voice reveals her superficial, materialistic personality, and he can tell she is only focused on money. Overall, Gatsby is acknowledging that Daisy's tone of voice is elitist and emphasizes her desire for money and a luxurious life.

In the film Good Will Hunting, what are the two turning points for the main character? What is the symbol in the film and its significance to the characters?

Good Will Hunting is a 1997 American drama film starring the late Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. The film won two Academy Awards: one for Best Original Screenplay, awarded to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; and one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, awarded to Robin Williams. The story follows a young man named Will Hunting (Matt Damon) who works as a janitor at MIT and proves his ability to solve difficult math formulas that not many people in the world can solve; he is actually a genius. He grew up as an orphan and has difficulty connecting with people, which is why he only has three friends. After assaulting a police officer, Will is arrested and meets Dr. Sean Maguire, who is a psychologist and becomes his therapist. He also becomes his close friend and advisor, encouraging Will to think upon his life choices and reevaluate his relationships with his friends and girlfriend. Coincidently, Dr. Maguire was also a victim of child abuse and helps Will break out of his shell and deal with his dark past. Meeting Dr. Maguire is definitely the most important turning point in Will's life.
Will begins to study advanced mathematics with a world-renowned professor as people start to appreciate and admire his genius. At the same time, Will also pursues a relationship with a girl named Skylar. I believe the second major turning point in Will's life is his breakup with Skylar; Skylar asks Will to come with her to California, and Will isn't sure that this is the right choice for him. They argue and say things to each other that they might regret later. Skylar beings to doubt that Will loves her, and, in the end, he says that he doesn't. Thus, they put an end to their relationship. I believe the fight and the breakup with his girlfriend greatly contributed to Will's character development, because they helped him realize that love and happiness are the most important things in life. This is why, in the end, he drives to California to reunite with Skylar.
One of the more important symbols in the film is probably the painting that Dr. Maguire painted. When Will first sees it he criticizes it, but the more he stares at the painting, the more he realizes that it actually represents Dr. Maguire's life. Will uses the painting to psychoanalyze Dr. Maguire, but the doctor turns the tables and uses the painting to psychoanalyze Will, thus helping him understand his character flaws.

In the book "It is Bitter to Leave Your Home" by Romano Hanni, he discusses the 3/11 disasters (victims of Chernobyl and Fukashima) through Japanese symbols and little quotes. Also he printed the quotes on paper towels instead of paper. My question is, what was the symbolism of him printing the quotes on paper towels as a way of representing disaster in visual culture?

Artist Romano Hänni's book It is Bitter to Leave Your Home is about the tragedy that occurs from man-made disasters. While one could categorize the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi incidents as natural disasters—especially the latter which was caused by a tsunami—the lethal element of these events was from unnatural creations or systems, such as nuclear reactors.
The reason why Romano Hänni decided to use paper towels as his medium, or canvas, is it represents what is disposable. A paper towel is fragile in nature just like the precariousness of human life. Additionally, a paper towel was invented as a cleaning product. In the case of Fukushima, the government tried to create an illusion of safety by trying to construct an environment of normalcy rather than primarily concentrate on thorough clean-up efforts.
https://www.romano-haenni.ch/

How does Soyinka present honor in Death and the King's Horseman?

Wole Soyinka presents honor primarily through the characters of Elesin and his son, Olunde. Elesin relinquishes his own honor by failing to take part in the prescribed ritual suicide within the required period of time. Rather than do his solemn duty to his people as he had sworn to do upon becoming a horseman, he places his selfish desires first. Although Elesin does take his own life while in prison, this does not restore his honor because it was an individual act, not part of the tribal custom.
Olunde, in contrast, seemed to have turned his back on the concept of tribally-affiliated honor when he left to study abroad. Upon his return, however, he is restored to the community’s values and incurs honor for himself and his people by assuming his father’s ritual role.

Discuss Hermione's comment after Umbridge's banquet speech ("It explained a lot . . ."), and compare Harry's difficulties with Umbridge to his difficulties with Snape.

During the welcoming feast of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, interrupts Dumbledore to give a long winded speech filled with disturbing rhetoric. In particular, she states that certain things will be discouraged (that have been acceptable at Hogwarts thus far) and implies that teaching at Hogwarts will become far more dogmatic. Hermione (known to have quicker wits than her friends) is immediately disturbed by this language. She says that the speech explains a lot in regard to the stance that the Ministry of Magic is taking on the alleged return of Voldemort. She tells her friends that it means that the Ministry will be heavily involved in education at Hogwarts as they never have been before. This is an entirely new type of challenge for Harry. In regard to his previous difficulties with Snape, Harry's conflict with this teacher was entirely personal. Snape holds a grudge against Harry for the way that Harry's father treated him, but we could always assume that when the chips were down, Snape would do the right thing and was, at the very least, loyal to Hogwarts.
The conflict between Umbridge and Harry, on the other hand, is entirely political. Umbridge has no concern whatsoever for Harry personally, but is entirely consumed by what he represents in terms of free thinking among the students and a possible revolt against the ministry.
Umbridge is an extension of the ministry in terms of how she is consumed by paranoia and wants to deny the existence of Voldemort completely. This is a very significant moment of maturation for Harry in that it is the first conflict he has faced in which the lines between good and evil are totally blurred and the morality of the situation is somewhat subjective.

Why does Shelley set them up as character foils? How does this influence the reader’s understanding of Victor and his behavior?

A character foil is a character whose purpose is to provide the audience with a contrasting image to the protagonist, so as to reveal a clearer image of the protagonist.
Shelley uses Victor's friends and family members as character foils to Victor, to illustrate the shortcomings of Victor's character that result in destructive behavior.
William, Victor's little brother, represents youth and innocence. While Victor's aim in creating the Creature was to succeed in manufacturing new innocent life, the immediate death of William is used to show that he has actually created the exact opposite: crime and destruction.
Justine, the family servant who is accused of William's murder, reveals Victor's character in the way that she reacts to her false accusation. She ends up confessing to the murder, even though she did not commit the crime, because her strong Catholic faith dictates that confessing will absolve her of her past sins. Victor, on the other hand, watching the situation unfold, has the chance to save Justine and confess his actual guilt in creating the Creature that killed William, but he instead allows Justine to be hanged for the murder.
Victor's friend Henry is a patient, emotionally available friend to Victor, who helps strengthen him when he is ill. This shows an alternative side to Victor: someone who is solid and capable of inner strength, and who is not possessed with individual ambition.
Elizabeth, Victor's fiancee, represents the passive, faithful wife. They lead exact opposite roles in the relationship. Through Elizabeth's dutiful patience that Victor will one day relax his ambitions and come back home to her, the audience realizes that Victor is incapable of giving up his work for another person.

In the poem "Where the Mind Is Without Fear," what examples does Rabindranath Tagore give to show his patriotic feeling?

In the poem "Where the Mind Is Without Fear," the author shows his patriotic feelings by voicing his wishes for his country and its future.
His first wish is for his country to be a place "where the mind is without fear and the head is held high." This shows his wish for citizens of his country to feel both courageous and proud.
He sees his country as a place where individuals should be able to freely share their knowledge with each other, a place where "the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls." This shows his belief in the citizens of his country and their intelligence. It shows that the narrator believes the "narrow domestic walls" are now keeping his country from becoming what it could be, and he wishes for a better way for the citizens to interact with each other.
He envisions his beloved homeland as a place where "the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action." This shows his patriotism and his belief that the citizens have the ability to open their minds and expand their consciousness if so allowed.
The poem, when seen in its entirety, sounds like a prayer for his country. The speaker's patriotism lies in his depth of feeling for the men and women of his country. He believes they can do amazing things, if only the country can awake "into that heaven of freedom" where all of his wishes are possible. His hopes and dreams for his country, alongside his reverential words, show his patriotism.

This is an excerpt from Alex Neill's article “ ‘An Unaccountable Pleasure’: Hume on Tragedy and the Passions.” Can someone please explain this excerpt to me? Budd points to two major defects in what he takes to be Hume’s approach: First, it limits the problem to the experience of spectators who are not pained by the represented suffering and misfortune of the tragedy’s sympathetic characters. Second, it applies only to spectators who undergo negative emotions without in any way suffering, which seems impossible if unpleasantness is intrinsic to the experience of these emotions (Budd 103). Budd is surely right that these would represent serious defects in an account of our experience of tragedy; indeed, any account limited in these ways would be not so much defective as obviously hopeless. So obviously hopeless, in fact, that it ought to be surprising to find Hume espousing such an account. In what follows, I show that he does not do so. I shall begin by arguing that there are reasons to doubt that Hume is guilty of either of the charges that Budd levels in the passage I have just quoted. I shall then argue that the view of tragic experience that Hume offers in “Of Tragedy” is in fact quite different from that which both Budd and Schier attribute to him. Of the two charges that Budd levels against Hume, the second is the more fundamental, since it attacks what is, on the interpretation offered by Budd and by Schier, the central thesis in Hume’s account of the tragic experience. This is the thesis that in our experience of tragedy, as Schier puts it, “the painful emotions are transformed into pleasurable ones, apparently without loss of identity. Terror is no longer painful at all, but pleasurable” (8). Budd’s charge is that this sort of “hedonic engineering” of emotion, as it might be called, is in fact impossible. For some emotions, at least, are such that having a particular sort of “hedonic charge”—being experienced as pleasurable, say, or as “disagreeable and uneasy”—is intrinsic to the concepts of those emotions (Budd 103). Thus Aristotle, for example, defines certain emotions partly in terms of their hedonic character: fear is “a kind of pain or disturbance resulting from the imagination of impending danger,” while pity is “a certain pain occasioned by an apparently destructive evil or pain’s occurring to one who does not deserve it” (9). Now if this view that the hedonic character of (at least some) emotions is essential to them is right, and it looks very plausible, then the claim that Budd and Schier hold to be central to Hume’s account—the claim that in our experience of tragedy the hedonic charge of certain passions is changed from negative to positive while the passions themselves are left in place—must just be wrong. As Schier says, “there is something almost nonsensical about the notion of a pain-free terror.” However, we should notice that if Hume does make this claim, then he is guilty not only of proposing something “almost nonsensical,” but also of inconsistency. For in his account of the passions in Book 1 of the treatise, Hume in fact endorses the thesis that the hedonic character of (at least some of) the passions is necessary to them. He claims, for example, that “the passions, both direct and indirect, are founded on pain and pleasure. . . . Upon the removal of pain and pleasure there immediately follows a removal of love and hatred, pride and humility, desire and aversion, and of most of our reflective or secondary impressions” (T 438). Now it may be objected that all that Hume says here is that the passions are always experienced as having some hedonic character, rather than that any of them essentially involves any particular hedonic character. But it is the latter that he has in mind, as is clear from such statements as that “admiration . . . is always agreeable” (T 374); that “pity is an uneasiness” (T 381); and that “pride is a pleasant sensation, and humility a painful; and upon the removal of the pleasure and pain, there is in reality no pride nor humility.” This latter point he explicitly takes to be beyond argument: “Of this our very feeling convinces us; and beyond our feeling, ’tis here in vain to reason or dispute” (T 286). Indeed, the account of the causes of the indirect passions that Hume develops in Book 1 of the Treatise depends on those passions having a particular hedonic charge. If pride, for example, were not essentially pleasurable—if it could be experienced as painful—then there would in effect be no way of distinguishing between pride and humility. For on Hume’s account the objects of these passions are the same: the self. And with respect to their causes, what Hume calls the “subject” is the same—“either parts of ourselves, or something nearly related to us” (T 285). Where pride and humility differ is with respect to what he calls the “quality” that “inheres in” or is “plac’d on” the subject: in the case of pride, the quality is something “that produces a separate pleasure,” in that of humility it is something that causes us “a separate uneasiness.” Now if pride were to be experienced as painful, then, given Hume’s thesis about the causal role of a double relation of impressions and ideas in the production of the indirect passions, the operative quality in this case should have to have caused us “a separate uneasiness.” But now our hypothetical state—pride experienced as painful—would be a painful impression, the object of which is the self, and the cause of which is comprised of a subject that is in one way or another related to the self and a quality that causes pain. And that, of course, is on Hume’s account precisely a description of humility. In short, on Hume’s account, pride is essentially pleasurable; if we try to characterise a hedonically engineered pride, pride experienced as painful, we end up simply characterising something else: humility.

“ ‘An Unaccountable Pleasure’: Hume on Tragedy and the Passions” is an article written by British philosopher Alex Neill, in which he attempts to analyze Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, writer, historian, and economist David Hume and his theory on the paradox of tragedy. Essentially, he recounts Hume’s claims that there is an interesting paradoxical phenomenon which arises when people watch or read a well-written or well-produced tragedy: they seem to enjoy it; the more the people’s passions are aroused, they more they will take pleasure in the sadness and unhappiness that they are (un)consciously becoming a part of by reading or watching said tragedy.
In this particular excerpt, he focuses on the arguments of British philosophers Malcolm Budd and Flint Schier, in which they disagree with Hume’s opinions and believe that his aim was to explain how “a negative emotion can be transformed into a positive one.” Both Budd and Schier agree that Hume’s solution to the paradox of tragedy is flawed and assert that it focuses only on the audience which experiences predominantly negative emotions without feeling uneasy (which is very improbable) and disregards the part of the audience that is simply not affected by the tragedy that happens to the characters. They claim that this interesting “metamorphosis” or “engineering” of passions and emotions, in which a negative feeling transforms into a positive one, is “nonsensical,” as it is impossible to feel “pain-free terror.”
In my opinion, Neill argues that Budd and Schier manage to somehow miss Hume's point and don't realize that Hume does not, in fact, really believe that a negative passion can be transformed into a positive one, or vice versa. Instead, he believes that the focus is put on the audience or the subject itself and the “hedonic charge” of their emotions. If the spectators didn’t know that pride, for instance, is a “pleasurable” emotion, then they’d interpret it as “painful,” which means that the audience simply characterizes the pleasurable emotion of pride as a painful one and “transforms” it into a new emotion—humility.
Essentially, Neill contends that Hume’s arguments aren’t as black and white as Budd and Schier claim they are. He believes that, instead of asserting that there is a certain emotional engineering that happens when we read or watch a good tragedy, Hume argues that the first emotion, be it positive or negative, merely strengthens the second emotion without changing or overpowering its basic hedonic charge or character. However, Neill also mentions that he doesn’t absolutely think that Hume’s theory on the paradox of tragedy and our experience of it is a particularly persuasive one.

What is the old man's native town? What is his occupation?

The short story "The Old Man at the Bridge" by Ernest Hemingway takes place in the Ebro Valley in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The narrator, whose mission is to scout for enemy troops, encounters a tired old man near a pontoon bridge over the Ebro River and strikes up a conversation with him.
The old man informs the narrator that his native town is San Carlos. He has just come from there. He was the last to leave because he was taking care of animals: a cat, two goats, and four pairs of pigeons. The narrator urges the old man to go up the road and get on a truck bound for Barcelona, where he would be safe. However, the old man is too tired to move, and besides, he is very concerned about the animals he has left behind. By the end of the story, it is unclear whether the old man will be able to get out of the way of danger before the enemy troops arrive.
As for the old man's occupation, it is not stated in the story. The narrator says that he does not look like a shepherd or a herdsman. The few animals he mentions are probably just personal pets. The old man gives his age as seventy-six, so it's possible he has no occupation. He is most likely too old to work and simply takes care of himself and his animals. He says he has no family, so the animals are the only living things he has to be concerned about.

The old man's hometown is a place called San Carlos. He was forced to leave there on the orders of a captain, who told him to go on account of an artillery bombardment. The town was simply no longer safe for any civilian. The old man was reluctant to go—he was the last one to leave town—not least because of all the animals he was caring for.
We never find out exactly what the old man's occupation was back in San Carlos. Maybe he didn't have one. He is seventy-six years old, after all. The soldier narrator observes that the old man certainly doesn't look like a shepherd or a herdsman. This indicates that looking after all those animals was a labor of love for the old man; he did it because he enjoyed caring for animals. And as he had no family of his own to care for, those animals were pretty much his whole life. That explains why he remains slumped down wearily at the side of the dusty road, despite the imminent arrival of enemy forces. Without his animals, the old man's life is effectively over, and he cannot, and will not, go any further.

How is Bruno changed by the social conflict of the Nazi ideals?

From an early age, Bruno has been brainwashed to believe that the Germans are a superior race whose superiority gives them the right to treat so-called "inferiors" however they like. Bruno witnesses this warped attitude firsthand with the abominable treatment of Pavel, his family's Jewish servant.
When Bruno falls from a tire swing and Pavel comes to his aid, he starts to realize that there's something not quite right about what he's been taught. Through his personal interactions with individual Jews, Bruno is able to reach out, albeit tentatively, to those deemed by the Nazi regime to be his racial inferiors. The fact that Bruno is also able to forge a close friendship with a Jewish boy imprisoned at Auschwitz, Shmuel, is a further indication that Nazi ideas of perpetual conflict between supposedly superior and inferior races are completely false.

The Texas Constitution is widely criticized, particularly with regard to the three branches of government. If you could change one thing about each of the three branches, what would it be and why?

The current Texas State Constitution was adopted in 1876. Among other restrictions, it stipulated that it could only be changed by amendment. It is also one of the longest state constitutions and uses a lot of dense language. By 1928, 99 amendments had been proposed (less than half successful) but by 2015, more than 400 had been added. Several calls for a new document have not advanced to completion, although there was a constitutional convention in 1974, and in the 1990s two new versions were drafted.
The constitution specifically limits the state's powers to those laid out in the document so it is cumbersome to add any other duties. This is one aspect many people have wanted to change.
A difference from the U.S. Constitution pertains to the executive branch. Texas has a plural executive, meaning that executive power is spread among multiple executive offices, as contrasted to a single person (governor, president). While this helps keep any one person from gaining too much power, because it also fragments the executive, it can be harder to get things done. This is an aspect many wish to change.
https://dlc.dcccd.edu/txgov1-2/two-constitutions-a-comparison

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mhc07

How would you write a literature review of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," concerning the narration style, including the use of "we" and stream of consciousness, the story's symbolism (rose, dust, house, hair, the stationary, lime, arsenic), and the historical background of the South as a region?

William Faulkner is a renowned author known for many of his abnormalities, both in his style of writing, as well as in his personal life. He was an author who had a strong grasp of the intricacies of individual human emotions as well as the way people are connected and the conflicts that may ensue from these close personal relationships. I have always been most impressed with his knack for his writings which truly embody small town life.
I believe my favorite of all of his works is his short story "A Rose for Emily." The way he tells the tale with a group narrator voice is quite unique and lends to some periods of tangential writing. One moment he can be writing about Emily in the window looking out at the men pouring lime around her house to help subdue the horrid odor emanating from within, and the next he can be skip back in time to explain how Emily believes she should not owe taxes due to her father's words from years ago. It is certainly stream of consciousness writing, as the narrator jumps wherever he wishes to add detail to the character of Emily and her situation.
There are many instances of symbolism in the story. I have read the story hundreds of times, and I am sure I could sit down with another reader of the same story who found symbolic meaning in something I had totally missed. The first symbolic image that comes to mind is Emily's painting classes for the women in the village. I believe the painting of the delicate china coupled with the fact that she is sharing this painting through classes, symbolizes Emily's need for outside companionship in a way, but it also shows that Emily loves beautiful things as well as symbolizes her longing for beauty in her own dreary life.
The rose, dust, house, hair, the stationery, lime, and arsenic, I will group together, for the similarity in symbolism between all of these things is death. Even the most magnificent rose can only bloom once briefly before it dies. This symbolizes the brevity of life. The dust symbolizes both growth and stillness. As people grow, our skin cells slough away, and each visitor into a home brings additional dust. The lime is symbolic as it represents the town's attempts to cover for Emily, so as not to have to be forced to confront her directly. The stationery symbolizes Emily's desire to be a part of the outside world, while she is paralyzed with anxiety and cannot do so. The arsenic seems pretty straight forward, but if we are to see it symbolically, it may represent the poison in Emily's life. Arsenic poisoning is a very painful way to die, and Emily may feel like she has suffered just as painfully throughout her life.
Now, as for Faulkner deciding to use a plural narrator speaking as one (the Town), I believe this was both brilliant and instrumental in how we come to view Emily and her mannerisms. Each person in the town knows Emily in different ways, and from different stages in her life. Faulkner also illustrates the small town propensity for gossip. I think that Faulkner chose to set the story in the South to give it an extra layer of dimension, as there were very many expected social rules that Emily was expected to follow, but did not. A small southern town would not have been as accepting as a large, bustling city, where Emily and her behavior (which was considered insane by many) might certainly have gone completely unnoticed.
I have posted a link below if you need additional help. I hope I have been of some assistance!

How does John Proctor’s great dilemma change during the course of the play?

At first, John Proctor's dilemma is how to handle Abigail Williams. Although he's broken off their relationship, he knows what Abigail is like; he knows that she might gain revenge for his dumping her. At the same time, John still retains feelings for Abigail but is determined to do the right thing and renew his commitment to Elizabeth.
Later on in the play, John is faced with an even more difficult dilemma, a seemingly insoluble moral quandary. When Abigail starts making false accusations of witchcraft against Elizabeth, John knows that he must reveal his adultery in order to save his wife from the gallows; he must expose Abigail as being motivated by revenge after John ended their illicit relationship. But doing so will lead to John's good name and reputation being tarnished in the eyes of the people of Salem, and for John that's a very serious matter indeed. And when he himself becomes the subject of false accusations, he is faced with yet another dilemma: whether to save himself or the good reputation of the Proctor name.

What constitutes an appropriate education for students with learning disabilities, and in what setting should it be provided?

Each student is different. For those with a learning disabiltiy, their disability may present differently than others. It is important to remember that each student's education should be looked at individually because what works for one student will not work for all.
According to the Individuals with Disabilties Education Act (IDEA) a learning disorder is defined as, “a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.” Disabilities under this definition include: brain injury, dyslexia, and perceptual or language disorders. About 35% of all students who receive special education services have a specific learning disability.
Most students will spend the majority of time in their general education classroom, which is deemed the least restrictive environment for the student. Generally students with a learning disability will spend about 30-60 minutes per day in a special education setting as deemed by their individualied education plan (IEP).
When students are in the general education setting teachers should ensure they are following the modifications and accomodations that are stated in the student’s IEP. Some accomodations for students with learning disabilities in the general education setting are: preferential seating, audio books, scaffolding, pre-made notes, and visual schedules. Many students, not just those with a learning disability, could benefit from those accomodations as well.
Additionally, modifications may be appropriate for students as well, especially if they are significantly below grade level. General education teachers can provide material for the student at the grade level in which they are working with the support of then student’s special education teacher.
Finally, each student has the right to an education that meets their needs. It so up to the IEP team to ensure that the needs of the student are being met and to make the appropriate changes if they are not. An education is not one size fits all but rather all students, regardless of any disability or trauma, have the right to an education.

20% of American students have a learning disability. The number is higher than it was in the past because today's schools are better at identifying the various types of learning disabilities: dyslexia, dyspraxia, ASD, sensory processing disorder, etc. A recent report by the National Center for Learning Disabilities stated, “The majority of the one in five spend at least 80% of their time in general education classrooms, where many struggle to achieve at grade level despite often having average or above average intelligence.”
Why are students with learning disabilities spending so much time in regular classrooms? Are teachers in regular classrooms able to meet the needs of those 20% of students? An analysis of these questions is helpful to our understanding of this issue.
One reason for having so many students with learning disabilities in regular classes is a lack of funding. School districts across the country typically lack sufficient funds. Teacher pay is generally low. Other needs—even sports—are generally funded before special-learning programs.
In addition, it is often thought that students with learning disabilities do well in regular classes. After all, putting them in special classes may limit their social and academic progress.
However, it is often hard or unrealistic for general education teachers to offer the particular help these students may need. As a former high school teacher, I had classes of forty students. On average, eight had learning disabilities. I was not usually even informed of this. Also, teacher preparation programs do not typically devote much attention to the teaching of students with learning disabilities.
On the whole, the United States does not do a very good job in this area. This is not surprising because the entire American school system is pretty mediocre, according to PISA scores. However, even countries with better school systems—such as New Zealand—often struggle with providing proper education for students with learning disabilities.
https://www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Forward-Together_NCLD-report.pdf

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/113120097/saving-our-einsteins-lessons-needed-in-special-education

Using The Birth of a White Nation by Jacqueline Battalor, write a paragraph about how colonial laws legalized sexual violence against black women. Consider how African American Women took roles of the white women sexually and the increased reproduction in black women advanced property value of the plantation.

According to Battalora in The Birth of a White Nation, colonial legislatures, specifically those in the Chesapeake, legalized sexual violence against Black women in several ways. One was that they disallowed any Black person from testifying against whites in court. This denied enslaved people and free people of African descent the ability to testify against their attackers. Black people were also forbidden to defend themselves (or, indeed, their female family members) physically from attack, as they could not own nor use any kind of weapon according to law. Laws also basically indemnified whites from sexual assault by stipulating that the status, slave or free, of the child was determined by the status of its mother. So white men could have sexual relations with enslaved women with the only consequences being the birth of an enslaved child. These "miscegenation laws" together represented a major departure from English law. These miscegenation laws, on the other hand, harshly punished enslaved men for sexual relations with whites, a development that began after 1662. Prior to that, Battalora writes, people of European and African ancestry were "treated similarly for sexual violations."
https://books.google.com/books?id=apa8BgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Battalora+Birth+White+Nation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiaxf3j5e_eAhWJxFkKHT42Ch0Q6AEIKjAA

https://www.wpcjournal.com/article/download/13263/pdf_15

Who does Archie mean when he says, "I'll check with them"?

Brother Leon needs the help of Archie and the other members of The Vigils to sell the extra boxes of chocolates that have been ordered for the school fundraiser. Immediately, the cunning Archie senses the power this gives him. Brother Leon knows that if anything needs to happen at school, then The Vigils must somehow be involved; for all intents and purposes, The Vigils are the school. And, as Archie is the most prominent member of The Vigils, he is the go-to guy when Brother Leon needs a favor.
Archie revels in his newfound power, making Brother Leon sweat over whether or not he and the other Vigils will help him sell the excess chocolate boxes. When Leon asks him if he'll help, Archie replies, "I'll check with them," meaning the other Vigils. But he's just toying with the assistant headmaster, and he strings things out for what seems like an eternity before he finally tells a mightily relieved Leon that The Vigils will indeed help.

What is Lady Macbeth guilty of in act 5, in addition to Ducan's murder?

Lady Macbeth is considered more guilty than Macbeth by some who read this text, being the first to admit that "My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white," since she knows she is just as culpable as Macbeth for having pushed and cajoled him into performing the act of murder (Act II, Scene 2, line 729).
She confesses in Scene V to being the catalyst behind Banquo's murder in addition to King Duncan's. Her husband has taken her plans and run with them, murdering many to secure his throne, including the Macduff children. Though he is frightened and wringing his hands immediately after Duncan's murder, Macbeth shows no such compunction afterwards as he continues his grasp for power. Lady Macbeth's conscience waxes as Macbeth's wanes.

In act 5 of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth's final scene is the famous sleepwalking scene, where she frets about her guilt over her various crimes as she wanders through the castle, overheard by a servant and her doctor. In her sleep, she confesses to killing the king, but she also mentions the killing of Banquo, assuring herself that he is dead and cannot come back to threaten the Macbeths' power. She did not literally kill either of those men of course, since her husband and hired killers performed those deeds respectively. But she planned the first murder and was complicit in the second.
Lady Macbeth's nightmares are steeped in blood which she cannot wash off. She never truly repents for her deeds and therefore never feels absolved of her guilt.

What's the subject of the poem?

It may be difficult for some of us to follow the topic of Marvell's poem because of the compression of the poet's language. Once the poem is mastered, it seems self-evident how the topic unfolds, but at first some may be confused. There are two linguistic threads to follow that can help lead way through the movement of the topic: (1) the pronouns and (2) the shifts between metaphor subjects, specifically "soul" and "world."
The first thread to follow is the pronouns used. The subject of the poem is the "dew." Though the "rose" enters immediately, the topic does not shift to the rose: there is no digression from the "dew." From line 4 to "And to the skies exhale it back again," the pronouns it, its, 'twas [it was] itself, all substitute for "dew" in "orient dew" of line 1, "See how the orient dew."
Marvel does shift what he compares the dew to, so the second thread to follow are the shifts from the description of the dew to the comparisons that follow. The first comparison is between the "orient dew" and the human "soul":
So the soul, that drop, that ray Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
From here until "Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express," all the it, its pronouns substitute for "soul." This section is short and is followed by a comparison between the "round" dew and the "world," ending "It all about does upwards bend."
The last four lines, two couplets, return to describing the "dew" in "Such did the manna’s sacred dew distill" and ending with "Into the glories of th’ almighty sun." The poem begins with a direct mention of "dew" and ends with direct mention of "dew." [A couplet is two lines that have end rhymes: distill/chill and run/sun.]

Write the equation of a line that hits the origin at a 45-degree angle. Explain how you determined your answer.

any line equation is in form of y=mx+c m is the slop of the line c is the y axis intercept in this case m=tan(45)=1and because the line pass through the origin so it dosn't intercept y axis so c=0the equation is y=x

In order to write the equation of a line, we need to know either two points that belong to that line or one point and the line's slope. In this case, since the line "hits the origin" at a 45-degree angle, this means that:
1) The line passes through the origin. In other words, point (0,0) belongs to the line.
2) The line makes a 45-degree angle with the x-axis. This information helps determine the slope of the line.
The slope can be calculated as "rise over run," or the change in the vertical component divided by the corresponding change in the horizontal component:
m=(Delta y)/(Delta x) .
Consider a right triangle created by the line, the horizontal segment with the length of
Delta x and the vertical segment with the length Delta y . The angle that the line makes with the horizontal (x-axis) lies opposite the vertical segment. Thus, the tangent of this angle, which by definition equals the length of the opposite side divided by the length of the adjacent side, is the same thing as the slope of the line: (Delta y)/(Delta x) .
If the slope of the line is the tangent of the angle the line makes with the x-axis, then the slope of the line that makes a 45-degree angle with the x-axis is tan(45) = 1.
So, the line we are looking for passes through the point (0,0) and has the slope of m = 1.
Using point-slope form, the equation of the line can be written as
y - 0 = 1(x - 0), or simply
y = x.
The equation of the line that hits the origin at a 45-degree angle is y = x.
The graph of this line is below. Note that this line bisects the angle between the coordinate axes.

What is Simon Wheeler's manner as he tells the story of Jim Smiley in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?

The story that Simon Wheeler tells the narrator in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was not original with Mark Twain. It was, nevertheless, the first story that caused Twain to "leap" into national attention as a writer. How could Twain distinguish himself by telling a story that wasn't his own? He did it with the unique manner of storytelling he used.
Twain himself aptly described the manner in which Simon Wheeler tells about Jim Smiley's escapades when he expounded upon the differences between the American humorous story and the British comedic tale or the French witty story. The French and British stories are funny because of their content; the American story is funny because of the way it's told. The American version may wander around seemingly aimlessly with a kind of bubbling energy. Its humor depends upon the storyteller being almost gravely serious and never letting on that he thinks his story is at all funny. Simon Wheeler exhibits that quality, especially when he shows tearful reverence for Andrew Jackson, the bull pup whose career ended in ignominy when he fought an opponent that had no hind legs to grab.
According to Twain, the teller of the humorous tale often puts in extraneous details, tells things out of order, or gets mixed up while speaking. This creates the impression of a bumbling yet lovable character, and that is the charm of the tale and a large part of its humor. In this case, Wheeler's entire story is a rabbit trail. The narrator had asked about Leonidas Smiley, and Wheeler launches into a circuitous narrative about Jim Smiley. And although the story is ostensibly about the frog jumping contest, Wheeler takes his good old time getting to that story and comes to it only by way of multiple other examples of Jim Smiley's gambling escapades.
Wheeler tells the story in a wordy, rambling, bumbling, and unpolished manner—just as the humorous American story should be told, according to Mark Twain.
http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/onstage/how2tell.html

In the humorous short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain, the unnamed narrator, at the request of a friend, approaches an old man named Simon Wheeler in a tavern and asks about a person called Leonidas W. Smiley. Wheeler traps him in a corner and instead tells him about someone named Jim Smiley, an inveterate gambler who owned a racing horse, a fighting bulldog, a jumping frog, and other animals that he bet upon.
At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes Wheeler as good-natured and garrulous, which means that he is annoyingly talkative. Wheeler tells the story in a straight-faced manner, without smiling, frowning, changing his voice, or expressing enthusiasm. He does, however, manifest earnestness and sincerity, as if the story is not a ridiculous tall tale but rather something of profound interest and importance. The narrator gets the impression that Wheeler admires Smiley and the man who tricked him in the frog-jumping contest.
After telling the tale of Jim Smiley, Wheeler is interrupted by a call from the front yard. The narrator takes the opportunity to leave rather than hear more stories about Jim Smiley and his strange animals.

Simon Wheeler is an old man who loves nothing more than spinning a good yarn. His stories are completely incredible, bordering on the ridiculous. But because he can keep a straight face as he tells these stories, he's able to seem superficially plausible. One gets the impression that old Simon likes the sound of his own voice; perhaps this is the only form of entertainment he has at his time of life. In any case, if he's to indulge in his favorite hobby of story-telling, it's imperative for him to tell his shaggy dog tales with as much conviction as possible.
But what works with the habitués of a tavern in a remote Western mining town doesn't cut much ice with more sophisticated folk from back East. The unnamed narrator is decidedly unimpressed by Simon's tall story, which he regards as monotonous and absurd. Nevertheless, he does stay long enough to hear the old man's story about Jim Smiley and his menagerie of extraordinary animals, so there's clearly something in Simon's demeanor that keeps the narrator listening against his better judgment.

In "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," the narrator tells a story that he says he heard from another man, Simon Wheeler. In telling the tale of how a third man, Jim Smiley, was fooled regarding the jumping frog, Simon Wheeler began by speaking in a level tone. He maintained a nearly expressionless countenance even when talking about the most far-fetched events. Wheeler made the story seem credible by keeping a poker face—what is called “lack of affect." Wheeler encouraged the narrator to believe the story of Smiley by remaining calm. Mark Twain says that Wheeler had a look “of winning gentleness and simplicity." The narrator assumes that Wheeler is not intelligent and is the type of person who believes everything he hears.

What are some Puritan beliefs?

The Puritans believe that the Church of England needed to be purified from Catholic influence. They tried to reform the church with little success and looked toward the colonies to practice religion the way that they wanted. In the Puritan faith, church was the center of the community, and every aspect of their life was based on the Scripture, from politics to education to social relations. They believed that God had an agreement with them and expected them to live every aspect of their life based on the Scriptures. If they set a good moral example, the Church of England would change their sinful ways.
Although church attendance was mandatory for Puritans, not all Puritans were considered full members of the church. For an individual to become a full member, they had to prove a conversion experience with God in which they realized that they could not break free from sin nor could they earn forgiveness through good acts. Once they had experienced a conversion, they were then part of the Elect, who were chosen by God to receive grace and salvation. Those Puritans who never experienced a conversion were destined for hell. In other words, the Puritans believed they couldn’t merit salvation—only those selected by God could be saved.

What kinds of feelings and desires is the wife really expressing toward the end of the story "Cat in the Rain"?

The short story "Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway tells of an American couple residing in a seaside hotel in Italy. It is pouring rain, and the wife notices that down below a cat is trying to escape the rain by hiding under a table. She goes down to get it, but by the time she reaches the table, the cat is gone. After the wife has returned to her room and has expressed her frustration to her husband, a maid appears with a cat for her that the hotel manager has sent.

In the book Hemingway's Cats by Carlene Brennen, the author explains that the story "Cat in the Rain" was inspired by Hemingway's first wife Hadley's desire for a cat. The couple was living in Paris, and Hadley spent long hours alone while Hemingway was working. She wanted a kitten for company, but Hemingway thought that they were too poor to own a cat.

What Hadley really wanted was a child. She had a deep desire to be a mother. She did in fact become pregnant, and during the early months of her pregnancy she spotted a cat hiding under a table in the rain and declared, like the wife in the story, that she wanted a cat. The story was a tribute to Hadley, the loneliness she had experienced, and her longing for motherhood.

Hemingway's writing style became known as the iceberg theory, because just as most of an iceberg is hidden under the water, much of what Hemingway intended to say in a story was hidden beneath the supposedly simple language. In "Cat in the Rain," although it is never blatantly stated, the wife's pleading for a cat is expressing an underlying desire for a child.
https://books.google.com/books?id=6Q3v4rTGWpYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hemingway%27s+cats&hl=en&ei=Ne3fTvOBIMWKgwem5PHiBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA

What is the significance of the animals Orwell chose to represent the KGB in Animal Farm?

Orwell chose nine dogs to represent the KGB in Animal Farm. It would be more accurate to say the dogs represented the NKVD, Stalin's private security force tasked with intimidating and eliminating his opponents.
The NKVD, and later the KGB, was greatly feared in Russia during Stalin's reign. They were known to execute entire families and led the Great Purge from 1936–38, a campaign of political repression that included rounding up Stalin's enemies for imprisonment, banishment, and executions.
The dogs in Animal Farm are terrifying ("enormous," with "brass-studded collars"), ferocious, brutal, and blindly loyal to Napoleon, the pig who represents Stalin. As soon as a fellow pig, Snowball, finishes making a speech in opposition to Napoleon, the leader whistles, and the dogs run Snowball off the farm—much as NKVD agents made those who spoke against Stalin quickly disappear.
Orwell likely chose dogs to represent Stalin's bodyguards because they are strong, vicious, obedient, and fiercely loyal, willing to give their life to protect their leader—just like agents of the NKVD.
https://www.systemaspetsnaz.com/history-of-the-cheka-ogpu-nkvd-mgb-kgb-fsb

What are the main ideas in Soar by Joan Bauer?

Some of the main ideas in Soar are positivity and inspiration.
Positivity is a major theme in the novel. A person could expect Jeremiah to be upset at the loss of his ability to play baseball after getting a heart transplant; instead, he uses his positive thinking to make his life better and still participate in the sport he loves. By acting as a coach, he's still able to include baseball in his life without the risk of dying. Other factors in Jeremiah's life—like his adoption—that others might see as problems are instead positive and lucky things to the young boy. He can't be sure of his real birth date, but Jeremiah knows he's cared for and chooses to approach life from a positive angle.
Inspiration is another major idea in Soar. Jeremiah uses his positive attitude and hopefulness to inspire the rest of the boys on the team. He encourages others—like the Vice Principal—to help him inspire people he can't reach. For example, when parents are encouraging their children to quit the team because of the Hornets' scandal, Jeremiah enlists the help of Mr. Hazard to inspire the parents to be excited about baseball. Jeremiah understands that a little excitement and hope can do great things.

The novel, narrated by twelve-year-old protagonist Jeremiah Lopper, explores themes of childhood illness and coming of age rituals through the dual prisms of displacement and baseball. When Jeremiah and his adoptive father, Walt, move to a different town, the boy is not apprehensive about fitting in. Rather, his expectations about this new beginning are wildly optimistic. The move coincides with his recovery from heart transplant surgery and marks his newfound opportunity to join a baseball team and try his hand at coaching for the first time.
The reality, of course, cannot match the expectation, but the magnitude of the school's and town's problems in many ways are unrelated to Jeremiah's health. Even larger issues confront him, as a sports drug scandal exposes adult hypocrisy and duplicity, of a magnitude the boy has never had to fathom.
Support from his dad and making new friends keep him afloat even as it seems town morale is disintegrating. Jeremiah's resilience proves inspiring to others as they struggle to reconcile with sometimes harsh realities, including the death of a student. Jeremiah appears as smart and sensitive, but also mortal and hardly a superhero. The author thus reminds us of the importance of tenacity in overcoming limitations.

There are a few intertwined main ideas in Soar, a book by Joan Bauer. At first glance, one might think that this is a typical book about playing sports as an analogy for overcoming life's challenges. However, Jeremiah, the main character, cannot actually play the sport he loves, baseball. Instead, this book navigates real, complex issues of physical limitations, scandal, loss, adoption, and complicated relationships. While the book addresses tough issues in the life of a twelve-year-old, Bauer blends reality with laughter, warmth, and courage, as Jeremiah seeks to help coach his middle school baseball team. Jeremiah's friendship with Franny also highlights the ups and downs of adolescence while exposing the nature of family dynamics and the impact of fathers upon their children. Additionally, Bauer demonstrates how a community can be positively challenged by one determined and inspiring individual, regardless of that individual's age.

What are "the orient" and "the occident"?

Traditional meanings of "Orient" and "Occident" are "East" and "West." The term "occident" comes from the Latin "occidens," meaning "sunset," while "orient" comes from the Latin "oriens," meaning "sunrise." This is not only a reference geographically, but geo-politically, culturally and even ethnically, as these two regions of the world developed largely independently until sometime around the 13th century.
To truly understand their meanings is to first understand the basic geographical border as accepted by the majority of historians. The "Orient" was traditionally associated with the various civilizations and cultures that developed throughout Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, the countries of Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan and the Russian far east.
Some have described anything east of Greece as part of the "Orient," considering Greece's cultural influence on most of Western Europe and, by extension, the Americas and Australia. However, it's perhaps more accurate to base "Orient" and "Occident" on influential religions and corresponding doctrines that are largely credited with shaping societies over the centuries. Occidental nations are often connected to Judaism and Christianity, which have molded countries in the Americas and Western Europe. On the other hand, religions like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism are often considered to have shaped Oriental nations.
Viorel Mionel, Romanian author, economist and intellectual, explains that these terms are more widely propagated in the academic world than everyday lexicon, largely because academics attribute a greater number of attributes to them than just basic geographical and religious ones. Such features might include economics, trade, technology, language, military styles, cultural trends and movements like the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation.
The terms "Occidentalism" and "Orientalism" have also taken on more subjective (and often extremely stereotypical) connotations. For instance, Occidentalism has gradually become more synonymous with Western values like democracy and human rights, as well as wealth, individualism, modernity, and materialism. Orientalism, on the other hand, has become more associated with mysticism, spiritualism and the traditional arts of ancient Asian cultures—though, again, this is a rather stereotypical association. However, it's important to note that in modern society, occidentalism can flourish in Asian regions (Japan and Hong Kong are prime examples) as well as vice versa.

What is a critical appreciation of the poem "The Capital" by W.H. Auden?

W. H. Auden presents a capital city as a microcosm of modern urban society. The poem uses apostrophe, or direct address to an inanimate object: in this case, the city itself. He juxtaposes the positive and negative aspects of urban life, making it seem like the city itself is to blame. Sensory imagery abounds, and he contrasts light and dark, visible and invisible, and reason and passion—all form part of the capital’s deceptive allure.
From the beginning, the poet establishes the capital’s charms as correlated with deception. In the “quarter of pleasures,” at cafes the “lovers eat each other”; the music and the looks give false impressions: “with orchestras and glances, O, you betray us.”
The poet then draws a connection between innocence, as inadequate visual vigilance (“innocent unobservant”), and susceptibility to passion (“invisible furies”).

. . . the innocentUnobservant offender falls in a momentVictim to his heart's invisible furies.

The light/dark contrast is established in the second stanza: “far from your lights . . .” It is brought home as he emphasizes it in the last two stanzas, combined to indicate hidden temptation—“unlighted streets you hide away”; “the sky you illumine . . . the farmer’s children you beckon.”
https://genius.com/W-h-auden-the-capital-annotated

"One of the themes that we have returned to is the question of whether some behaviours or traits of humans are innate, or whether they're produced by culture and/or environment. With reference to the ancient cultures we have studied, to what extent are humans hardwired for certain behaviours or traits, and to what extent are we products of our culture and/or environment?"

This is a very broad question. The good news is that there are a plethora of examples from which you can draw a response. The bad news is that, with some human traditions, it is difficult to determine exactly when traditions became a part of collective culture and how they developed.
Let's consider, for example, the traditions of funerals and burial. The historians Will and Ariel Durant wrote, in the first volume of The Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, that many early cultures engaged in cannibalism and, therefore, had no need to bury their dead. The Durants mentioned how human flesh was a delicacy among "the Irish, the Iberians, the Picts, and the eleventh-century Danes" as well as among people in the Upper Congo, where "living men, women, and children were bought and sold frankly as articles of food." Funerals were unknown among these people, who had no shame about drinking blood or expressing a preference for human flesh over that of other animals. Among these people, funerals seemed like "an unnecessary extravagance."
As the concept of the soul developed, however, as an entity that exists long after the flesh has wilted, cannibalism came to be seen as immoral. The Sumerians were among the first to develop burial mounds, but these were no more than crude graves. The Egyptians are the first known civilization to have developed elaborate funerary rites. The pyramids, after all, are tombs. Pharaohs believed that the soul, or ka, did "not die with the breath" but "would survive all the more completely if the flesh were preserved against hunger, violence, and decay. Thus, the body was not only entombed and placed within a pyramid, but it was also mummified to keep it as close as possible to its original condition. This process of preservation set a precedent for our present-day practice of embalming.
It is difficult to argue if humans are "hard-wired" not to engage in cannibalism; for, at one time, this was a common practice. Also, there are a few instances in which we discover that cannibals exist, even in industrialized nations. However, there is a common consensus across cultures that human life is more sacred than that of other animals, due to the higher intelligence of human beings and the belief, among many people, that humans have a soul.
Funerary rites have evolved both from our belief in the human soul, as well as from our wish to acknowledge the personal impact that people have had in our lives, particularly the memories we have created with them. Some people extend this consideration to pets as well, which has led to the creation of pet cemeteries and funerals for cats and dogs. Thus, it seems that our understanding of the soul and of the value of other living beings is constantly evolving, more as a result of advances in cultures than of any innate understanding about human life.

In the article “Reality TV Gives Back: On the Civic Functions of Reality Entertainment” by Laurie Ouellette, how does the author use the rhetoric components of pathos, logos, and ethos to appeal to her argument that reality TV is actually beneficial to society?

The author, Laurie Ouellette argues, with ethic strategies, that things have changed since John Conter’s 2002 essay, critical of reality TV, and that it is now more than just a trivial diversion, but it actually serves an important civic purpose. Her rhetorical appeals include pathos, or qualities that evokes pity or sadness in others; logos, use of a logical argument; and ethos, the characteristic spirit of a culture of a certain time or place.

Ouelette begins her piece with the logos that, since the “Post-welfare” 1990’s, public television had been “radically transformed,” and isn’t serving the function of citizen education as much anymore through documentaries. The author argues that do-it-yourselfer lifestyle resources are now taking roles to serve that purpose and have adopted many conventions of public broadcasting, making reality TV beneficial to society in a real and practical way.

Since the 1990’s, the downsizing of the public sectors across Western capitalist democracies has opened the door to entrepreneureal competition from commercial channels and new media platforms that have pervaded our culture so much, that we now come to them for education and advice about civic conduct, like the “can-do” attitudes of solution and “build-it” type programming. It is part of our ethos, fully integrated into our society now, regardless of their market imperatives and entertainment formats, and therefore it must be beneficial in our new consumer society. In other words, it’s what we’ve got to work with right now.

The writer claims that reality TV does not simply “divert” a passive audience, but it translates the broader sociopoltical currents of the narratives and expectations of citizenship. She even claims that they can serve to inspire self-empowerment. This is an effective appeal to the readers’ pathos. She also describes the reality TV shows that are high-profile charity helping ventures, or “do-good programs.” Philanthropy as marketing device is still philanthropy, and reality TV, she suggests, exemplifies philanthropy.
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/cookieAbsent

On page 50 of The Other Wes Moore, Wes writes about the time when he exaggerated the reason he was suspended from school. In this case, Wes felt that this outcome was “more respected than an accident that led to someone getting hurt.” What does this indicate about Wes’s personal values at the time of this incident? How did his values change over the course of the book?

This episode indicates how hard it is for Wes to live in two worlds: the world of the street and the world of the elite private school which he attends. He exaggerates the reason he was suspended from class because he wants to appear tough to his friends, to assure them that, despite his expensive education, he's too cool for school.
Wes's friends tease him mercilessly about attending a white school, and so Wes doesn't want to give the impression that he's somehow forgotten where he comes from. Despite attending Riverdale, Wes still has to live in the neighborhood, and so presenting himself as a tough guy is a useful survival strategy in this part of the world, where it pays to be seen as street smart.
In due course, Wes's whole attitude changes completely. Once he's no longer living in the Bronx, he no longer feels the need to try and reconcile two competing identities. He can simply be himself without fussing over what anyone else might think of him. That means embracing an ethic of hard work and self-improvement, which leads him on the path to personal, educational, and professional success.

Is this story a tragedy or a comedy? Is Mitty simply a daydreamer, or is he suffering from a more serious condition?

Here are a few analytical points about the story that may help you in writing this assignment.
Walter Mitty is a man whose normal everyday life leaves him feeling insecure, powerless, and lacking in masculinity, heroism, and independence. His wife seems to order him around, and he either begrudgingly obeys her or pretends to follow her orders and rebels when she is not around. His everyday life and the things he sees in the story prompt him to have fantasies or daydreams. These daydreams symbolize the powerful, forceful man he wants desperately to be.
The naval commander symbolizes Mitty's desire to show daring and heroism in the face of danger. The doctor Mitty daydreams himself to be reveals his desire for respect for others and his wish to show his intelligence and resourcefulness. The courtroom scene, in which Mitty proclaims his skill in shooting, again reveals his desire for others to see him as powerful and even potentially dangerous. Mitty's other imagined characters, such as the fighter pilot and a man facing death, reflect the same need for others to see him as courageous, masculine, and strong.
Mitty's wife, oblivious to her husband's need to be seen as someone important and meaningful, reveals her true lack of understanding and her insensitivity to his needs. She exerts her power over him in many ways that make him feel trapped and insignificant.
One possible theme of this story is masculinity and the male ego. Domestic life for this man does not allow him to show the more powerful, courageous side of his nature, a side that has been glorified throughout history. Without this ability, he may feel trapped in a world that will never give him the opportunity to show his true vigor and heroism. Thus, he never feels the satisfaction of growth and self-actualization.
Another theme involves the impact and appearance of fantasy in everyday life. People frequently rely on fantasy to live out parts of themselves that they feel are lacking in real life. These fantasies allow them to escape the drudgery and oppression of their real lives.
More themes to consider are the secrets that people keep from others, such as Mitty's use of the sling to hide his shame at not being able to properly change or remove the tire chains. Oftentimes, people hide their true selves to avoid the harsh judgments of others.
While this story has its humorous moments, it is actually a dark tale about the dissatisfaction that many people experience in domestic life and the secret desires that lie unfulfilled within them.

Why did the Vikings not sail south in Canada?

There is not much documentation concerning why the Vikings chose not explore further south once they discovered North America, though a few reasons can be surmised based both upon the experiences they had in Vinland and Markland and their reasons for traveling. Erik the Red settled in Iceland with his father, who had been exiled from Norway for manslaughter. Erik was later exiled from Iceland for a similar reason. During this exile, Erik chose to seek land to the west of Iceland based upon reports from trading ships. He established a settlement in Greenland and lived the term of his exile there. He then returned to Iceland to gather more potential settlers and ultimately built a settlement in Greenland of 400 to 500 people. Greenland is, however, cold and lacking in a number of natural resources. This led Erik to explore further to the west where (according to the sagas) a trader had noticed, but not landed on, new lands. Erik set out for those lands and discovered Helluland (believed to be Baffin Island), Markland (likely Labrador), and Vinland (likely Newfoundland). Here he found an abundance of timber and other resources and attempted to found a settlement which would cultivate food and harvest timber to be sent to Greenland. However, hostilities with the native peoples in the area proved too much for Erik's Vikings and they abandoned the potential settlement. While there were likely more trips to North America to retrieve timber and other resources, the danger posed by Native Americans proved too high to establish a permanent foothold and, since the needs of the Greenland settlement were already met, likely discouraged further exploration.

Who is Ace? What happened between him, Scout, and Annie?

Ace is Scout's drug dealer, whose re-appearance generates additional tensions in Scout's already fractured relationship with Annie. Scout owes Ace a lot of money, and he tries to get Annie to have sex with him as a means of paying off his drug debt. Naturally, Annie is horrified at being used in this way and refuses to go with Ace. As a hopeless junkie, Scout is utterly indifferent to Annie's feelings; all he really cares about is getting his next fix.
Annie's been trying her best to stay positive, hoping against hope that a change of scenery would help Scout snap out of his addiction. But it's already apparent to her that moving to Oregon hasn't made the slightest bit of difference; Scout's still the same as he ever was. Annie, however, has changed. Ace's unwelcome appearance has forced her to take stock of her life. For the first time, she now seriously contemplates a future without Scout.

In the poem "The Schoolboy," do you think the poet is arguing against education? Explain.

In "The Schoolboy," William Blake offers a meditation on nature, childhood, and education. From the start, the poem draws a sharp contrast between the natural world and the traditional classroom. The narrator praises the outdoors as a place of joy full of budding flowers, where child and bird can sing along together. The classroom is deemed dull in comparison:

But to go to school in a summer morn,—O it drives all joy away!Under a cruel eye outworn,The little ones spend the dayIn sighing and dismay.
Ah then at times I drooping sit,And spend many an anxious hour;Nor in my book can I take delight,Nor sit in learning's bower,Worn through with the dreary shower. (lines 6–15)

School seems like a prison, closed in and confining, whereas nature is wide open and free. In the next stanza, Blake likens a child trapped in a classroom to a bird trapped in a cage, suggesting that neither is in their natural state: the bird "born for joy" (16) doesn't feel like singing in its cage, and a child "But droop[s] / And forget[s] his youthful spring" (19–20) when he's inside looking out. At this point, it might seem like Blake disapproves of education, but there is an important distinction that he makes: time and place. In the midst of summer, when nature calls most to the young, the poem advocates that they be allowed to enjoy it. There is a season to everything, and summer is not the season for a brick and mortar classroom. This is not perhaps an anti-education sentiment so much as a suggestion for approaching education differently.
Looking back at lines 6–15, we can see that it's not learning or schools in general that are being critiqued; instead, the poem shows how learning is not as effective when the child would rather go outdoors and play. Blake frames it as natural for children, just like the birds, to want to be outside and singing. Blake doesn't say that children shouldn't take delight in books and learning; he emphasizes instead how it is harder for them to focus on such things when nature is in bloom. Like there are seasons, there are stages in life, and childhood is a time in which children can learn and grow best in the natural world. Keeping them stifled inside is cutting them off from their potential, like cutting down a flower before it fully blooms: "buds are nipped, / And blossoms blown away" (21–22). Blake's poem advocates an approach to childhood that recognizes how children actually think and behave and doesn't demand that they change too soon.
Like many Romantic poets, Blake believed in the power of nature to touch and teach the individual, and children are no exception; they are, in fact, the best example. The Romantics believed that children were to be celebrated and even emulated for their innocence and connection to nature. For these poets, nature represented the vast expanse of knowledge and experience open to humanity, and many poems from the Romantic period focus on various aspects of the natural world. One of Blake's contemporaries, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, expressed this sentiment in his poem "Frost at Midnight," calling nature "the Great universal Teacher!"
In this sense, we might interpret Blake's poem as a call for a more natural education, encouraging children to learn the beauty and joy of the world around them.
https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-romantics

Why do you think Percy asks Chiron about the underworld? He says "the beginning's of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind." What does he mean?

On the way to Camp Half-Blood, the Minotaur attacks their car. Grover is knocked unconscious, so Sally and Percy carry him up the hill. Sally is unable to cross camp borders, and so the Minotaur catches her. She disappears in a flash. Although Percy is able to defeat the Minotaur with its own horn, his mother is still gone.
At camp, Percy is still adjusting to the new information that Greek myths are real, but the idea of the underworld intrigues him and gives him hope. The Minotaur is from the underworld, so if it is a real place, then perhaps his mother is not really dead. If one can travel to the underworld, then perhaps Percy can go there to rescue his mother and bring her back.
This quote shows how Percy starts to form an idea that will carry him through the rest of the story.

How are the ill effects of industrialization explored in the poem "The Chimney Sweeper"?

This poem focuses on the plight of child laborers during the Industrial Revolution. Blake writes in the voice of a child, which lends an immediacy to his words, particularly because the child addresses the reader directly—it is "your chimneys" in which he is forced to work because his father has "sold" him into the service of a chimney sweep.
Blake continually personalizes the children he mentions, which prevents the reader from being able to view them as faceless; Tom Dacre in particular is described in terms which give him a Christ-like aspect, especially in terms of his white hair— suggesting innocence and purity—which curled "like a lamb's back." The other children, in Tom's dream, are also named, but they are in "coffins of black"—a reminder that one of the cruelest effects of industrialization is that many children put to work in this way will die before their time. Orphaned children under an industrialized system are not safe.
Blake draws the strongest attention to this through the use of the poignant dream—the children cannot imagine any means of escape from the drudgery of their lives other than through death. Ultimately, they feel that they cannot be harmed in this world because God is waiting for them, but this is no way for a child to live.

One of the negative effects of industrialization had to do with the way children were put to work doing not only inappropriate but also unsafe jobs. Children, some very young—as the one in this poem was when he was "sold" and could barely cry "'weep!'" (or "sweep")—were thrust into the workforce in order to help support their families, or to relieve families of the burden of caring for and feeding them. This robbed the children of their childhoods, of creating worlds of imagination and fantasy, of playing and learning. They can only dream of "green plain[s]" and "laughing [as] they run." Instead, their jobs could be death sentences, either because they were immediately dangerous or because they affected the children's bodies so negatively, as soot or coal dust will eventually take its toll on the lungs. This is likely why little Tom Dacre dreams that "thousands of sweepers . . . / Were . . . locked up in coffins of black." Only an angel in a dream could release them from their lives of toil and subsequent deaths.

What rule concerning the conch is made?

After Ralph, Simon, and Roger return from their expedition around the island, Ralph calls an assembly and addresses the group of boys. Ralph begins by mentioning that they are on an uninhabited island and will need to look after themselves. Ralph then tells the boys that they cannot have everyone speaking at once during the assemblies. He proceeds to create a rule regarding the conch, which states that anyone holding the conch during an assembly will have the platform to speak without being interrupted. Ralph likens the rule regarding the conch to "hands up" at school, where the speaker can address the group without interruptions or distractions.
The rule regarding the conch promotes democracy, as each boy, including the littluns, has a chance to speak and express their opinions during assemblies without being interrupted. Therefore, the conch becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and democracy on the island.

The following statement is false. Why? The key word here is “present.” This is not a trick question. I am asking about the present time that takes place in Death of a Salesman, not the past, and the statement below is false but close to being true. "The present time action in Death of a Salesman takes place in four locations: the Loman house and yard, Charlie’s office, Howard’s office, Willy’s gravesite."

The statement is almost true but it contains one error. The action in Death of a Salesman seems to move between the present and several different points in the past.
The “present” refers to the last day of Willy Loman’s life and just after his death. Much of the action in the present takes place in the Lomans’ house, especially the kitchen, the parents’ bedroom, and the sons’ bedroom. During act 2, Willy goes out into the yard at night to plant seeds for a garden. During act 1, Willy visits first Charley and then Howard in their respective offices. At the end of act 2 and in the Requiem, the action takes place at Willy’s grave.
The statement is incorrect in that it mentions four locations but there are five: In act 2, Happy and Biff take Willy out to dinner. The action takes place in a restaurant. It begins with Happy and a waiter, Stanley. Next Biff arrives, and the brothers meet a young woman. After Willy arrives, she returns with a friend, and his sons leave with the women, leaving their father alone.

What type of parents were the Hadleys? Cite two examples from the story to support your conclusion.

Technology may be the focal point of interest in the story, but the Hadleys are extremely significant in terms of the human interest angle.
In "The Veldt," Bradbury explores the ramifications of technological progress and its impact on humans. Both Lydia and George are marginalized by the technology they venerate: as the story progresses, they evolve from being the masters of their Happylife Home to being its abject slaves.
So, what type of parents are the Hadleys? The answer will depend on your beliefs about the domestic sphere. For example, how responsible are parents for the well-being and happiness of their children? Also, what role does parental guidance play in the happiness of children?
In the story, George and Lydia have lost their place as the authority figures in their home. Essentially, they are lulled into a false sense of security by the technology they trust. As time progresses, they become largely irrelevant to their children. Instead of communicating and interacting with Wendy and Peter, George and Lydia stop engaging with their children. They rely on their Happylife Home to perform the seemingly monotonous tasks of parenthood. As a result, Lydia and George are deeply unhappy.

“But I thought that’s why we bought this house, so we wouldn’t have to do anything?”
“That’s just it. I feel like I don’t belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot. And it isn’t just me. It’s you. You’ve been awfully nervous lately.”

Bradbury makes an important point in the story: George and Lydia cannot retain their relevance in their children's lives by abdicating their parental responsibilities.
However monotonous these responsibilities are, they are a vehicle for healthy engagement with their children. George and Lydia discover too late the danger of ignoring Wendy and Peter's increasing emotional dysfunction. In fact, both children exhibit symptoms of a pathological hostility. Their embitterment towards their parents is manifested in their obsession with death and killing. Many psychologists believe that persistent anger is often connected to an underlying depressive disorder.
Perhaps, Wendy and Peter are just as unhappy as their parents regarding the present state of affairs.
So, what sort of parents are the Hadleys? Do you believe that George and Lydia were naive in placing implicit trust on their Happylife Home? Consider the quote below: do you think that the Hadleys have been overly permissive? Or, are they simply uninformed about the scope of their parental roles?

“We’ve given the children everything they ever wanted. Is this our reward: secrecy, disobedience?”
“Who was it said, ‘Children are carpets, they should be stepped on occasionally’? We’ve never lifted a hand. They’re insufferable—let’s admit it. They come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring. They’re spoiled and we’re spoiled.”
“They’ve been acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the rocket to New York a few months ago.”
“They’re not old enough to do that alone, I explained.”
“Nevertheless, I’ve noticed they’ve been decidedly cool toward us since.”

Hope these tips help! Again, your answer will depend upon your personal thoughts and beliefs about parenting and the domestic power structure.

In a letter, Oscar Wilde said the main characters in the novel are reflections of himself: "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me" Doran Gray what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps." How can you understand Oscar Wilde's view through these words?

What this extract shows is the multi-faceted nature of Wilde's personality and the enormous gap between how he was perceived by others and what he was really like.
Here was a man with a great love for humanity and a sensitivity to its sufferings. Yet, to the outside world, he came across as an aesthete and a dandy, a larger-than-life character who looked down his nose on society from his lofty intellectual heights. That's what Wilde means when he says that the world thinks of him as Lord Henry Wotton, the upper-class hedonist whose sensualist philosophy leads Dorian astray and corrupts his soul.
Wilde regards himself as much closer in personality to Basil Hallward, the sensitive artist who paints Dorian Gray's portrait. He's similar to Basil in that he's portraying a particular world rather than endorsing its values. But many readers of the story couldn't grasp this subtle distinction between showing a world full of perversion and rampant immorality and actually recommending its warped values as a way of life. They thought that Wilde was like Lord Henry, the louche aristocrat who encourages Dorian to take a walk on the wild side. They thought that The Picture of Dorian Gray was some kind of aesthete's manifesto on how to live a scandalous life.
Yet, at the same time, Wilde can't resist identifying with Dorian in some respects. As he indicates in the above letter, he would like to be like him, but in other ages. Presumably, Wilde is referring to those historical periods—Ancient Rome, perhaps?—in which such behavior as Dorian displays would've been much easier to get away with.

Who is meant by "On hostile fields fraternal Arms engage, and mutual deaths, all dealt with mutual rage"?

In her poem "Liberty and Peace" Phillis Wheatley refers to the often brutal and bloody conflict of the Revolutionary War between the American colonists and the British. The war was fraternal in that it set men against their brothers. Not all Americans supported the rebellion by any means; some chose to stand with the British. Entire families were split right down the middle, mirroring the savage conflict rapidly developing on the field of battle.
But the Americans and the British were also brothers, linked together by common ties of blood and heritage. And yet despite these close bonds they fought each other in battle, "on hostile fields." This is what Wheatley is referring to when she talks of "fraternal arms." And "Mutual deaths" means that, in this terrible war, there were deaths on both sides. And what caused such deaths was the "mutual rage," the burning anger and animosity that existed between the Americans and the British, men who were supposed to be brothers.

To what extent are the names of the characters in The Grapes of Wrath symbolic?

The character Rose of Sharon has the most obvious symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath. The name of Tom Joad's sister Rose of Sharon is a reference to the Song of Song in the Hebrew Bible, which describes one of King Solomon's wives (or a lover) as a flower within the field. Steinbeck's character was no king's lover but an abandoned, pregnant wife facing a pretty grim future. Even her name is slurred as "Rosasharn."
"Rosasharn" gives birth to a stillborn but doesn't waste her milk—she uses it to revive a man literally starving to death. And interestingly, the flower Rose of Sharon, actually a hibiscus, is drunk as a tea throughout the world and renowned for delivering a punch of Vitamin C—essential against rickets.
Tom Joad, the book's unlikely hero (at the start of the book, he's heading home after a stint in prison) has one of the most common male names in the US. He's someone with whom a lot of young men could identify during the Depression as he struggles to survive in the Dust Bowl.
Tom isn't even his own name, really—we learn that Pa's first name is Tom, too. The two Toms have opposite characters: Pa has mentally collapsed after a lifetime of poverty and extraordinarily hard work. His son Tom relies more on his growing intellect and sense of responsibility. Along with Ma Joad (whose first name we never learn), he's doing his best to keep the family together under terrible circumstances. Pa stays in the background.
I wonder if the two Toms were so named to reflect the two sides of St. Thomas. Known as "doubting Thomas" for not initially believing Jesus's resurrection, he was later instrumental in spreading Christianity to India and other parts of Asia. He transformed from a doubter to a man of extreme faith (he was martyred). Tom Joad isn't religious but he's no self-doubter either, like his father.
Why didn't Ma warrant a name? Well, she's a woman and even if she's the reason the family stayed together before Tom the younger rejoined them, she's not going to get credit. It's worth noting that Jesus first showed himself to his female followers, who were initially put off by Thomas and the other apostles (all male of course...). I don't think Steinbeck intended to downplay Ma at all but made her a little mysterious, as Mary Magdalene has been for almost 2000 years. Just my two cents worth.
Like many intellectuals, Steinbeck was well-trained in religious dogma as a child but put it aside later in life. Clearly, he found Biblical references and imagery (such as Rose of Sharon!) useful if not ironic for his own works.

In Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, each character’s name is highly symbolic. Indeed, the title itself represents the growing anger within the souls of oppressed migrants, which gets to the heart of what the novel is all about.
This symbolism includes many Biblical allusions, with the family’s last name, Joad, as one example. Joad is quite similar to Job, and the Book of Job is about God’s faithful and humble servant, Job, whose faith is constantly tested and who endures many struggles in his lifetime, just as the Joad family does. Noah Joad reminds readers, of course, of the Biblical Noah, another loyal follower of God who builds an ark to protect his family from the coming apocalyptic flood. When the Joad family, upon reaching California, stops to camp by the Colorado River, Noah chooses to stay behind, claiming he is irrevocably drawn to the water: "It ain't no use. I was in that there water. An' I ain't a-gonna leave her” (18.116).
Jim Casy is believed by most literary critics and other scholars to be a Christ figure. The most obvious indicators are the shared initials between the two of them and Jim’s, a former preacher, deeply religious nature. Jim is a noble, self-sacrificing character who, in a Christ-like manner, goes to jail in the place of his friend Tom Joad, and later emerges as a leader of the mistreated and abused migrant workers.
The Joads encounter Ivy and Sairy Wilson in their journey, and the families decide to join forces for strength in numbers in confronting the challenges ahead. Ivy, an evergreen plant, represents eternity, fidelity, and strong affectionate attachment—this certainly sums up the strength of the Joad family as they rely on each other and the bonds of family to endure.
At one point in the novel, Ma Joad says to Tom, “Why, Tom—us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people - we go on” (20.359). This underscores the powerful religious themes that play out throughout the novel, epitomizing the resilience and faith of the downtrodden, a people that Christ himself was known for championing.

Authors frequently use characters’ names as symbols (symbols, or symbolism, in literature means of conveying ideas and qualities). Here are a few of Steinbeck’s symbolic character names in The Grapes of Wrath.
The Joads
The family name is symbolic in at least two ways. First, it recalls the biblical story of Job, the man who endures a variety of horrors and lives on. It also is one letter removed from “road,” which can mean either the literal road, in this case, Route 66, the highway that runs from Oklahoma to California, and it may also mean the metaphorical road the family must take on their mental journey to accept a new way of life.
Muley Graves
Muley Graves is the only person left near Tom Joad’s old home when Tom returns from prison (accompanied by Jim Casy). While everyone else has decided to move on, Muley, like a mule, an animal renowned for its stubbornness, remains. His last name, “Graves,” suggests that his refusal to change will be a death sentence. Here are two excerpts from Chapter 6, in which Muley responds to Casy’s question about what has happened.
Stubbornness:
“Them dirty sons-a-bitches. I’m tellin’ ya, men, I’m stayin’. They ain’t gettin’ rid a me. If they throw me off, I’ll come back, an’ if they figgur I’ll be quiet underground, why, I’ll take a couple-three sons-a-bitches along for company. . . “I ain’t a-goin’. My pa come here fifty years ago. An’ I ain’t a-goin’.”
Graves:
“I’ve been walkin’ around like an ol’ graveyard ghos’.”
Muley says this four times in his conversation with Casy and Tom.
Finally, Muley’s own name indicates he will be the last of the line. Mules are typically unable to reproduce.
Jim Casy
The preacher’s initials, “J.C.” could be symbolic of Jesus Christ. Like Christ, Casy “preaches” love, tolerance, and acceptance. Casy, too, ends up sacrificing his life for those he loves.
When Casy is murdered in Chapter 26, his cries echo those of Christ who asks that those responsible for his death be forgiven (“Forgive them, Father. They know now what they do.” Luke 23:34):
Casy stared blindly at the light. He breathed heavily. "Listen," he said. "You fellas don' know what you're doin'. You're helpin' to starve kids. . . . Casy went on, "You don' know what you're a-doin'."
Noah
Noah is Tom’s enigmatic younger brother. Slow-witted, Noah never seems to truly be a part of the family’s decision to depart. After a brief time on the road, Noah wanders off down by the river, reminiscent of the biblical Noah who also leaves his homeland via water to face an uncertain future.
Connie Rivers
Rose of Sharon’s husband’s name belies the fact that he will not be the stable force that his young wife expects him to be. His first name “Connie,” conveys the sense of being “conned” or tricked. Connie may not be intentionally conning his bride and her family; he is, however, overwhelmed with the responsibilities of being a husband and soon-to-be father, leaving his home, and not having any clear means of financial support for himself or anyone else. He and Rose of Sharon imagine a good life together, but every conversation has a feeling of children “playing house” rather than a realistic vision of their future.
Rose of Sharon
Rose of Sharon’s odd name has its origins in the Bible. In the Song of Solomon 2:1, Rose of Sharon is identified as the wife of Solomon who refers to herself as the “Rose of Sharon.” The name “Sharon” is used elsewhere in the Bible to refer to level places or plains. In The Grapes of Wrath, Rose of Sharon will be the hope of her people; she alone will bring their past to their future. Although her unborn child is stillborn, she has the ability to nurture and the hope is that she will be fruitful again. The enigmatic smile as she offers her breast milk to the starving man is a vivid illustration of her strength and power:
For a minute Rose of Sharon sat still in the whispering barn. Then she hoisted her tired body up and drew the comfort about her. She moved slowly to the corner and stood looking down at the wasted face, into the wide, frightened eyes. Then slowly she lay down beside him. He shook his head slowly from side to side. Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. "You got to," she said.

Can you explain the idea of indifference in the song "Sick Boy" by The Chainsmokers?

The theme or idea of indifference in this song is introduced to listeners at about the song's halfway mark. The following lyrics are likely what this question is specifically asking about.

Welcome to the narcissismWhere we're united under our indifference

The song itself is a fairly scathing indictment against a societal culture that has huge narcissistic tendencies. A narcissistic person is someone who is extremely self-centered and has an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Essentially, a narcissist is infatuated with his/her own self. This kind of self-important belief can be seen in something as common as the "selfie" picture. The general population's focus on the individual self and taking pictures of yourself is what led cell phone manufacturers to start producing phones with the front-facing camera. People could then see what the picture of themselves was going to look like. Then additional selfie toys began to emerge. Selfie sticks allowed users to get better/different angles of themselves and some wider angle shots, but the goal was still getting great pictures of yourself. The posts on whatever is the chosen social media platform echo this idea of being self-centered. It's common for posts to be self-centered posts. They highlight what great thing a person did or is doing. Many of those posts then receive feedback from other viewers in the form of a "like" button. The more "likes" that the post gets, the more people that saw the post and enjoyed it. Getting the "likes" is a sort of rewards system for individual users, but a problem is that some users tie the number of likes to their own self-worth.

How many likes is my life worth?

This is a depressing way to live because it forces people to feel like they always have to present an unrealistic, always awesome version of themselves online. It can become a consuming way to live life, and the song likens it to a prison or religion.

Make no mistake, I live in a prisonThat I built myself, it is my religion

What's interesting about all of this self-love is how it affects how people view other people. Users might be clicking "like" on someone else's post, but their main concern is still likely their own personal number of likes. An attitude is created that basically says, "Your stuff is cool, but mine is cooler." And if that can't be said, a common response that I see and hear is "whatever." As an interjection, "whatever" is defined in the following way:

Said as a response indicating a reluctance to discuss something, implying indifference, skepticism, or exasperation.

The song "Sick Boy" says that we are "united under our indifference." That sounds great for a second. Being united is a good thing; however, united through indifference isn't a good thing. A group that shares only their lack of care for anything isn't a strongly bonded group. This is because individual members of the group care more for themselves than they do the group. The song goes on to highlight how this indifference actually creates division. That's why people can pick whatever side is most convenient for them at the time.

And we can pick sides, but this is us, this is us, this is

Write a critical analysis on Mark Twain's "The War Prayer."

The short story "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain opens with a description of a country preparing to go to war. The scene sounds similar to that you might encounter in any city, town, or village in which people believe in their flag, their country, and the righteousness of their cause. Bands play, flags fly, young men march down streets in new uniforms, and relatives and friends proudly see them off.
On Sunday morning, the new soldiers and their supporters gather in church to invoke God's blessing. A rousing song is followed by a long inspirational prayer for victory. The prayer requests that God give their country "honor and glory" and "crush the foe." Again, this is a common scene in countries preparing for war.
An old man dressed in the robe of a prophet enters the church and takes the pastor's place. He claims that he bears a message from Almighty God. He says that God will answer as long as the people who have prayed fully understand what their prayer means. He explains that the unspoken part of their prayer is that they desire to tear the enemy soldiers to shreds with shells, cause their wounded to shriek and writhe in pain, burn their homes, grieve their widows, turn their little children into starving orphans, and otherwise create great desolation and suffering. At the end of the old man's prayer, nobody takes him seriously, and everyone thinks he is crazy.
Mark Twain wrote this story in 1905, near the end of his life, as a reaction to the savagery of the Philippine-American War that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. At the time, his publisher rejected it. The story finally appeared for the first time in 1923 in an anthology called Europe and Elsewhere.
Twain was a great satirist. Here, he ridicules the religious and patriotic fervor that nations evoke as they go off to war. As they pray for victory against their foes, very few people realize the extent of the incomprehensible suffering they are asking God to inflict upon their enemies. The Old Testament of the Bible has numerous stories of prophets that confronted kings and countrymen and held them accountable for their sins.
In this story, the old man who trespasses in the church service is like one of these prophets. In God's name, he holds the people accountable for what they have wished upon their enemies. In this story, Twain is expressing the insanity of the patriotic and religious fervor that brings on such a violent spirit.

This short piece by Mark Twain is a condemnation of the kind of patriotic fervor that was often drummed up in times of war in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and which leads people to pray for the victory of their own people without pause to consider what this would mean for the people of the enemy. In critically analyzing it, it is very important to consider Twain's choice of language and structure, all of which contribute to his meaning, particularly the final, ironic statement that the mysterious man was thought "a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said." Twain here makes clear that fervor for war can make people incapable of rational thought, and rational thought seem unpatriotic or insane.
In critically analyzing the piece, consider:
1. What is Twain's purpose in writing it? Twain was writing in 1905; he had been a staunch critic of American expansion into the Philippines and the Spanish-American war, and his motivations seem to be to persuade the reader that this kind of warmongering is not only counterproductive, but insane.
2. How does Twain achieve this purpose? Think about the language used in the opening section, particularly the lengthy sentences with multiple clauses. Twain is here enumerating the many many ways in which the war is being celebrated and heralded; it seems almost a bombardment; the narrator barely pauses for breath. This seems to echo the way in which fervor for war can catch up civilians, by simply bombarding them with empty patriotism until they cannot think beyond it. War and the trappings of war can seem an extremely enticing prospect.
3. What is Twain saying with the introduction of the stranger into the church, and why does he use this device? The stranger is unidentified, but he says that he has come from "the Throne" -- that is, he is a representative of God who wants to make clear to the people what their patriotic fervor really means. He uses Biblical language, which is clear and decisive, quite in contrast to the long, breathless sentences of the first part of the story. He sets out, clearly and straightforwardly, the terrible things these people are actually wishing upon their "enemy," but which they do not want to contemplate. And do they listen to him? No -- in the end, they choose to bury their heads in the sand. They don't want to listen to what is rational, preferring to let themselves be swept up by marching bands and bunting and the idea of "noble" death, not realizing that it is they, and not the visitor, who are the "lunatic" fringe.