Why is Starr's dad interested in Malcolm X in The Hate U Give?

Early in the text, Starr mentions that the Carter home has framed pictures of Malcolm X alongside black Jesus, even calling her family “Christlims”: a mashup of Christian and Muslim.
Maverick Carter’s reverence of Malcolm X is addressed more fully after gunshots are fired into the Carter home while the family is watching television. Starr believes the gunshots were a message to her to keep silent about her knowledge of Khalil’s murder at the hands of a white police officer. Lisa, Starr’s mother, remarks that Starr’s safety is of paramount importance, even more than her standing up for the truth.
In response, Maverick instructs his children to recite the Black Panthers’s Ten Point Program. Malcolm X was a leader and proponent of the Black Panthers’s philosophy that police brutality must be stopped by “any means necessary.” By asking his children to recite this maxim after the attack on their home, Maverick asserts that standing up for injustice is always worth it, even if it means facing threats to one’s personal safety. Maverick does not want his children to be afraid of doing the right thing, regardless of the risks involved.
The reader can thereby infer that Malcolm X is so important to Maverick because he represents a radical Afro-centric viewpoint that empowers black people to stand up for their own rights. Unlike many civil rights figures who have maintained notoriety in the present day, Malcolm X did not directly condemn force as a tool for the oppressed in their fight for equality. This shows that Maverick values Malcolm X for his dedication to the black community above all else. Maverick is unconcerned with kowtowing to the pressures within and outside of Garden Heights that try to hinder achieving the goal of ending police brutality. He wants his children to feel empowered to speak out against injustice even if the price is violence or death.

Discuss how, as a campaign manager for a candidate for a state governor, you would develop a campaign plan for this individual. Base your plan on these four criteria: Give qualification of candidate. Campaign strategy. Campaign message—include moral leader/economic quality Campaign strategy/resources/desire to win

This is a great question, and I happen to have experience in this area from being a campaign manager for some different candidates! As to qualifications, every state government runs similarly in that the executive branch is co-equal to the legislative branch. The first qualification for a state campaign is a person with experience in dealing with the legislative branch. The ideal person would come from either the state house or senate. A state position like a governorship often is seen as a stepping stone to a federal Senate seat or as potentially a presidential candidacy. Mayors sometimes fit the bill if they have a statewide reputation, but that is often not the case. In today's elections, though a lot of attention is paid to candidates who claim they are not politicians and that their background is outside of government (in business, for example), it is unusual for a candidate for governor to not have significant political connections.
Campaign strategy generally is divided into two areas. The first is the message. Message, in modern campaigns, is driven by polling data and by trying to paint a negative picture of your opponent. The second part of the strategy is voter turnout. The techniques for increasing voter turnout are numerous but include campaign materials, marketing, and other, more technical components.
The third part of your question deals with the internal perception by voters of both the candidate themselves and how much the candidate appears to care about the issues that matter to the voters. Voters don't necessarily vote for someone as much as they vote against someone. Thus, a successful candidate has to project empathy for a diverse group of voters.
The last question involves the personal drive and motivation of a candidate. Campaigning is grueling. Candidates and their families come under a great deal of scrutiny and attack, much of it very personal. A candidate must be willing to subject themselves to the attacks, present a positive image, and sacrifice personal security. Candidates will spend a lot of their funds to campaign, potentially requiring them to mortgage their homes and go without a paycheck during the time they are running for elected office. Fundraising is critical, and the law only allows for reimbursement of campaign expenses, not personal expenses like groceries, mortgages, or loan payments. This is why many candidates who run for statewide positions are wealthy. They are the only ones who can afford to make a financial sacrifice.

What is the pace of the narrative? Does the pace change? Why does the author establish a particular pace or change of pace?

Chita by Lafcadio Hearn follows an unusual narrative structure, in that things are relayed to the reader through flashbacks, flash forwards, and the use of frame devices. This creates an interesting pace because the reader is constantly moving through the timeline of the story to learn the various events that take place in the life of the main character, Chita, and those around her.
While we don't know exactly why the author chose this pace for Chita, we can make some educated guesses. One of the first reasons that the author might choose this kind of pacing would be to mirror the chaotic life of a character who was rescued from a hurricane, and who deals with problematic circumstances because of the events that have occurred in her life.
From the opening, in which the reader learns about the previous hurricane, to the growth of Chita and her eventual reunion with her father, which leads to tragedy, it can easily be said that the main character is a victim of the things that have happened to her. An unusual, unstructured pace therefore serves to drive home the fact that life is a series of events that are out of our control.

Why does Gulliver cooperate with the Lilliputians?

As stated in the other answer, Gulliver is practical enough to cooperate with the Lilliputians for his own survival. But there are several other reasons for his willing cooperation.
First, the Lilliputians are tiny creatures, standing at only six inches tall. They seem delicate and innocent to Gulliver, like dainty little dolls. Like many people, he mistakes physical beauty for moral beauty or virtue. It takes him awhile to realize that although they look good on the outside, the Lilliputians are not good inside. Instead, they are petty, vain, and violent. Swift is satirizing the human tendency to confuse appearance with reality and the undeserved favor people who are beautiful receive.
Second, as we will learn throughout, Gulliver is, as his name implies, gullible, and he tends to take what he hears as truth. It is his nature to make quick judgments and accept what people say. In this way, he is like most people in the world. He also tends to accept what others say ahead of the reality of what he is experiencing, which is where much of the humor of the work come in: he is constantly praising things that the reader sees as ridiculous. Therefore, being who he is, it is easy for Gulliver to accept the Lilliputians at first at their own high valuation, and he wants to cooperate with them.
Finally, as with most people, Gulliver's best trait is also his flaw. We like him for his generosity of spirt and tendency to see good, but this also leads to his great flaw, his gullibility. Gulliver cooperates with the Lilliputians just because he is the kind of person to do so. Further, when he sees a problem, like a fire, he acts in a helpful and logical way because that is who he is. Like most people, he does not expect to find his good deeds punished, although, as happens in real life, they are.

Gulliver cooperates because he really does not have much choice in the matter. He has been tied down on the seashore by the Lilliputians. They may only be six inches high, but they are dangerous little critters; those arrows they fire really hurt. Gulliver has only just woken up, and as he is still feeling quite groggy and confused, he figures that cooperation is the best course of action. Gulliver also works out that the Lilliputians will treat him decently so long as he does not try anything. He indicates that he is hungry and thirsty, and the Lilliputians respond by fetching him baskets of meat and barrels of wine. Cooperation clearly pays off with these people. Now that his hunger and thirst have been sated, he wants the Lilliputians to go one better and set him free. Cooperation has already worked once, so it can work again.

What did the Jews think might be the reason for their deportation? Where were they told they were going?

For the most part, the Jews of Sighet, Wiesel's hometown, were in denial about what was to happen to them and about what was being done to the Jewish population of Europe. When Moishe the Beadle—who had been deported earlier than the others and had then escaped and returned to Sighet—told them the Jews were being massacred, no one believed him. As each stage of the threat escalated, people had some explanation with which they would reassure themselves that the situation was not really dangerous. A pro-Hitler government takes power in Hungary, but the Jewish population tells themselves the Germans will never be allowed to bring their troops across the border. When the Germans do arrive, people first say they don't seem so threatening after all. When it becomes known the Jews will be transported out of Sighet, the belief is that it is merely so they'll be made to work in a brick factory. Other explanations are offered: the Jews are being moved away from the battlefront, and civilians are always evacuated in these situations, so it's actually being done for their own good, their own protection; maybe all the Germans want to do is steal their valuables, and it is better if the Jews are "on vacation" while this is happening. There is a kind of relief in being finally transported out of the town, because everyone has been forced out of their homes and made to wait for days, camped out in the open in the streets.
The one ultimate fact everyone is unaware of, or continues to be in denial of, is that the Jews are to be murdered. The reaction of most people, whoever they may be, to the possibility of something such as genocide is always along the lines of, "Oh, they would never do that! They would never go that far." But when Hitler first came into power in 1933, eleven years before Night takes place, no one believed he would carry out even the "milder" measures against the Jewish population, such as restricting their freedom of movement, forcing them to wear the yellow star, and so on. This was in spite of the fact that Hitler had basically announced these sorts of intentions in Mein Kampf.
Once Eliezer's group is on the deportation train, the only person who recognizes what their fate is to be is Mrs. Schächter, who is thought insane by the others when she sees a fire in the dark night outside the train. The fire is a vision of the crematoria at the concentration camp. Upon their arrival at Birkenau, the deportees are berated by the prisoners already there for their ignorance of what is to happen to them. Eliezer and the others can only reply that no one had ever told them about the reality of what was taking place.

Explore the ideas of selfishness vs. selflessness.

A salient theme in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is selfishness versus selflessness. Various characters in the novel are motivated by either. Anse Bundren is a character who is very motivated by selfish reasons. He wants to go to Jefferson to get new false teeth, and that is more of a motivation than burying his wife. Dewey Dell is also driven by her desire to get an abortive substance in Jefferson. On the other hand, Cash is a very selfless character. He works to make his mother’s coffin at her request and even when he breaks his leg, he refuses to talk about it and simply works through the pain. He does heavy manual work with a broken leg without saying anything. This contrasts with Anse, who selfishly refuses to work.

Given that there were relatively few free persons of color and few urban slaves when compared with the vast majority of rural slaves, why is it important to understand their experiences? Explain how slavery became such a powerful yet horrific engine of economic development in the South. What made Southerners so defiantly defensive about preserving this practice? Understanding the South's viewpoint can help you understand why the Missouri Compromise was a huge deal and understand how this would lead towards the Civil War.

It is important to understand the experiences of slaves in the Union and in urban areas because this understanding will provide insights into slavery as a whole. Studying rural slavery in the Southern states exclusively will only give scholars an incomplete picture of slavery as a system of oppression and how it affected the entire United States.
In fact, one of the largest slave ports in history is Rhode Island, a northern or "Yankee" state. This shatters the assumption that only the South was involved heavily in the slave economy.
Likewise, it is important to study the history, perspectives, and social standing of free Africans and African Americans during the slavery period. Historians can gain insights into the complex dynamics of slavery and the American society at the time. Unlike Nazi Germany, which implemented a white supremacist-based genocide against a certain culture, slavery wasn't born out of racial hatred.
While white supremacist views—particularly the belief that nonwhite Christians were subhuman and second-class citizens—contributed to the inhumane justification for slavery, the slave trade itself was initiated due to capitalism. The South had a predominantly agrarian economy. There were many landowners who owned large swaths of plantations and needed an enormous amount of manpower to work the fields.
The Southern plantation owners defended their use of slaves because their livelihoods depended on it. However, many wealthy plantation owners simply became accustomed to their lifestyle and believed that owning slaves contributed to their social and economic standing. If you owned slaves, you were a made man, and this gave plantation owners social power.
Another reason why slave traders and plantation owners fought to keep slavery is because the slave trade was lucrative. Many slave traders did not capture slaves for their own plantations but to earn large amounts of profit from selling human beings. Missouri, which outlawed slavery before the Missouri Compromise, wanted Congress to allow the state to practice slavery, and in return, slavery in Maine was outlawed. This evenly balanced the amount of slave and free states.
Missouri's desire to practice slavery is an indication that states used slavery to increase their economic growth. It also highlighted the differences in the North and South's respective industrial revolutions. The North urbanized and utilized skilled laborers in factories, while the South remained agrarian and depended on a long history of slavery.

Where is the setting of the story "The Fur Coat"?

In the short story "The Fur Coat" by Sean O'Faolain, a man named Paddy Maguire has just been promoted, and his wife Molly asks him for a fur coat. The larger setting of the story is Ireland. In fact, the writer's original name was John Francis Whelan, but he changed it to Sean O'Faolain to express pride in his Irish Gaelic heritage. Because Paddy has become the Parliamentary-Secretary to the Minister for Roads and Railways, which is a government position, we can guess that Paddy and Molly probably live in Dublin, the capital and largest city in Ireland.
The immediate setting of the story is the couple's home. Most of the story consists of a conversation between the husband and wife while Paddy works on his drawings and Molly knits, so they are probably sitting in their living room. There's a fire going and a table that Paddy is working at. Because Paddy has just got the job and until then they have been poor, we can assume that the furnishings around them are humble and old.

What does Dante find in Circle Five?

Canto VII
Before the poets can leave the travails of the greedy and wasteful behind them, Dante and Virgil must somehow cross the putrid River Styx. They find a passable place and now in Circle Five, where Dante observes a hideous group of sinners. Here they come to the eternal home of the Wrathful. Covered in mud, their sight largely obscured, these souls forever try to wound each other, using their corroded teeth as weapons. Unable to look away, Dante describes the horror:

And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
Saw people mud-besprent in that lagoon,
All of them naked and with angry look.
They smote each other not alone with hands,
But with the head and with the breast and feet,
Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth.

As if that wasn’t horrendous enough, there is another terrible surprise awaiting Dante. Virgil points out that beneath the first layer of fetid fighting is another crowd of sinners. These souls are those condemned for the crime of being sullen. In life, these people had taken the gift of life for granted, neither appreciating the beauty of being alive nor giving thanks to God. Their punishment is to sing hymns without ceasing, their mouths continually filled with slime that they must swallow. Unable to make out the words, Virgil translates for his companion:

Fixed in the mire they say, 'We sullen were
In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened,
Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek;
Now we are sullen in this sable mire.'
This hymn do they keep gurgling in their throats,
For with unbroken words they cannot say it."

Slowly the pair continue on their journey, coming at last to the foot of a tower.

What is a summary of the play The Glass Menagerie?

Tennessee Williams' play opens with Tom Wingfield addressing the audience directly; he offers some background that describes the setting (1937, St. Louis) and his family: a mother, Amanda, and slightly handicapped sister, Laura. They live in an apartment, having been abandoned by the father years before.
It is a memory play, and the scene dissolves into the dinner table in the Wingfield apartment. Amanda admonishes Tom to chew his food and Laura to keep herself fresh for "gentleman callers." Tom pushes back against his mother's admonitions. Amanda repeats a story regarding her popularity as a young woman in Mississippi and the day she received seventeen gentleman callers. It is made clear by Laura that she is expecting no gentleman callers.
The next memory is a scene in which Laura is washing her collection of glass animal figurines. Amanda comes home wearing a cheap and outdated hat and coat and confronts Laura, who has not been attending her typing classes. Laura's deception is revealed; she has been walking, going to the zoo and art museums instead of typing school. She confesses to being overwhelmed by the stress of the course, which had made her physically ill.
Amanda worries aloud about her and her daughter's future. If Laura cannot manage a job, Amanda reasons that she will need to marry, and she asks Laura if there were any men that interest her. Laura can think of only one from her high school days.
Amanda becomes obsessed with finding a man for Laura to marry. She gets a job selling magazine subscriptions for extra money and endeavors to make Laura into an attractive "catch."
The next memory is a confrontation between Amanda and Tom. She has gone through his belongings and thrown out some books she considers indecent, such as the work of D.H. Lawrence. Tom has aspirations to become a writer, and his mother does not support him. She insists that he be more practical because he has to look after her and Laura. Tom pushes against his mother's demands that he stop going to the movies at night. He tries to get her to understand how unfulfilling his job at the warehouse is. In his fury, he accidentally breaks one of Laura's glass animals. Tom leaves, and returns home late at night, drunk. He and Laura speak briefly.
Amanda refuses to speak to Tom, and Laura is briefly forced to be the intermediary. Eventually, Amanda and Tom have a heart-to-heart and he speaks of his discontent. Amanda tells Tom that he can't leave the family until there is a man to take his place: a husband for Laura. She pressures him into inviting a male friend home from work.
Tom invites Jim O'Connor home, and he is the boy that Laura admired in high school. The arranged date does not go well. During the dinner, the power goes out because Tom has not paid the bill. Jim is actually quite seriously involved with another woman and not looking for a future with Laura. Amanda verbally attacks Tom for bringing home an unavailable man and tries to comfort Laura, who is shattered by the rejection.
Tom is fired from his job for writing poetry during his shift. He leaves St. Louis to pursue life on his own. He is haunted by the memory of how he has left Laura behind.

How was self-government developed in the colonies?

During the Colonial period of American history, settlers made the move from European nations, namely England, in order to escape religious persecution and rely on themselves and their brethren. Seeing as many of the colonies started off smaller, people came together for both church and community events. Active engagement in civil society was considered important—being involved in the goings-on of the town was normal and encouraged.
It was during community meetings and social or religious engagements that people began to discuss the geographic distance between them and England. Why should England be in charge of how things were decided on the New Continent? Why should royal decree have any standing in this new land?
Primarily because of the geographic distance and difference of thought, colonists began to formulate bodies that would represent their interests and not those of England. The Crown should hold no footing in the day-to-day lives of the colonists. Self-governance stemmed from a desire for independence and liberty, but also the practicality of being able to make choices and relegate actions that were specifically related to the colonists.

How did the British view the Puritans?

The Puritans were a minority sect of Protestants who wanted to purify and separate from the Church of England. They were part of a larger group of Christian sects in England (called Dissenters) who thought the official English Church was corrupt and had moved too far away from Biblical precepts.
The majority of the English, who were members of the Church of England (also known as the Anglican Church in the United States), viewed the Puritans with suspicion as radicals who wanted to upend British society and government. They were perceived much as communists might have been in the United States during the Red Scare—a group outside of the mainstream whose intentions toward the government and their fellow countrymen were suspect.
In Great Britain, church and state were intertwined. The king, the head of state, derived his legitimacy from the Church: he was understood by English society as specially appointed and anointed by God to rule. The Church of England, with its bishops and hierarchy, upheld his divine right to reign. As James I said, "no bishops, no king."
The Puritans didn't accept the authority of the Church of England or its bishops, so they were suspected of not supporting the king. They were seen as potential traitors and troublemakers whose motives were unknown. Many British were glad to say good riddance to them and ship them off across the ocean, out of their hair.

What is Duncan's debt to Macbeth?

In Act 1, Scene 4, King Duncan thanks Macbeth profusely for championing him against the invaders. Duncan ends by saying:
Only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
This means Duncan can never sufficiently repay Macbeth; even if Duncan gave Macbeth his whole kingdom, it still would be insufficient recompense. This may be another way in which Shakespeare is trying to keep Macbeth from seeming like a complete villain when he seizes power. After all, Macbeth could twist Duncan's statement of gratitude to mean that he is entitled to anything from Duncan, even the crown.
Shakespeare wanted his play to be a tragedy and for Macbeth to be a tragic hero. He had to preserve some modicum of audience sympathy for his protagonist.
The playwright tries to pin part of the blame for Duncan's assassination on the Three Witches. If they hadn't deceived and encouraged him, Macbeth wouldn't have gone ahead with it. They make it seem as if he can't help himself; it is already predetermined that he will become king--and the way to do that is obvious. Then Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth take at least half of the guilt. Her husband really doesn't want to kill Duncan and tells her so. He wouldn't have gone through with it if she hadn't forced him.
Even Banquo helps to make Macbeth look less bad. The honorable Banquo is perhaps also tempted by the witches prophecies. In Act II, Scene 1 he says:
Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose.
The fact that Duncan and his two sons are staying overnight in Macbeth's castle makes it seem as if fate is conspiring with Macbeth by offering him the opportunity he needs to do what he and his wife have been discussing for some time. As she tells her husband:
Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. (I.7)
In the end Macbeth has become such a dastardly tyrant that the only thing heroic about him is his courage in defying Fate itself.

Is it a contradiction to say that the inflammation effect of doxycycline is the result of upregulation and that doxycycline is also an inhibitor?

Based on my knowledge of the antibiotic doxycycline and its basic pharmacodynamics, it doesn't appear to be a contradiction. Upregulation is the term for a persistent increase in a cell or bodily pathway's homeostasis conditions for a given substance. For example, doxycycline could upregulate the protein NF-κB by increasing the number of protein receptors on the cellular membrane that conform to the protein shape.
Inhibition refers to a reduction in the proportion of a chemical's pharmacological activation. For example, doxycycline could inhibit the protein NF-κB by decreasing the sensitivity of the cell's protein receptors. This could happen at the same time as an increase in the quantity of those protein receptors. Since the two terms do not describe inverse phenomena, they are not a contradiction.

Could it be correct to assume that the animals present in this story reflect human violence and madness in the story "The Black Cat"?

There are two elements to consider in this question about "The Black Cat." When interpreting a literary work, one draws on the information that the author presents. This information enables one to form an argument or thesis statement which can then be supported with further evidence from the text. An "argument" is different from an "assumption" as the latter is based on ideas that the reader had before reading the text. Because an assumption stems from the reader's ideas, it cannot be evaluated as correct or incorrect. An argument's validity can be weighed based on the support present in the text.
In Edgar Allan Poe's story, the narrator associates both cats with his wife, who was a cat lover. He kills the first cat, Pluto, an act that foreshadows his later killing his wife. He associates the second cat with Pluto, which it resembles. His idea that the shape marked by the different color fur is changing is not rational, and his association of the shape with the gallows indicates his guilt over killing his wife.
In this respect, both cats are associated with death, and the narrator's ideas and actions are irrational. Killing an animal or a human being is definitely violent behavior. The concept of "madness," which frequently occurs in nineteenth-century literature, can be understood as indicating a number of kinds of mental illness. The narrator's actions do not seem to indicate good mental health, so it is likely that the author was indicating that he was, or soon would be, "mad."

Describe each of the following: precharge diversion, preferred prosecution diversion, sentencing diversion, post-incarceration diversion, deferred prosecution, and deferred sentencing. Provide your opinion on and list a common concern for each one.

A pre-charge diversion happens when the police agree not to charge an individual with a crime. This is ordinarily when the individual has been captured for a minor offense. Rather, the police will issue a warning to the individual or refer them to a rehabilitative program to help keep away from re-offense. Pre-charge diversion programs are often used in cases involving youths, but there are some states that have adult pre-charge diversion programs as well. Pre-charge diversion programs are usually a positive, as they keep low-level offenders out of the system. However, a common issue with these programs is the cost, which can be prohibitive for some offenders, especially youths.
A preferred prosecution diversion is similar to a pre-charge diversion in that the offender usually has to participate in some kind of community-based justice program, rehab, community service, etc., for a period of time in order for their case to eventually be dismissed by a prosecutor. Programs vary from state to state and even community to community. An issue with preferred prosecution diversion is that some programs require an admission of guilt before an individual is allowed to enter a program. Then, if that person does not successfully complete the program, they have already given up the right to defend against the charges, having essentially already pleaded guilty.
For a sentencing diversion, the individual is charged, goes to court, and is offered or agrees to participating in some type of alternative to jail time. The alternatives vary depending on the individual’s charge—a sex worker may be required to attend classes on safe sex practices and HIV/AIDS, while a drug addict might enter a rehab program. An issue with sentencing diversion programs deals with habitual reoffenders, especially in drug cases. Some states will not offer sentencing diversion to someone who reoffends, despite the person being an addict. Reoffenders may wind up being sent to jail and are less likely to have access to rehab services.
Post-incarceration diversion programs are aimed at habitual offenders with the goal of getting them to not reoffend. For drug-related charges and individuals with mental health issues, these programs can be helpful to stop individuals from constantly cycling out and then back in to the system.
Deferred prosecution deals with delaying criminal charges against a suspect until he or she fulfills some obligation. There are concerns that the practice threatens important constitutional protections, since the prosecutors hold a significant amount of power over the offender and could use delaying the charges as leverage to force the individual to cooperate with the prosecution on other cases.
Deferred sentencing delays sentencing of offenders and requires defendants to plead guilty to a crime. A common form of deferred sentencing is probation. In some cases, when probation is completed successfully, the case may be thrown out or charges may be dismissed or expunged—however, that does not happen in all cases. An issue with probation and deferred sentencing is cost; also, many employers treat a deferred-sentence in the same negative way they treat a conviction.

Works Cited
Siegel, Larry J et al. Courts And Criminal Justice In America. 2nd ed., Pearson, 2015.

What is Soapy's epiphany?

Soapy has been committing and attempting to commit petty crimes in the hope of being arrested and sentenced to three months in jail. He has been doing the same thing every year in the late fall and has always succeeded in getting room and board in a warm jail during the winter months. But this time it seems as if fate is against him. He is baffled. Then when he hears the organ music coming from the church he is held "transfixed." He is experiencing a religious epiphany. He feels that God has been telling him to reform by preventing him from getting arrested. This epiphany is the result of three things: his failure to get arrested, the beauty of this little church (which apparently he has never seen before), and the beauty of the organ music. But the anthem is deceptive. God cares nothing about him. Soapy is beyond redemption. His destiny is already sealed. The epiphany has actually had an ironic result. Soapy is oblivious of his surroundings. He does not realize that he has strayed too far from his regular haunts and that he looks like a vagrant and a loiterer standing there pressed against the iron bars of the fence, which is set up to keep people like him outside. He is arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island for three months as he originally wanted.
O. Henry is expressing his own feelings in this story. He served a little over three years of a five-year sentence for embezzlement in Ohio State Penitentiary and never got over it. He used a pen name instead of his real name of William Sydney Porter because he was trying to keep his criminal record a secret from everyone. The theme of his story is that once you are outside what he calls the world of "mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts and collars," like Soapy in "The Cop and the Anthem," you are out for good. There is no way back. O. Henry had a terrible drinking habit. At the time of his death he was said to be consuming two quarts of whiskey a day. He died at the age of forty-seven of cirrhosis of the liver. His heavy drinking is probably attributable to his feelings of shame, guilt, remorse, and depression. His sympathy for the underdog, so apparent in many of his stories, was due to his feeling like an underdog himself.
"The Cop and the Anthem" starts off with a heavily comical stylistic tone. All of the tricks that Soapy tries in his efforts to get himself arrested have their comical side, including the encounter with the umbrella man and his failed attempt to be a "masher." The episode in which he hurls a cobblestone through a plate-glass window seems like something we might see in a Charlie Chaplin movie. The comedy is intended for the sake of contrast with O. Henry's surprise ending, which seems especially tragic now that Soapy has had a religious experience and made the decision to reform.

What is the effect of the language in Maggot Moon (chapters 1 and 2)?

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner is set in an alternative dystopian Britain in the 1950s. The protagonist (and narrator) of the text is a young British schoolboy named Standish Treadwell, and critics often describe him as dyslexic based on the way the novel is written.
In chapter 1, the text consists of a series of repetitive sentence fragments all beginning with "What if." This lets the reader know that these are the narrator's thoughts, and the structure of the language in this section mimics how thoughts are often arranged within the human mind.
Chapter 2 is only slightly longer but is more interesting in its use of language. Gardner juxtaposes traditional paragraphs with one-line sentences and fragments that represent Treadwell's immature-yet-astute mind. Breaking the rules of language by using improper punctuation and sentence structure, the language in this chapter is somewhat chaotic. The organized chaos of the language allows the reader to glimpse into Treadwell's emotional state at the beginning of the novel.
From a content perspective, the sparse chapters omit any concrete details about the event Treadwell says couldn't be written down on paper. This creates suspense, making the reader want to continue the story.

Why did d'Artagnan travel to Paris?

D'Artagnan is a young man whose purpose in traveling to Paris is to make something of himself by becoming a musketeer. He is the son of a minor noble and, therefore, stands a good chance of being successful in life, but he is not nearly as important a person as he thinks he is. Throughout the novel, he tries to prove himself, and he manages to succeed in saving the queen's honor when the Musketeers with whom he is acquainted—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—cannot complete their mission. He and his friends also see to it that an assassin is brought to justice. His actions eventually pay off and he fulfills his dream when he is awarded the rank of Lieutenant of the King's Musketeers.

D'Artagnan has made the long journey from Gascony to Paris in order to join the elite corps of musketeers. His father has given him a letter of introduction to a Monsieur de Tréville, the captain of the musketeers. Tréville had once been the d'Artagnans' neighbor in Gascony. He's clearly a very important person, as he used to play with King Louis XIII when he was a boy. Although d'Artagnan the elder is a member of the nobility, he's only a minor noble, so he hopes that his son will be able to improve the family's fortunes by becoming a member of an elite guards regiment. It is his noble background that gives young d'Artagnan a somewhat exaggerated sense of his own importance, which is belied by the rather ridiculous yellow horse on which he sets out on his epic journey.

What is an explanation of each stanza and the literary techniques used in Auden's poem " The Shield of Achilles"?

In Auden's "The Shield of Achilles," the narrator initially describes a woman (she) looking over a man's shoulder. Given the title of the poem, we may initially assume the “he” here is Achilles. However, the final stanza will reveal that is not the truth. Behind the male figure depicted, “she” sees aspects of thriving life and civilization, but they are contrasted with the “artificial” wilderness and lifeless sky embossed on the shield that is described. This is a pattern of contrasts that will continue throughout the poem.
The second stanza goes on to further detail the barren nature of the images on of the shield. There is “[N]o blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood.” There is only “[A]n unintelligible multitude . . . [W]ithout expression.” Despite the masses depicted on the shield, there are only futile attempts to replicate human life.
In the third stanza, the narrator describes “a voice without a face” that is apparently issuing commands, as “they marched away enduring a belief/ Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.” This suggests the same level of distance from humanity which are contained within the images upon the shield; however, now the disconnect is it is associated with real people: soldiers somewhere nearby.
In stanza four, Auden uses refrain to bring us back to our central character, through whom we experience much of the poem. This time she again glances over “his” shoulder to see various images of beauty and sacrifice that are associated with Ancient Greek culture. Again, these things are contrasted with the images on the shield, but Auden waits to describe them in the next stanza.
In the fifth stanza, Auden moves into a scene of apathy and imprisonment. Toward the end of the stanza, the narrator describes “three pale figures” who “were led forth and bound/ To three posts driven upright in the ground.” This suggests that the three men are to be executed, perhaps tortured first, but also alludes somewhat to the crucifixion of Christ, as he was accompanied to his death by two other pale figures.
In stanza six, Auden describes the feeling of hopelessness within the three men sentenced to die, as “they were small/ And could not hope for help and no help came” and “they lost their pride/ And died as men before their bodies died.” While we do not know what these men have done, we do know they have been stripped of their pride and because of this were dead even while their bodies were still alive. This suggests a critical level of dehumanization, which helps to prepare the reader for the final few stanzas.
The beginning refrain returns at the start of the seventh stanza, this time accompanied by scenes of Greek artistic and athletic culture, and is contrasted with a stifled, “weed-choked field” on the shield.
In the penultimate stanza, the narrative then further focuses in on thematic concepts of loneliness and despair in the form of a “ragged urchin” and a solidary bird. These figures are juxtaposed with images of people together, but the images that are presented do not contain warm, communal moments. Rather, “girls are raped” and “two boys knife a third.” Thus, even in the moments where people come together, the result is nothing but further terror and despair.
In the final stanza, the identity of the “she” and “he” of the poem are revealed. The shoulder of the refrain belongs to Hephaestos (or Hephaestus, as it is more commonly spelled), the Greek God of the Forge and Fire. The “she” of the poem is Thetis, whose marriage to Peleus was one of the events that cause the Trojan War. Their union also resulted in the birth of Achilles, their son, who would be killed during the Trojan War. Understanding this allusion reveals the true tragedy of the poem, as here Thetis has commissioned the very armorer of the gods to craft a shield to protect her beloved son, yet even this shield will not be enough to protect him because Achilles is mortal, and vulnerable. She cries “out in dismay” at the images of despair that cover the shield because Hephaestos crafted them “to please her son, the strong/ Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles.” This suggests that her son has little time for the vibrant images of life in Greece, but would rather prefer the muted, poor imitations of life depicted on a shield. In seeing the shield that was crafted to please Achilles, she comes to understand that Achilles’ has lost his humanity and his ability to see the beauty of the world. In this way, he too has “died” as a man as well, and his body will be soon to follow.

What happens to consumer and producer surplus after a rent control is established? Do they increase or decrease? What happens to total welfare? Be sure to include the concept of deadweight loss in your explanation.

To answer this question, we must start by defining the key concepts:
Consumer surplus exists when there is a difference between the highest price someone is willing to pay and the market equilibrium price for that item.
Producer surplus is the same concept, but for producers. It is the gap between what a producer wants to sell an item for and the market equilibrium price for that item.
Market equilibrium is the price that finds the balance between supply and demand. At the market equilibrium price, the price point consumers are willing to spend and the quantity of items they want to buy equals out to the amount that has been produced and the price at which producers are willing to sell that item.
Total welfare is found by adding the consumer surplus and producer surplus to determine the general benefit to society.
Deadweight loss describes the surplus that exists when supply does not meet demand.
In the case of rent control, when supply meets demand, there will be an equilibrium price in the rental market. In some cases, governments may opt to enforce rent control to allow lower-income renters to continue to afford to live in their neighborhoods. The lowered rent increases consumer demand for rental property, as renting becomes a more economical choice than buying a home. Conversely, renting out units becomes less attractive to landlords, who may opt to live in the units themselves or pull the units off the market. The supply of rental units decreases while the demand has increased.
Producer surplus decreases when rent control is at play. Landlords are still paying the same costs for mortgages and other services but are not making as much money as they could be without rent control.
The consumer surplus increases in an instance of rent control. That does not mean, however, that renters are better off. Since the housing supply often decreases while demand increases, landlords are able to be picky about the tenants they allow to live in their units. Lower-income tenants are often less desirable to landlords and therefore may be unable to acquire housing.
The total welfare at play is decreased in a case of rent control due to the deadweight loss of the increase in consumer surplus, which is not balanced by the decrease in producer surplus. The longer this disparity continues, the greater the deadweight loss, ultimately resulting in a greater decrease in total welfare.

Does Ivan Denisovich Shukhov represent a character who is willing to survive? What does camp life in the novel illustrate to us about surviving the Gulag?

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov very much wants to survive. He uses numerous strategies to increase the likelihood of his survival; these efforts occupy him constantly. For example, he wakes up early, before roll call, as that is a time when he can make an effort to do things for the guards so that they might treat him better in return, or pick up a small job that might earn him some extra food or privilege later.

He could bring one of the big gang bosses his dry felt boots while he was still in his bunk . . . Or he could run around to one of the supply rooms where there might be a little job, sweeping or carrying something.

Shukhov learns to value even what seem like the smallest things because they can rarely be replaced. He holds onto his spoon above all, carrying it around in his boot. When he goes outside to the well, he must rush off: “He'd had to get ready . . . in a hurry, but he still hadn't forgotten his spoon.”
As depicted in the novel, camp life is a constant struggle to survive. The Gulag is a harsh physical environment, and the prisoners are discouraged and depressed as well as cold and hungry. One's initial sentence does not matter, because additional years can always be tacked on. Dignity and self-possession are important skills, as shown by the long-term inmate who sits ramrod straight to drink his soup; he cannot eat, because he has lost his teeth, but he refuses to be bowed:

This old man’d been in camps and prisons more years than you could count and had never come under any amnesty. When one ten-year stretch was over they slapped on another . . . In the camp you could pick him out among all the men with their bent backs because he was straight as a ramrod. When he sat at the table it looked like he was sitting on something to raise himself up higher.

Prisoners form friendships because they cannot survive totally alone. Still, they are always wary, as they know alliances can shift. Kurzyomin, a long-term prisoner, advises keeping to oneself and not telling tales.

It's the law of the taiga here, men, but a man can live here, just like anywhere else. Know who croaks first? The guy who licks out bowls, put his faith in the sick bay, or squeals to the godfather.

How does mental illness function in "The Yellow Wallpaper"? What is a possible thesis statement?

Mental illness is a key theme in this short story. Not only does mental illness shape the picture the reader receives due to the narrators perspective, but it also causes and leads to every conflict the narrator experiences.
What the narrator seems to suffer from is postpartum depression. She has just had a baby and is deemed 'hysterical'. Her husband claims they have rented a lovely country cottage for a few weeks to allow her to recover. However, it becomes clear upon a closer reading that she is in a mental institution, she even notices that there are bars in the converted nursery and how odd it seems. (She also is locked in her room and kept from writing or other things that could 'agitate' her).This is one of the first hints at mental illness. The next comes in the form of the wallpaper obsession and the people she sees outside her window. The woman imprisoned in the wallpaper represents our protagonist while the people outside represent the freedom she recognizes has been taken from her. While she is unable to fully comprehend that she is locked up in a room with barred windows because she is mentally unstable, she can comprehend that she does not like the situation and sees its strangeness.
Lastly, there are mentions of a divot in the wall from the woman in the wallpaper. As the narrator rips the paper to shreds in order to free the woman trapped in the wall, who actually represents herself. The narrator is the one leaving the mark in the wall. This is made clear as she says she circled the room continually, even after her husband came in and fainted from the shock of seeing his wife in such a state. Her shoulder has left this mark in the wall that she noticed in her diary. She also mentions scratches on the floor from the bed, likely also caused from her, as she struggled on the bed and from being restrained.
Clearly there are many subtle hints through devices such as foreshadowing and symbolism that paint the picture of a confused, mentally ill woman being held for something that was completely misunderstood. Based on these instances an example of a good thesis statement could be: Through the use of symbolism and foreshadowing the author displays mental illness and the stigmas surrounding it at the time, especially mental illness in women.

At the time that The Yellow Wallpaper was written and published, it was common for women to be diagnosed with a mental illness known as "hysteria." In the nineteenth century, hysteria was understood to be an exclusively female affliction.
One of the forms of curing hysteria was a method known as the "rest cure," which involved isolating a woman and forbidding her from "mentally strenuous" activities such as reading and writing. Instead, the woman was expected to participate in "domestic" activities, or she was confined to complete bed rest. This is the situation that the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper finds herself in. She has been diagnosed with "a temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency," and as a result, she is made to retire to an old mansion for the summer.
The woman and her husband move into the upstairs nursery. As part of her treatment, the woman is forbidden from working, despite her protests that she wishes to do so. She does not want to be isolated, particularly not from her child. However, as she has been deemed to be of unsound mind, her pleas are not taken as rational and are altogether ignored. The rest of the story details the woman's descent into madness. She begins to hallucinate, culminating in a vision of a woman trapped behind the yellow wallpaper of the nursery.
The Yellow Wallpaper therefore highlights the mistreatment of women by the male-dominated medical sphere of the nineteenth century. A woman could be termed "hysterical" for behaving outside of the norms imposed upon her gender at the time. This is why hysteria was most often diagnosed in women who possessed an education and women who were writers. It is also why the most common treatment for hysteria was to force the woman to live a "domestic" life, as befitting her gender. A woman was considered to be cured of hysteria if she became "subdued, docile, silent, and, above all, subject to the will and voice of the physician." Mental illness in The Yellow Wallpaper therefore serves as a realistic symbol of the oppression and lack of agency that women at the time experienced.

In which line is the hint to the location of the first act?

We're already told the location of the play in the introductory stage notes—"Act One: The Terrace of a Hotel in France. Summer evening." However, even if we overlook the stage notes, we can still pick up one or two hints of the play's location in the opening act. Elyot tells an astonished Sibyl that he wants them to leave immediately, even though they've only just arrived at the hotel and unpacked. He wants them to have their first night together in Paris. Sibyl implies that this would be impossible in any case, as they'd only reach Paris in the early hours of the next morning. Given that it's evening, this would suggest that the couple are indeed in France. Anyway, Elyot's insistent that he and Sibyl should leave at once, not least because he thinks there might be some kind of earthquake in the offing. Sibyl replies that they don't have earthquakes in France, indicating once more where the action's taking place.

How did people summon the courage to confront the intimidation, brutality, and injustice they faced under the Jim Crow system?

Power has been unequally distributed throughout human history - there have always been rich and poor, royalty and peasantry, strong and weak, etc. Those in power shape the systems and structures that those not in power live by. Sometimes those systems are designed to ensure a healthy, equitable society, and sometimes they're designed to reinforce the existing power structures and keep as much power as possible concentrated to a select few. Jim Crow laws, which codified segregation in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are an example of the latter. Jim Crow laws made it more difficult for recently-freed slaves and their descendants to develop wealth, establish communities, and participate in the American educational, judicial, and political systems, which made it easier for the majority-white power structure to maintain control.
History has shown us that it is not impossible for those who suffer under unjust systems such as Jim Crow to generate positive and productive change and disrupt the control of those in power, however. The American labor movement, the women's suffrage movement, and even the American Revolution are examples of this, and they provided a map of sorts to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, John Lewis, and other leaders of the American Civil Rights movement who worked to overturn Jim Crow. The common strategy employed by all of these movements was to meaningfully engage as much of their respective communities as possible in concerted, unified, strategic action against the systems that they were trying to change. While those in power source their courage and strength from the systems they've created, such as courts, militaries, and police forces, individuals in the Civil Rights movement and other similar movements got theirs from sheer numbers. The most effective change agents in such groups see the movement as bigger and more important than themselves, in the sense that its needs are more valuable than their own. When those in power intimidate or injure an individual, she or he has the courage to continue fighting because the movement continues to fight, and the movement is paramount.

The fight to end the segregation and injustice of the Jim Crow system was a long one. During the Civil Rights era, people summoned courage by forming grassroots organizations that were often formed at local churches. For example, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 was organized after Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress and member of the NAACP, refused to give up her seat in a white section of a segregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The movement coalesced around a young preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and meetings were held at his church. The leadership of the movement, along with the example of Rosa Parks, helped people summon courage, as King was a dynamic speaker who was able to rally the population of Montgomery to stay off the buses during the boycott. He was helped by a series of local organizers, and the leadership and grassroots nature of the movement helped provide people with courage and strength.

What are some Gothic traits in The Scarlet Letter?

Gothic literature usually involves two broad ideas: 1) the sense that the past always lingers in the present, haunting the living emotionally, psychologically, and sometimes even physically (usually in the form of ghosts); and 2) evoking dread and terror, sometimes even a sense of the supernatural. The Scarlet Letter is not an outright Gothic novel, but it does contain enough traits to give it a Gothic flavor.
Firstly, the main character, Hester, is haunted by the past, specifically her adulterous union with Dimmesdale which results in her pregnancy and social ostracizing. The scarlet letter on her breast is a constant reminder of her past indiscretion, a literal sign that the past is never past. The seventeenth-century setting could also be read as Gothic, since in the nineteenth century, this would have been seen as a rather distant past.
Secondly, there is a sense of the supernatural present in some of the characters. While no literal ghosts or ghouls appear, Hawthorne presents characters like Mistress Hibbins, Roger Chillingworth, and Pearl as having strange connections to the supernatural, as well as possessing some level of otherworldly menace. Mistress Hibbins is a witch who attempts to tempt the lonely Hester to her coven. Chillingworth seems animated by a demonic energy, a desire to revenge himself upon Hester and Dimmesdale. When Dimmesdale repents, Hawthorne explicitly says Chillingworth is now deflated because his evil purpose is done; "there was no more Devil's work on earth for him to do." Demons and even Satan were a staple of classic Gothic literature, such as The Monk, where the main character is tempted and ultimately damned. In The Scarlet Letter, both Hibbins and Chillingworth provide this thematic link.
Pearl is less sinister, but her wild behavior and close connection with nature give her characterization a pagan bent that does not go unnoticed by the other characters. She is often described as an "elf child" or "demon offspring" and displays a startling inquisitiveness which makes her seem much older. She openly torments Dimmesdale until he at last acknowledges her as his child publicly. Even the other Puritans seem disturbed by Pearl, thinking she might be of the Devil due to her intensity and eccentricities. Once Dimmesdale repents, however, the reader is told that Pearl ultimately grows up and achieves a conventional life as a married woman. The change almost suggests a spell has been broken now that both Pearl's parents have atoned.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33/pg33-images.html

Explain some of Milton's unusual word choices.

Some of the language Milton uses is prone to misunderstanding, which affects readers' ability to recognize and grasp the themes and main idea that he is communicating. Some of this confusing language is discussed below.
PATIENCE: "Patience" used here is not a personal trait, rather a Fruit of the Spirit granted (given) by the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. The poet affectionately ("fondly") queries God (line 7), and one of the Fruits of the Spirit, personified, answers back. Thus the answer to the important query Milton asks is given objectively from God's Spirit not subjectively from the poet's self.
PREVENT MURMUR: A "murmur" is a complaint, "a private expression of discontent." Asking a question ("Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?") and complaining cannot be equated: they are different. Patience answers the poet so that a lingering, unanswered query does not turn to a complaint of discontent: Patience replies to prevent the upwelling of "that" potential murmur.
PATIENCE REPLIES: A dialogue develops between the poet and the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, "patience." Here patience is personified as "Patience" and given human characteristics, including the power of discourse. "Patience" is neither a human trait nor one of the Seven Virtues but rather the gift of God's indwelling Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). It is important to understand that when Patience speaks, it is not a trait of the poet's personality or faith nor is it a virtue exercised by the poet that is speaking: the dialogue is not an internal subjective one. Rather the dialogue is an objective one carried out between an agent--a fruit--of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, and the poet. This gives credence and universality to the answer the poet receives to his question: The answer is that God provides and accepts alternative service to that service which can no longer be given.
MILD YOKE: A "yoke"--a device borne upon the necks of oxen which are used to do labor--signifies constraints in direction, resources, labors: the oxen go where they are constrained to go and do what their constraints permit them to do. Patience says that God's constraints ("yoke") are "mild" although we feel their weight, such as the weight of blindness, and although they constrain our directions, resources and labors.

How did Xuan Zang overcome the trials of conquering the demon creatures in The Journey to the West?

The Journey to the West was written by Wu Chengen. It is largely a collection of stories about Chinese legends and folklore. In part of the book, Xuanzang goes on an expedition in search of the Buddha's scriptures. As he travels along the path, he faces a treacherous and troubling journey. He must conquer demon creatures. Xuanzang uses the power of the goddess of mercy to protect himself against the danger of the demon creatures, which helps him to defeat them. After extensive searching, Xuanzang ultimately retrieves the Buddha's scriptures. Consequently, his guardians receive salvation.
The Monkey King is his most useful guardian, however, because he transforms himself into varying creatures and can even change the hairs on his body into more creatures to form an army of warriors that can defeat and conquer the demon creatures. The Monkey can also detect when the demons and monsters are disguised in other forms to know how to help conquer them. Through his help and the help of the goddess of mercy, and other protectors, Xuanzang is able to conquer the demon creatures and monsters that they all encounter along the way toward recovering the Buddha's ancient scriptures, which were thought to be located in the West.

Identify and analyze the main events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War

At the height of the Cold War, tensions between the US and the USSR mounted on October 14, 1962 after an American U-2 spy plane passed over Cuba and gathered images of a Soviet SS-4 medium range ballistic missile. With a Soviet nuclear weapon only 90 miles from the Florida coast, President Kennedy marked this as a serious threat of nuclear war.
The following day, Kennedy convened the executive committee to deal with the diplomatic crisis, and communications with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev began. Khrushchev claimed the installation of the missiles were in response to the presence of American nuclear weapons in Western Europe and Turkey, as well as American aggression against communist Cuba. To prevent Soviet ships from transporting more weapons and supplies, Kennedy implemented a Navy blockade around the island.
On October 22, Kennedy informed the American people of the crisis, and a sense of doom enveloped the country. This tension increased when, on October 24, Soviet ships approached the Navy blockade. However, they made no attempt to breech, and military action was avoided.
Tension reached its height when an American reconnaissance plane piloted by Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down over Cuba, making him the first and only casualty during the crisis. In response to this, an invasion force was gathered in Florida and prepared to invade Cuba. However, Kennedy and Khrushchev reached an agreement. If the US made no further aggressive actions toward Cuba and removed their nuclear weapon placed in Turkey, the the USSR would dismantle the missiles on Cuba.
No amount of diplomacy prevented the Vietnam War, however.
After nearly a century of colonial rule, France began to lose its grip on Indochina when Germany invaded the country during WWII. With France weakened, Japan invaded its holdings in Southeast Asia. In May of 1941, Ho Chi Minh created the Indochinese Communist Party and established the Viet Minh as a force to fight French and Japanese occupation.
Near the end of WWII, Japanese forces overthrew what was left of the French colonial power and declared independence for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. However, once the war was over and the Germans driven out, France attempted to reassert its power in the region. In September 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared an independent North Vietnam, and guerrilla warfare against the French began.
Allies with France, the US implemented the Truman Doctrine. This stated that the US was obligated to aid any country whose stability was threatened by communism. This marked the beginning of American involvement in the war. In January of 1950, the Peoples Republic of China and the Soviet Union began giving economic and military aid to communist forces in the north. In response, the US gave military assistance to French forces in the south.
In early 1954, the war turned in favor of the communist forces when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu. It was then Eisenhower gave a speech discussing the "domino effect" of communism in Southeast Asia, providing a justification for future US military actions. In July, the Geneva Accords resulted in the official divide of North and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel.
In May 1959, northern forces began building the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a supply route through Laos and Cambodia used to support guerrilla attacks against the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem established by the US. In July, the first US soldiers killed in the conflict lost their lives in a Viet Cong raid on Saigon. In May 1961, President Kennedy authorized secret operations against the Viet Cong.
With tensions in the south due to the Diem government, the US supported a military coup in November 1963, which resulted in the death of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother. The following summer, USS Maddox was allegedly attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. This resulted in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the entry of the US into the conflict. The Vietnam War was in full swing with all players present. What resulted was one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.

What is the rhyme, rhythm, and the tone of the poem The Clown's Wife by Johnson Agard?

"Clown's Wife," by Johnson Agard, is written in free verse. This means that it doesn't have a set rhyme scheme or meter. There are a few rhyming lines within it. For example, lines 4 and 5 contain end rhyme in the words "throne" and "moan" and lines 7 and 12 contain end rhyme via the words "clothes" and "nose." The poem also ends with a rhyming couplet in "life" and "wife," but that is the most regular that the rhyme scheme ever gets. Similarly, there is no set meter. The syllable count shifts and expands as the poem progresses. After the first line of 7 syllables, line 2 drops to 4. The lines of stanza 2 each contain 8 syllables, and then the lines continue to expand until near the end of the poem, when they decrease in syllable count, but then end with a final, long line.The tone, on the other hand, is something that can be more specifically discussed. The tone is very sympathetic to both characters, the clown and his wife. The clown himself is a very sad man, although it is never revealed why. At the same time he seems to take some level of solace in his wife's attempts to cheer him up and make him laugh. The wife is also a sad character, as she works hard to try to make him happy. Her efforts pay off to some extent, yet the nature of her narrative suggests that this is a pattern that repeats, day in and day out.

Describe Mrs. Schachter.

Mrs. Schächter appears in section 2 of Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. She is a middle-aged ("in her fifties") Jewish woman who, along with her ten-year-old son, is deported on the same train as the story's narrator, Eliezer.
Eliezer first sees Mrs. Schächter "crouched in a corner," and explains that "Her husband and two older sons had been deported with the first transport." Eliezer says that this separation from her husband and two older sons "had totally shattered her."
Mrs. Schächter is further described as a "quiet, tense woman with piercing eyes" and later as "like a withered tree in a field of wheat." Eliezer also knows that "It was she who supported the family." Now that she has lost her family—except for her youngest son—Mrs. Schächter is "shattered" and seems to lose her mind.
While in transit to the concentration camp, Mrs. Schächter has nightmares and screams about fires outside the windows. Her fellow passengers look and see nothing but the night. They conclude that she is mad, that her screams are "hysterical," and that she is "possessed by some evil spirit"—or that she is "hallucinating because she is thirsty." Tragically, when they later arrive at Auschwitz and see the furnaces, Mrs. Schächter seems less like a mad woman and more like a prophetess.
While they are on the train, however, her fellow passengers try (unsuccessfully) to restrain and gag Mrs. Schächter so that she cannot alarm them any more with her screams. After she breaks free of the restraints the first time, she is beaten up by some of the boys on the train. They inflict "several blows to the head, blows that could be lethal."
This reaction to Mrs. Schächter from the other passengers indicates how they have been reduced by their conditions. They have been crammed into trains (which were meant to transport cattle) and forcefully separated from their loved ones. Under such conditions, people inevitably become more intolerant, more aggressive, and less civil. Indeed, Eliezer acknowledges that, if they had been under these conditions for a few more days, "all of us would have started to scream."
On a symbolic level, Mrs. Schächter foreshadows the horrific, inhumane deaths that await all of the passengers at Auschwitz. She also personifies and represents the experiences that were common to many Jewish people at this time. She represents mothers who were separated from their husbands and children, and more broadly all of the families that were torn apart and sent to their deaths.
However, perhaps more than all of this, Mrs. Schächter serves as a reminder as to how precarious and relative our basic notions of humanity can be. Under conditions of stress, we—like the passengers who mistreated Mrs. Schächter—are prone to abandon traits like empathy, compassion and kindness and instead adopt more primitive, animalistic traits like fear, hostility and aggression. Mrs. Schächter is an unnerving reminder that we all have this more primitive side to us.

What is the role of the media, or the “fourth estate”? Describe and explain the three roles of the media, providing examples of how it has fulfilled each role. What threats and complications stand in the way of the media’s performance of these roles? Identify and explain at least two factors that may distort or damage the media’s reliability.

Three key roles of the media are those of gatekeeper, scorekeeper, and watchdog.
Gatekeeper refers to the power and influence in placing and keeping a given issue in public view. An example would be choosing to headline a local story rather than a national one.
In the scorekeeper role, the given medium enhances the report with numerical data, such as updating election results with each candidate's number of votes.
The watchdog role refers to the media's responsibility to research or investigate an important issue of public interest or security. The classic example is Bob Woodward-Carl Bernstein's Watergate investigations of the Nixon presidency.
Security is one major consideration, as shown in Edward Snowden's leaks of classified information. Revealing military or civilian intelligence can endanger the operatives. Another is protecting the privacy of victims of or witnesses to a crime.
The ethical responsibility to protect informants may damage credibility if the news organization reveals its source. Conversely, publishing or airing unsubstantiated stories will reduce public confidence. An extreme example is invented or plagiarized stories that New York Times reporter Jayson Blair published as factual in the early 2000s. The recent proliferation of "fake" news has severely eroded public confidence.

Explain how the family's stop at Red Sammy's barbecue place and the character of Red Sammy himself are absolutely essential to what happens in the rest of the story. Use one quote from the text.

Red Sammy certainly shares the grandmother's view of the world. One of the first things he says to her is that "You can't win . . . These days you don't know who to trust . . . Ain't that the truth?" A few minutes later, the grandmother agrees, saying that "Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now." Red Sammy reinforces the grandmother's own beliefs about people and how much better they, apparently, used to be. They can, together, "discuss better times." The grandmother is very quick to call Red Sammy "a good man"; she says that is why he gave gas away on credit the other day—he trusts people to do the right thing. She will, later on, be quick to call The Misfit a good man—perhaps too quick. Despite her fastidiously high standards, she is nonetheless fast to apply the term to someone who doesn't seem to be a very good man (Red Sammy, with his flea-ridden monkey, slovenliness, and awful rudeness to his wife) and someone else who is very clearly a criminal (The Misfit, with his gun and henchmen). The grandmother's interaction with Red Sammy seems to make it clear that she really can only communicate effectively with someone who believes (or at least pretends to believe) the same things that she does. There is literally no other character in the story who can stand to converse with her, and The Misfit will be no exception. The grandmother's successful interaction with Red Sammy shows that she really cannot have successful interactions in any other circumstances.

To what does Holden compare Phoebe’s behavior when she finds out that he was expelled from Pencey Prep?

Phoebe's none too impressed with Holden for getting himself kicked out of Pencey Prep. She's probably lost count of the number of schools from which her brother's been expelled, and each time Holden gets his marching orders, she sees this as further proof, if proof were needed, that he just will not grow up.
Holden tries to blag his way out of the situation, blithely telling Phoebe that he'll most probably be sent to military school—if he's still around, of course. But Phoebe turns the conversation back to the matter at hand, which is Holden's immaturity. In response to Holden's claim that he didn't like Pencey Prep, Phoebe challenges him to name one thing that he does like. The fact that Holden can't give a convincing answer—even if he does supply us with the meaning of the book's title—speaks volumes.
Holden's not prepared to take any responsibility whatsoever for his actions. Instead of facing up to the part he's played in getting himself expelled, he compares Phoebe's behavior to that of the members of the Pencey Prep fencing team who ostracized him after he left behind their equipment on the Subway.

How does Andrew Marvel bring out the elements of metaphysical poetry in "To His Coy Mistress"?

Andrew Marvell is known as a Metaphysical poet. A metaphysical poem incorporates strange images, paradoxes, or conceits within a logical or philosophical argument.
One poem which is clearly metaphysical is “To His Coy Mistress.” In it, the speaker attempts to convince his love that they should have sex now while they are still young. He attempts a logical argument to convince her to make the most of their time before they get old and die. He states that if they had all the time in the world, he could spend hundreds of years adoring each part of her. However, he argues, “Time’s winged chariot” is always threatening—they will grow old and die and will spend eternity in a “marble vault.” Therefore, he implores, they must seize the day before “worms shall try/ That long-preserved virginity.” He concludes that although a grave is a private place, it’s not the ideal place for love, so they should now be “amorous birds of prey” and “devour” time.
The speaker attempts to reason with his love that to stay a virgin is a waste of life. However, the images presented are bizarre for a so-called love poem. Thus, Marvell utilizes metaphysical elements to get across his message to make the most of time—carpe diem.

With the exception of Sodapop, what is only Cherry able to get Ponyboy to do?

When Ponyboy initially meets Cherry Valance at the drive-in movies, she is the first Soc member that he actually gets to know, and the two teenagers have an enlightening conversation. Unlike other Soc members, Cherry does not simply judge Ponyboy by his social status and appearance. She is an authentic person who listens intently as Ponyboy recounts the time that Johnny got beat up by a group of Socs. After Pony tells his story, Cherry provides Ponyboy with insight into the nature of the Soc gang. She tells Ponyboy that "things are rough all over," and he gains valuable insights into the lives of his rival gang members (Hinton 31).
Cherry Valance also gets Ponyboy to talk about Soda's horse, Mickey Mouse. Ponyboy mentions that he has never told anyone about Mickey Mouse and is surprised that he is so open with Cherry. Similar to Sodapop, Cherry Valance is able to make Ponyboy feel comfortable enough to speak about difficult moments in his life, like witnessing Sodapop lose his beloved horse.

How is Jane treated unjustly as a child at Gateshead?

At Gateshead, Mrs. Reed always favors her own three children, Eliza, John, and Georgiania, over the poor relation Jane Eyre. John, especially, torments Jane many times a day, but Mrs. Reed pretends she doesn't see it. As Jane explains:

I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.

Events come to a head when John throws a book at Jane, which causes her head to hit the door and start bleeding. Completely fed up with the abuse, Jane attacks John and is punished by being locked in the Red Room. In the Red Room, Jane wonders, Why is she, who always she tries so hard to do what is right, always treated badly? She knows Mrs. Reed dislikes her, and the servants favor the Reed children. She realizes this because they have nothing in common, and she realizes that she doesn't like them any more than they like her. But she also recognizes that if she could have been more like them, she wouldn't have been abused:

I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.

Does Hamlet truly love Ophelia?

It behooves us to delve a bit deeper into the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia near the end of Act III, Scene 1 because the word "love" is used in such explosive terms. Hamlet can be seen to use love as an actual weapon here against Ophelia (whether or not we believe Hamlet truly did show love toward Ophelia in the past, or whether it was her own delusion). Ophelia has admitted in the past that Hamlet did give her "many tenders of affection" and now admits that she thought Hamlet was in love with her because she says, "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so." Now, knowing this, remember that Hamlet has vowed to "put an antic disposition on." How could Hamlet be doing this in these lines? In line 115, Hamlet proclaims, "I did love you once," but in line 119, Hamlet proclaims, "I loved you not." Now, is Hamlet doing a good job at acting crazy by proclaiming one thing and then proclaiming the polar opposite, or has Hamlet actually gone insane? It is up to the audience (and in some cases the director) to decide. Keep in mind, though, that Hamlet's reasoning for acting crazy was to figure out whether Claudius actually killed Hamlet's father and, if so, to avenge his death. One has to wonder what Ophelia has to do with this. Yes, Hamlet knows that Ophelia has agreed to follow her father's advice and not pursue a relationship with Hamlet anymore. Hamlet knows that Ophelia is, by obeying her father, kind of "spying" on him (and in the worst case scenario, betraying him). Does messing with this young girl's emotions bring Hamlet any closer to killing Claudius and avenging dad's death? Let's examine one more admission by Hamlet before deciding.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. . . Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad.
Is Hamlet simply calling Ophelia "two-faced"? In other words, is she acting one way to her father and another to Hamlet himself? Did this realization make Hamlet angry, or is Hamlet admitting his own insanity by suggesting that Ophelia's behavior has driven him "mad"? There is no right or wrong answer here. Either point can be proven. Scholars continue to disagree. One thing is for sure, however: this part of the text lends itself very well to the theme of appearance vs. reality.

Why would cells need to break down old mitochondria?

Cells need to break down old mitochondria because they have passed their usefulness. A cell has limited space and resources because they are extremely tiny. So, when mitochondria are no longer able to efficiently produce energy, they have to be removed so that the cell can have its space back and its resources to produce more energy.
The cell will cannibalize the mitochondria and use the atoms and constituent parts to repair damage it has experienced or to build new cellular structures. Cells are incredibly efficient; if they weren't, it would be a lot more difficult for complex life to arise from them. Because of this, they need to be able to recycle and reuse as much as they can. Breaking down and reprocessing mitochondria allows them to create new structures as well as clear out areas in the cell that clog up transport, take up useable area, and burden the cell in terms of energy expenditure.

What crisis did Mark face? How did Jennings help?

Mark is one of the first people that Jennings meets at the foster home. When Mark is being bullied, Jennings stands up for him and helps to find a more permanent solution than simply ignoring the boy.
At night in the foster home, the adults take the children's toys away, including stuffed animals. The children have to line up to get them back in the morning. As they wait, Butch comes in and starts mocking them for lining up for stuffed animals; he then zeroes in on Mark.
He tells Mark that he can't believe a stuffed animal can fit in bed with him. He mocks him until Mark leaves the line and then mocks him for leaving the line. Other children also leave the line. Jennings decides he's had enough and leaps onto Butch's back, attacking the boy. He knocks him to the floor and hits him several times before Butch gathers himself enough to retaliate; he hits Jennings, and the supervisor finally pulls them apart and smacks them both.
For Butch, Mark is an easy target because he's a chubby, quiet boy with glasses who doesn't stand up for himself. He tries to get through his time in the foster home by keeping his head down and not causing problems. However, this reaction just makes it easy for Butch to keep using him as an emotional punching bag. Jennings stands up for Mark and creates a reason for Butch to stop bullying the boy.
Just before Butch starts mocking Mark again, Mark tells Jennings not to play with him. He tries to put space between them so that they won't care about each other. Despite the unspoken kids' rule that they can't have friends in the home, the boys do end up becoming friends. In a way, this is another crisis that Jennings helps Mark with—he feels like he has no one, and then he has Jennings.
Mark comes to where Jennings is resting with Doggie, Jennings's stuffed animal. He decided not to get his own so he could give Jennings what he wanted. He tells Jennings that maybe it isn't smart, but they're going to be friends.

Evaluate "A Vanity of Human Wishes" by Samuel Johnson as a satire.

Johnson's most famous poem is a satire, and is explicitly modeled on the tenth satire of the Latin poet Juvenal. Yet, if we look closely at Johnson's technique, it appears different from that of the other writers from his period (and slightly earlier)—Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope—who were considered the chief satirists of the age, and also differs from other works we typically regard as the best examples of satire.
Usually, a satire uses devices such as irony and allegory to get its points across. For instance, in "A Modest Proposal," Swift uses a persona who literally expresses the opposite view to the point Swift is making about the extreme poverty of Ireland and the callousness of the British ruling class about it. In a much different style, Pope in The Rape of the Lock ironically uses both the language and background trappings associated with epic poetry to describe the trivial and silly goings-on among fashionable young people of his own time.
In both of these cases, there is a deliberate distancing of the writer's surface style from the underlying message, and though the intention is a grim and angry one (for Swift especially, concerning the outrage over human folly), the overall effect is darkly comical.
In "The Vanity of Human Wishes," Johnson presents his critique of mankind in a much more straightforward manner. He enumerates one instance after another of human folly, but does so literally, as if his intention is to tell "just the facts":

Enlarge my life with multitude of days,
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays,
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know,
That life protracted is protracted woe.

Obviously there is nothing comic about this, even grimly comic: it's just grim. It does not give us an ironic account of the unpleasant features of "protracted" life, but instead makes a literal statement about it.
Johnson was a deeply pessimistic man. The same was true of Swift, but Swift was possessed by a rebellious, anarchic tendency expressed in an outrageous style in the works for which he is best known. Johnson holds mankind up to ridicule, but in a more sober way—which some might say makes his message at least as powerful if not more so.

What societal and internal conflicts does Cal have in trying to determine his sexual identity?

In 2002, Jeffery Eugenides wrote the novel Middlesex, which became a best seller and Pulitzer Prize winner. The narrative follows the narrator and protagonist Callie or "Cal" Stephanides, who has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which causes him to have some female characterizes. This is commonly referred to as an intersex condition, typically brought about by incest, which was depicted in the relationship between Callie’s grandparents, who are siblings, and Cal’s parents, who are cousins. This Bildungsroman novel contains multiple allusions to Greek mythology.
Since Callie appears to the outside world to be female, she is raised traditionally as a young woman. After an accident puts her in the hospital, the intersex condition is revealed, and Callie changes her name to Cal and runs away from Detroit to San Francisco to live as a man.
Cal experiences a rebirth of sorts when he changes his gender identity. This internal conflict is summarized when he says:

I never felt out of place being a girl, I still don't feel entirely at home among men.

From a societal perspective, Cal was forced to combat the social constructs associated with gender. Dr. Luce classifies Cal as having a female gender identity because of a home video that shows Cal nursing a doll.
Society likes to create boxes to compartmentalize ideas like gender identity. This idea is reinforced when Cal looks up “hermaphrodite” in the dictionary and the entry includes “See synonyms at MONSTER.”

Cal is an intersex person—someone with mixed sexual characteristics that does not fit a definition of either male or female—with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. Thus, by nature, Cal has both male and female characteristics. Biologically, he is of both sexes (in certain ways), but society fails to recognize the nuance of this sexual status. Though the condition exists, doctors, as well as the parents of sexually ambiguous children, often make judgement calls as to the sex of these babies at the time they are born. Rarely does society acknowledge the complexity of a mixed gender person's identity, as such a person clashes with our traditional view of human beings as being either male or female. This is at the heart of Cal’s conflict as he struggles to embrace who he is.
Cal’s challenge is not to choose between being male or female; though this is the choice society has conditioned him to believe he has to make. Instead, however, his challenge is to unify both male and female parts of himself, as that is the only way he can embrace his true identity. Intersex people are often pressured to conform to the world by living as one sex, but Cal is an anomaly and has to remain true to himself. He does not fit the definition of “normal” as defined by society, which makes the task of accepting himself much more difficult than it would be if he were clearly male or female. Cal lived as Callie, a female, for a long time, and he understands deep down that it is impossible for him to shed that part of his life as though he had lived it as a mistake.

Why has history lied about the true discoverer of America?

Christopher Columbus is often considered the "discoverer" of North America, even though his voyages brought him to the Caribbean. However, Columbus was not the first European to visit North America, as there is evidence of early Viking settlements there. One can go even farther back to find evidence of the first humans of North America as they arrived from Asia and Polynesia. These people should be considered the true discoverers of North America, as they arrived and developed major civilizations and trade routes independent of any Europeans.
One reason that history has presented the Columbus narrative is that Columbus was a staunch Catholic, and history writers have presented the Western European–centric narrative of history as an inarguable fact for a long time. The Vikings were Western Europeans as well, but they were not Christians at the time of contact with North America. It has been only recently that Native American history has been seriously studied by anthropologists and historians, and Native Americans' cultural contributions have finally begun to be appreciated by scholars and mainstream readers. Charles C. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus is a good example of modern scholarship on North America before Columbus.

Where did the Ghost of Christmas Past take Scrooge in A Christmas Carol?

The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge out of the city and to a country road, to the place where Scrooge was born and raised. They walk together along the road, towards a "little market-town," where there is a bridge, a church, and a river. They then leave the road and follow a lane which leads towards a red brick mansion, "with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it." Inside the mansion, there are offices in a state of disrepair. The windows are broken and the gates "decayed." There are stables outside and sheds "overrun with grass."
Inside the mansion they find a "bare, melancholy room," filled with lines of desks, and at one of the desks a boy reading near a small fire. The boy is Scrooge's past self, and this building used to be his old boarding school.
After the school, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to the city—specifically, back to the warehouse where Scrooge, as a young man, was apprenticed. It is Christmas Eve, and his employer, Mr. Fezziwig, treats all the workers to a "domestic ball." After the ball, Scrooge's fiancée, Belle, ends their relationship when she realizes that he is more concerned with money than he is with her.
The next place that Scrooge is taken to is a noisy, homely room, where he sees a happy family playing and laughing together. The scene is "tumultuous" but very happy and loving. Scrooge learns that this is the life that Belle went on to lead after she left him. At this point, Scrooge pleads with the ghost to show him nothing more.

In Things Fall Apart, why did the medicine man drag the corpse of the dead ogbanje child into the Evil Forest?

The reason behind this action is the Igbo belief that an ogbanje is a child who continues to return. Ekwefi, Okonkwo's wife, had nine babies who died as infants. The ogbanje is called a repeating child, meaning that the same child comes back after death then re-enters their mother's womb and is born again.
One solution to prevent this from happening was to dispose of the dead child's corpse away from society, often in the forest. The healer Okagbue had determined after her birth that Ezinma, the girl who survived, was an ogbanje and recommended they dig up her buried spirit stone, which Okonkwo did. Although her parents worry about her ill health, they are convinced she will stay alive.

How are the rhythms of life on the island different from what the other boys are used to?

In chapter four of Lord of the Flies, "Painted Faces and Long Hair," Golding provides a great deal of detail about the rhythm of the island that has become a way of life for the boys, indicating that they have been living on the island for a significant amount of time. The boys have managed to adjust to life on the island, as is demonstrated be the line, "the northern European tradition of work, play, and food right through the day, made it possible for them to adjust themselves wholly to this new rhythm." However, while the boys are adjusting to this life, the rhythm of the island comes with many struggles. The midday heat and sun caused a great deal of struggle for the boys because it would create mirages out on the water, causing the boys to question what they were seeing. The sunset and beginning of night created another set of difficulties for the boys, as they were restless and had a great deal of trouble getting any significant sleep. Fears of what was beyond the huts created a climate that made it impossible for the boys to truly rest.
The life of the island was a particular struggle for the groups of youngest boys generally referred to as "littluns." This group of littluns is the youngest of the boys on the island, and they are often left to fend for themselves on the island while the bigger boys focus on what they believe to be more pressing issues. The littluns struggle with physical issues of diarrhea, and emotional issues of fear on the island. The lack of adults on the island means that these young boys do not have anyone to comfort them and assuage their fears in the night. While they learn to rely on each other, it is still a difficult adjustment for the boys on the island.

Which friend warns Gulliver about the dangers of Lilliput?

One night, a court official pays a clandestine visit to Gulliver. He tells him that two of the Lilliputian Emperor's advisers—Skyresh Bolgolam, the high-admiral, and Flimnap, the high-treasurer—are plotting to have him arrested, tried, and executed. Technically speaking, Gulliver is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors—treason, no less—for urinating on the royal palace. Of course, Gulliver only relieved himself on the palace to put out a large fire; he thought he was doing the right thing. But his enemies at court have seized on this as a pretext for destroying him. They're fiercely jealous of Gulliver for his leading role in the defeat of the Blefuscans and want to get back some of the power and influence they believe he has taken away from them.

How was the British policy of salutary neglect good for both the British King and the American colonies?

Britain's unwritten and unofficial policy of relaxing trade regulations on its colonies, which became known as salutary neglect, did indeed have a positive effect on both sides of the Atlantic. In the 1720s, when Parliament decided to relax enforcement of the Navigation Acts, the colonists began to trade more in non-British goods and with non-British entities. This allowed a flowering in a trade that was technically illegal, but mostly unenforced.
Without the restrictions of the Navigation Acts, the American colonies prospered as more money from commerce flowed in. Merchants from the colonies would trade directly with the French, Dutch, and sometimes the Spanish, bypassing English middlemen. It opened up the possibility to trade in a wider array of raw materials and goods with a more diverse range of parties. This was a boon for the economy of the colonies, particularly in the trading hubs of New England.
This relaxation of trade restrictions ended up benefiting England as well. With more wealth in the colonies, the colonists were able to spend their money on more British goods and products. Ironically, allowing the colonists to trade with non-British entities resulted in a more profitable trade with Britain.
A further benefit of salutary neglect for Britain was that they stopped spending the resources on enforcing the Navigation Acts. Smuggling became profitable almost immediately after the Navigation Acts were put in place. Effectively combating this took up a considerable amount of resources. By easing enforcement, the British were able to focus their attention on important matters closer to home.
https://historyofmassachusetts.org/what-was-the-british-policy-of-salutary-neglect/

how are Mikeys mother and father portrayed in the novel? How do they change? How does the portrayal of each one relate to the issue of class consciousness?

Mike’s mother and father have different relationships to work, money, and capitalism, but both exemplify the class divides that Irwin Granich sees as fundamental to U.S. society.
Katie, the mother, struggles to raise Mike and his sister, Esther. She has a job in a cafeteria as well as caring for the children. When Esther is killed in an accident, hit by a moving company’s truck, the mother becomes despondent. Her grief is so heavy that she can no longer work. When the company offers them money, it only emphasizes their hypocrisy, and she refuses to put a price on her daughter’s life.
Herman, the father, works as a housepainter. He is a solidly working-class man who loses his livelihood from an accidental off a ladder. His quest to find other employment and his attitudes toward the “charitable” organizations that claim to want to help them show his bitterness at the owning class, along with his awareness of anti-Semitism that to some extent parallels class divisions. Although he starts to bend when their daughter is killed, seeing the company responsible as owing them, his wife’s objections win out. Herman continually tries to find a way ahead, but he becomes disillusioned with America altogether, including with the holiday of Thanksgiving.

How does Mrs. Flowers’s lesson change the way Marguerite feels about books and words in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?

Mrs. Flowers is an important part of young Marguerite’s life. This is in large part because she teaches Marguerite firstly to love and respect books and secondly to understand the significance of well-chosen and well-spoken words.
Mrs. Flowers tells Marguerite that she will “accept no excuse if you return a book to me that has been badly handled.” This quotation demonstrates Mrs. Flowers’s understanding that books are precious and deserving of respect. This is an understanding which Marguerite also comes to.
Mrs. Flowers also tells Marguerite that “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of a deeper meaning.” Marguerite comments that this explanation “seemed so valid and poetic.” This advice helps Marguerite to become a sensitive and imaginative reader.
Marguerite says that Mrs. Flowers gave her the “secret word which called forth a djinn who was to serve (her) all (her) life: books.” In other words, Mrs. Flowers taught Marguerite how to love books so that they became almost magical and also dependable. Because of Mrs. Flowers, books became like friends that Marguerite could always turn to for comfort.

Prompt: It is very important to study and understand what has happened in the past because if we do not we will be doomed to repeat it. Provide evidence to either support or refute this claim with evidence and support from The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

The philosopher George Santayana wrote (in The Life of Reason, 1905), "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The main idea of this quote is that the past contains both patterns and valuable lessons. The type of memory Santayana is referring to is what is called "social memory," which includes commemoration through ceremonies, writings, monuments, and even songs. This quote also means that if an effort to effect change does not succeed, the heirs must persevere and innovate until the goal is achieved.
One way Ernest Gaines's novel embodies the saying is by recording the fictional chronicle of Jane Pittman, through the editor's retelling. The idea that one woman's story is worth preserving, especially because she was "ordinary" and she survived the horror of enslavement, bears out the idea of remembering as key to avoid repeating, in this case, the devastating history of a country that practiced slavery.
Another way to approach the theme would be to focus on two characters who live similarly but at different times. Two men who give their lives while fighting for civil rights offer a good example. Ned Douglass personifies an earlier generation of activist, in the 1920s to 1930s, while Jimmy Aron, a generation later, both benefited and departed from Ned's example. Although they both were killed, Miss Jane was inspired by them to continue and take more risks as she got older.

Why do Chauvelin's soldiers not reach the hut earlier? Do they think the Scarlet Pimpernel has escaped with the others? Why?

Percy, who is the Scarlet Pimpernel in disguise, is the main protagonist of the story. He raids the various barricades in France so as to save different aristocrats from being killed. It is for this reason that Chauvelin, the main villain in the novel, hunts him down. In his pursuit of Scarlet Pimpernel into Pere Blanchard's hut, Chauvelin orders his soldiers to stand guard outside and wait for Percy before they can do anything to the fugitives. However, by the time Chauvelin’s men get into the hut, the fugitives are already gone. The soldiers could not have reached the hut earlier, because they had been traveling with Percy, who was disguised as a Jew and had orchestrated the entire plot. He made sure that, by the time the soldiers could get into the hut, the fugitives wouldn't be there. Further, the soldiers are derailed from reaching the hut earlier by their master’s orders to stand guard and wait for Percy before doing anything to the fugitives, who are supposedly in the hut. However, by the time they storm into the hut, the fugitives are already gone. At first, the soldiers think Scarlet Pimpernel has escaped with the rest of the fugitives, but Chauvelin realizes that he had heard Percy’s singing, which means that he would be in the vicinity. His thought is further articulated by a letter left behind by the fugitives, giving them the go-ahead to leave without Percy, as he would meet them at a creek near Chat Gris.