How did they make all the blast-offs look so real?

Most Hollywood films use computer-generated imagery, also known as "cgi" to create special effects such as explosions, large crowd scenes, natural disasters, monsters and more. Prior to the development of sophisticated computer technology and the growth of this art form, movie effects were done with models, prosthetics or editing in post production. The ability of computer generated imagery to imitate realistic phenomena is impressive and although it can be very expensive to create a large amount of such material (because it requires many skilled artists and technicians), most larger budget studio movies in Hollywood use these effects now because they have become fairly standard for the industry.

The special effects in Martian are no exception; the film uses a vast amount of special effects technology to portray the space capsule's flight, crash and movement, as well as the landscape of the planet. Creating realistic effects requires studying the actual events carefully, so artists and designers would have looked at a great deal of footage of space travel and space program missions.

Choose a significant short passage from Fences that captures the essence or theme of this work. You may choose dialogue, a descriptive passage, or a narrative excerpt. First, cite the quote, and then briefly (in one sentence) explain its relevance to the meaning of the work.

There are different passages you could choose from Fences by August Wilson. I picked the passage below as a model for you. In act 1, scene 1, lines 227-229, Troy says the following:

Death ain't nothing. I done seen him. Done wrassled with him. You can't tell me nothing about death. Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner. And you know what I'll do to that!

Though your assignment asks you to summarize how this quote relates to the theme of the play in one sentence, I'll do so in a few sentences.
In this passage, Troy speaks about his relationship with death. He feels that death is something that he can conquer, much like a fastball that he hit as a superlative baseball player in the past. He believes that he will be able to conquer mortality. This passage relates to the themes of the play because Troy tries to keep death at bay but is ultimately unsuccessful in doing so, as he dies by the play's end.

In 300 words, how could the use of information technology help a small business you know be more successful? Provide at least three examples to support your answer.

I am going to respond to your question on a personal level. I have been an entrepreneur and small business owner for several years. In my current capacity, without the assistance of technology, I would not be able to retain my independence or provide the types of services I can provide.
Because of the technology and the internet, I am able to market my services in an exceedingly cost-effective way. My business uses social media, websites, and web-based free advertising to generate prospects. Web searches allow my business to continually find new niche markets and respond to them before larger corporate organizations can respond. Although the playing field is not entirely leveled by the internet, the internet does allow my business to compete with larger organizations and in areas where a large corporation will not go. Marketing and research for new business is one way technology helps me remain viable.
Another way technology has improved my business is through financial transactions. Back in the day, a small business would send an invoice to a customer, the customer would run it through various departments, cut a paper check, and mail it to you. Once it arrived in the mail it would be deposited in the bank, and the bank would hold the funds for up to ten days to make sure the check was legitimate. All in all, it might take forty-five to sixty days before the financial transaction was complete. Meanwhile, expenses have to be paid every day. Believe me when I say the electric company really is not interested in your cash flow problem! With technology, my business can invoice a client and be paid electronically, reducing the time in transit of the funds and making the funds available for use in a matter of days or, in some instances, hours.
The third way technology has improved my business is that I am able to communicate with experts all over the globe. Recently I had an American-based company headquartered in New Jersey that contracted with me to work with a consultant in Poland. Once our collaboration was complete, the finished word was sent to a company in California for presentation to a Japanese-owned firm based in Michigan. All of the transactions and work was completed by e-mail, teleconference, and digital uploads. Pretty cool to be a one-man shop and participate in the global economy!
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/small-businesses-using-big-technology-attract-more-hirees.html

https://www.uschamber.com/report/examining-the-impact-technology-small-business

We won’t write a full essay on the subject, but we can look at three examples to explain how small businesses may benefit from Information Technology. Let’s examine three small, local business examples—a bakery, a toy shop, and a landscaping business.
All three could benefit from a Materials Resource Planning system, but the bakery could especially benefit. Using MRP, they could accurately track inventory and supplies to properly maintain stock and plan for orders. The toy shop could utilize online sales and distribution to increase their market and footprint. This would benefit from a planning system and a strong IT infrastructure. Finally, the landscaping company could use a scheduling program and employee time keeping to properly track their work and plan out jobs in the future. There are numerous ways IT benefits small businesses; these are just a few simple examples.

What actions did President Eisenhower take to address minority rights? Be sure to discuss direct presidential actions as well as legislation he supported. Explain the obstacles he faced in Congress and why he was able to get legislation passed.

Although Eisenhower isn't normally regarded as one of the main figures of the civil rights movement, he initiated the program of civil rights legislation that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Acts Right of 1965 under President Johnson. Eisenhower publicly supported what became the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was designed to ensure that African Americans would be able to exercise their right to vote. Furthermore, the proposed measure aimed to establish a new division within the Justice Department to monitor civil rights abuses.
Though sympathetic to the cause of civil rights, Eisenhower didn't show much in the way of leadership on the issue. Instead, he tended to react to events rather than proactively shaping them. His administration's civil rights policy was largely a response to events in Little Rock, where Eisenhower had deployed federal troops to enforce school desegregation.
Eisenhower's civil rights bill faced a number of serious hurdles before it could pass through Congress. Both houses of Congress were controlled by the Democrats, many of whom were white supremacist Southerners deeply hostile to any kind of civil rights legislation, no matter how modest its aims. Ironically, it was Lyndon Johnson, then the Majority Leader in the Senate, and later to become the champion of civil rights as President, who helped to prevent the Eisenhower administration from getting the Civil Rights Bill passed in its original form. Johnson knew that there was a real danger that the bill could split his party right down the middle—between the white supremacist Southerners and the more liberal Democrats on the East and West Coasts. So he used his party's control of Congress to water down the administration's proposals without blocking them altogether.
In its heavily-diluted form, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 still aimed to increase the number of African American voters. But thanks to Johnson and other white Southern Democrats in Congress, the enforcement mechanisms for achieving this aim were so weak as to be almost worthless. Anyone found guilty of depriving a citizen of his or her voting rights would be required to face an all-white jury—as only white people could serve on juries in the South—virtually guaranteeing that they would be acquitted. Eisenhower didn't help his own case by publicly admitting that he didn't understand certain provisions of the Act. For their part, most leading figures of the civil rights movement were scathing, dismissing the Act as at best a missed opportunity and at worst a total sham. Nevertheless, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was hugely symbolic, not least because it was the first such act in 82 years.

Did the struggles and changes of the 1960s make the United States more or less democratic?

In the 1960s, the United States became more democratic. It abolished poll taxes and made it a federal crime to prevent people from voting. This led to increased African American voter turnout and a crackdown on the power of the Ku Klux Klan throughout the country.
Television started to become more controversial and welcomed a broader array of opinions. News satire shows started mocking political leaders—something that would have been taboo a generation earlier. Television shows started portraying more African Americans in important roles as well. This would continue into the 1970s and beyond. The coverage of the Vietnam War was quite extensive. For the first time, Americans could watch the war on a nightly basis. When Americans viewed the Tet Offensive, many of them turned against Johnson and the Vietnam War.
Music started to inform people in addition to entertaining. Groups such as Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, and Nash used their music to reach their audience with antiwar messages. While there have been other political singers in the nation's past, those from the 1960s are considered some of the most important to the musical history of the United States.
Finally, protest movements started to capture the youth of America. People formed clubs in college in order to agitate for social change and an end to war. This would eventually lead to the voting age being lowered to eighteen; the logic was that if one was old enough to be drafted, one was old enough to determine whether or not the nation should go to war.
The 1960s were a time of tragedy and uncertainty, but the nation became more democratic as a result. The media became more open, and more people gained a voice to speak out against what they viewed as wrong.

What is Macbeth's plan to take the throne?

In act I of Macbeth, the witches awaken Macbeth’s desire for power. There is no indication that Macbeth had plans to attempt to seize the throne prior to hearing the witches’ predictions, but Macbeth may have secretly or subconsciously wanted to become king. Once Macbeth is named Thane of Cawdor, as the witches predicted, he is fully invested in the rest of their prophecy, even though he appears to have no plans to hasten his own rise to power. “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me / without my stir,” he says.
When Macbeth informs his wife of the witches’ predictions, however, she takes charge of planning Duncan’s assassination, which will occur when the king visits Macbeth’s castle. Lady Macbeth also considers the need for the cover-up after the murder. Macbeth halfheartedly attempts to stop the plan, but Lady Macbeth chides him for his weakness and he relents.
Macbeth is present when Duncan speaks of his plan to have his older son, Malcolm, succeed him to the throne. When Duncan bestows the title of Prince of Cumberland on Malcolm, Macbeth realizes that Malcolm will be an obstacle that must be overcome, and he appears willing to take whatever steps are necessary to become king.
Once Duncan is murdered, Malcolm and his brother Donalbain take the prudent measure of fleeing the country to avoid being killed themselves. Macbeth may have wavered earlier, but once Duncan is assassinated, Macbeth is fully committed to becoming and remaining king. His rise to power is bloody, and he continues to fight all who oppose him. In the end, of course, Macbeth learns that the witches’ prophecies have been half-truths, and his own life is ended in the play’s final battle.

Macbeth's plan focuses on murdering Duncan, but he also has to get rid of Duncan's two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, who are next in line to the throne. Duncan has already named Malcolm as his heir.
One theory is that Macbeth did plan to kill the two men, who were sleeping in the room next door to their father, but he was interrupted by hearing a voice. His initial plan was to murder everybody, smear the servants with blood so that they looked like the perpetrators, and go back to bed, but instead, he ends up having to pretend he discovered Duncan's murder.
When Malcolm and Donalbain realize their father has been killed, they decide it is safest to flee immediately to foreign countries for safety: they expect to be murdered next. Their flight plays into Macbeth's hand, because it raises suspicions that they killed their father. As MacDuff says,

Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons, Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them Suspicion of the deed.

Macbeth, who is Duncan's "cousin," apparently is next in line, because he is made king.

Macbeth has no reason to assume he could become king simply by assassinating Duncan. In fact, when the Three Witches suggest it, he says such a “prospect” is out of the question.
By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis. But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives A prosperous gentleman, and to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor (Act I, Scene 3).
The main reason Macbeth thinks his prospect of becoming king is infinitely remote is that Duncan has two sons who are both quite properly ahead of him in the line of succession. When Duncan proclaims Malcolm the Prince of Cumberland, it is a guarantee that the elder son will be king after Duncan. If anything should happen to Malcolm, there is still Donalbain to become heir apparent. This raises the unavoidable question of why Macbeth does not plan to kill Duncan, Malcolm, and Donalbain all on the same night. To put it another way, what can Macbeth hope to achieve if he kills Duncan and leaves the sons alive?
Shakespeare could not avoid the problem altogether. His audience would naturally be wondering what Macbeth intended to do about the sons. Act I, Scene 4 has the only hint. Macbeth says to himself,
The Prince of Cumberland. That is a step On which I must fall down or else o’erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
What these cryptic words suggest is that Shakespeare wanted to give his audience some assurance. Macbeth realizes he has to do something about Duncan's sons and has plans to dispose of them, but does not want to think about it at this point. Macbeth does not like murdering a couple of young boys in their beds, but he believes that is what he is going to have to do after taking care of their father. It is hard enough for Macbeth to commit that one awful murder, as we see, but to have to think about committing three murders in one night is more than his mind or conscience can handle.
As it turns out, Macbeth had to retreat to his bedchamber after killing the King. He could not have killed the sons, if that is what he intended to do, because he had something like a nervous breakdown after committing the first atrocity. To his credit, he is not a cold-blooded killer. He could not just go from chamber to chamber killing off an entire family. Furthermore, he imagined he heard a voice shouting loud enough to wake the entire castle.
Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
Still it cried “Sleep no more!” to all the house. “Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more” (Act II, Scene 2).
A few lines later, there begins the terrible knocking at the gate, which Thomas De Quincey discusses in his famous essay. There are at least three reasons why Macbeth cannot murder Malcolm and Donalbain, assuming that was what he intended to do:
He loses his nerve.
He thinks he hears a loud voice crying “Sleep no more!” to all the house—which is the same as crying “Wake up, everybody!”
There is a knocking at the gate which goes on and on until the drunken Porter finally opens it in the next scene; and Macbeth—far from being able to murder two young men who may already be awake, far from being able to pretend to have been asleep in bed while Duncan was being murdered—is forced to put in a personal appearance and conduct Macduff and Lennox to the scene of the crime.
Macbeth has no way of foreseeing that Malcolm and Donalbain would decide to flee for their lives, enabling him to pin their father’s murder on them. Their decision is plausible because they suspect there may be a widespread conspiracy against them involving many of the assembled thanes. They are certainly right to think their lives are in danger. They don’t know how close they may have come to being killed in their sleep.

Where does Jane go to school?

When her horrible aunt, Mrs. Reed, determines to send Jane away to school, Jane leaves to attend Lowood, under the administration of Mr. Brocklehurst. Mrs. Reed believes that Jane is a wicked child, despite the fact that it really is herself and her own children (Jane's cousins) who are wicked. Mrs. Reed wants Jane to be humbled and to remain at school for all her vacations, and she wants her brought up in a way that suits the little girl's prospects in life: in a word, she wants Jane brought up to expect little by way of compassion and a great deal by way of work. She claims that Jane is too passionate and seems to desire to see Jane's spirit broken. Luckily, Jane does meet with some kindness at Lowood.

What can the reader infer about Montresor’s social position and character from hints in the text of "The Cask of Amontillado"?

In the classic tale of revenge and horror "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator Montresor lures his victim Fortunato, who has committed some sort of real or imagined wrong against him, into the dark catacombs, where he leaves him chained there in an underground tomb.
The story's text carries numerous hints that Montresor's social position is that of a privileged person, a rich man, and a nobleman. For instance, Montresor says that he collects wines. He writes: "I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could." He is wealthy enough to have attendants at his home, and he orders them to remain there in his absence, although he knows they will disobey. He speaks of walking through several suites of rooms before arriving at the entrance to the underground vaults, indicating that the house is quite large. It's evident that he is a nobleman because he has catacombs under his house that he refers to as "the catacombs of the Montresors." Only aristocratic families would have private catacombs that hold the remains of their ancestors.
While they are underground, Montresor also tells Fortunato that the Montresors were a great and numerous family. They have their own coat of arms, which is another indication of aristocracy. "A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded in the heel."
As for Montresor's character, he is obviously psychotic and deranged. He leads his companion into the catacombs, buries him alive, and manifests no remorse for what he has done. The only motivation he gives for the gruesome murder is found in the first sentence: "When he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge." He pretends to be a cheerful friend while using the cask of Amontillado as bait to lure Fortunato to his death. He makes it clear that he contemplated the deed and planned it out long before the execution.
His sinister and devious character is also evident in the way that he pretends to try to convince Fortunato to leave the vaults when he begins to cough, knowing that he will not agree. Finally, after Montresor chains Fortunato in his dungeon and begins to brick up the entrance, instead of feeling any compassion, he mocks Fortunato's pleas for mercy. Montresor writes: "My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so." In other words, if he feels any remorse at all, he covers it up by attributing it to his surroundings and not to his emotions.

Compare the writing styles of John Steinbeck in The Harvest Gypsies and Upton Sinclair in The Jungle and explain how each author was effective in his own way. (PROVIDE direct evidence from the texts!)

While Upton Sinclair's groundbreaking novel, The Jungle, is a work of fiction, it has the journalistic quality of Steinbeck's newspaper column series, "The Harvest Gypsies." In fact, literary and history scholars view The Jungle as a detailed reportage of the urban working-class in major cities like Chicago. It also documented the appalling working conditions in factories and other manufacturing entities born directly out of the Industrial Revolution. Despite being a novel, The Jungle would directly lead to congressional inquiries and, eventually, laws regarding labor and industrial health regulations in the United States (e.g. Meat Inspection Act).
It is similar to "The Harvest Gypsies" in that both works document the working conditions of lower-class Americans during the early 20th century. Steinbeck's journalistic series focused on the Midwest and West Coast agrarian economies, particularly migrants from states like Oklahoma who found work in the Central Valley and Lower Colorado River Valley regions of California.
Since "The Harvest Gypsies" was a journalistic series, Steinbeck's tone and style is reportage, while Upton Sinclair had the literary freedom to explore creative techniques in his storytelling. Steinbeck's experience as a journalist would later directly inspire his literary work, namely The Grapes of Wrath, which features characters similar to the migrants he documented in "The Harvest Gypsies."
Despite their differing genres, both writers were effective in documenting their subject matter because of their detached perspective. Sinclair and Steinbeck are similar to ethnographers conducting field work on a particular culture, which in their case were people of the American lower working-class.
Another prominent difference between the two works is that Sinclair's novel contained highly-political commentary. This is due to Upton Sinclair's socialist background. In The Jungle, Sinclair acerbically writes, "The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie."
Since Steinbeck was employed as a reporter for The San Francisco News, he was constrained from making blatantly subjective statements such as those found in The Jungle. Steinbeck was also fond of exploring the philosophical and psychological elements of human behavior. Even in a journalistic text, Steinbeck writes in one of the "Harvest Gypsies" articles:

And if these men steal, if there is developing among them a suspicion and hatred of well-dressed, satisfied people, the reason is not to be sought in their origin nor in any tendency to weakness in their character.

While Sinclair was a political activist dressed up as a novelist, Steinbeck was more of an armchair philosopher. However, both writers explored the corruption of human nature by socioeconomic forces such as capitalism.

How do chapters 5 and 6 start? What is the effect?

Both chapters open in similar ways, setting the scene with description and then locating Lennie in the scene. In chapter five, Steinbeck describes the peaceful quiet of a Sunday afternoon with the light shining in through slats of the barn. We realize that Lennie is alone here, with the other men outside playing horseshoes. The four-taloned Jackson fork dangling overhead produces a slight sense of menace. The feeling of foreboding grows as the "camera," so to speak, zooms in on a worried Lennie with dead puppy.
Chapter six also begins with description of a peaceful, quiet scene, this time back at the pond where Lennie and George first started. Again, a sense of foreboding is established as we watch a heron catch and eat a snake. Lennie appears as a natural creature, coming up to the pool like a "creeping bear" and drinking water. As in chapter five, he is worried that George will be angry with him.
The effect of both openings is to set Lennie apart, associating him more with animals, creatures of nature, than other human beings. Both openings, despite the peaceful, quiet settings, raise a sense of unease about what is going to happen to Lennie.

I need an essay for the similarities in "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates.

On first glance, these two stories are not obviously similar, so I can understand your having difficulties in formulating an essay. However, if we look more closely, we can find several points of comparison.
1. The two stories share a broad time period. James Baldwin wrote "Sonny's Blues" in 1957, but it continued to be anthologized as a relevant and timely story throughout the sixties, an era of significant cultural change in the United States and worldwide—particularly for minority communities. Oates's story was written in 1966, and it is set in a similar era of swift change.
2. Both stories focus on the difficulties faced by people marginalized by society during this time. Baldwin's narrator is a young black man who has managed to make a career for himself despite all the odds stacked against him by society and the place where he grew up. Oates's narrator is a teenage girl who is now facing difficulties in a world in which sexual morals are changing but she still very much does not hold the balance of power.
3. Both stories draw a contrast between the "solid" older sibling, as Oates describes June, and the malleable younger one. In both stories, the two siblings grow up in identical circumstances, but where one is able to become a responsible adult, the other is lured into a dark situation. In Oates's story, the situation is really not of Connie's own making; she is a victim of the fact that she, a young girl, cannot offer physical resistance to an older man who wants to bend her to his will. In Baldwin's, there is arguably some element of blame in Sonny himself for his own situation, but he has clearly been influenced by outside pressure. In each story, then, we can see an example of one person who is corrupted by a challenging environment, and one person who has somehow managed to escape it. In Baldwin's story, the reliable sibling is the narrator, and we witness his point of view. In Oates's, the point of view is that of the corrupted younger sibling.
4. Both stories have an ambiguous ending. At the end of "Sonny's Blues," although there is a moment of uplifting hope in the blues club, it is not at all clear what will become of Sonny. The same is true at the end of Oates's story—we are not told what will be the ultimate outcome for Connie. Both stories leave us feeling the same uncertainty that the characters in the stories have felt, growing up in the environments they inhabit.

What are the current reforms being made in education? How are changes in educational reform managed?

This is a relatively broad question, so I’ll narrow my focus on national education reform.
Since the dawn of free public education for all, reformers have voiced the need for changes within the education system. Most recently, the biggest pushes for reform have been in accountability measures. What this means is that teachers must be evaluated according to their students’ performance on a variety of standardized, norm-referenced tests. This has led to an increase in professional evaluation programs for public school teachers as well as student performance ratings that are attached to a teacher’s record.
Along with teacher accountability, students are also being held increasingly accountable. From the Common Core state standards push to Obama’s “Race to the Top” program, there has been a nationwide push for schools to teach a standardized set of skills regardless of place, ability level, socioeconomic status, sex, or race. This is usually tied to funding for public schools: those whose students perform well on assessments are given financial incentives.
Currently, the Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos is pushing for more local control for school districts, loosening some of the provisions of existing laws like NCLB, and school choice—which includes taxpayer funded vouchers that students may use to attend a school of their own choosing, including a private or charter school.
On the national level, reforms are typically carried out via legislative action, which involves lobbyists who advocate for various reforms or causes. The Department of Education is responsible for implementing and monitoring the progress of any legislative reforms.

Name at least three issues or ideas which were important in the age of Realism (the 19th century).

The age of realism, particularly in literature, was focused on several issues. As people became more aware the plight of other individuals and the lives of those in other nations, there was a push for art to more realistically reflect people's real lives.
Facing a world that was quickly modernizing and becoming more diverse, the writers of this era wanted more representation different walks of life—which is why many stories during this era focused on the lives of the impoverished or people in far away countries. Prior to this time, stories of this nature were more rare.
A second important issue of the age was a growing opposition to idealization. Traditionally, it was common in art for certain elements to be romanticized or idealized, made better or more picturesque, but realist writers eschewed this tendency. For example, there was nothing idealistic about Oliver Twist begging for food in the poor house.
Two other concerns of artists in this period were Social Darwinism and politics. Most literature prior to the age of realism avoided making overt political statements or talking about the plight of the impoverished—in fact, people historically blamed the poor for being poor. Now, however, writers began to focus on the larger social circumstances that had driven so many people to poverty, and they used their art to question the political and social forces that made life difficult for ordinary individuals.

How does Schlegel distinguish between Romantic and Classic?

As an arch-Romantic, August Schlegel attacked the prevailing school of Neo-classicism on a number of grounds. For one thing, it was devoted to an aesthetic of mimesis, that is to say, it held that art should represent and reflect the objective world instead of expressing the inner state of the individual artist. Schlegel also argued that Neo-classicism was overly dependent on formal rules, ignoring the spontaneity which he, and other Romantics, fervently believed was an essential element in the creation of truly original works of art.
To Schlegel, the formal rules of composition so beloved of the Neo-classicists were stifling and restrictive, treating works of art as machines that needed to be constructed according to a precise blueprint. As an alternative, Schlegel advanced the notion that a work of art was more like an organism, developing according to its own inner logic of growth. Schlegel held up Shakespeare as a forerunner of the new Romantic paradigm. Neo-classical critics had often castigated Shakespeare for his lack of fidelity to the venerable rules and conventions of drama, such as those devised by Aristotle. Yet Schlegel commended Shakespeare for his spontaneity, his imagination, and for creating his own rules, all the key elements that, in his eyes, distinguished a Romantic work of art from a Neo-classical one.

How do the rumors about Gatsby affect his image and reputation?

When Nick finally attends his first party at Gatsby's palatial home, he finds that rumors about his neighbor abound.
Two of the girls at the party who know Jordan Baker say that Gatsby killed a man, after which news Nick records that

A thrill passed over all of us.

Another person at the party states that Gatsby was a German spy during World War I, while someone else insists he was in the American army. Jordan later offers a rumor, which she says she doesn't believe, that Gatsby attended Oxford.
In chapter four, Nick hears that Gatsby is a bootlegger and a nephew of von Hindenburg. Because the rumors are so varied and so wild, we really have no reliable way of knowing how Gatsby got his fortune and how he is able to throw his lavish, wild parties.
The rumors about Gatsby therefore add a sense of mystery to him and make him seem a figure larger than life.
As Nick notes of Gatsby:

It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him . . .

Not knowing the facts about him adds to his mystique and aura. He seems to have walked off the pages of a romance novel.

Why does Stanley lie to his parents about what he is doing at camp, and what motivated him to do it?

In Louis Sachar’s young adult novel Holes, Stanley Yelants is sentenced to Camp Green Lake: a camp for troubled boys. Stanley explains that the judge offered him the options of jail or camp, so he picked the camp, since he’d never been to a camp before. However, when he arrives, he quickly realizes this isn’t a typical camp. To begin with, Camp Green Lake has no lake. Stanley meets Mr. Sir, who explains the rules of the camp: the boys will get up every morning at 4:30 and go dig holes. He warns Stanley, "If you dig up anything interesting, you are to report it to me or any other counselor," but he doesn’t give any further explanation.
After the first day of digging, Stanley, now called Caveman by the boys, writes his mom a letter about camp. He fills the letter with lies about swimming and making friends. He explains to Zero that he lies because he doesn’t want her to worry. Later, he writes her again, still lying to protect her. This time he to fills the letter with made-up stories about rock climbing so that she believes that Camp Green Lake is a normal camp and that he’s having a great time.

How does the idea of the "grotesque" impact the story?

In meeting Faulkner’s Emily Grierson of Jefferson, Mississippi, one is reminded of several inhabitants of another fictional town—Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, the setting of his book by the same name. In Winesburg, Ohio, Anderson introduces the word “grotesque” to characterize the individuals in the town whose lives have been determined by cruel chance or circumstance, turning them into obsessed, twisted versions of humanity. In a literary essay, “Sherwood Anderson’s Idea of the Grotesque,” critic David D. Anderson alludes to the grotesques of Winesburg as “spiritual cripples, deformed by their inability to distinguish between appearance and reality.” They are “turned in upon themselves, isolated, and alone." The grotesques in Winesburg, Ohio are human beings, the essay points out, who are “worthy of love, of compassion, and of understanding.”
Each of these descriptors captures the character of Emily Grierson, and just as Sherwood Anderson felt compassion for his grotesques, Faulkner evinces sympathy for Miss Emily, robbed of her life by her heritage as a Grierson. Through no fault of her own and despite her early efforts to live a normal life, Emily is isolated in Jefferson. An overbearing father runs off her suitors, consigning her to spinsterhood, and the town, developed as a character in Faulkner’s story, does not relate to her as a fellow human being. Miss Emily’s family name and social status as one of the “high and mighty Griersons” separate her from the ebb and flow of daily life in Jefferson. When her father dies, she clings to his presence in the Grierson family home until she is forced to give up his body, foreshadowing her subsequent obsession with Homer Baron’s corpse. Emily’s having pursued a scandalous romantic relationship with the socially unacceptable Yankee illustrates a desperate need to end her isolation and loneliness, as does her eventual murder of him and continuing possession of his body.
In murdering Homer and sleeping for years beside his decaying corpse, Miss Emily crosses the line between being a grotesque and being a madwoman, but her behavior originates in circumstances that thwart her development as a healthy, fulfilled individual. Like Anderson’s grotesques, Miss Emily struggles to live within the confines of her sad life. She is a twisted spirit whose suffering serves as a subtle subtext in Faulkner’s story.

What seems to be the only thing that is more important to Oliver than money and success?

More than anything else, Oliver craves social respectability. He has the money, he has the success, but the one thing he doesn't have in life is social standing. That explains why this hard-headed businessman, who's crawled his way out of the gutter single-handed, allows himself to be duped by the Duchess, accepting some pearls from her which he knows to be fake.
As Oliver knows full well, so long as he's involved in a business relationship with the Duchess, even if that relationship is based on bad faith and deception, he'll gain an entrée into respectable society, rubbing shoulders with the kind of people he'd never normally get to know on a personal level. And Oliver believes that through his business dealings with the Duchess, the biggest prize of all will soon be well within his grasp: the Duchess's daughter, Diana, whom Oliver hopes to marry, thus crowning his extraordinary rise to the very top of the social ladder.

How does Lorraine Hansberry make the pages 91, 92, 93, 94 and 95 (Act 2, scene 1) so significant?

In the last part of Act 2, Scene 1, Mama announces that she has bought a house and that they will move on the first of the month. Just before she enters, Walter and Ruth are arguing, worrying, and commiserating about the problems they are facing. Walter has his heart set on using his father’s insurance money—although the money rightly belongs to his mother—to open a liquor store.
Hansberry heightens the effect by having Mama slowly build up to the fact that the house is in a white neighborhood. Mama finally reveals this by telling them first the neighborhood and then the exact street address. Ruth and Walter are stunned. Walter is initially speechless while Ruth puts both their feelings into words.

MAMA (Frightened at this telling) Well—well—it’s out there in Clybourne Park—
(RUTH’S radiance fades abruptly, and WALTER finally turns slowly to face his mother with incredulity and hostility)
RUTH Where?
MAMA (Matter-of-factly) Four o six Clybourne Street, Clybourne Park.
RUTH Clybourne Park? Mama, there ain’t no colored people living in Clybourne Park.
MAMA (Almost idiotically) Well, I guess there’s going to be some now.

While Mama has seemed the most conventional character in the play, almost a stereotype of the long-suffering, supportive Black mother figure, she turns out to be the person who has taken the boldest move, in making her whole family the wedge that will integrate the neighborhood.
Ruth immediately comes around and crows her jubilation at this change, addressing the apartment itself:

All I can say is—if this is my time in life—MY TIME—to say good-bye …to these goddamned cracking walls!... then I say it loud and good, HALLELUJAH! AND GOOD-BYE MISERY… I DONT NEVER WANT TO SEE YOUR UGLY FACE AGAIN!

Walter cannot hide his anger, and after Ruth exits speaks rudely and disrespectfully to his mother, who tries to explain why her decision is best for the family. Accusing her of butchering his dream, he storms out.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/74861/a-raisin-in-the-sun-by-lorraine-hansberry/9780679755333/

When Montresor offers the medic wine to Fortunato, what is the reason he gives for wanting the other man to drink?

Shortly after Montresor convinces Fortunato to follow him into the depths of his family's extensive catacombs, Fortunato comments on the nitre, which is the naturally occurring white crystalline salt hanging from the ceiling of the vaults. Fortunato then begins to cough for several minutes, and Montresor responds by saying that he must leave the catacombs to avoid getting sick. Montresor pretends to be a concerned friend before mentioning Luchresi's name again, which he knows will persuade Fortunato to continue traveling down the catacombs. Montresor then offers a solution to Fortunato's cough by saying,

A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps. (Poe, 2)

Montresor has no intention of giving Fortunato a draught of Medoc to end his coughing fit; he simply wishes for Fortunato to remain intoxicated so that he can successfully carry out his plan. Montresor continues to offer Fortunato a couple of different wines before coming to the end of the vaults, where he proceeds to shackle Fortunato and build a wall around him.

In Romeo and Juliet, what do the quotes "The heavens do lour upon you for some ill. / Move them no more by crossing their high will" (4.5) and "A greater power than we can contradict / Hath thwarted our intents" mean? Please close-read and summarize.

The context for these lines is the "death" of Juliet. After discovering Juliet's lifeless body in her chamber, Lord Capulet and his wife are understandably distraught. Friar Laurence enters and immediately tries to console the parents by telling them that Juliet has entered a state far better than that she would have entered into by marriage. He tells them to prepare the body for burial. The lines in question are interesting ones, because when he says that the "heavens . . . lour" upon the Capulets for "some ill," he is saying that Juliet's death is obviously some kind of punishment from God. The "heavens" have figuratively "lowered" on the house of Capulet. He urges them to bury Juliet quickly, according to the custom of the Church, because if they do not, they will offend God even further. Of course, the Friar is eager for the funeral to take place quickly, because it is key to his plot to reunite Juliet, who is only temporarily "dead," with Romeo.
The next quote is in the final scene of the play. It is from the Friar again, and this time he is speaking to Juliet, who is awakening from her drug-induced slumber to find Romeo, who believed that she was truly dead, lying dead beside her. The Friar tells her that "A greater power than we can contradict / Hath thwarted our intents." By this he means that, despite their efforts to reunite Romeo and Juliet, fate, which is a "greater power that we can contradict," has kept them from succeeding. The Friar recognizes with this line what the audience has known since the beginning of the play—that Romeo and Juliet are "star-cross'd," meaning that their love was doomed from the start, and all of their actions, as well as those of the Friar, could not change their fate.

Why was Mrs. Copperfield sad in David Copperfield?

We learn early in the novel that Mrs. Clara Copperfield is

very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her . . . .

She is sad because her husband has died, leaving her all alone, but also because she is pregnant with her first child, David, and fears the labor and delivery will kill her. She is very young, not yet twenty. When her husband's aunt, Betsey Trotter, arrives at this point, she exclaims that Clara is a "very Baby!"
Clara Copperfield's innocence and youth are emphasized, as they will cause her more sadness as the novel goes on. She has a kind-hearted, generous spirit and will be lured into a marriage with the hard-hearted and cruel Mr. Murdstone. She will be unable to resist or fight back when he and his rigid, equally cruel sister take over the household and tyrannize her and David.

How might an individual's environment influence their behavior and learning?

An individual's environment has an enormous impact on his or her behavior and learning. One way to examine this subject is by considering the philosophy and life of John Locke (1632–1704). Locke was an extremely important English philosopher whose ideas are still weighty today.
Locke wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this work, he argued that the human mind was a tabula rosa, or blank slate. In other words, a baby's mind contains absolutely no knowledge about the world, so there are no innate ideas. For instance, a baby does not know about God. Knowledge of religion or any subject is imprinted on the brain over time. "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience," Locke said.
A key part of one's environment is the family into which you are born. For example, Locke was born into a well-connected family, and that gave him the opportunity to obtain a first-rate education. His father, who served on the winning side in a civil war, used his clout to further his son's academic development.
Even today, children born into stable families in safe communities have more opportunities than those who are less privileged. Our behavior is learned from one's environment: "We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those that are around us," according to Locke.

In chapter 11, Joe Bigbear's character contrasts with Harlen's, bringing out some of Harlen's traits. On page 118, Joe shakes Will's hand crushingly and whispers loudly, "You shake hands like a damn Indian." This is very different from Harlen, who would not deliberately make someone physically uncomfortable. What are two other things Harlen would not do that Joe would or might do?

Joe Bigbear is Harlen's older brother. Will wasn't aware that Harlen had a bother until Floyd calls to let him know that Joe is in town and insists that Will come and meet him.
When Will arrives, Joe shakes his hand hard; Will feels like he's trying to find all the bones under his skin. Then he sits him down and offers him a cigar, instructing him on how to prepare and smoke it. Then he regales the gathered people with a tale about how he tried to catch a pig and other stories about his travels.
Joe is a world traveler while Harlan is a community-oriented person. Joe is a big talker who tells stories about his adventures all over the world. Harlan isn't impressed with his brother, and it is obvious that there is some kind of problem between them. When Will brings up that Harlan never told him about his brother, Harlan gets quiet and doesn't say much about it even when they go to a large bridge together with the goal of jumping from it.
One major thing that Joe does which Harlan wouldn't do is egg Will on, wanting him to jump off the bridge despite Will's obvious reservations. It's clear that Harlan wouldn't do this because he keeps putting Joe off and telling him to show them how it's done instead of pressuring Will to be the one to do it. He's willing to push Will into things—like basketball or dating—but not things that will be dangerous or could lead to him being injured.
The other thing he wouldn't do is jump off the bridge. He's not a risk-taker in the same way Joe is. He has a regard for his own life. When Will decides he's going to copy Joe and jump, Harlan just says okay and waits for him to come to his senses. It's clear that Harlan has been up on the bridge before and has failed to jump before. He puts more value on his own life than Joe does on his.
Interestingly, Floyd says that Joe is a good guy and nothing like his brother Harlen. The implication here is that Harlen himself is not a good guy despite Will's friendship with him and the positive impact he appears to have on the community. While Joe and Harlan are both outgoing people, there is something that Floyd prefers about Joe. After Joe leaves, Will says that he never saw him again.

Why were Europeans interested in colonizing America?

The Europeans were interested in colonizing America because of prestige, religious conversion, natural resources, and land expansion. The French, British, and Spanish empires were major colonizers in the Americas. Spanish conquistadors explored the Americas in search of gold and other resources throughout the sixteenth century. Due to meager inheritances, many noblemen who were not the eldest sons of their families set sail for the New World to gain high status and additional income. In addition, the Spanish used their colonies to convert the native people to Christianity.
French missionaries were interested in conversion as well, but France’s leadership was more concerned with trade efforts. Explorers claimed New France in 1534, and although colonization efforts failed in the beginning, the fur trade with the natives became a lucrative venture. The British also grew interested in North America and competed with the French for commerce and territory. The British crown intended to exploit raw materials in North America and open additional markets for English products.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3574

https://www.britannica.com/place/New-France

The primary reason the European countries were interested in colonizing America was for the vast resources that were available within America. The vast resources of America included furs, lumber, fish, and sugar. These resources were in high demand in Europe, and the abundance of them in America, allowed them to harvest the resources for sale in Europe.
Another reason the European countries wanted to colonize America was to spread their cultures and religions to the "savage" people that inhabited America. They wanted to teach these different cultures, who they deemed to be inferior, how to be like them, act like them, and have their same beliefs.
The Europeans also wanted to have a new land where they could have people come to, help with overcrowding within their own lands. This also allowed the Europeans to send some of the people they view as trouble makers, criminals, or undesirable off to the New World to help colonize it. This ended up being beneficial for the people labeled as such and for the homeland as these people were no longer in their country.

The main reason was undoubtedly economic. America held out the tantalizing prospect of vast deposits of mineral wealth. Legends had abounded in Europe over the years about the enormous riches that could be found and exploited in the New World. With European economies going through the inevitable cycles of ups and downs, it seemed like a good idea to explore an alternative source of wealth that would at least minimize economic disruption during a downturn.
Europeans also believed in their cultural superiority and thought that this entitled them to spread the "benefits of their civilization" far and wide. They didn't know a great deal about America's indigenous population, and what little they did know was shrouded in legend and myth. But the Europeans were convinced that the native population consisted of heathen savages who needed to be "civilized" by a more "advanced" race.
Allied to the Europeans' self-image of cultural superiority was the belief that their religion, Christianity, was superior to what they regarded as the dark, savage practices of the indigenous population. Many of those involved in the colonial project genuinely believed they had a God-given duty to spread the Gospel to the remote parts of the globe, converting what they saw as the poor, benighted natives to the one true faith.

What is the significance of Montresor's coat of arms and motto?

Fortunato appears to be acting disingenuously when he asks Montresor about his family coat of arms and motto. He regards Montresor as a member of a lower class then himself and probably has asked many such disingenuous questions during their relationship with the sole intention of hurting Montresor's feelings. He apparently believes that Montresor has no coat of arms or motto. Montresor has been lying to Fortunato consistently since they meet on the street, so there is no reason to think he is telling the truth when he describes his coat of arms.

A huge human foot in gold—such a design on a shield would seem bizarre, surrealistic, or comical. Poe probably wanted the reader to realize that Montresor was only kidding Fortunato. The motto, Nemo me impune lacessit, meaning "Nobody injures me with impunity," is, of course, appropriate, but it seems almost too appropriate. Montresor must be taking advantage of the fact that Fortunato is drunk to make the man look like a fool. Montresor is telling him what his coat of arms and motto would be if he had a coat of arms and a motto. Fortunato is not only drunk but probably does not even understand Latin, so it is especially ironic that he answers, "Good!" when Montresor is virtually predicting what is soon going to happen to him.

Montresor himself has been doing a little drinking along with Fortunato, so his rather odd behavior, including showing Fortunato his trowel and claiming to be a Mason, is understandable. Also Montresor has been under pressure to get Fortunato off the street and down below; and now he is experiencing relief because he knows he has his victim in his power. Montresor has a rapier concealed under his cloak. He can kill the unarmed Fortunato any time he wants—although it would be preferable to lead him to the site when he intends to wall him up.

What types of social inequality are found in The Pearl by John Steinback? Use quotes to support your answer.

We see class inequality from the very beginning of the story. Kino and Juana live in a small hut with their baby, but they seem happy. This happiness ends when Coyotito is stung by a scorpion. A crowd gathers, and the family passes on the message that someone should go get the doctor. However, it is passed back that the doctor will not come.

A wonderful thing, a memorable thing, to want the doctor. To get him would be a remarkable thing. The doctor never came to the cluster of brush houses. Why should he, when he had more than he could do to take care of the rich people who lived in the stone and plaster houses of the town.

Kino and Juana are limited by their money and limited by where they live. There is only one doctor. He is described as "fat" and "lazy," and the four beggars know of "his ignorance, his cruelty, his avarice, his appetites, his sins." Although the story is focused on Kino, these four beggars also highlight the financial inequality present in the story.
The description of the doctor's house is a huge contrast to the description of Kino's home, which shows the inequality. The doctor refuses to treat the baby because Kino has no money.
The doctor also highlights racial inequality.

This doctor was not of his people. This doctor was of a race which for nearly four hundred years had beaten and starved and robbed and despised Kino's race, and frightened it too . . . all of the doctor's race spoke to all of Kino's race as though they were simple animals.

The doctor then demonstrates this attitude when he tells his servant "Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for 'little Indians'? I am a doctor, not a veterinary." By saying he is not a veterinary, he is calling Coytito an animal.
After being turned away by the doctor, Kino goes pearl diving to find payment. When he holds the Pearl of the World, he dreams of marrying his wife in a church, owning a rifle, and giving Coytito an education. These dreams showcase the inequality in his life. Coytito would not have access to education without the money.
After hearing about the pearl, the doctor comes to Kino's hut to treat Coytito. The doctor says he will return in an hour. Again, Steinbeck's rich descriptions highlight the inequality; the doctor eats a rich meal while Kino worries about his son.
Another example of social inequality is gender inequality. Juana does the housework, but it is clear that Kino is the sole decision maker. Although Juana warns him against the pearl, he does not listen. He even beats her at one point.

How is the story of Pyramus and Thisbe like that of Romeo and Juliet?

"Pyramus and Thisbe" was a source for Romeo and Juliet. It also appears in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was originally published by the Roman writer Ovid in his Metamorphoses.
This story stars two lovers whose families are feuding, like Romeo and Juliet. The two are forbidden to love each other, so they communicate through a chink in the wall separating their houses. They arrange to meet by a tomb and mulberry tree to declare their love, but, as at the end of Romeo and Juliet, a mix-up occurs. Thisbe arrives first but runs off after she sees a lion. She leaves her veil behind. When Pyramus arrives, he finds Thisbe's veil, which has been torn and bloodied by the lion. He thinks Thisbe is dead, so he stabs himself. When Thisbe returns and finds Pyramus dead, she too stabs herself.
Thus, both stories end with a double suicide based on a misunderstanding. In Romeo and Juliet,the confusion arises when Romeo fails to get a message saying that Juliet has taken a potion that makes her appear dead but is not really dead. When Romeo thinks he sees her dead body, he kills himself, and Juliet stabs herself to death when she finds the dead body of Romeo.

What helps Mafatu to regain his energy in Call It Courage?

When Mafatu’s canoe crashes into the coral reef in chapter 2 of Call It Courage, Mafatu is severely dehydrated and malnourished due to days spent on the ocean. He also sustains an injury on his right leg from banging it against the coral, yet he somehow still manages to swim to a nearby island, where he collapses on a mossy bank.
In Chapter 3, Mafatu must find several items to regain his energy. Thankfully, he literally stumbles into the most vital of these things—water—when he finds a fresh pool near the bank. He drinks deeply, and

Its cool magic stole through his tissues, bringing with it new life and restoring force. He sighed . . . relishing the strength that quickened his tired body.

After resting, Mafatu feels stronger, but must still treat his injured leg with lime juice and purau leaves, which he finds on a nearby tree.
Once his wound is tended, Mafatu discovers and follows a trail lined with several trees full of coconuts, breadfruit, wild bananas, oranges, guavas, and mangoes. He also catches sight of a wild boar and imagines killing and eating it, but opts instead to satisfy his hunger by picking the readily available fruit of a mango tree and eating his fill.

What is the wealth that the sight brings to the speaker in "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"?

This line from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is found in this stanza:

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

The speaker is describing a simple scene in nature. While on a walk, he discovers a "host" of daffodils growing alongside a lake and blowing in the breeze. He pauses life for a moment and soaks up the beautiful glory of the scene: the way the daffodils seem to "dance" in the breeze, the way they "[toss] their heads" during their dance, and the way they stretch out in a stunning line that accentuates the border along the water.
The natural beauty of this scene provides the speaker with immense wealth—but not in a material sense. He later finds that, when he is in a foul mood, he can bring to mind this image of the dancing daffodils bordering the lake on a gorgeous day, and the memory fills his heart with pleasure. The wealth the daffodils bring to the speaker is the power to overcome negative thinking by recalling simple, powerful beauty.

How many stanzas are in the poem?

The answer to this question is deceptively simple: "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" contains five stanzas, of varying lengths. The shortest stanza contains nine lines, while the longest is fifty-four lines. This poem by Wordsworth, who helped define the Romantic movement in poetry, reflects Wordsworth's tendency to write long poems, including "Tintern Abbey" and "Intimations on Immortality." In addition to the physical structure resembling Wordsworth's other works, "Tintern Abbey" also contains similar themes and relies on the same literary devices to convey his ideas. In "Tintern Abbey," readers will note Wordsworth's emphasis on subjective feeling, man's relationship to nature, and the longing for one's former innocence. Apostrophe and imagery dominate his poetry, both of which can be found in the shortest stanza, stanza 3, in "Tintern Abbey."

Technically, this poem by William Wordsworth only has five stanzas. However, this makes it sound as if it is a much shorter poem than is actually the case. This poem is not written in a regular form with evenly structured stanzas. On the contrary, some of the stanzas that comprise the poem are far longer than others. In this poem, Wordsworth seems to utilize stanzas in much the same way that writers of prose might use paragraph breaks, with each new stanza introducing a new idea. Likewise, he does not use a regular rhyme scheme, but writes in blank verse, which contributes to the sense that the poem and its form and construction are a simple reflection of the poet's internal appreciation of what he is seeing. When he divides the poem to begin a new stanza, he is embarking upon a new idea of what Tintern Abbey means to him.

Who was Neolin?

Neolin was an Algonquin Delaware (Lenni Lenape) prophet living in the Ohio country in 1761 preparing for his vision quest by fasting, invocations, and dreaming. In his vision, he followed a path which divided into three paths. As he camped at the fork he saw the three paths become brighter as darkness fell. The next morning he found that following the first two paths led to fire coming out of the earth, while the third path led to a white mountain. There, a beautiful woman told him he must bath in the river and ascend the mountain with his left foot and hand in order to meet the Master of Life.
At the top of the mountain, tired and naked, he saw a village and a voice told him to approach because he had previously purified himself. A man dressed in white at the village gate led him to the Master of Life who gave him a gold fringed hat and told him he was the creator of the heavens and earth and all men. Because the creator loved him, Neolin must do what the creator loved and reject what he hated. He was told the creator hated his people's sexual promiscuity and their practice of taking many wives. He hated their addiction to alcohol, their greed and materialism, their strife and violence, and their practice of witchcraft.
The Master of Life told Neolin he hated their toleration of European immigrants most of all. The Master of Life promised him that if his people rejected European ways and returned to the traditions of their ancestors, including the wearing of deer skins and hunting with bow and arrow, they would be blessed with lots of game to hunt.
Returning from his vision, he introduced an inscribed prayer stick and taught his followers how to pray morning and evening. To reinforce the lessons of his vision, he marked deer skins with his revelation, called them the "Great Book", and sold them to his followers in exchange for animal hides. The markings showed that the path of the soul to the afterlife was narrow and beset by many vices, represented by marks across the path. According to Neolin, happiness lay in avoiding the proscribed vices and in preparing for holy war against the European immigrants.
Neolin's revelation spread quickly, resulting in greater cooperation among the Mississippi valley tribes. Among the prophet's followers was the Ottowa chief Pontiac, who dreamed of a grand union of all the northeastern tribes to drive out the British (while Neolin's vision was broadly anti-European, Pontiac's vision was specifically anti-British). In 1763, Neolin was actively urging the Ojibwa, Ottowa, and Potawomani to join Pontiac's uprising to expel the British. After Pontiac's uprising collapsed within two years, Neolin's influence dissipated among the tribes.

What are the differences between song lyrics and poetry, poetry and rap?

The short answer to this is that both song lyrics are rap are, in fact, poetry.
The term "poetry" has both a more literal, technical meaning, and a deeper, somewhat figurative sense in which it is used. Most people conventionally think of poetry as a form of writing in which there are both rhyme and a regular metrical pattern, written out line by line (the lines known as verses) and with the lines often grouped into larger units known as stanzas. This is the first, most restricted definition. But a huge amount of literature exists which does not follow this definition, and yet very few knowledgeable people would deny it is poetry. Walt Whitman's poems, for example, for the most part have neither meter nor rhyme. This is called "free verse." Whitman was a pathbreaker, yet, traditionally, some of the greatest English poetry, such as Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays and Milton's Paradise Lost, has been written in "blank verse," which is metrical but doesn't rhyme. We also ascribe the term poetry to religious writings: for example, the Old and New Testaments, the Quran, and the Hindu Scriptures, which are written in verse form. And in the broadest sense, even prose works can be labeled poetic; one can speak of Fitzgeralds's novels such as The Great Gatsby as being "sheer poetry." The answer to this broader definition lies in the nature of the words themselves that form a piece of writing. What we define as "poetic" is strongly imaginative, rich, unusual in word choice, and emotionally moving. Often prose, like that of Fitzgerald or Joyce, has a musical quality and sounds pleasing to the ear in ways that most ordinary language does not. And language that is metaphorical—expressing ideas not literally but having one thing represent another, drawing comparisons between unlike ideas and evoking an especially emotional response—is poetic regardless of the outward form in which it is written.
Given these definitions, both popular song lyrics and rap are poetry. The elements of rhyme and meter are generally present in both forms. The presence of music, which accompanies the rapper and to which the words are sung directly as in the popular song—enhances the emotional mood of the words. In classical music, composers such as Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms set to music poems which had already been written independently are complete works of art on their own. In the popular song today, the lyrics and music are usually written as part of the same project, but the example of the classical composers shows that the addition of music does not somehow prevent the lyrics from being poetry in their own right. So, finally, in answer to your question, there is no objective difference between "poetry" and the lyrics of contemporary songs or of rap.

What does "The bird is on the wing" mean in "Mr. Flood's Party"?

"The bird is on the wing" is a quotation from the "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám," an 1859 poem by Edward FitGerald that is a loose translation of 12th century Persian poet, Omar Khayyám. The bird represents time, and hence the mortality that must come for all living creatures. When "the bird" of time is "on the wing," time is in flight, meaning that death is approaching.
In the context of "Mr. Flood's Party," the quotation from the Rubáiyát reinforces the melancholy tone of Robinson's poem. The appearance of the Harvest Moon signifies the figurative onset of the "winter" of Eben Flood's life. The overall mood is portentous and grim; the bird that is the symbol of time is also a portent of Flood's impending death. Thus, it is ironic that the title of this mordant little poem contains the word "party."

How do I analyze This Is My Letter To the World?

Like all of Dickinson's poetry the "Letter to the World" is "deceptively simple." She has the ability to compress into a few lines thoughts that another poet might take pages to express. Or, conversely, these two stanzas embody a single thought that in itself isn't necessarily a totally original one, but is expressed with such lucidity that new life is given to it beyond its obvious surface meaning. This, after all, is the essence of the poetic: to provide an arresting and memorable version of an idea the reader will recognize as valid, and which relates to the human condition governing all of us irrespective of our differences and of the uniqueness of every individual person.
I would argue that Dickinson's personal isolation throughout her life is one key to understanding these lines. The "letter to the world" is not just this one poem, but all of her work, which remained largely unknown until after her death. Yet Dickinson's own life—her feelings, her desires, and her mental world—largely remained unknown to the outside world. She was more or less a recluse, a shut-in. She probably viewed herself as a person unsuited to the usual roles that women (or people in general) were expected to accept and to play. By the "news that Nature told" she could be alluding to her own idiosyncratic "nature," to her individuality, and to her loneliness. From the start we are told of a lack of reciprocity, perhaps the fact that she and her poetry are both a hidden gift that no one has noticed or appreciated. In the hands of a lesser poet, it would be easy for this message to lapse into sentimentality or self-pity. But the meaning of Dickinson's "nature" is ambiguous. Even if her themes are sometimes couched in riddles, this enhances the expressive power of her verse rather than detracting from it. Why, we might ask, did Nature impart this "simple news" with a "tender majesty"? And whose are the unseen "hands" to which the message was committed?
These questions have no direct answers. It is a striking idea presented to us here that there is an unknown receiver of this "message," a third party—apart from the speaker and her audience—to whom a deeper meaning (the target domain, if we wish) has been entrusted. Or, the point may be that the speaker herself doesn't know what that message is. Those who lead lives that are incomplete, unfinished—as Dickinson probably viewed her own life—often have a sense that God has purposely withheld from them the reasons for this. Perhaps, the thinking often goes, for such people a different kind of purpose has been prepared for them. Dickinson gives us the shape of this idea, but not the substance of it, since it's for the reader to give his or her own special interpretation, of both the meaning the poem conveys, and the personal version of it that the reader might be experiencing.
The final thought, the speaker's wish that she might be "judged tenderly," reveals an additional thematic element which, again, we might examine in light of Dickinson's own personal story. Anyone leading a different lifestyle from what is considered the norm, as Dickinson did, is likely to feel implicitly judged by others. It's a phenomenon that applies not just to those who violate religious or moral strictures but to people who simply don't fit in, ones whose lives don't follow the expected trajectory even if they haven't violated any rules and haven't done anything explicitly wrong. Whatever it was that caused her isolation and her unfulfilled emotional life, Dickinson kept the secret buried in her heart, and this fact makes "This is my Letter to the World" all the more poignant.

How did World War II affect China politically and socially?

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) became part of World War II (1939–1945). China suffered huge human and material losses during the war. The country was divided into three regions during most of the struggle: a Nationalist-controlled area, a Communist-controlled area, and the regions under Japanese occupation.
The Japanese defeated often stubborn Chinese resistance during the early stages of the war (1937–1938). The Nanjing Massacre of Chinese civilians took place during this period. The Soviet Union, an old enemy of Japan, provided assistance to China.
From 1939–1943, the war was stagnated. The Communists and Nationalists, supposedly united against the Japanese, sometimes fought each other. Inflation, hoarding, and corruption affected areas under Nationalist control. The Nationalists became much weaker. The Communists, on the other hand, gained strength during this phase of the war. The Communists waged guerrilla warfare and groomed their future leaders. They were more effective in fighting Japan, and many patriotic Chinese rallied to their cause.
Although the US provided considerable assistance to China, the situation in China was dire in 1944. Japan occupied more territory, and dissatisfaction with the corrupt Nationalists became more widespread.
After Japan surrendered in 1945, civil war broke out. The ineffective Nationalists were routed. All of China was united by the Communists in 1949.

Was the American War of Independence a major player in the French Revolution of 1789?

This is a difficult question to clearly answer because it requires you to differentiate between the influences that the American Revolution had on the French Revolution and the influences that were shared between the two: Enlightenment thinking played a role in framing the issues in both revolutions. In both cases, economic policy that benefitted only wealthy aristocrats led to discontent among the impoverished, a sentiment that was largely redirected towards the monarchy; economic issues were blamed on the monarch, leading to significant dissent with this form of government among the revolutionaries.
There are two areas where it is clear that the American Revolution played a role in influencing the French Revolution.
In the first instance, the economic issues within France were dire because of the monarchy's lavish spending. However, a significant portion of this spending had been directed at weakening France's main rival: England. France had spent a significant amount of money to fund the American Revolution in order to weaken England. This included the provision of uniforms, weapons, ammunition, soldiers, and naval reinforcements. France—along with European allies—took action against English naval vessels in order to prevent the resupply and reinforcement of English soldiers in the colonies. Thus, France's economic situation (which eventually spurred the uprising) was heavily influenced by their involvement in the American Revolution.
In the second case, the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence set an example for successfully overthrowing monarchical tyranny and establishing a democratic form of government.
Determining the importance of the American Revolution in influencing the French Revolution requires weighing these two issues, where the influence is clear and direct, against other issues that were influenced by shared Enlightenment ideologies as well as issues unique to France.
Interestingly, if France had not intervened to aid the colonists, the French economic situation may have been tenable, and the colonists would likely have lost the war for independence. The absence of a revolutionary precedent, combined with a better economic situation, might have significantly delayed or even eliminated the possibility of French revolution.

Why did the author of “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” choose to construct this narrative visually rather than just in text? What did the form gain him? How did it provide him the ability to communicate that a text-only approach would not? Give three specific examples of this ability to illustrate your assertions.

"Prisoner on the Hell Planet" looks different than the rest of Maus. The darker, more shaded style of these panels immediately alerts the reader that this is a sad period in Art Spiegelman's life that feels entrapping, separate from his parents' experiences during and after the Holocaust (which were also dark and sad). The graphic elements of the text allow him to present his conflicting feelings (sadness but also guilt and anger) in a more immediate, affecting way than using only words would have permitted.
Art draws himself as a prisoner in prison garb to show that his mother's suicide has entrapped him in a depressing and lonely place that he feels it's difficult to escape from. He also shows a close-up, narrow panel of his eye leaking tears. The narrowness of the panel expresses his duress and the way in which he feels he had to show sorrow when he learns about his mother's death. At the top left of the first panel, there is a reproduction of a photo of Art and his mother from his youth. The distinction between this happier time, when his mother was wearing a bathing suit, and the panels below, is apparent. You can find other ways in which Art uses graphic elements to show the ways in which his mother's suicide affected him.

Who has had a strong impact on Willy?

At the end of the play, Willy is deeply influenced by his son Biff to commit suicide. He loves Biff dearly and wants him to be financially successful in the way he himself has never been. Therefore, having no money, he gives Biff his life so that Biff can collect Willy's insurance money. (To be perfectly clear, Biff in no way wants his father to do this: this all comes out of Willy's ideas of the good life for his child.)
Normally, we think of people being influenced by older mentors, as Willy is by his brother and Dave Singleman, people who, at least in his fantasies, achieved financial success with ease and were able to sit back and watch the money roll in.
Willy wants to pass this idea of easy money onto his sons, especially football star Biff. Would Willy have followed his true, more modest vocation of gardening if he were not influenced by having sons to impress with a more flamboyant kind of financial success—a success he never can achieve?
Of course, Willy does nothing but destroy his sons' lives by trying to model for them a false idea of what success is. Even at the end, when he is influenced by his love for Biff to kill himself, it seems his values are in the wrong place. Again, it is all money that matters and money that he thinks will solve his son's problems, whereas they are probably beyond what money can buy.

Willy Loman's deceased brother, Ben, has an enormous impact on his personality, mindset, and perspective of the world. Willy continually hallucinates and has conversations with Ben at various moments in the play. Willy admires his brother and is fascinated by Ben's success story. Ben's luck dramatically alters Willy's perception of the American Dream, and he regrets not following his brother to Alaska. Willy continually compares himself to Ben and clearly lives in his brother's shadow. Ben's influence negatively affects Willy's ability to grasp the importance of dedication, hard work, and focus, which are necessary traits one must possess in order to attain financial success. Willy fails to recognize that Ben's financial success was founded solely on luck and admires him for all the wrong reasons.
Willy also mentions that he is greatly influenced by a successful salesman named Dave Singleman. After witnessing how Dave Singleman was able to conduct business as an eighty-four-year-old man and earn the respect of his peers, Willy is influenced to follow his footsteps and become a salesman. Willy also misinterprets Dave's path to success and unfortunately subscribes to the wrong dream.

All of us are influenced by other people, often called "important others" by psychologists. These generally include a mother, father, sibling, best friend, spouse, and perhaps one or two lovers. Arthur Miller incorporates all the important others in Willy's life in his older brother Ben. This is for the sake of practical necessity. Miller did not want to go into Willy's entire biography. But the audience must think it a little strange that Ben should have played such an important role in Willy's life and nobody else had any apparent influence--not even Linda, Willy's wife. So Miller probably invented the story about Dave Singleman to suggest that there were other influential people in Willy's long lifetime besides Ben. Willy would have met hundreds and hundreds of people during the years he worked as a traveling salesman, and he seems like a man who is easily influenced. There must have been others who made a strong impression on him. Singleman may have been intended to stand in for all those latter-day acquaintances whom Miller could not cast in his drama. Most of us, when we summon up remembrance of things past, will recall a number of people who shaped our thinking and the paths we took in life. Willy couldn't have been much different from the rest of us.

In "Why Literature," Mario Vargas Llosa lays out an argument for the importance of literature in a person's life. One of my favorite quotes from Llosa is: "But literature has been, and will continue to be, as long as it exists, one of the common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves, and converse with each other, no matter how different their professions, their life spans, their geographical and cultural locations, their personal circumstances." Using this as a springboard for a discussion, which works this semester have completed the goal set out for literature by Llosa? Which three works have been the "common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves"?

This assignment asks you to be thoughtful, reflective, and synthetic regarding the texts read during the course. You don't mention the specific readings the course engaged in, other than the original one quoted above, but the prompt is pretty universal. A successful essay would likely follow this format:
Begin with a universal statement about how literature engages us in awareness of self and of others, how it speaks to a shared humanity, and how it opens our minds to the common thread uniting our wildly diverse experiences and realities. You can quote Llosa's passage as a focusing lens since the quote provided is meant to be a springboard. Your thesis statement will both identify the universal human quality you select and identify three of the texts your read that all illuminate that quality.
Supporting paragraphs could merely discuss each of the three different titles in a separate paragraph, all focused on the theme you select. More interesting and likely more successful would be paragraphs that put two or maybe all three together to show how they illuminate an aspect of the theme. Do they all reveal something true about interpersonal relationships, or do they all reveal something about the value of self-awareness or reflection? Do two stand in contrast to each other, showing a successful or unsuccessful approach to a similar dilemma? You need to be efficient with your selection of detail (though you must reference and quote), but you do not want to be deficient with the value of your thought. Make sure your topic sentences are spot-on in terms of illuminating that connection literature makes among individuals.
In your conclusion, you will want to reflect and extend on what reading and thinking about your chosen theme offers a person who wants to lead a more meaningful human life. What is at the core of your readings that speaks to the human desire for connection and meaning?

What are Bigger’s thoughts while he sits down to eat breakfast the morning after he’s killed Mary?

Bigger’s thoughts at this point are a kind of transformation of what he has been thinking all along, but perhaps has not been as objectively aware of. From the beginning of the story Bigger has had a sense of alienation. The attempt by his mother to make him fulfill expectations, to be a conformist, is one of the things Bigger resents. He senses the unfairness of the system, the fact that the deck is stacked against him, but he nevertheless goes to the Dalton house to apply for the job recommended for him. The evening with Mary and Jan merely increases his resentment and his feelings of being an outsider. Though the killing of Mary is an accident, it gives Bigger a sense of liberation. He now sees more clearly and objectively his status as a transgressor which has been forced upon him, and it makes him see what he regards as the illusion by which his family lives as a tangible thing. His mother, brother and sister seem “blind,” trapped in a cocoon of non-recognition of the reality Bigger is aware of. He stares at his brother Buddy in an obvious way that even prompts Buddy to ask why he’s looking at him. Bigger can only reply that it’s nothing. He would not be able to explain to his family why he now views them as outsiders with whom he cannot commune on a normal, conformist level. In his status as a fugitive he realizes his family is now beyond his reach.

In what ways do the writings of Sojourner Truth present both the damaged and the resilient human spirits of the African American population?

The writings of Sojourner Truth have been effective in moving audiences throughout the centuries, as they present both the damaged and resilient spirits of African Americans in direct, powerful, and realistic rhetoric.
Although Sojourner Truth did not receive a formal education, she expressed her thoughts and passions clearly through her forthright revelations of the state of both free and enslaved people. Truth recounted the mistreatment of both slaves and women in order to awaken Americans to change. She also effectively shared the beauty, humanity, and unique history of African Americans in order to garner respect. Truth openly described the scars of slavery upon African Americans as she commanded audiences with her powerful delivery style. Her clear, confrontational style surprised and moved many audiences. Truth's writings were not just historical summaries; they were calls to action. One of her most famous speeches, "Ain't I a Woman?", recounts how Truth worked just as hard as men, surviving many hardships; in it she demands recognition as an equal to men. As a Christian, Truth also supported her call to justice with her belief that God made each person valuable and significant.
As Truth constantly challenged social norms, laws, and prejudicial beliefs in the US, she provided proof that African Americans were strong, capable overcomers who would endure. Additionally, Truth did not stop campaigning for justice after slavery was abolished; her lifelong pursuit of universal suffrage, property rights, and equality for all Americans demonstrated personal resilience as an African American.
https://sojournertruthmemorial.org/sojourner-truth/her-words/

What is the British perspective about the American Revolution?

The American Revolution (1775–1783) severed the bonds between the thirteen colonies and Britain. Britain had thought its rule of the thirteen colonies was benevolent. It had protected the Americans from the French during the Seven Years War (1756–1763), and it thought the Americans should help pay for that war.
London's relationship with its colonies had always been largely based on economics. Britain and the thirteen colonies had engaged in a profitable trading relationship for more than a century. In 1775, a group of British merchants expressed their concern about a potential loss of business in the event of war.
Economic concerns also weighed heavily on London's decision-making in the years before the war. The British government wanted to increase its revenue by taxing the colonists. The Americans resented all of these efforts: no taxation without representation was their mantra.
London always exaggerated the number of Loyalists in the colonies. It is difficult to know how many Americans remained loyal to London, but the number was almost always far smaller than the British leaders believed. At the end of the war, many Loyalists moved to Canada.
Increased tension between the sides resulted in the first battle at Lexington and Concord in 1775. By 1781, the British realized that they had no chance of winning against the thirteen colonies. It decided to end the war in order to protect other British interests. Therefore, the status of the thirteen colonies became a collateral matter to London.
https://time.com/5326345/british-american-revolution-1776/

Why was Sherman's "total war" a major change from earlier forms of fighting?

Sherman's concept of total war was a continuation of the tradition of the "nation at arms" established by the French Revolution. In the wake of the bitter conflicts that engulfed Europe for decades after the Revolution, war was no longer regarded as a gentlemanly pursuit, conducted on a particular field of battle by professionally-trained soldiers. Instead, it was held to involve the whole of society, civilians as well as soldiers, everyone pulling together in pursuit of a common goal.
For Sherman, that goal was the holding together of the Union by defeating the South. And he was utterly ruthless in its pursuit, illustrating his famous remark that war was an uncivilized game that couldn't be civilized. It wasn't enough for Sherman that the Confederacy be defeated on the field of battle; its people had to be broken psychologically as well. To that end, on his famous March to the Sea, he set about terrifying the civilian population of Georgia into abandoning the Confederate cause, stealing food and livestock, and burning the homes and barns of those who resisted.
Sherman's destruction of Atlanta can be seen as an act of psychological warfare as much as anything else. He knew that the city was a symbol of Confederate pride and strength. The burning of Atlanta was a deliberate attempt to undermine Southern morale, to make Southerners realize that there was now no way they could win the war. Though it inflicted enormous suffering on the civilian population, Sherman's total war strategy was brutally effective in breaking the back of Southern resistance and hastening the Confederacy's final defeat.

In To Sir, With Love, the author allows students to decide the curriculum in return for what?

In chapter 9, Braithwaite tries a different tactic with his students. He decides that he will treat them with respect, as they will be entering the adult world in only a few months. In return for his being more open about the curriculum, he expects the students in the class to act like adults. The girls will be referred to as "Miss," and the boys will be referred to by their surnames. In addition, all the students will address him as "Sir" or "Mr. Braithwaite." He expects them to present themselves more tidily. For example, the boys must brush their hair and polish their shoes. He makes an example of Miss Dare, who enters the room in a rush. He asks her to enter the classroom with greater dignity, and she does so. He wants his students to set an example for the other students in the school.

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, why are the men so pleased with the coconuts?

In chapter 20 of Jules Verne’s adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo permits his captives to visit the coast of Papua New Guinea after a lengthy period at sea. Professor Aronnax, Ned Land, and Conseil eagerly row their small boat to the shore and revel in the feeling of solid land beneath their feet. Ned Land is particularly interested in collecting food, as he is tired of the diet of seafood served on the Nautilus. Here is the moment you describe in your question:

. . . the Canadian . . . discovered a coconut tree, beat down some of the fruit, broke them, and we drank the milk and ate the nut, with a satisfaction that protested against the ordinary food on the Nautilus.

The trio then collects a boatload of coconuts and brings them to the Nautilus, where they store them for future consumption.
This short episode is interesting because it reminds the reader that Arronax, Land and Conseil are captives. With the wondrous undersea adventures the characters have on the Nautilus, it can be easy to forget that they are jailed on the submarine by Captain Nemo. Eating the coconuts reminds these characters of the joys offered on solid ground. After the visit to the coast, Ned Land in particular begins to chafe against his captivity and wishes for freedom.

In The Outsiders, are Ponyboy and Dally related?

In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy and Dally are not related. Ponyboy and Dally are both in a gang called The Greasers. Despite this similarity, they are in fact very different characters with different backgrounds. Ponyboy lives with his two brothers, Darry and Sodapop. Darry is short for Darrell and he is the oldest sibling of Ponyboy. The three Curtis brothers (Darry, Sodapop, and Ponyboy) support each other even after losing their parents. On the other hand, Dally (short for Dallas) had a much rougher background which involved being jailed several times. He did not have the family support that Ponyboy had.
However, it is easy to mistake Ponyboy and Dally for brothers due to their few similarities. One example being their shared feelings for Johnny, another member of The Greasers. They both care very deeply for Johnny and both Ponyboy and Dally were affected deeply when he died in the novel.

No, Ponyboy and Dally are not related in The Outsiders, a 1967 novel by S.E. Hinton. You might be confusing Dally with Darry, who is Ponyboy's oldest brother in the story. Darry is short for Darrel, and Dally is short for Dallas.
Dallas—Dally—is the roughest, toughest, most street-wise member of the Greasers, a gang of lower-class kids whose rivals are an upper-class gang called the Socs. Darry—Darrell—is the oldest of the three Curtis brothers (Darry, Sodapop, and Ponyboy). He is in charge of caring for his two younger brothers after their parents are killed in a car crash. The story is narrated by Ponyboy.

What is the plots of The Loons?

The Loons, by Margaret Laurence, is a short story about a girl named Piquette Tonnerre, who is Native American. Her father introduces Piquette to a girl named Vanessa McLeod. The two are contrasted with one another since Piquette is poor and a minority and Vanessa grew up in a standard middle-class, white family.
The “Loons” title refers to birds that the two girls observe in the story. There are a lot of comparisons made between Piquette and the birds since they both try to change how they live and struggle with it.
The plot itself surrounds increasing discrimination as Piquette’s town of Manawaka, Manitoba gets more and more white settlers crowding out the Native American population, specifically a particular people called the Metis.
Eventually, Piquette marries a white man in order to try to raise her station and gain a normal life in order to escape racism. The story makes a connection between the birds and Piquette’s story since the birds try to adapt to civilization growing into where they live, but eventually they just leave the area, just as Piquette despairs of ever really fitting in with the new white civilization that grows up all around her clinging to her own roots.

What characters are morally responsible for Jay Gatsby's death? Even though George Wilson pulled the trigger, are other characters also responsible?

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Wilson is quite understandably distraught over the death of his wife by a hit-and-run driver. However, he should bear full responsibility for the murder. No one forced him to shoot Gatsby, and he could have reported the incident to the police and let justice take its course. Even if he felt that justice is only for the rich and that the poor are ignored by the criminal justice system, murder is still a moral choice that he made freely.
Obviously, other people contributed to the preconditions of the murder of Gatsby. Daisy is guilty of manslaughter in the death of Myrtle, and she should have had the decency to admit as much to the police and suffer the penalties for it. Gatsby himself is guilty of covering up Myrtle's death, and Tom is guilty of lying to George and blaming Gatsby. Gatsby also could have avoided being murdered by following Nick's suggestion and leaving town until George calmed down. Ultimately, however, although other characters are blameworthy, Wilson did make a free choice to murder Gatsby.

What do you know about the trope of "zombies and the impending apocalypse"?

Tropes are metaphorical examples that we use to make sense of the world around us and our feelings. Zombies and the impending apocalypse are tropes that symbolize human fear. Fear of the future, fear of death, and fear of the uncontrollable are concepts the human race has been dealing with for centuries, and those fears show up in our art and storytelling.
The word "zombie" originates from Haiti, but the zombies apocalypse trope originated in storytelling during the 1930's - a decade in which the world went through dramatic and stress inducing change. The use of the zombie trope allows readers and movie watchers the opportunity to theorize what they would do if they found themselves in the worst case scenario - the apocalypse - in which everything they know and love is threatened and may be gone before they even have time to react. We're faced with terrifying images that ask our brain to plan for an unimaginable future.
The zombie and impending apocalypse trope serves as a reminder to us that humans are not fully in control and that we should respect our humble place in a large universe.

The zombie apocalypse is a common trope from recent decades. Fed by internet sites, horror movies, and even parodies such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the idea of the living dead rising to feed on human brains ranges from campy horror to the stuff of middle school nightmares.
Each generation seems to have its own source of terror, whether Godzilla-like monsters created through nuclear pollution, space aliens, werewolves and vampires, or incurable diseases, these tropes speak to a cultural fear. The use of them in horror movies and parodies is a way to seemingly contain the fear, at least momentarily. Horror has its own cathartic function, but it relies on tapping into a broad psychic terror not otherwise articulated.
What may make the zombie phase appealing now is that it does have elements of end-of-times apocalyptic dread. Around 2000, both the Y2K concerns regarding computer clocks and evangelical books about the Remnant (those who are taken up before the actual apocalypse) fostered a low-grade fear of global disaster. People stockpiled guns, water, and ramen noodles and made plans for chaos such as one sees in zombie narratives. Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006) offers a grim view of an apocalyptic world plagued not by zombies but by cannibals. Global climate collapse is leading wealthy people to build underground dwellings to escape this apocalypse. The global financial collapse offered a case of people "feeding" on others. Space colonization is proposed for when Earth can no longer support human life. Zombies create a visceral substitute for these more abstract and technical fears.
The breakdown of society and social norms leading to people preying or feeding upon each other becomes literal in the zombie trope. In this state of panic, even the living cannot trust each other for fear of being deceived. Normal means of attacking a predator—the military, science, silver bullets—are ineffective.
Zombie apocalypse narratives thus speak to our current uneasiness about the human condition. Zombies are both the other and us, both human and not. To be a zombie is merely to have become degraded or to have lost an essential part of one's dignity (life) such that the zombie will lose all shame and common feeling for others. This fear of zombie attack seems to be based in a sense that our greatest current danger comes not from an outside invader so much as from humans who have lost their humanity and from a society that lacks the social structures to protect its citizens.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZombieApocalypse

What do Emilia and Mariana have in common?

Both Mariana in Measure for Measure and Emilia in Othello are good women who happen to be either betrothed to (Mariana) or married to (Emilia) miserable, unethical men. Mariana is betrothed to Angelo, who pretends to be virtuous on the outside while having a corrupt heart. Angelo dumps Mariana when the fortune that was supposed to provide her with a dowry is lost at sea.
Emilia has the misfortune of being married to Iago, an evil, deceptive man, who, like Angelo, pretends to be good and so deceives people, in particular Othello, the husband of Emilia's friend Desdemona.
Both Mariana and Emilia get involved in underhanded plots involving their husbands. Emilia steals Desdemona's handkerchief for Iago, little knowing it will lead to her friend's death. However, she redeems herself after Othello kills Desdemona by revealing the truth of what happens, even though it costs her her life when Iago kills her.
Mariana gets involved in the bed plot in which she substitutes herself for Isabella in bed, and Angelo sleeps with her, thinking he is sleeping with Isabella. This forces him to have to marry Mariana even though she has no dowry.

What decision do Ferdinand and Miranda make during their conversation?

In Act III, scene i, Ferdinand and Miranda decide to get married. This is exactly what Prospero had planned. Miranda, isolated on a desert island, has never seen a young man. Prospero arranges for Ferdinand to be the first male that his daughter sees, rightly predicting that she will be charmed at first sight.
Miranda, having no idea of the ways of the world, doesn't realize she should hide her feelings, play hard to get, and let the man do the proposing. She simply states plainly what is on her mind, stating to Ferdinand:

I am your wife, if you will marry me.If not, I’ll die your maid. To be your fellowYou may deny me, but I’ll be your servantWhether you will or no.

Luckily for her, Ferdinand, unlike some of the other men shipwrecked on the island, is a man of honorable character. He is honest and good, so he doesn't take advantage of her naive openness about her feelings.

During their conversation in 3.1, Ferdinand and Miranda agree to get married. It actually seems less like a decision and more like an impulsive reaction to discovering the other's love, however. Both of them give their love without restraint basically right upon meeting one another, and when they later find out the other loves them, they have little hesitation about getting together as a couple and even getting married. Miranda briefly delays because she is worried about her father's prohibition of her talking to Ferdinand, but it doesn't stop her from speaking to him for long. Soon, she offers herself as his wife, of course an unusual step at this time. Ferdinand agrees immediately. So, if there is a decision, it is that they get married, but the moments in 1.2 when they see each other are almost more the decision point than their conversation in 3.1 is.

Why did Toby strongly feel that he should be high priest in the funeral ceremony?

When it comes to conducting an elaborate funeral ceremony for Elizabeth's pet parakeet, Toby is certain that he's perfect for the role of high priest. He desperately wants to officiate at the solemn ceremony, during which Elizabeth's deceased bird will be taken in procession to the temple of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead.
But Toby's got competition. As April points out, she came up with the idea of a funeral ceremony with Melanie, a.k.a. Aida, and so they should be the ones who get to be high priestesses of the dead. But Toby's having none of it. He just loves being at the center of things, and he's adamant that he and Ken, a.k.a. Horemheb, should carry out this exalted role. Besides, Toby's just finished reading a great book that tells you all about how the Egyptians mummified the dead. He clearly wants to put ideas from the book into effect.
As neither side's prepared to back down, the decision is left to Queen Neferbeth, i.e. Elizabeth. After all, it's her pet that's about to be buried. As she doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, however, she breaks the deadlock by putting a pebble in her hand and inviting the others to guess which hand she's holding it in. Ken and Toby make the correct choice, and so they get to be the high priests at the solemn funeral ceremony of Queen Neferbeth's dead parakeet.