In The Mill on the Floss, why did Philip not get up to shake hands with Tom?

When Tom Tulliver returns to boarding school on a cold, wet day in January, he is introduced by the schoolmaster, Mr. Stelling, to a new classmate, Philip Wakem, who, like Tom, is from the town of St. Ogg. Despite being from the same town, the two boys do not shake hands. George Eliot sets up the scene as follows:

Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St Ogg’s, but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible. He would have disliked having a deformed boy for his companion, even if Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a bad man’s son could be very good. His own father was a good man, and he would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was in a state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as he followed Mr Stelling to the study.

For his part, Tom feels uncomfortable around Philip because the latter has a physical disability and also because he disapproves of Philip's father, the formidable Mr. Wakem. Tom is being unfair to Philip and judging him on the basis of his "deformed" appearance and his dim view of Philip's parent. He is unable to see Philip as an individual apart from his being hunchbacked and having a father who is different than his own father.
Philip politely rises when Tom enters the room and gazes at him with trepidation and shyness. He is unable to shake hands with Tom because of his fear and his pride:

Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward Tom. He thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him; every one, almost, disliked looking at him; and his deformity was more conspicuous when he walked. So they remained without shaking hands or even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every now and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper he had before him.

This scene is a portrait of social disconnection and misunderstanding in the face of prejudices (on the part of Tom) and a commingled sense of pride and fear (on the part of Philip). Eliot is concerned with representing the conditions under which trust and mistrust are generated.

How does The Post-American World relate to globalization, the United States, and the growth of other nations?

America has been the sole superpower in the post-Cold War era- and as technology and industrial crowd-sourcing have proliferated the necessity and utility of America as a watch dog has been called into suspicion as cultural walls have fallen. Globalization is the relatedness and community between countries that has been established or been amalgamated after the hegemony of America fell. Globalization is the post-modern global state where industry and communication are paramount to progress and individuals thrive through personal empowerment.

The Post-American World relates to globalization, the United States, and the growth of other nations, as it charts the advent of globalization in the post-Soviet era, which ushered in an era of increased global trade, relative stability, American hegemony, and the development of stronger nations relative to the United States.
Following the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States became the dominant global power and enjoyed social, cultural, political, and economic hegemony. Globalization and the increased diplomacy in a post–Cold-War world led to a period of relative stability and expansion for many developing nations, offering an opportunity to strengthen economies and increase economic as well as global power, China being a prime example.
While America will still continue to be a dominant power globally, its power relative to other nations is diminished, as major international players such as China, India, Dubai, and others continue to modernize and experience great economic growth and stimulation. Because of this period of sustained prosperity, there has been a sort of "leveling of the playing field" globally.

What political, economic, and technical factors impact on community services sector organizations?

Community service organizations are often directly impacted by political, economic, and technical factors that determine how well they will be funded and how effectively and efficiently they will be able to operate. When the political climate encourages people to be philanthropic givers and accept increased taxation to pay for community services, these organizations thrive. A booming economy often encourages people to believe that they can and should help others who are in need, because they are prosperous and can afford to be generous. Technical factors such as a streamlined program that utilizes current technology to communicate and link clients to community resources also impact how successful community service organizations will be. In contrast, community service organizations are not able to function as effectively and efficiently, if at all, when there is an adverse political climate that may also coincide with a sluggish economy and outdated technical supports.
For example, I began working as the program director of a community service organization in 2007, one year before an economic downturn known as the “Great Recession.” When this community service program first opened its doors, the political climate was mostly positive, and receiving state and federal funding was not an issue, because the economy was still on an upswing. The funding was also there to include all of the needed technical aspects that would keep the program running smoothly. Within two years, this community service program was forced to shut down completely because the funding was no longer available to keep it going, even though the community service program had been accomplishing all of the projected goals and had been recognized for making a positive difference in the community.
https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/recession

Who is Mr. Bobinsky in Coraline?

In the book Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Mr. Bobo is the man who lives in the flat above Coraline. Although Coraline meets him very early in the book, she never actually thinks about asking his name. Prior to learning his name, she only thought of him as the "crazy old man upstairs." He used to be in the circus, according to Miss Spink, and comes from a "fine old circus family" from one of the Eastern European nations. Coraline is delighted to know his name. It's such a fun name to say that she would have said it more often had she known it sooner.
Mr. Bobo tells Coraline that he has trained mice—or mice that he is trying to train—as part of a musical mice circus. However, they can't seem to coordinate their music. Coraline wonders if there really is a mice circus since she hasn't seen the mice. Mr. Bobo makes strange statements and passes along a message from the mice that she shouldn't go through the door.
In the movie version of Coraline, Mr. Bobo's name is Mr. Bobinsky.

Please explain the content, context, and tone in the poem “They Told Me You Had Been To Me.”

The poem, "They Told Me You Had Been To Her" is from chapter 12 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The White Rabbit produces it as evidence against the Knave, who stands accused of stealing the Queen's tarts, claiming that it is "a set of verses" written by the Knave. When the King discovers that the verses are not written in the Knave's handwriting, he proclaims that the Knave "must have imitated someone else's hand."
Both the content and the tone of the poem are deliberately nonsensical, in large part owing to the excessive use of pronouns. The first verse, for example, consists of only four lines but includes the following seven pronouns: "They . . . you . . . her . . . me . . . him . . . She . . . I." This is very much a deliberate effort on Carroll's part to prevent the reader from following or comprehending the intricate web of relationships between all of the people alluded to by those pronouns. The first stanza, in fact, immediately disabuses the reader of any notion that there might be any decipherable meaning in this poem:

They told me you had been to her,And mentioned me to him:She gave me a good character,But said I could not swim.

The nonsensical tone here is created not only be the baffling accumulation of pronouns (with four different pronouns in the opening line alone), but also by the rhythm of the lines, which is similar to the repetitive, lilting rhythm of a nursery rhyme. This rhythm is created by the alternating end-rhymes ("her . . . him . . . character . . . swim") and also by the regular syllabic meter, with the first and third lines having eight syllables each and the second and fourth lines having six syllables each. This nursery rhyme rhythm helps to compound the sense that this is a childish, playful, meaningless "set of verses."
In the context of the narrative, this nonsensical poem is important because it helps Alice to realize that in this world, nothing makes any sense and all is "stuff and nonsense." This realization is what prompts Alice to emerge from the dream, thus bringing the story to a close. As soon as she realizes that she is in an illogical, meaningless dream, the spell of the dream is broken, and she wakes up "lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister."

Describe the economy of the Southern colonies.

The economy of the southern colonies can be described as agrarian. This means that nearly all business was done through farming and other agricultural areas. Throughout the early 1800s, cotton became the largest crop in the world. It even outperformed all the other crops combined. This is partially because the climate in the southern colonies was suitable to crops like cotton. Moreover, the southern colonies possessed free labor through the use of slaves. The southern economy adopted the plantation style economy with generations of powerful families living on a working farm.
By essentially eliminating the salary of employees through forced labor, the South was able to compete with the Northern colonies for a while. However, the Northern colonies were able to industrialize much quicker and ended up outproducing the South by the Civil War. The reluctance of the South to industrialize and to move away from slave labor, along with the destruction of the Civil War, were root causes for the economic troubles it faced after the war.
https://www.nps.gov/media/article-search.htm

what do we learn of scrooges life when he is visited by jacob marleys ghost and the ghosts of christmas past and present

We learn from all the spirits that Scrooge, for all his enormous wealth, has led a very unhappy life. Thanks to Jacob Marley we know that young Ebenezer had the reputation of a hot-shot businessman, who in partnership with Marley made an absolute fortune. Unfortunately, what Scrooge gained in wealth he lost in terms of his soul. His insatiable greed meant that he never had any close friends and that he wrecked his chances of getting married. Marley, his ghost now forced to wear the shackles of greed for all eternity, was a similarly unpleasant character, but now his spirit wants his former business partner to repent of his sins before it's too late and ends up suffering a similar fate.
From the Ghost of Christmas Past, we learn that Scrooge had a pretty miserable childhood. While all the other boys were at home enjoying Christmas with their families, young Ebenezer was forced to spend the festive season alone at his boarding school. However, one Christmas, his beloved sister Fen came to bring him home for the holidays; apparently their father had finally changed his mind and decided to let Ebenezer spend Christmas in the bosom of his family.
From then, until he became a successful businessman, Scrooge really used to enjoy Christmas, having a whale of a time at his employer Mr. Fezziwig's parties. But when Scrooge left Mr. Fezziwig to join one of his business rivals for much better pay, the iron began to creep into his soul and he gradually turned into the mean-spirited old skinflint we see at the start of the book. Money started to mean everything to Scrooge, so much so that he had no time to enjoy life. He came to regard Christmas with utter contempt. He saw it as nothing more than a load of old humbug.
The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the consequences of his miserliness and greed. He takes him to the house of Bob Cratchit, his underpaid, over-worked employee. Although the Cratchits are dirt poor, they still manage to create a warm and loving home environment. Scrooge is genuinely shocked to see the condition of poor Tiny Tim, who will die if he doesn't receive proper medical care.
Scrooge has spent the whole of his adult life willfully ignoring the appalling squalor and poverty around him. Now, for the first time, he's been forced to confront the deprivation that so many of his fellow Londoners have to endure on a daily basis. And when The Ghost introduces Scrooge to the figures of Want and Ignorance—half-starved, unwashed children in rags—he must face up to the consequences of his mean-spirited attitude to those less fortunate than himself. In a powerful retort to Scrooge's enquiry as to whether the children have no refuge or resource, the Ghost throws Scrooge's callous words right back at him, the words he spoke with such unfeeling contempt at the charity collectors in Stave One:

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

The Market Revolution and its related economic growth dramatically changed communication, transportation, and social life in the United States. However, it did not impact all Americans in the same way. Who did it help the most? Who did it help the least?

During the Market Revolution in 19th century America, the Northeast and Midwest developed increased transportation and communication networks. These sections of the country also began to industrialize and to develop transportation networks between them. The Midwest produced a lot of the food for the Northeast, shipping the food eastward on canals or through the growing railroad system linking the Northeast and the Midwest. The Northeast became the center of industrial production.
However, the South was largely left out of this new transportation and communication network. The South increasingly turned to the production of cotton for mills in the Northeast and in Europe, and the Southern economy relied on slavery rather than on industrial production. In addition, the South fell behind the other areas of the country in terms of its railroad and transportation networks. Over time, the Northeast and Midwest were more connected culturally, politically, and economically, while the South was less connected to the other regions of the country. The Market Revolution helped industrialists in the Northeast and farmers in the Midwest, but it did not change the economy of the South.

How does Levy challenge and redefine the idea of war in her novel Small Island?

Small Island emphasizes the "war at home" rather than on the battlefield. The characters' experiences of World War II are not limited to military service; they leave home and/or cope with challenges on the home front. Andrea Levy especially considers the perspective of people of African heritage, British colonial subjects, and women.
The novel's events occur before, after, as well as during the war. Gilbert is a black Jamaican man who wants to serve the British cause but, more than that, also wants to fly; he therefore joins the Royal Air Force. While he is accepted as a fellow flier, he faces discrimination off the base in everyday occurrences. One such incident leads to a fight and results in the military policeman accidentally killing another man.
Hortense, also a black Jamaican, goes to England to join her husband and to search for her cousin Michael, who has gone missing in action. Queenie, a white English woman, must cope on her own after her husband, Bernard, leaves for military service and then does not return as scheduled. This influences her decision to turn her home into a boarding house that accepts black boarders, which opens her eyes to the racism around her.
When Bernard returns, he is physically and mentally afflicted by syphilis and the trauma of having been falsely accused and imprisoned for treason. This eventually results in the dissolution of their marriage.

What reason does Solarino give as the probable cause of Antonio's melancholy?

The answer to this question can be found in Act 1, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The scene begins with Solarino and Solanio trying to offer reasons for why Antonio's mood is down and depressing. Solarino offers the first suggestion. He thinks that Antonio is depressed because he is worried about his financial venture that involves some ships that are at sea. Solarino and Solanio both state that Antonio stands to lose quite a bit of money if those ships are lost at sea; however, Antonio responds by saying that is not the reason. He is financially well off enough in a variety of different areas that he can withstand the loss of the ships. Solanio then suggests that Antonio is feeling melancholy because he is in love.

Symbols can help a writer convey ideas, develop characters, establish atmospheres, etc. To what effect were symbols employed in A Streetcar Named Desire?

A significant symbol is contained within the play's title. According to Tennessee Williams, the streetcar is "the ideal metaphor for the human condition." The specific streetcar line that is referenced conveys the power of sexual desire that influences people's actions; the symbol furthers this dominant theme in the play, and its meaning is contained in the name of the streetcar line Blanche takes:

They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian Fields!

Blanche views herself as an object of male desire and flirts aggressively and openly. Stanley learns that Blanche had been fired from her teaching position for having a physical affair with a student and evicted from a motel she had been staying at after having numerous sexual encounters there. The marriage between Stanley and Stella revolves around sexual gratification, and Stanley rapes Blanche after he learns of her unchaste past. The streetcar line is a representation of Blanche's journey in life, in which she must follow the path on which desire takes her to its end.
Alcohol also functions as a symbol, with Stanley and Blanche drinking consistently throughout the play. Stanley often becomes violent and physical while drunk; he beats Stella while intoxicated, and both himself and Blanche are drunk when he rapes her. For Stanley, alcohol represents the theme of masculinity and physicality. In Blanche's case, it represents her escape from reality, illustrating the theme of fantasy and delusion. For instance, Blanche is very intoxicated when she imagines she is hosting a high-class party, complete with hallucinations of male admirers.
Moreover, polka music functions as a personal symbol for Blanche, as she associates it with her husband's suicide; after confronting him about his homosexuality while they are dancing polka, he leaves the dance floor and promptly kills himself. Blanche and the audience hear polka music when she thinks of the circumstances of his death; this contributes to the sombre atmosphere of scenes in which the music is played and conveys Blanche's emotions.
Three additional symbols convey Blanche's urge to escape reality: bathing, darkness, and the paper lantern. Blanche seems to be constantly bathing throughout the play; this represents her attempt to cleanse herself of the unpleasant reality of the apartment, as well as the guilt associated with her past. Blanche prefers night and the dreamworld and demonstrates an aversion to light:

I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

Blanche would rather hide behind politeness and niceties than accept the truth of someone having an unfavorable opinion of her. She covers the bare light bulb with a paper lantern; the lantern is fragile, just as Blanche's mental state is, as well as her illusions.

What details are important from the story of the ships?

This question is rather wide and open to more than one interpretation. However, for the purposes of simplicity, I will refer to important details onboard the Cutty Wren (the ship that has the hopes of England). Captain Samson is preparing to set sail when he receives an unexpected visit from Sir Geoffrey. Sir Geoffrey introduces him to Mr. Black—a member of the Crown's special unit known as the Gentlemen of Last Resort. They need Captain Samson's ship to go and retrieve a new heir for England at Port Mercia. Mr. Black tells Samson that the king and both his heirs have died from influenza, and to avoid war or an invasion from France, they have to declare a new king within nine months, since those are the rules in the ratified Magna Carta.

Why are the house and neighborhood empty?

To understand why the house and neighborhood are empty, we need to understand the context of the story. Bowen has set the story in London during the Second World War. From history, we know that London was heavily bombed by the Nazis during 1940 and 1941. The aerial bombs, the Nazi's weapon of choice, were so heavy and frequent that the term "Blitz"--based on the German word for lightning - was coined to describe the campaign. As a result, many Londoners fled the city and moved to the countryside, a place where they could not be reached by Nazi bombs.
This idea of escaping the Blitz is supported through the following quote:

In this house the years piled up, her children were born, and they all lived till they were driven out by the bombs of the next war.

From the story, we learn that Mrs. Drover and her family were right to leave the city. One of the Nazi bombs has left a number of cracks in the structure of the house. This suggests that the Blitz is still in full swing, making it unsafe for the family to return to London.

How does Ishiguro’s construction of An Artist of the Floating World invite contemplation of our desire for certainty?

The idea of certainty is contrasted to that of the “floating world.” Referring not only to the elaborate, leisurely life of bygone Japan, Kazuo Ishiguro uses the concept to convey the postmodern uncertainties that Ono confronts. As the novel dips in and out of the past, the reader comes to understand that Ono prefers to inhabit mentally that other world, with its lovely courtesans and dedication to the arts. He has made his own creative life through studying that distant world. As the narrative progresses, the reader sees the price he paid. His own vision of reality justified his betrayal of a friend for the sake of an abstract nationalism and, perhaps more important, being able to continue his work. He experiences the admission of this betrayal as a huge revelation. When tells him that too is in the past, our understanding of him—and of the author’s intention—changes. He is as anachronistic as that earlier time; his whole life since that moment has been lived in the floating world of his own flawed consciousness.

What is insinuated by the statement "it’s dope to be black until it’s hard to be black" from The Hate U Give?

This quote comes from Chapter One of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give.
Starr Carter is talking about her experience as a student at a nearly all-white school called Williamson Prep, despite living in the nearly all black Garden Heights.
This quote summarizes the primary tension Starr feels at Williamson. Her friends and classmates there love consuming black art and culture in the form of anything from rap music to African American slang. This is what Starr means when she says it’s “dope to be black.” White teens enjoy black art and culture because they think it’s cool and, by extension, makes them cool.
The second part of the quote, though, reveals that white teens’s love of black art and culture does not necessarily translate to a love for black people. In other words, black people cannot depend on these consumers of their culture to stand up as allies against the injustices faced within the black community. Instead, it is more likely for these people to cast off their associations with black culture the moment they are asked to help right the wrongs of white supremacy.

Why was there no king in the United States at all?

There are at least four reasons why the United States never had a king. These were: the fight against George III, the theory of natural rights, the Founding Fathers and separation of powers, and the precedents established by George Washington.
Americans came to view King George III as a tyrant before the American revolution (1775–1783). After the defeat of France in 1763, the English Parliament passed numerous laws that angered the Americans. Many of these laws raised taxes, and the Americans blamed George III.
Second, the theory of natural rights influenced Americans against any kind of kingship. In the Middle Ages, kings had unlimited power. The natural rights doctrine rejected this idea. According to natural rights theory, individuals had inalienable rights. The people entered a social contract with their ruler, and the ruler had to honor that contract.
Third, the Founding Fathers did not want an executive to have unlimited power. They sought to balance executive power with judicial and legislative authorities. This is why the United States has three equal branches of government.
And finally, George Washington did not want to be king. He was so popular that he could have become a king, but he rejected the idea without hesitation. He was content to serve as first president and establish precedents for his successors.

Type a thorough and thoughtful response in which you discuss the story from any Gothic standpoint you wish. Also, consider the various symbols and metaphors in the story.

Two elements of the Gothic that appear in "Young Goodman Brown" are the uncanny and the unheimlich, which are related concepts.
Freud wrote that we experience the uncanny when the ordinary becomes strange or eery. This is connected to the unheimlich or unhomelike, which is when "home," or the familiar, suddenly transforms into that which seems threatening or creepy. A haunted house is an example of the unheimlich—it is both a home and unhomelike at the same time.
Freud connected the uncanny to the return of the repressed. We repress the parts of ourselves we don't want to see, especially violent or sexual desires that we find socially unacceptable. To catch a glimpse of such a part of ourselves is startling and disorienting, just as it is to see a reflection in a mirror or a photo of the back of bodies, which are usually out of view. When we feel this disorienting sensation of the uncanny, we are experiencing our repressed desires.
Young Goodman Brown finds himself, as he travels through the woods, entering into a eerie Gothic landscape that becomes more and more unheimlich as he goes deeper into it. When he gets closer to his destination, he finds,

The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while, sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn.

Goodman Brown normally knows the forest, but now it has become howling and unfamiliar—itself but not itself.
Likewise, he sees all his neighbors in an eerie or uncanny way when he encounters them at the devil's ceremony. People that were homelike and familiar to him, people he thought pious and good, such as Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin, suddenly show themselves as evil. Even his wife, Faith, whose pink ribbons symbolize her innocence, shows up at this evil ceremony.
Deep in the forest, the setting becomes an unheimlich version of a church service, a service worshipping the devil, not God. Like a typical church service, there are "hymns," an altar, and the tops of pine trees ablaze like "candles"—but this is unlike any church Goodman Brown has ever attended.
If the Gothic genre puts us in touch with our repressed side, this story shows Goodman Brown facing his unconscious temptation to give in to his darker impulses. The story also shows his loss of innocence. Whether a dream or real, Goodman Brown is coming to grips with the idea that all humans, including he and his wife, may hide a dark, hidden self behind the public front they exhibit to the world.

Why does Launcelot think he should stay in Shylock's service in The Merchant of Venice?

Readers should look to act 2, scene 2 for information regarding this question. The scene opens up with Lancelot having a long conversation with himself. It is a serious conversation, but it is also quite funny because of how garbled his reasoning is. The topic of his conversation is whether or not he should quit his job working for Shylock. In general, Lancelot really does not like working for Shylock. He even accuses Shylock of being the devil incarnate. The problem for Lancelot is that his conscience will not let him just up and quit. That conscience is tied to the notion that he sees himself as a good, honest, and loyal person. Lancelot believes that leaving Shylock runs counter to that persona. Of course, Lancelot doesn't end up convincing himself to stay. He leaves Shylock.

The poem "Still I Rise" falls under which genre?

There are a couple of different ways we can talk about the “genre” of a poem. The two main ways of classifying poetry are by its subject matter and by its form; often these are linked. For example, the psalm form often (but not always) is about religious or spiritual subject matter.
The first thing we can say about the form of the poem is that it is lyric: it uses prosody – the musical elements of language – to form stanzas and contains metrical feet, for example:

You may write | me down in | history
anapest | tribach | dactyl
With your bit | ter, twis | ted lies,
anapest | iamb | iamb
You may trod | me in the | very dirt
anapest | tribach | dactyl
But still | like dust | I'll rise.
iamb | iamb | iamb

The meter throughout does not follow the same pattern. Many lines are catalectic or hyper-catalectic: leaving off or adding syllables to lines. What this can tell us about a poem is that it was likely written to be spoken aloud, passionately, with dramatic pauses and to allow room for the reader to take breaths. You can see this if you watch Angelou read the poem: she stresses syllables and pauses for effect at certain points throughout the stanzas. Angelou’s first poetry collection, published in 1971, was principally poems which she had previously performed. “Still I Rise” was published in 1978, right before slam poetry came to be widely acknowledged, and so in addition to being a lyric poem, it could be considered a prototype slam poem.
Another element of this poem that we can analyae to figure out its genre is its subject matter and mood. The poem is written in the first person, the speaker uses the personal pronoun “I” and refers to an adversarial “you”. The poem deals with intense emotional and political issues like racism and sexism and contrasts these with playful, comedic, and sexual imagery and words. This contrast and the poem’s assertions of strength on the part of the speaker mean that this poem could also be considered an evolution of the confessional poetry that was popular in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s.
Taking all of these considerations into account, when we look at poems we use genre descriptively, not prescriptively. This means that it is not necessary, or even desirable, for every poem to adhere strictly to a set of rules to fit neatly into a genre. In this case, the poem “Still I Rise” can safely be classified as a lyric poem, and we can make arguments that it is also slam poetry and/or confessional poetry.
I have linked to a video of Angelou performing the poem, and to the Harvard poetry page which explains prosody terms like "anapest", "dactyl," and "iamb".
https://poetry.harvard.edu/guide-prosody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0

How does the Declaration of Independence impact me?

What a great question! Too often, we neglect the importance of history and the relevance to our current times. By your question, it sounds as if you are thinking about how history impacts current events. A literary example may help you think of the relevance of studying history and the Declaration of Independence from a different perspective. In the book Alice in Wonderland, Alice was asked by the Cheshire Cat, "Where are you going?" Alice responded, "Which way should I go?" The cat replied, "That depends on where you are going." " I don't know," said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cheshire Cat. The Declaration of Independence was one of many documents that provide a roadmap to the future.
Documents like the Declaration of Independence provide us with a starting point to compare where we are today with where we started as an independent American political culture. For example, the Declaration of Independence reads, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." When the document was written, the notion of "all men created equal" applied only to white male property owners. Minorities and females were excluded. Today the term "all men" is interpreted figuratively to represent all humankind without regard to race, gender, religion, and culture.
The Declaration of Independence ultimately led to the Constitution, which enshrines the notion of equality as the law of the land. The relevance of this one portion of the Declaration of Independence is that it has become part of the American psychological DNA (for lack of a better description) and is the basis for how the United States projects the concepts of liberty, freedom, and democracy internationally. It is fair to say we as a people have come a long way since those words were penned in 1776! The document gives us a way to measure our social progress since the inception of the political founding of our country.
The Declaration of Independence is relevant not only as a measurement of social progress—it is relevant to how we think of future generations. Following the previous statement, the Declaration of Independence says, "That to secure these rights; Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," meaning we have a responsibility to transmit the principles of self-governance and consent by democratic principle to future generations. We do this by holding the government and its leaders accountable through fair representative elections. Every day, all citizens should take stock of how elected officials are serving the public interest and serving the public good. Future generations are dependent upon the current generation for keeping the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice alive by vigilantly monitoring every aspect of governance. A famous quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others is, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," an apt description of how the Declaration of Independence captures our present and future civic responsibilities.
The Declaration of Independence is relevant in history and within the present day context. The ideas expressed are universal and have become the rallying cry for people seeking liberty and equality throughout the globe.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration/what-does-it-say

https://www.ushistory.org/us/13a.asp

Discuss in detail the idea that a dramatist not only lets the actors be creative while performing onstage but also must make sure that the larger thematic impact of the play should remain unchanged.

The term "dramatist" is a synonym for "playwright."
Playwrights vary in the degree to which they want to open up space for creativity in staging and performance. The degree to which this is done depends on the dramatic tradition. For example, producers of classical Greek drama worked within highly standardized traditions and thus did not innovate in staging plays. Shakespeare wrote his plays for his own company and thus would have control over how they were staged, although modern performers and directors have created many different types of interpretations. Shaw uses extensive stage directions to ensure that performers conform to his vision of how the plays were to be staged, whereas in earlier English plays, stage directions were much sparser.
Thus one can say that some playwrights create scripts that deliberately allow room for multiple interpretations in performance, while others use stage directions, prefaces, and narration to limit such flexibility.

What are major events in The Hunger Games that lead to Katniss's character development?

For the purpose of answering this question, I will assume you are referring to the novel The Hunger Games rather than the whole trilogy.
The first event that leads to Katniss's character development is when her sister's name is pulled out of the bowl at the annual reaping, meaning that Prim is to be District 12's female tribute in that year's Hunger Games. Katniss volunteers to take her sister's place, showing that she is willing to die to save her sister.
The next event that I would say shows Katniss's character development is the first time she decides to take action to kill. She is hiding up a tree in the arena when a fellow tribute, Rue, points out that there is a nest of tracker jackers further up the tree that she was in. By sawing off a branch and sending the nest of these deadly creatures to the ground, where her pursuers are sleeping, she shows that she has accepted the need to kill her fellow tributes.
Katniss shows character development once again toward the end of the Games, when a new rule is introduced that will allow her and her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta, to both return home alive. Katniss, who has been very much a lone wolf up until this point, seeks out her fellow tribute, risks her life to nurse him back to health, and begins to open her heart to him.

Who calls Reverend Hale to Salem?

Reverend Hale of Beverly is mentioned several times by the townsfolk before he makes his appearance in the middle of act 1. It is obvious by the references that Rev. Hale carries some authority on witchcraft and has experience with investigating witches.

PUTNAM, as though for further details: They say you've sent for Reverend Hale of Beverly?
PARRIS, with dwindling conviction now: A precaution only. He has much experience in all demonic arts, and I—
MRS. PUTNAM: He has indeed; and found a witch in Beverly last year, and let you remember that. (act 1)

The people (Mr. & Mrs. Putnam mainly, at this point) who want to hunt and find witches assume, since Rev. Hale has been called, a witch must be present. It never occurs to them that his expertise will confirm there is NOT a witch in Salem, despite Rev. Hale mentioning this outcome as a possibility almost immediately after his entrance:

PUTNAM: She cannot bear to hear the Lord's name, Mr. Hale; that's a sure sign of witchcraft afloat.
HALE, holding up his hands: No, no. Now let me instruct you. We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone, and I must tell you all that I shall not proceed unless you are prepared to believe me if I should find no bruise of Hell upon her. (act 1)

Rev. Parris is the one who called for Rev. Hale of Beverly to come to Salem:

PARRIS, his eyes going wide: No—no. There be no unnatural cause here. Tell him I have sent for Reverend Hale of Beverly, and Mr. Hale will surely confirm that. Let him look to medicine and put out all thought of unnatural causes here. There be none. (act 1)

Parris is convinced most people in the town are persecuting him for some reason. He sees the suspicion of his daughter Betty and his niece Abigail as witches to be the reason his persecutors will drive him from Salem. Rev. Parris has hopes that Hale can prove there is no witchcraft in Salem, especially involving his daughter and niece. Despite Hale being called to confirm there are no witches, his very presence helps to drive the hysteria that causes the witch hunts.

What happened to bring mama Elena’s early delivery of Tita ?

Bizarrely, Tita was born prematurely due to her mother's sensitivity to onions. While chopping onions in the kitchen one day, the heavily pregnant Elena starts crying. As she's already emotional due to the recent death of her husband, Elena's tears from chopping an onion soon mingle with the bitter tears of her sorrow. The ensuing trauma brings on Tita's premature birth, right there on the kitchen floor, brought into the world on a deluge of her mother's tears. The unusual circumstances of Tita's birth—induced by a sensitivity to onions—foreshadows the pain that she will subsequently experience in life. She came into this world on a flood of her mother's tears, and her sad life will be marked by much sobbing and weeping.

Weber is considered a conflict sociologist, while Durkeim is considered a functional theorist. Why?

Emile Durkheim is often termed as a functionalist sociologist due to his theories on social function. In fact, he is generally regarded as the founder of the functionalist movement in sociology; the modern functionalist perspective is based on many of his central theories. Durkheim was most interested in the "social function" of societal elements—that is, their designated purpose in the society in which they are created. Durkheim saw society as a group of interrelated parts. The example I typically give my students to explain Durkheim's ideas on social function is that of a wristwatch. Any watch is made up of a variety of parts and pieces, each with a particular function. The battery, the hands, the band, and the gears all have their own purpose to serve, and so long as they function correctly, then the entire watch functions. This is just the same when we consider society itself. If all the parts of society remain functional (as opposed to dysfunctional), then society moves along and gets along.
Weber, on the other hand, is often described as a conflict sociologist, due to his agreement with the ideas of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Marx and Engels wrote that economic differences are the root cause of many social conflicts (hence their theories in Das Kapital). Weber, who came a bit later than Marx, ultimately agreed with him. However, he went on to say that in addition to economic considerations, any inequality in social structure and political structure would also contribute to social conflict. The basic ideas of Marx and Weber could brand them as the progenitors of modern conflict theory in sociology.

Who was Annie Oakley in the book Buffalo Girls?

Buffalo Girls is a novel written by Larry McMurtry and published in 1990. It tells the story of many real-life notable figures of the American West as the time of the Wild West comes to an end. This story is largely told through the letters of well-known frontierswoman Calamity Jane. One of the characters that she describes in these letters is her fellow Buffalo Bill's Wild West performer, the legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
In the novel, Buffalo Bill's Wild West show is depicted as being a way in which these big figures of the Wild West can recreate their experiences and slowly adapt to the new ways of living, which are more lawful and peaceful. Annie Oakley is known to have been a talented exhibition shooter and celebrity. Her and Calamity Jane are often grouped despite their considerable differences. Though they both were famous women of the time, their talents and general reception were different. Annie Oakley was typically more respected than the wilder, suspected fibber Calamity Jane; though Calamity Jane remained quite well-liked, even as her alcoholism worsened. Comparing and contrasting these two characters is a fantastic way to analyze them as individuals!

To what extent is the protagonist of the story "Paul's Case" responsible for the conflict he faces?

I would argue that Paul is largely responsible for his predicament. Let us look at the evidence. Paul lives in a fantasy world in which he imagines himself to be a member of Pittsburgh's wealthy social elite. But instead of doing something—such as working hard or studying—to become just like the people he admires, Paul simply indulges in idle fantasies. This leads him to take a shortcut to living out his dreams by stealing from his employer and heading off to New York. Even with all this money burning a hole in his pocket, Paul does not put it to good use. He simply wastes it all on living out the fantasy of a wealthy young man about town.
In choosing to live in this fantasy world of his, Paul makes it virtually impossible for himself to live in the real world. It is no surprise, then, that he should take his own life. If he cannot live in the real world, then he must die in it. Though undoubtedly tragic, there is no doubt that Paul's demise is the inevitable outcome of the many bad choices he has made throughout his short life.

What can you infer about the sniper based on the way he dresses his wound?

The unnamed "Sniper," in Liam O'Flaherty's short story of the same name, is a participant in the Irish Civil War. The story takes place in 1920s Dublin (the site of an especially bloody series of battles that ended in the death of hundreds of both Republicans and Free Staters).
The story begins in medias res, and the sniper is seen loading his rife and eating voraciously. Here, the crude juxtaposition between fighting and eating is deliberate; the sniper is inured to the brutality of anonymous and arbitrary killing in the name of one's political party. We are told that the sniper is of the Republican party—an army known for its guerrilla tactics throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
First, it is remarkable that the sniper keeps a "field dressing" with him (indicating that he anticipates the level of sacrifice represented by being hit). He "rips [it] open" with a knife. The dressing kit contains an iodine bottle, which he breaks in order to treat his wound. He ties the ends with his teeth, amid a "paroxysm of pain."
The sniper demonstrates superhuman resolve as a Republican and sniper, reassuming his sniping duties after the severe injury to his arm:

He bent the arm below the wound. The arm bent back easily. He ground his teeth to overcome the pain.

He is resilient and deliberate in his actions, despite suffering crippling pain that would have disenfranchised others in his position. The actions of this nameless protagonist is representative of the rare form of mercilessness and determination in the name of the Republican cause.

What language devices does Shakespeare use in Act 1 scene 1?

There are a huge number of literary devices in the opening scene of Hamlet, but here are just a few of them:

Hendiadys. This rather strange looking word is a rhetorical device in which a complex idea is expressed using two words separated by a conjunction such as "and." So for instance, we have the following words spoken by Horatio in line 67-68:

But in the gross and scope of mine opinion
This bodes some strange eruption to our state. (Emphasis added).

In other words, Horatio senses there's something wrong, but doesn't quite know what.

The last line just quoted also gives us imagery. Horatio uses the image of the Ghost to highlight the sense of foreboding caused by the spook's presence.


In line 77 Marcellus provides us with a metaphor. He compares the shipbuilders working round the clock to prepare ships for the imminent war with Norway to night working with day. ("Doth make the night joint laborer with the day?") This heightens the already rapidly-building tension, showing us how the onset of war has turned everything upside-down, blurring the very distinction between night and day.
Later on in the scene, Horatio uses personification, which is when a lifeless object is endowed with human characteristics. He describes the dawn as being "in russet mantle clad," (i.e. wearing red clothing) and walking over the dew of a distant eastward hill. The dawn cannot, of course, wear clothes or walk, but personification helps to make its sudden appearance all the more striking.

Evaluate John Keats as a poet of beauty and sensuousness.

You asked for help evaluating John Keats as a poet of beauty and sensuousness. Keeping in mind that beauty especially is in the eye of the beholder (and that therefore, something one person finds beautiful, another may find just ho-hum or even ugly), I recommend that you consider two of Keats's best-known works.
The first is "Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art," which is a sonnet in the traditional style (fourteen lines, with the appropriate rhyme scheme). Keats is known for his command of formal poetry styles, the sonnet in particular. This particular poem is upheld by many as very beautiful in the sense of evoking the reader's wonder, right alongside the poet-narrator's, at the stunning sight of the night sky in all its starry glory. Even the sonic qualities of the poem when read aloud conjure breathtaking visuals, as of "lone splendour hung aloft the night / and watching, with eternal lids apart" (lines 2–3) and of the "moving waters at their priestlike task / of pure ablution round earth's human shores" (lines 5–6). Pick a line or phrase and try to take it apart; study the diction (word choice) Keats used and the ways he combined words to create pictures for the reader's imagination. Why, for instance, does he use the descriptor "priestlike" to describe a task? What makes something "priestlike"? What qualities do we associate with priests? Why use such a descriptor to refer to "moving waters"? What kinds of visuals do you get, thinking about that line?
The second poem to consider is "To Autumn," one of Keats's several odes. This work is a lovely tribute to the power of sensuousness in Keats's writing. (Sensuousness, by definition, is something that relates to the five senses.) A poem rife with sensuousness, then, is one that the reader experiences very viscerally, almost as though they can touch, taste, smell, see, or hear the same things that the poet-narrator describes. In "To Autumn," the very first stanza alone bursts with such word choices as, for example, "To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, / And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; / To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells / With a sweet kernel" (lines 5–8). The words used paint a vibrant picture for the reader. Keats uses active verbs (bend, fill, swell, plump) to paint word pictures and uses precise nouns for their visual effect (cottage-trees, fruit, apples, gourd, shells, kernel). He even uses words that appeal to the sense of taste (sweet, ripeness). Those are the kinds of things you're looking for in a bid to evaluate Keats's poems as sensuous.
I hope that helps! Good luck!
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/147110/john-keats-101

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44468/bright-star-would-i-were-stedfast-as-thou-art

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn

How can I study for a vocabulary quiz on "The Interlopers"?

I am not sure what you mean by "study," but I think it is certainly possible to get a good sense of what words might appear on a vocabulary quiz over this story. Whenever I make up a vocabulary quiz, taking words from a text my students are reading, I make a special effort to choose words that I know are likely to show up in future reading assignments, standardized tests, or in conversations that students might have in life. It is not too difficult to read this short story and guess which of the words your teacher might ask you about. I would be likely to ask about the meaning of the following words:
precipitous (second paragraph)
dispossessed (second paragraph)
acquiesced (second paragraph)
pinioned (fourth paragraph)
pious (fifth paragraph)
interlopers (tenth paragraph)
languor (seventeenth paragraph)
succour (twenty-first paragraph); American spelling is succor
halloo (twentieth paragraph)
pestilential (twenty-fifth paragraph)
I hope this helps!

How did the United States secure a victory in Europe and Japan during World War Two?

Victory in Europe was secured primarily by attrition aided significantly by Hitler's ill-fated decision to invade Russia on June 22, 1941. German victory in Europe and Russia was predicated upon quick victories because Germany simply didn't have the resources, human and material, to continually fight and supply drawn-out conflicts on multiple fronts. Initially, Germany secured those victories with brilliant generals implementing winning strategies. But time was against them. Russia did not provide the quick victory Hitler needed after the Battle of Stalingrad ended with a German defeat in January of 1941. By the end of 1941 with German forces in full retreat from Russia and America entering the war on the Allied side, Germany could resist, and did so for 3 more years, but could not win. Their only chance was to develop a super-weapon such as an atomic bomb but they ran out of time.

Allied strategy of fighting a ground war through N. Africa and then up through Italy's boot before the final invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1944 ( D-Day) was largely a war of attrition. A concurrent strategy of destroying Germany’s Luftwaffe and maintaining total control of the skies had devastating effects on German factories as well as on civilian populations.

Stalin complained fiercely that the Allied strategy was to use up Russia's resources by delaying the D-Day invasion as to have a weakened Russia in Post-War Europe and he may have been correct. Caught between a pincer movement of Allied forces with massive resources from America and Russia, the war had but one conclusion.

In the Pacific, it was a brutal battle of taking back territory island by island. Once close enough to operate bombing missions over the Japanese mainland, victory again was a matter of time against a stubborn and determined enemy. A full-scale invasion of Japan was planned and estimated to incur over a million Allied casualties. But the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 made the invasion unnecessary as Japan surrendered soon after.

When faced with a two-front war in World War Two, the United States and Great Britain decided to concentrate resources first on the European Theater, and, after defeating Germany and Italy, to bring all of their forces to bear on Japan. Even with this commitment to fight in Europe, the Allies were afraid of landing troops in German-occupied France, and fought the Nazis and Fascist Italians first in North Africa in 1942, then in Sicily, and then on the Italian peninsula itself. While these campaigns took place, the Western Allies were gaining experience and stockpiling troops and material for the watershed landing on Normandy's beaches that took place June 6, 1944. By the end of 1944 Allied troops had pushed the German army almost entirely back into Germany, and the last-ditch German efforts at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 came up short of their objectives. The United States, with Great Britain and the Soviet Union, accepted the unconditional surrender of Germany in May of 1945 to end World War Two in Europe.
The Pacific Theater was much larger, reaching from Alaska's Aleutian Island to Papua New Guinea just north of Australia. Aircraft carriers proved to be very important in the fight to control the ocean, as aircraft proved capable of bombing not just land fortifications but also of sinking battleships and even other aircraft carriers. In the Pacific, the United States used island hopping to advance closer to Japan's Home Islands while at the same time avoiding Japanese strongholds such as Rabaul. Some islands that were captured by the US were called unsinkable aircraft carriers, showing just how important air power was in the Pacific. Air power proved decisive when the US firebombed Tokyo and later used atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, convincing the Japanese to surrender in August 1945 without the Allies having to invade Japan proper.

The United States and the Allies implemented different plans to achieve victory in Europe and in Japan. In Europe, the Allies decided to conquer North Africa before beginning the invasion of Europe. After North Africa was liberated, the Allies moved to control the Italian Peninsula, which was accomplished in 1944 after nearly a year of fighting. The Allies also worked to gain control over the Atlantic Ocean. By using convoys and new technology such as radar, the Allies were able to gain the upper hand in the Atlantic Ocean, which made it easier to get troops and supplies to Europe. The Allies then planned to invade France in order to free it from German control. Some of the toughest battles in Europe came when the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Eventually, the Allies liberated France and moved into Germany, eventually leading to Germany’s surrender in May 1945.
In the Pacific, the Allied strategy, which was mainly carried out by the United States, was to recapture islands that were lost to Japan earlier in the war. This strategy, known as island hopping, enabled the Allies to regain these lost islands one at a time, thereby moving closer and closer to Japan. Eventually, the Allies began to bomb Japan, and after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to World War II.

Compare the use of narrative perspective in "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury and "The Cathedral" by Raymond Carver. How does point of view influence the way in which the reader experiences these stories? Does the point of view of either story ever present problems or difficulties for the reader?

Narrative perspective considers the questions of "Who is the narrator?" and "What is the narrator's point of view?"
In "The Veldt," the narrator is a third-person omniscient narrator. For example, the narrator speaks in third person about the primary characters George and Lydia, but the readers can understand the narrator's omniscience when he shares George's thoughts. However, the reader assumes that the third-person narrator is not actively involved with the events of the story, but rather exists to tell the story to the reader.
"The Cathedral," on the other hand, features an unnamed first-person narrator who the reader assumes is actively experiencing that which is happening in the story. He shares his intimate thoughts about his experience with the reader.
The two stories have distinct points of view, which provide equally distinct experiences for the reader. Essentially, a reader may feel emotionally connected to the first-person narrator in "The Cathedral" because the experience is like hearing a friend tell a story. In "The Veldt," the reader may feel as if she is watching the story on television and seeing every detail because a third-person omniscient narrator can often provide a seemingly unbiased perspective of the events in a story.
Both points of view come with problems and difficulties that depend on the reader's perspective. For example, "The Cathedral" presents the reader with a narrator with some unlikable qualities, such as jealousy or bitterness; the close relationship that the reader can form with the narrator's intimate thoughts may create discomfort for the reader. On the other hand, the third-person narrator might limit the reader's relationship to the characters, causing the tragedy at the end of "The Veldt" to feel inconsequential, or remove some of the weight of the ethical dilemmas presented in the story.

How is "steering" relevant in Heart of Darkness as a particular way of life in regards to Kurtz dying?

Marlow must steer the boat upriver to try to reach Kurtz, but he is unfamiliar with the river and is especially concerned about the hidden dangers below. He knows that any idea of control is just an illusion. Marlow learns the difference between substance and surface as well as the importance of hidden inner truth.

I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out . . .; I had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell you—fades. The inner truth is hidden—luckily, luckily.

When Marlow finally reaches Kurtz at his station deep in the interior, Kurtz is at death’s door, and Marlow decides that he must rescue him. The manager helps him get Kurtz carried onboard the boat that has brought Marlow up the river. Kurtz is delirious and makes little sense, but Marlow tries to understand his meaning. Marlow realizes that whatever control he had has now vanished. As soon as he saw the gruesome evidence of Kurtz’s deranged behavior—the decapitated heads on spikes—he realized how far-gone the other man was. Marlow hopes very much to bring Kurtz out of the jungle alive, in part so Kurtz can recover and present his own story, but he admits to himself that this outcome is highly unlikely. Any directing of the boat on the river, of Kurtz’s final days or hours of life, or even of his own fate are now out of his hands.

The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.

Just before Kurtz dies, the boat breaks down, and Marlow must occupy himself with helping get it fixed. While the boat is repaired enough to continue the journey, Kurtz does not recover.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/526/pg526.html

In two paragraphs with quotes, explain how F. Scott Fitzgerald has portrayed a social group in a particular way. How might the contexts of the author have influenced his portrayal of these social groups?

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows that people born to wealth and privilege are insensitive to the needs of others, self-centered, and cynical in pursuing their own desires. The two people that most completely fit that category are Daisy and Tom Buchanan. Daisy is born into a comfortable life in a large white house with loving parents. By the time she is seventeen, she has pretty clothes, many admirers, and her own car. Part of what attracts Gatsby to her is the "smell" of money she exudes: she is a person who has never known the insecurity of financial want. Tom comes from an even higher social class than Daisy. He is immensely wealthy because he has inherited a vast amount of money. He even owns his own string of polo ponies. Yet these two characters, because they have always been pampered and cared for, are remarkably insensitive to the needs of others. Quotes that support this idea include:

I couldn’t forgive him or like him but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . .

I have included the earlier part of this famous quote, in which it is explained that Tom feels he was justified in leading George Wilson to kill Gatsby, because it reflects the upper-class mindset that Fitzgerald is trying to convey. All throughout the novel, too, Tom is stringing Wilson along, pretending to want to sell him a car as a cover for seeing his wife, Myrtle. Tom's arrogance and insensitivity come out in the following:

The voice [Tom's] in the hall rose high with annoyance. "Very well, then, I won’t sell you the car at all . . . I’m under no obligations to you at all . . . And as for your bothering me about it at lunch time I won’t stand that at all!"

The poor, on the other hand—like George Wilson and the people described in the contemporary song lyrics of the 1920s that Fitzgerald carefully interweaves into the novel—may live and love sincerely, but they are ground up by their harsh lives. While Fitzgerald might focus on the wealthy lives and fabulous parties of the Jazz Age, he never loses sight of this society's less fortunate. George, for example, upset at learning of Myrtle's infidelity, reports saying to her, with no cynicism:

God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me but you can’t fool God!

Tom and Daisy are far too cynical to hold such simple beliefs. They survive, and George ends up poor and dead. Further, an example of a song lyric that shows an awareness of the poor is as follows, printed in all caps:

THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET—CHILDREN.

Fitzgerald's context is his awareness of the huge divide between rich and poor in the 1920s world he inhabited and his own rise from a middle-class background to wealth and fame. You will be able to find more examples of the contrast between rich and poor throughout the novel.

What are some quotes from Stephen Toulmin.

A man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, on occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.

Toulmin is interested in questions of argumentation and relativity vs. absolutism. He breaks with many philosophers who he sees as overly focused on fixed ideas, while also pushing back against what he sees as the overly relativistic approach taken by many anthropologists. Instead, Toulmin posits that good philosophy can distinguish between and take into account both "field dependent" and "field independent" ideas. That is, philosophy can distinguish between ideas that are relevant to a specific context and ideas that are more generally true. In this quote, Toulmin makes clear that he views the sign of rationality not as having found a certain set of "right ideas," but as a tool that people display as they evaluate new ideas and choose whether to accept or reject them.

The picture of the natural world we all take for granted today, has one remarkable feature, which cannot be ignored in any study of the ancestry of science: it is a historical picture.

Toulmin is a harsh critic of modern science, pointing out that the abstract approach to knowledge for knowledge's sake, divorced of all questions of morality and context, led to the construction of nuclear weapons and other technologies that have been massively destructive. Toulmin emphasizes the need to contextualize scientific questions along lines of time, place, and morality. Here, Toulmin applies these ideas to the question of how we view the "natural world." While it is easy to assume that what we think of as "natural" has always existed in more or less the form that it does not, this is not true. Both due to large scale ecological changes such as ice ages and due to the massive ecologically destructive impact human activity has had on global ecosystems, the way the world exists right now is a historically specific reality.
Additionally, Toulmin calls on us to scrutinize the difference between the picture we have of the world and the world itself. The way in which we view the world is heavily effected by the kinds of stories we read and the lens with which we're taught to interact with the world. We have no unfiltered way to interact with the world.

There is no way of cutting ourselves free of our conceptual inheritance: all we are required to do is use our experience critically and discriminatingly, refining and improving our inherited ideas, and determining more exactly the limits to their scope.

Here, Toulmin further explores questions of epistemology, making clear that he finds it important to recognize that we are grounded in specific historical movements and are not merely grappling with abstract ideas outside of any context. While it is easy to conceptualize philosophers as simply interacting with the world of ideas and chasing after truth, the ideas that we are familiar with vary massively from person to person, culture to culture, and from one time period to another. This is what Toulmin refers to as our "conceptual inheritance." It is not necessarily a bad thing, it is simply the way the world works. It is only a problem if we forget this and act as though we exist outside of our specific context.

Why is this poem a metaphysical poem?

Metaphysical poets were known for their use of surprising images and for putting together unlikely ideas. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who coined the term "metaphysical" to describe them, notes that in these poets

the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions . . .

In "To His Coy Mistress," we can see the metaphysical influence in the extreme use of hyperbole (exaggeration) that the speaker employs to try to persuade his beloved to go to bed with him. He says that if he had enough time,

An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest . . .

His point is that they don't have centuries for the niceties. He can't spend two hundred years flattering the beauty of one of her breasts.

The speaker drives his point about time home with an unusual metaphor, comparing time to a "wing'd chariot hurrying near." Soldiers in ancient times drove chariots in battle, so this is an image of time as a frightening force chasing down the lovers and threatening to kill them. Time is coming at them so fast that it is as if the chariot were flying on wings. Marvell could have had no experience of airplanes in the seventeenth century, but he describes time, if we were to use a modern idiom, as a fighter plane swooping at supersonic speed toward them. That is an odd image for a love poem.

The use of this kind of heightened exaggeration and the unusual metaphors are metaphysical qualities in this poem.

How did World War 1 affect factories, farms, mines, and other means of production?

The answer to this question is different for the various countries that were directly involved in World War I, so to provide a blanket answer is not easy. However, there were certain patterns which historians consider when examining how World War I affected the economic stability of those countries.
First, World War I was the first "type" of war of its kind in several ways. It was a "total war," which means that the countries directly involved (Britain, France, Germany, Austria/Hungary, Italy, Russia, and eventually the USA) transformed their economies to facilitate fighting the war. It was also one of the first truly mechanized wars, to some extent. This meant that the production of specialized equipment was necessary for countries to stay in the fight. It was also a war which was fought in the context of already existing arms races and very complex international trade agreements between countries. If we consider all of this, we can find at least some patterns which provide us with a fairly adequate answer to this question.
Factories worked overtime to provide the mechanical equipment for the war, in most countries. In France and Germany, factories produced large quantities of weapons (field guns, shells, rifles, ammunition) whereas in Britain, much of the mass-produced goods were imported from the USA. Specialized work was often contracted out to private manufacturers. This meant that many wealthy businessmen profited from the war. Finally, one of the main problems of factory production was labor, which is why women made an important contribution to labor.
Farms and mines worked overtime because the factories needed the raw materials to produce the goods needed to maintain the armies. Russia was largely self-sufficient in this area because it was still mostly a peasant economy before 1917. The British coal industry exported a great deal of its produce to France, and the American oil and steel industry had a market in the UK. Farms were more problematic. Armies had swallowed up many young men from the countryside, which left farms with labor shortages across Britain and France. In addition, many animals had been requisitioned by governments, which led to farmers struggling to produce the food needed for the war economy. As a result, rationing was commonplace in most Allied countries. Germany experienced huge food shortages by 1916.
In short, World War I transformed the economies of those involved. Many private businesses profited from the increased demand for production, but eventually, the strain that was placed on the economy led to widespread collapse, which many historians argue was the main factor in bringing about an end to the war. Quite simply, Germany could not keep up and was forced to surrender. Labor was certainly the biggest challenge, but this was coupled with more complex economic factors such as shortages of goods and food, high prices and fluctuating taxes.
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/the-war-effort-at-home

Discuss how romanticism is seen in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Victor, especially after the creation of his creature, is especially alive to the sublimity of nature. Walton describes him to his sister, saying,

Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him [...].

The Romantics believed in the positive effects of nature, that it could restore one to one's best self and improve one's spirits. It can produce intense and wonderful feelings that inspire the viewer. Victor is so affected by nature, here as well as throughout the story, and this is one very significant way that we see the tenets of Romanticism appear in the novel. However, this quotation also elevates the individual human being almost to the divine. Romanticism championed the individual's abilities, imagination, powers of creation, genius, emotion, and growth. When Walton describes Victor as though he is some kind of holy spirit or angel, he acknowledges this very Romantic way of viewing the individual.
We see a similar focus on Victor's descriptions of Elizabeth. He tells Walton that, when Elizabeth was a child,

She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home—the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes.

Notice that Elizabeth is very much aligned with Romantic values while Victor seems to be characterized much more by Enlightenment ones. She wants to create while he wants to discover. It is not Elizabeth's values and priorities that jeopardize the lives of her friends and family; instead, it is Victor's that lead to the misery and ruination of so many. In this way, Shelley seems to champion Romantic values over Enlightenment ones: emotion over logic, fellow-feeling and empathy over science.

What was Vasily Ignatenko's job? Where did he work?

Vasily Ignatenko was a Ukrainian fire-fighter, one of the heroes of Chernobyl. The Soviet nuclear reactor exploded on April 26th, 1986, causing the biggest nuclear disaster in history. Ignatenko was one of the first responders on the scene but, like his fellow firefighters, was woefully ill-equipped for such a catastrophe. The Soviet authorities had made inadequate plans for a possible meltdown at Chernobyl, and so when emergency crews arrived to deal with the rapidly deteriorating situation, they were forced to improvise as best they could.
Ignatenko, on his own initiative, climbed up to the roof of the reactor's main building in an attempt to put out the open-air graphite fires that were raging there. It was these fires that gave Ignatenko the massive dose of radiation that would eventually cause his death.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of Ignatenko and his comrades, all but one of the fires at Chernobyl would be extinguished by the following morning. But by then the damage had already been done. A giant cloud of radiation had been unleashed on Western Europe by the reactor's meltdown which would, in due course, lead to countless deaths and birth-defects, not to mention long-term environmental damage.
Vasily Ignatenko, along with 27 of his fellow firefighters, would later perish from radiation sickness. The men's bodies were so radioactive that they had to be buried beneath mounds of zinc and concrete in order to protect the public.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/vasily-ignatenko

Why won't the hitchhiker steal anything from the narrator?

The hitchhiker describes himself as a fingersmith, which is a euphemism for "pickpocket." The hitchhiker doesn't like to call himself a pickpocket as it's a word he associates with coarse and vulgar people who steal money from blind old ladies. As he explains, "fingersmith" is similar to "goldsmith" or "silversmith." It implies the possession of a certain skill or expertise, and the hitchhiker regards himself as a skilled professional.
The hitchhiker proves his remarkable skills by successfully relieving the narrator of several items without his knowing it. But he doesn't keep those items; he returns them to their rightful owner. As the hitchhiker explains he only steals from those who can afford it, such as rich people and winning punters at the race track.

How does distance affect the force of gravity?

The force of gravity between any two objects is a function of their masses and the separation distance between them. The more the masses, the higher the gravitational force. The more the distance between them, the lesser is the gravitational force.
More accurately, as per the universal law of gravitation, the force of gravity (F) acting upon the two masses (with mass m1 and m2) and with a separation distance "d" between them is given by the following equation:
F = (Gm_1m_2 )/ d^2
This shows that the force is directly proportional to the product of masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This means that if the mass of an object doubles, the gravitational force will also double. On the other hand, if the separation distance between two objects doubles, the gravitational force drops to 25% or 1/4 of its original value.
I hope this helps.

Which excerpt from The Last Lecture best supports the idea that the process of setting and pursuing goals can be rewarding?

Here is an excerpt which fits that description:

There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.

This excerpt is about how the challenge of pursuing goals can help build character. Pausch is against entitlement or people trying to get things the easy way, which he thinks is unhelpful to one's own mental health. By doing something, one gets self-esteem and the confidence to push further in future goals. This cannot be done for an individual nor can nice words make it magically appear. Self-esteem must be, as Pausch puts it, built through deliberate action and persistence even in the face of failure and setbacks.
While the end-goal is good in and of itself, Pausch hammers home the idea that hard work is a good thing in and of itself as well. It makes getting the end-goal all the sweeter, and the experience of reaching the goal helps people go farther with future goals, too.

How would the Greeks have come into contact with influences from the Near East? Identify and explain as many means of this cultural transmission as possible.

Travel by land and sea around the Mediterranean has been ongoing for many centuries. With technological advances that improved the seagoing properties of ships and enabled better road construction, connections became easier and more frequent. The desire for exotic goods and superior materials that increased as Greek civilization developed in turn brought increased economic interactions.
War and hostilities were a main source of interaction. The inevitable political conflicts and movements toward conquest led to military interactions as well. Under the rule of Darius (who ruled 522–486 BCE), for example, Persia expanded into mainland Europe, with particular interest in Athens. As Darius demanded Greek submission, the Athenians and Spartans joined forces to resist Persian control, to which Darius responded with massive naval power directed at the Cyclades. Under Xerxes, the military efforts at political expansion continued. The consolidation of northern Greek power under Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BCE provided the foundation for his son, Alexander the Great, to turn the tables and expand into Persia.
https://www.ancient.eu/Persian_Wars/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-II-king-of-Macedonia

How do you interpret the tone of the final two lines in "How I Discovered Poetry" by Marilyn Nelson?

In literature, when we want to describe the tone, we're looking for what the speaker's attitude is toward the subject. In other words, how does the speaker of the poem feel toward what she's writing about? Here, the short answer is that the speaker's tone toward the poems and their power is one of reverence and amazement.
So how do we figure out what the tone is?
In any poem, and specifically in "How I Discovered Poetry" by Marilyn Nelson (published in 1997 in The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems), we can interpret the tone by looking at what the lines mean as well as how they express that meaning: that is, we should paraphrase the lines in our own words to understand what they're saying, and then we should pay attention to the individual words and phrases that Nelson selected, figuring out what kind of mood or attitude they convey. (Here, we're concerned specifically about the tone of the last two lines.)
When we do this, we'll discover that the tone of those last two lines is one of profound reverence—in other words, the tone is serious, contemplative, and impressed, because the speaker and her classmates feel amazed and deeply appreciative.

When I finishedmy classmates stared at the floor. We walked silentto the buses, awed by the power of words.

First, let's paraphrase those lines. After telling us that most of her classmates didn't care about poetry and were just eager for the school day to end, the speaker (the "I" in the poem) says that she finished reading the selected poem aloud to her classmates, who then looked down instead of at each other or up at her. Then, the speaker and her classmates leave the classroom to head home for the day, and instead of cheerfully chatting with each other, they say nothing, because they are "awed by the power of words," or impressed and amazed by the way in which words did amazing things in the poem they just listened to.
Next, let's look closely at the words and phrases Nelson selected in these last two lines. She chose short, simple words like "stared," "floor," "walked," "buses," and "awed," so she doesn't want to call our attention to any flashy words—she just wants the idea to shine. She just wants us to think about what the kids are doing and how they're reacting to the poem they just heard. With the words "stared" and "silent," Nelson adds a bit of subtle alliteration, letting the soft "s" sounds echo in our minds. Again, nothing is loud or flashy here in Nelson's word choice: the lines are almost as quiet as the children are. She dispenses with traditional grammar, writing casually that the students "walked silent," not that they "walked silently." The words sink deeply into these student's minds, just like the lines of Nelson's poem right here can sink into our minds, helping us envision the children and their astonished, impressed faces.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46559/how-i-discovered-poetry

Who Can Be Trusted in Glengarry Glen Ross?

The salesmen in David Mamet's acclaimed play Glengarry Glen Ross are bilking the public by selling them land that could be completely worthless or worth only a fraction of what they paid. It is natural that such unscrupulous businessmen should behave the same way towards their colleagues.
Richard Roma seems to be above such chicanery. When he has his argument with Dave Moss he tells him, in effect, that they should all be pals and allies. It looks as if Roma and George Aaronow are at least honest with their co-workers. The others demonstrate by their behavior within the office that they know this is a dog-eat-dog world and they are going to be the dog that eats rather than the dog that gets eaten.
Dave Moss tries to exploit George Aaronow by involving him in a plot to burglarize the office and steal the coveted Glengarry leads. We later learn that Moss exploited Shelly Levene's financial distress by getting him to commit the crime after Moss apparently realized that Aaronow would not cooperate or would not make an effective burglar.
John Williamson, the office manager, intends to exploit Shelly Levene by selling him "the good leads" for fifty dollars apiece plus twenty percent of any commissions. Later Williamson will trick Shelly into confessing that he burglarized the office by pretending that he won't tell if Shelly confesses. Then when Shelly admits the truth, Williamson goes directly to Baylen the investigating cop.
Levene betrays Dave Moss and also betrays Jerry Graff, who could go to prison for knowingly receiving stolen property. George Aaronow so far has not betrayed Dave Moss for suggesting the burglary to him earlier, but he could get around to it if Moss brought Aaronow's name into it, as he had threatened to do.
Mitch and Murray, of course, are exploiting the entire sales staff and trying to exploit the general public. Moss is referring to them when he says: "I'll go in and rob everyone blind and go to Argentina cause nobody ever thought of this before."
Roma is trying to exploit James Lingk and his wife by selling them subdivided plots of land at exorbitant prices. When Lingk comes to the office Roma lies to him that his check has not yet been cashed, so there is no urgency about cancelling the contract.
Levene is a pathetic character, but he tries to exploit Williamson by faking a burglary and stealing all the Glengarry leads. Levene is also injuring Mitch and Murray as well as his fellow salesmen Roma and Aaronow.
Shelly Levene also tries to help Roma cheat Lingk by posing as a big executive with American Express and lying outrageously about all the land he has supposedly bought from Roma. Levene is a somewhat sympathetic character, but he is the biggest liar of them all because he is the best.
At the very end of the play (but not the film version) Roma reveals his superlative deceitfulness when he tells Williamson he wants to keep his own leads but share Shelly's with him fifty-fifty. Not knowing that Shelly is out of the real estate business and probably on his way to prison, Roma tells Williamson: "Well I'm going to worry about it, and so are you, so shut up and listen. (Pause) I GET HIS ACTION. My stuff is mine, whatever he gets for himself, I'm taking half. You put me in with him." We see that Roma, who has just been flattering and cajoling Shelly, calling him Levene the Machine, is the greediest, craftiest, and most ruthless one of all. He plans to take half of Shelly's commissions without giving him a nickel of his own commissions. Some partnership!
The salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross have become so competitive and so hardened by their profession that they can turn against each other without pity. Such salesmen were called "land sharks" at the time the play was produced, and like sharks they are capable to turning on a bleeding member of their own species and devouring it to slake their insatiable hunger.

What are the 3 settings of the enormous radio?

Jim and Irene Westcott live on the 12th floor of an apartment building near Sutton Place, and this is where the story takes place. Though the city where Sutton Place is located is not mentioned in the story, one can assume that the reference is to Sutton Place in New York City, as many of John Cheever's stories were set in New York, (the story itself appeared in the New Yorker).
Other settings are mentioned in the story, but no events take place there. The story mentions that the Westcotts "hoped some day to live in Westchester" and that Jim still "dressed in the kind of clothes his class had worn at Andover." When the children come home, we are told that Mrs. Westcott, "took them to the Park."
Through the radio, the couple hears conversations from people in other apartments in the building. They hear conversations from apartment 17B, 18C, and 16C.
We are also told that the Westcott's walked to meet some friends from the neighborhood for dinner, but we are not told where they dined.

Did all of the soldiers that fought at the Gettysburg fight for the same reason?

The Battle of Gettysburg, which took place between July 1 and July 3, 1863, is considered by historians to be a decisive turning point in the American Civil War. The battle was fought between the Confederate army led by Robert E. Lee and the Union troops led by Maj. Gen. George Meade, in what proved to be the deadliest battle of the war. The soldiers fighting in this battle fought for a variety of reasons but the American Civil War was fought primarily over slavery. The Confederate army was comprised of soldiers from the seven Southern states that seceded from the Union in an attempt to uphold the institution of slavery, while the Union army was made up of soldiers from Northern states that remained loyal to U.S. government and opposed slavery.
While the question of slavery was the primary division that sparked the war, several thousand black soldiers fought in the Confederate Army because they were promised their freedom in exchange (though this shouldn't be overstated as many were simply forced to serve). It is also important to remember that the Confederate Army and the Union army were not entirely volunteer armies. In March 1863, Congress passed the Enrollment Act, which facilitated a draft from the first time. Men were conscripted and faced imprisonment if they did not comply with the law. While the soldiers in this battle may have had reasons for fighting that were motivated by the deeper underlying causes of the war, there is also the stark reality that for many they did not have a choice.
https://www.theroot.com/yes-there-were-black-confederates-here-s-why-1790858546

Who were the three natives accused of murder in Cry, the Beloved Country?

The three natives accused of murder in Cry, the Beloved Country are angry and disillusioned young men, whose lot in life reduce them to the act of violent robbery. Absalom Kumalo is the only one of these three who is punished for his crime, since he confesses to the police, who initially suspect Johannes. Matthew, Absalom’s cousin, also escapes punishment, due in part to the support of his influential father, who pays for his legal defense and urges him to sell out his unfortunate cousin. Johannes is a former servant of the Jarvis household, whom the three rob. He is suspected by the police, since one of the other servants recognizes him, but the evidence is not sufficient for a conviction.

How did Texas become part of the United States? Why was the process so complicated, and how did it impact national politics?

The territory of Texas was first owned by the Spanish, and then it became Mexican after Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. It was not included in the Louisiana Purchase, through which the United States bought vast territories in the west from France. However, Mexico encouraged Americans to colonize Texas, which was very sparsely populated. Stephen Austin led a large band of settlers into Mexican territory in Texas, and soon the American colonists in Texas outnumbered Mexicans.
Rebelling against the Mexican government, American Texans declared their independence and formed their own country. The Mexicans won a victory at the Alamo, but later military commander Sam Houston won battles against Mexican forces that caused the Mexicans to withdraw.
Although the Texans elected Sam Houston as their first president, their intention was always to join the Union as a part of the United States, and they voted for annexation. What complicated and delayed this process in this volatile era just before the US Civil War was the issue of slavery. Abolitionists opposed the annexation of Texas as a slave state. For 10 years, the admission of Texas to the Union was delayed while Congress debated this topic. Finally, on December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the United States as a slave state. Soon afterwards, a border dispute set off the Mexican-American War.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Texas-state/History

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/texas-enters-the-union

Texas was originally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, an expansive colonial possession of the Spanish empire in North America. The establishment of an independent state in New Spain in 1821 took Texas out of Spanish territorial control, making it part of the newly sovereign Mexico.
Hoping to populate the spartan territory, Mexico introduced liberal immigration policies, resulting in a large number of American and European settlers coming to Texas. The Texas Revolution of 1835 saw the new Euro-American majority in the territory wrest control from the distant, increasingly autocratic government in Mexico City.
Over the next ten years, Texas operated as a sovereign nation-state. Ongoing harassment by Mexico forced the fledgling nation to devote ever-larger portions of its budget to military expenditures, bringing it to the brink of bankruptcy.
A complex process of negotiated annexation by the United States was Texas's salvation. This intricate compact resulted in the larger nation absorbing Texas and assuming its huge debt in exchange for Texas ceding to the federal government the territory now known as Oklahoma. The process became more complicated still due to opposition among abolitionist politicians in the United States, which forced the act of annexation to occur through a constitutionally dubious congressional joint resolution.
American possession of Texas brought with it responsibility for the uncharted border with Mexico. This set the stage for military confrontation with the southern republic leading directly to the Mexican-American War of 1845, a momentous moment for American political life.

After winning independence from Mexico in 1836, the Republic of Texas petitioned the United States for annexation. Most of the Anglo settlers of Texas were originally from the United States and wanted the protection of the country against the possibility of reconquest by Mexico. However, it was up to the U.S. Congress to pass a bill to annex Texas. This would prove a very contentious matter that would take nine years to settle.
There were two major issues concerning allowing Texans into the Union that proved politically contentious. First off, Mexico still did not recognize the independence of Texas. The Mexican government had made it clear to the United States that the annexation would lead to war. Many representatives in Congress considered it territorial theft to annex Texas. They worried that such an action could irreparably hurt relations with neighboring Mexico and that a war with that country would be costly. In the end, annexation was one of the leading causes of the Mexican-American War.
Perhaps an even more contentious issue had to do with slavery. Many settlers in Texas were slave owners. It was clear that Texas would be a slave state once admitted into the United States. For decades a delicate peace existed between free states and slave states. Great efforts had been made to preserve the representational balance between free and slave states in Congress. Adding a new large slave-holding territory threatened to upset this balance. Worried that annexation would embolden anti-slavery members of Congress several President Martin Van Buren rejected Texas' petition for annexation. Several other petitions were rejected in Congress along similar lines of thinking.
When John Tyler became president in 1841 he pursued an aggressive expansionist agenda. He had recently been expelled from the Whig party and was looking to Texas to salvage his image. He partnered with John C. Calhoun, a pro-slavery advocate, to negotiate the annexation. In April of 1844, Calhoun negotiated an annexation treaty with Texas which he delivered to the Senate. This treaty was rejected as northern states voted not to allow another slave state into the country.
In order to side-step the need for approval by two-thirds of the Senate, Congress then held a joint-resolution for annexing Texas. This required a simple majority of Congress to approve of the resolution. Such a move was unprecedented and raised debates as to whether it was even constitutional. However, the resolution passed and was quickly signed by President Tyler.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/texan04.asp

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/treasures/earlystate/annex-01.html

What is the plot and theme of "The Capital of the World"?

This short story by Ernest Hemingway addresses the theme of the high cost of innocence. Set in Spain, it is the story of the naïve Paco, who is totally obsessed with bullfighting. Coming from a tiny town to work as a waiter at a Madrid hotel that caters to the bullfighting crowed, he immerses himself in every aspect of this world and does not recognize some of the foibles of the bullfighters who hang out there—some of whom are has-beens. The plot concerns his conflict with Enrique, a jaded older dishwasher at the hotel, who tries to burst Paco’s bubble. The climax comes when they stage a mock-bullfight using a chair with knives attached to simulate the bull’s horns. Paco—who actually has never faced a bull—is far too confident of his ability, which leads to Enrique fatally stabbing him. In regard to Paco’s early demise, Hemingway leaves the ending open to interpretation: one might take a romantic view of things and decide lived a full life because his death came while he was defending his passion.

What are the techniques utilized by Duras in ''The Lover'' to channel the opinions, feelings, and sensations of the audience? How does she instill expectations in the reader?

I believe you are asking how the author, Marguerite Duras, connects with the audience in telling the story of her childhood in Indochina (French colonial Vietnam) and her Chinese lover when she was only a teenager. Firstly, Duras writes in the first person, and she writes in a way that establishes intimacy with the audience because her story, while deceptively intricate, is confessional. Duras writes with a deep awareness of her audience. Secondly, Duras writes about very personal subjects that sometimes astonish the reader, and she also tells brutal truths about her family, such as her brother being physically abusive to her and her mother's very real troubles with the land that she owns and her inability to turn a profit. This leads Duras to disclose in detail her family's economic situation, which further connects with the reader.

At the end of the book, why is Bilbo no longer considered to be respectable by the other hobbits? What special abilities do hobbits, in general, have that makes Bilbo useful to the dwarves?

In The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, Gandalf explains why he recommends that Bilbo accompany Thorin's band of dwarves as the burglar:

If I say he is a burglar, a burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.

In a general sense, Tolkien writes that any hobbit is "as fierce as a dragon in a pinch," and that Bilbo's great grand-uncle Bullroarer was so brave that he charged the ranks of goblins in a battle and lopped off their king's head. He also explains that hobbits can disappear quietly and quickly when larger folks are about.
Tolkien explains further about the special abilities of Hobbits that would make Bilbo useful to the dwarves in the section of the prologue to The Fellowship of the Rings called "Concerning Hobbits." He writes that hobbits are quick of hearing, sharp-eyed, and nimble and deft when they move around:

They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently when large folk whom they do not wish to meet come blundering by; and this art they have developed until to men it may seem magical.

At the end of his journey, Bilbo was no longer considered respectable to other hobbits because hobbits do not like adventure. They look with suspicion on anyone who finds it necessary to travel far from their homes. Tolkien makes this clear in the third paragraph of the first chapter of The Hobbit when he writes:

The Bagginses had lived in the neighborhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected.

Was the US victory in the Revolutionary War inevitable?

The American victory in the Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was not inevitable. Britain was a great power and it was not willing to give up its thirteen colonies.
The key to American victory was the state of George Washington's army. His army was the most important British foe. Had the British succeeded in capturing or annihilating it, the war would have ended. In 1776, Washington was badly beaten in a battle on Long Island. He just managed to escape into New Jersey with the remnants of his army. Instead of finishing him off, the British went into winter quarters.
The two key events that made British victory more unlikely were defeat at Saratoga and the French entry into the war. In 1777, a British army was captured at Saratoga—a huge blow for the British chances. After that, France joined the war on the side of the Americans.
Nevertheless, the British won most of the ensuing battles in the South. The British captured an entire American army at Charleston (1780) in their greatest victory of the war.
In 1781, however, the British made a final and fatal mistake. They stationed their army in Yorktown, Virginia. A French fleet blocked the harbor, and an army under Washington blocked land routes. The British had to surrender and decided to give up the thirteen colonies.