According to the epic Gilgamesh, what are the roles of gods and humans?

The Epic of Gilgamesh was written in Babylonia around 2100 B.C., several centuries after the life of its protagonist, the Sumerian king Gilgamesh, who ruled Uruk during the mid-2000s B.C. The epic, artfully compiled from earlier folktales, tells of the powerful and egocentric Gilgamesh, who through his arrogance manages to offend the gods. The gods seek vengeance by sending a wild man from the steppe named Enkidu to kill him. Instead, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become friends and journey together; however, Enkidu is later killed at the behest of the gods, and Gilgamesh is forced to confront the inevitability of his own death. In his sorrow, Gilgamesh searches for immortality but in vain. Though Gilgamesh fails in his quest, through his interactions with the gods and his trials, he achieves wisdom and an understanding of life.
In a way, the line between gods and humans in the epic is not a sharp one. Gods, demigods, and humans interact on a material (and sometimes spiritual) plane, and all have similar emotions and vices. The main feature separating the gods from humans is immortality. But can humans achieve immortality? This question is not addressed explicitly in the epic, leaving the question up to our interpretation and consideration.

What does Brian decide must be done to land the plane? Where did most of Brian's knowledge of the wilderness and animals come from?

Brian realizes that once the plane begins to run out of fuel, it will begin to slow down. His plan to land the plane is to tilt the nose down to keep it flying. He will then pull the nose up to slow the speed of the plane just before it hits the ground. To increase his chance of survival, he determines that he should attempt to land in the shallow part of a lake. Brian thought of his plan as trying to "fly the plane kind of onto the water."
Brian's knowledge about the wilderness and animals is gained through a combination of experience and trial-and-error. Brian makes many mistakes as he struggles to survive, and he learns from his mistakes. For example, it is through trial and error that Brian learns to catch fish with his bow and arrow. After many trials, he realizes that he must consider that water refracts light. For this reason, he must aim just below the fish. Brian also learns through an encounter with a skunk that he must create a more effective shelter to protect himself and his food.

How does Shakespeare make Caesar such a memorable character despite appearing in less than half of the play?

Julius Caesar's assassination drives the play, so Shakespeare makes him a memorable figure by necessity. The Roman population are enamored with his military victories and charisma. Before Caesar even appears, the audience is given conflicting views of the man as both imperious tyrant-to-be and as a glorious demigod. When he appears at last, Caesar is neither. He is a superstitious, vain man, though his capacity for evil is never laid out clearly.
In his appearances, Caesar strikes the audience as pompous, speaking in third person and displaying great arrogance, even claiming moments before his assassination that he is as "constant as the Northern Star,/ Of whose true fixed and resting quality/ there is no fellow in the firmament" (Act Three, Scene One, verses 60-62). His vanity and belief in his own press so to speak make him seem a candidate for tyranny. However, Shakespeare does not make Caesar out to be a mere tyrant. He is weak and superstitious, but whether or not he would have been a bad ruler is never spelled out. This ambiguity makes him interesting.
Caesar is further made memorable due to his impact on the other characters, an impact which lasts well beyond his death. The tragedy of the play comes from the reaction to the assassination, the strife it reaps in Rome. Caesar's ghost appearing to Brutus in the last act is a representation of how Brutus is still haunted by his former friend. Brutus and the conspirators may have killed Caesar the man, but as a symbol, Caesar remains very much alive.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/juliuscaesar/juliuscaesarcharacters.html

What are Dorothea’s aspirations, hopes, and dreams, and how does she express sorrow or anger after losing something she valued or didn’t know she had? How do Causabon, Ladislaw, and Will, in chapters 20–22, provide Dorothea with further challenges or comfort?

Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel written by English novelist, poet, and journalist George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans); it contains eight volumes which were published between 1871 and 1872. Set in the fictional town of Midlands, the novel tells several stories of many interesting characters, with the most notable one being the story of the young and ambitious Dorothea Brooke. As it contains several socially and politically relevant themes, such as idealism, populism, virtue, religion, marriage, education, and the position of women in nineteenth-century English society, many analysts consider Middlemarch to be a realist novel.
Dorothea Brooke is a nineteen-year-old orphaned girl who lives with her sister Celia and her uncle Arthur. She is generous, intelligent, very kind, and deeply religious, and she is probably the closest the novel gets to a main protagonist. Dorothea spends her time helping the needy, and her biggest aspiration is to build cottages and colonies for the tenant farmers who live on her uncle’s estate so that they can have better working and living conditions.
She believes and hopes that she is destined for greatness, but, at the same time, she is aware of her role as a woman in society. Her greatest ambition is to have a much greater and more meaningful life, and she wishes to become a person who will make a difference in the world.
Dorothea knows that she is not exactly the best example of obedience and femininity and that society greatly limits her dreams and ambitions; thus, she stubbornly decides to marry the forty-five-year-old scholar Edward Casaubon, hoping that he will teach her many new things about life. However, Casaubon spent most of his youth in solitude, which transformed him into a distant and passionless man, and Dorothea realizes that she has trapped herself in an unhappy and miserable marriage.
In her attempt to suppress her dreams, aspirations, and desires and be whatever society expects her to be as a woman, Dorothea learns how suppressing one's true nature can have terrible consequences for one's mental and emotional state.
Nonetheless, Dorothea deeply devotes herself to her husband and spends her days acting as his secretary. This becomes especially evident in chapter 21:

We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves: Dorothea had early begun to emerge from that stupidity, but yet it had been easier to her to imagine how she would devote herself to Mr. Casaubon, and become wise and strong in his strength and wisdom, than to conceive with that distinctness which is no longer reflection but feeling—an idea wrought back to the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects—that he had an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference.

She insists that he is not an evil man, but merely narrow-minded and conservative, and she sacrifices her happiness in order to conform to societal norms. Dorothea might think of this as a comfort, but, in reality, it is very much a challenge.
Thus, when Mr. Casaubon suddenly dies, Dorothea feels immense grief and sorrow. She copes with her feelings by continuing her husband’s work. However, when she learns that he doubted her devoutness and faithfulness and forbade her to marry his younger cousin Will Ladislav, Dorothea feels betrayed and immediately stops her attempts to finish his project. Essentially, this is how Eliot tells us that Dorothea has gone back to her old independent self.
Her second marriage to Will Ladislav seems to be a much better choice. Dorothea and Will have always felt connected to one another, mainly because of their similar personalities and shared hobbies and interests. By marrying Will, Dorothea finally experiences love, understanding, fulfillment, and happiness, and she greatly matures as a person.

She was not a woman to be spoken of as other women were.... He only wanted her to take more emphatic notice of him; he only wanted to be something more special in her remembrance than he could yet believe himself likely to be. He was rather impatient under that open ardent good-will, which he saw was her usual state of feeling. The remote worship of a woman throned out of their reach plays a great part in men's lives, but in most cases the worshipper longs for some queenly recognition, some approving sign by which his soul's sovereign may cheer him without descending from her high place. That was precisely what Will wanted. (chapter 22)

However, Dorothea never really realizes her dreams and aspirations. She becomes a wife and mother, but beyond that, she is just a regular person with a regular life, and nothing else. Eliot mentions that Dorothea never stops being strong-willed and temperamental, but at the same time, she deeply regrets not fulfilling her ambitions for a greater life; however, Eliot also makes sure to tell us that this is not for lack of trying, but for lack of opportunity.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm

Identify the key actors, events, and dynamics that you believe each theoretical lens (Realism, liberalism, radicalism, and constructivism) would highlight for each of the following historical periods: (1) Westphalia(2) nineteenthth-century Europe(3) interwar and WWII(4) Cold War(5) immediate post-Cold War(6) the new millennium

This is an extraordinarily detailed question, and to answer it sufficiently would require the span of several books. However, you can begin to break it down by considering what each of these theories represents and in what time period you believe they would have been predominant.
Realism was both a literary and artistic movement that gained momentum primarily in the middle of the nineteenth century. Realism was a response to the romantic movement of the early century, which authors like Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and others used to criticize the growing materialism associated with the European Industrial Revolution. Romantic writing celebrated the beauty and inner-perfection that human beings were capable of achieving and stressed the primacy of natural motifs and their relationship to the human soul.
Realist authors like Daniel Defoe, Ian Watt, and Mark Twain rearticulated the criticisms of the Romantic literary genre to modern industrial society. Instead of focusing on the sublime, realists portrayed life in the cities and countryside as it really was—in an attempt to provide narratives that did not water-down the horrors that industrialization had produced.
Liberalism and liberal thought prospered primarily in the eighteenth century. Its most famous proponents included thinkers such as the American founding fathers (Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, etc.) in addition to British and continental philosophers. John Locke was one of the most famous liberal theorists. He wrote Two Treatises of Government which explored the conditions necessary to create liberal democracy and a free society. Locke argued that civil society attains full political and social maturity once governments operate by the will of the people and once their function has been legitimized via the power of the people themselves.
Locke argued that it was the responsibility of civil government above all to protect property and private ownership; in those societies, the people could make decisions freely, and a rationally-organized distribution of wealth would be the result.
One can identify radicalism and radical thought in many different epochs of European history. The French Jacobins were some of the most radical thinkers of the French Revolutionary period, calling for the execution of any and every person associated with the aristocratic classes of the Bourbon monarchy.
The proliferation of socialist thought in the mid- to late-nineteenth century—specifically by theorists such as Charles Fourier in France, Karl Marx and Frederic Engels in Germany, Robert Owen in the United States, and Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in Russia—led to a period of global revolutionary fervor and nationalist sentimentality, the impacts of which can still be felt in the twenty-first century. Radical revolutionaries of the mid-twentieth century, particularly the famed guerilla leader Che Guevara, inspired a generation of anti-colonial resistance movements in the Third World.
Constructivism was a theory which also gained currency in the nineteenth century; it posits that human societies create knowledge that leads to the proliferation of shared assumptions about reality and civilization. Its contributors are many, and constructivism has led to a rethinking of the fundamental assumptions that have traditionally provided a solid foundation to scientific, sociological, natural, epistemological, and other branches of knowledge. A good (but by no means singular) example of a constructivist is the French sociologist Emile Durkheim.
Durkheim argued that the fundamental presuppositions about reality, religion, nature, and other domains of knowledge only come about through a social understanding of them. In other words, knowledge is something shared between members of a community, and the coordination of individual understandings of a given topic between members of a community leads to the construction of knowledge itself at the larger, social level.
Using these general summaries of each theory (and, of course, your own knowledge), you can make some convincing arguments for what people and ideas were most influential for a given historical period. For example, you might consider the impact of the radical thought of someone like Guevara on influencing Cold War politics both in the Third World and between the US and USSR.
Or, perhaps you might like to consider how the seventeenth-century Peace of Westphalia, which brought an end to the European wars of religion, contributed to the rise of scientific thought, the scientific revolution, and the Industrial Revolution and how, because of this influence, literary and artistic realism were able to emerge in response. The possibilities are truly endless.

How is Americanism shown in this story?

One could argue that the unnamed lieutenant's extraordinary bravery is an example of Americanism. Americans have traditionally expected their men to be brave, especially on the field of battle. And there can be no doubting the lieutenant's bravery here. Despite being seriously wounded, he doesn't make a fuss over his predicament; he simply seeks medical attention without uttering so much as a murmur of complaint to anyone.
Although the lieutenant expresses fear at the prospect of his arm being amputated, he's not so much frightened of the pain that he'll be forced to endure but rather the attack on his bodily integrity that losing a limb will entail. Like any good American, he deeply cherishes personal freedom and instinctively recoils at anything that might impede or compromise that freedom.

How does Hamlet fit into the Renaissance idea of man? Consider how his society is influenced by Renaissance ideals and how it affects his success.

The Renaissance is considered a bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It is characterized by the philosophy of humanism, by which man becomes primary. More radical ideas began developing in all aspects of life, such as art, science, religion, and politics. And in this respect, Hamlet is considered the perfect Renaissance man.
Hamlet expresses numerous humanist ideas, such as in act 2, Scene 2:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!

Here, he praises the human mind and asserts his humanist ideas. His approach to the world is much different than that of medieval characters, and he continues to depart from traditional medieval religious ideas with his most famous soliloquy, which comes from act 3, scene 1:

To be, or not to be—that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep—No more . . .But that the dread of something after death—The undiscover'd country, from whose bournNo traveller returns—puzzles the will . . .

Hamlet talks about the uncertainty of afterlife. He clearly questions the existence of Heaven and Hell, and is open to different interpretations of what happens after death. He questions life and its mysteriousness and mortality. Hamlet is not a risk-taker—which is why he refrains from taking his own life, as he does not know for certain what awaits a person after death. He calls everything into doubt, and this makes him the typical Renaissance philosopher.
Ophelia asserts that Hamlet's mind was once noble, but that now he has gone mad. She believes he had been a prince, heir, role model, soldier, scholar, courtier; he had been good as fencing, good at speaking—the perfect Renaissance man:

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;The expectancy and rose of the fair state,The glass of fashion and the mould of form,The observed of all observers—quite, quite down! (act 3, scene 1)

Therefore, Hamlet is considered the iconic Renaissance man due to his critical, even radical outlook on life. His ideas express the changing values of the Renaissance era and give insight as to his humanist beliefs.

What is a SPIDER analysis method for the poem "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins. (S - Scenario What is the scenario? Does the poem have characters, or a setting?, P- Purpose What seems to be the poem's purpose, or central message/theme? What is it about?, I- Imagery What are some specific images the poem mentions? What is memorable about them? D- Diction Look at the word choices the author makes. Point out a specific word or phrase that you found interesting, jarring, or remarkable. E- Economy How has the poet managed, or arranged, his or her poem?, R- Rhythm What rhythm does your poem have? Is there a rhyme scheme at all? How does the poem's rhythm suggest its tone?).

This poem by Billy Collins is about teaching poetry. To address your question, I will break down my analysis according to the six elements you listed.
Situation: The speaker has the perspective of a teacher. The “them” in the poem is presumed to be the speaker’s students. There are neither discernible characters nor settings.
Purpose: The speaker discusses the various ways he wants his students to approach the study of poetry. The last two stanzas address how the students instead beat a poem “with a hose” in order to “torture a confession out of it.” The contrast between these two parts of the poem underscores the message: poetry does not provide straightforward answers, which frustrates many who study it.
Imagery: Some notable images from the poem include “holding it up to the light like a color slide,” “feel the walls for a light switch,” and “waterski across the surface of a poem.” These images are memorable because they illustrate the various ways someone can approach a poem. Poems can be beautiful, mysterious, and even fun.
Diction: The connotation of the words in the first five stanzas is mostly positive. Words like “light” and “waving” are some examples. The diction, and thus tone, shifts in the last two stanzas. Words like “rope,” “torture,” and “beating” are violent and echo the negative reaction that students have to a poem.
Economy: The poem is arranged into seven stanzas. While some stanzas are comprised of three lines, others contain two. The second stanza consists of only one line. The irregular arrangement of the stanzas mirrors the disorienting effect that poems have on the speaker’s students.
Rhythm: Like it’s organization, the poem’s rhythm is irregular. Despite this, a couple lines have an iambic construction. Line 4 (“or press an ear against its hive”) is written in iambic octameter. This pattern coincides with the subject matter of the line that uses a hive as a metaphor for poetic rhythm. The poem is also written in free verse, meaning it lacks a rhyme scheme. The lack of a regular rhyme scheme fits with the tone and purpose of the poem.

Did Great Britain send prisoners to the US Colonies pre-1776?

Yes, Great Britain did send prisoners to the American colonies leading up to the year 1776. It is important to note that this also occurred in Australia. It is believed, but not confirmed, that more than 50,000 prisoners were sent to the American colonies. To investigate the cause of this, you should research what a "penal colony" is. Essentially, these prisoners became free labor for Great Britain to begin building the American colonies. Chain gangs became the staple of construction across the country.
One specific example of Great Britain sending prisoners to the colonies is the state of Georgia. Georgia was established as a colony to serve as a place for the indebted and those in bankruptcy. The purpose of Georgia was to become a penal colony for these prisoners. Ultimately, it became a refuge for the persecuted, but the charter itself was meant to be a place for Great Britain to banish prisoners.
https://www.founderspatriots.org/articles/georgia.php

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Penal_colony

Who is Binx in The Moviegoer?

Binx, or Binx Bolling, to give him his full name, is the protagonist of the story. He's a stock-broker who lives a dull, ordinary existence in a drab suburb of post-war New Orleans. A troubled young man, Binx finds it difficult to establish meaningful, fulfilling relationships with other people. He finds it so much easier to remain in a world of fantasy, fueled by his avid reading and regular visits to the movies.
In a heroic effort to break out of his ordinary workaday existence, Binx embarks upon a spiritual quest to find God. It is this central feature of the book's narrative that has drawn comparison with Dante's Divine Comedy. Unlike Dante, however, Binx never achieves anything vaguely resembling beatitude. And his suicidal cousin Kate, to whom he eventually proposes marriage, is certainly no Beatrice.

What does Tolkien think of Grendel?

In the commentary to his translation of Beowulf, J. R. R. Tolkien argues that creatures like Grendel are, in the Scandinavian imagination, essentially the "undead," those who have abandoned God and inhabit areas near tombs and inaccessible places and "with superhuman strength and malice" plague mankind. They inhabit a kind of twilight world in which they feel the absence of God but are unwilling or unable to join with God, and their greatest goal is to ruin mankind's joyfulness, which explains why Grendel is drawn to the celebrations in Heorot.

Which is most important character in Prisoner of Zinda?

Rudolf Rassendyll, the story's protagonist, is by far the most important character. Rudolf is a cheerful young Englishman from an aristocratic family. As a wealthy young man from a privileged background, Rudolf leads a care-free existence, coasting through life without taking it the least bit seriously. As with many of his class and age, Rudolf has a real taste for adventure, and he gets the opportunity to indulge that taste to the full when he arrives in the kingdom of Ruritania.
The dashingly handsome young Englishman bears a staggering resemblance to King Rudolf V, who's been imprisoned by his younger half-brother Duke Michael in a desperate attempt to deprive him of his rightful throne. This leads to Rudolf's becoming involved in an elaborate plot to pass him off as the king of Ruritania, thus thwarting the treacherous machinations of Duke Michael and his entourage.
Although the book is entitled The Prisoner of Zenda, it is not the titular prisoner, King Rudolf, who is the most important character; it is his doppelganger cousin. He it is who's perennially at the center of things; of the various plots, sub-plots, and dizzying intrigues with which the narrative is replete. Rudolf Rassendyll is also the quintessential dynamic character, growing into a mature, responsible man over the course of his adventures. This can be seen most clearly in the serious devotion he displays to his duties as king. And even after the real king is finally restored to his rightful throne, Rudolf continues to show how much he's changed by reluctantly parting from his beloved Princess Flavia.

What are fixed income derivatives? And how were they one of the reasons for the 2008–2009 financial crisis?

A fixed income derivative is a type of financial instrument with a value that is derived (hence the term) from some sort of fundamental underlying asset. Prominent examples of this include credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, futures contracts, and forward rate agreements.
A credit default swap is akin to an insurance agreement where the seller promises to compensate the buyer if a borrower mentioned in the agreement defaults on their obligation.
An interest rate swap involves an agreement where two (or more) parties exchange one stream of future interest payments for another based on some predetermined amount of principal.
Futures contracts involve the promise to deliver some commodity at a given price on a predetermined settlement date sometime in the future. Such contracts are traded on futures exchanges and can be closed out before the settlement date.
Forward rate agreements allow two (or more) parties to specify the rate of interest to be paid at some settlement date in the future. They are cash-settled and determined based on the difference between the rate referenced in the agreement and the market reference rate.
Fixed income derivatives were one contributing factor to the 2008–2009 financial crisis because banks were using them heavily in hedge fund trading as the financial industry gradually deregulated. Mortgage-backed securities were the derivative of choice for many, with banks essentially lending to each other through the sale of derivatives.
These seemed viable because, according to Kimberly Amadeo on The Balance,

the contract's seller doesn't have to own the underlying asset. He can fulfill the contract by giving the buyer enough money to buy the asset at the prevailing price. He can also give the buyer another derivative contract that offsets the value of the first. This makes derivatives much easier to trade than the asset itself.

However, in order to prop up the sale of so many derivatives, the banks needed to sell more mortgages. Qualified borrowers already had mortgages, so the only place the banks could turn was to subprime borrowers who weren't really qualified to have a mortgage in the first place. The housing market, as a result, temporarily exploded.
Eventually, however, housing prices started to fall as supply eclipsed demand, creating a volatile situation where subprime borrowers who were financially underwater couldn't afford to pay their mortgages or sell their houses. The rash of defaults eroded the value of the derivatives, and spooked banks stopped lending to one another, ultimately resulting in the crash.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-are-derivatives-3305833

How do culture, policy, and religious beliefs impact the way we view suicide?

Suicide is an act which has been viewed quite differently in different places and times throughout human history. In Western culture, the long-standing attitude toward it has been a negative one. Christian belief generally indicates that those who kill themselves will be punished for it in the afterlife. Yet even in the West, there has been an ambivalence about the act of taking one's own life, depending upon the surrounding circumstances and the context in which the act is occurs or is depicted.
Our understanding of suicide is heavily influenced by not only religion but literature. Although Christianity condemns the act as immoral, many literary works nevertheless depict suicide as a heroic act, and literary and historical figures who kill themselves are often looked up to as admirable. It is true, however, that often such actions, viewed this way, occurred prior to the Christian period. In Virgil's Aeneid, the suicide of Dido has been a cultural trope for 2,000 years and is emblematic of the despairing fate of a rejected woman. If we fast forward 1600 years to the Elizabethan period, we can see that Shakespeare, in his portrayals of events taking place in antiquity, depicts suicide in accord with the ethic of that time. The ancients did not fear being punished in the afterlife for killing themselves. But there is still a huge paradox in the "modern" (that is, post-1500 CE) celebration of that act in Shakespeare and other authors, when performed by figures either ancient or modern. Cleopatra's suicide occurs in pagan antiquity, but Othello's is during the period of Christianity.
It's also true that literature has historically influenced the actions of readers. A seminal work, in this regard, was Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). The book was such a sensation that it encouraged young men to emulate Werther's suicide by dressing in the same clothes as Werther is described as wearing before putting a bullet in their brain, as he does. Here, we can see that the weakening of religious belief during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment did result in a change in cultural attitudes about the act. Goethe describes Werther's funeral as one in which no clergyman is in attendance. It is not only that Werther's act, as the response of a hopeless lover, was considered admirable but that his status as a freethinker and his independence from organized religion served as a focal point of the Zeitgeist.
In our time, the issue of assisted suicide is also affected by religious belief or the lack thereof. Conservative politicians in the US who uphold traditional Christian belief also tend to link a number of issues, including abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide, together in the category of actions inimical to the sanctity of life they intend to champion. Yet the very fact that assisted suicide is talked about at all as a legitimate option attests, as we've already alluded, to the weaker, less stringent religious beliefs of our time in comparison with the past.
In non-western cultures, of course, suicide is viewed quite differently. In Japan, for instance, it is often explicitly considered a noble act taken in order to preserve a person's honor. Yet it is interesting that given the literary examples cited above, the western and eastern attitudes toward suicide are perhaps not as different as they might seem on the surface.

What is the significance of Della's hair?

The main point of the story "The Gift of the Magi" is the heart behind each of the gifts. Della's hair is one of the things she is most proud of, but in order to demonstrate love for her husband by giving him a good gift, she sacrifices her hair. This represents the true heart behind gift-giving: it is more important to give sacrificially than to give a useful gift. This love that transcends the love of material objects, such as hair and watches, is the mark of a true gift-giver.
By the end of the story, it is revealed that both Della and Jim have given up their most prized possessions to give each other thoughtful gifts. In doing so, they have rendered the actual gifts useless. Della cannot use the combs that Jim bought her, because she has sold her hair, and Jim cannot use the watch chain, because he has sold the watch for Della's combs.
Della's hair is significant because it is the sacrifice she makes for her love of Jim.

Della loves her hair. It is significant because it is her most prized possession. It is lovely, and she has not cut it for so long that it falls below her knees. Living with her husband on a limited income, Della doesn't have many material possessions to treasure, which makes her hair all the more important to her.
Nevertheless, Della is willing to sell her hair in order to raise money to buy an expensive Christmas gift for Jim, her husband. Her love of her hair is important to understand so that the reader can grasp the depth of her sacrifice. That she is willing to give up her most precious possession shows how dearly she loves her husband.
As O'Henry notes at the end of the story, after the ironic mishap with the presents, the mutual love the young couple shows is worth far more than the gifts they buy.

At the most basic level, O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" is a story about a woman who sells her hair. This single image dominates the story from beginning to end. It is something that is very easy to visualize, and O. Henry uses it powerfully. First he describes how Della lets down her long hair and almost immediately pins it all back up again. The only purpose for that action is to let the reader appreciate how abundant and how beautiful it is.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her.
Then O. Henry follows his young heroine to the parlor of Madame Sofronie, a vulgar businesswoman to whom hair is nothing but merchandise. And after Della returns to her flat with the platinum watch fob for which she made such a tremendous sacrifice, O. Henry describes how she looks without all that beautiful hair. She looks like a shorn lamb.

How can you tell where an element will be in the periodic table and how reactive it will be from its electrons?

If you assume the atom is not ionized, then yes, you can deduce the location on the periodic table and the reactivity. However, electrons are extremely fickle.
If an atom is not ionized, it will have the same number of electrons as protons. Therefore, counting the electrons will give you the atomic number, which corresponds with its location on the periodic table. Additionally, you can use this number to estimate reactivity (or electronegativity), which is a function of how likely an atom is to bond with other atoms.
Generally speaking, electrons sit in orbitals, which contain specific numbers of electrons in them. The closer an orbital is to being full or empty, the more likely it is to react something. (Most orbitals can have a maximum of 8 electrons. Carbon has 6 electrons, which means it is more likely to accept electrons than it is to give them away. Hydrogen, on the other hand, has 1 electron, so it gives it away easily to form a bond.) This is just a general rule of thumb, because the laws of particle attraction and bonding can get incredibly complex. However, noble gases are atoms that have filled up their orbitals, and therefore do not react (i.e., do not give or receive electrons).
So, assuming the number of electrons is unchanged, yes you can. However, electrons can be added or taken away very easily and still be a part of the same atom. If the number of protons changes, it is by definition a different element. Therefore, the atomic number, which counts protons, is used to order the periodic table.

Who is the hero of the novel Kidnapped?

The narrator and main hero of the novel Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson is a teenager named David Balfour. He is the one referred to in the title, who actually gets kidnapped. After his parents die, David journeys to the House of Shaws, where his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, lives. Concerned that David might claim his rightful inheritance, Ebenezer first tries to kill David by sending him up a dark stairway to an unfinished tower. When this murder attempt fails, Ebenezer arranges for a sea captain to kidnap David and take him to be sold as a slave in the Carolinas.
On the ship, David meets Alan Breck Stewart, one of several real historical characters that Stevenson works into the plot. Many adventures follow, including a shipwreck, threats on David's life, and a flight as fugitives when David and Alan become suspected murderers.
With the help of Alan and a lawyer, David eventually gets his uncle to confess his responsibility in the kidnapping. In the end, David receives a generous portion of the estate's yearly income.

At what point is the tension highest in the book Old man and the sea? How has the author built this tension? Does it lead to the climax?

Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is a complexly constructed story that gradually develops to a climax. The tension starts to build at the very beginning of the story when the reader is introduced to Santiago. Hemingway builds sympathy for Santiago and introduces the main dramatic conflict of the story, namely his poverty and struggle to catch a fish. Through the interactions of Santiago and the boy, readers see how Santiago's pride struggles with his run of bad luck and growing physical incapacity while at the same time showing him as a mentor and father figure, increasing readers' sympathy with him and our hope that he will manage to catch a fish rather than having to rely on charity and suffer from poverty and a loss of his identity as a skilled fisherman. Thus Hemingway starts building a sense of tension as readers empathize with Santiago's struggles.
When Santiago takes his boat out, the tension builds more, in part because the climax is delayed. Rather than just quickly telling readers about Santiago's skill and understanding of the sea, instead Hemingway shows readers how Santiago uses deep knowledge of the behavior of local wildlife and knowledge of the area to search for fish and involves the reader in the details of the fishing. Readers also get to see Santiago's deep love for and harmony with the ocean and its denizens and his simple piety, building our degree of empathy for Santiago. This increases the tension in the story as readers are hoping for an encounter with a big fish and empathizing with Santiago as the encounter is delayed.
Finally, as Santiago finds the marlin and struggles to kill it, the tension is at its highest point. The description of Santiago injuring his hand and his increasing tiredness and pain ratchets up the level of tension in the story as well as making the outcome doubtful. Santiago is struggling as much with his own frailty as with the fish, and in both cases the struggle is one that is nuanced. He admires the fish and is almost reluctant to kill it, but needs to do so. The tension builds as the fish and Santiago both weaken, and is at its greatest just before Santiago kills the fish in the climactic three paragraphs beginning:

He took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone pride and he put it against the fish's agony and the fish came over onto his side and swam gently on his side, his bill almost touching the planking of the skiff [...].

What are some quotes about standing up for yourself in The Glass Castle?

In chapter 2, Jeanette's father tries to teach her how to swim by throwing her into water and letting her figure it out. This pretty much sums up his approach to parenting in general. He tells her, "If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim." Not only does she figure out how to swim, she figures out how to survive her father's parenting. Jeanette learns to depend on herself for her survival.
In chapter 3, Jeanette says, "I decided to make my own braces." Again, she's learned that if she needs something, she'd better figure out a way to accomplish it herself. How many kids would even attempt such a feat? But Jeanette is determined, sees her own needs, and comes up with a solution.
When Jeanette wants to "correct" a Joshua Tree which has grown sideways, her mother tells her, "You'd be destroying what makes it special. It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty." This sets the tone for Jeanette's struggles and becomes an underlying theme that pushes her to keep persevering and standing up for herself in the midst of her chaotic family life. She doesn't have to conform to what is expected of her by her family. She can create a beautiful life in spite of her struggles.
When the family is living with Erma, Jeanette's grandmother, Jeanette befriends an African-American classmate. Her parents, who have preached nonconformity and the importance of standing up for her convictions her entire life, don't really support Jeanette and are more concerned about having a place to live. Jeanette sees this and says, "Situations like these, I realized, were what turned people into hypocrites." This provides another opportunity when she sees the need to stand up for her convictions in spite of her parents' teachings.
Jeanette explains that their pets were hungry because they could not afford pet food, and she offers them scraps to help ease their hunger. She notes, "Mom liked to encourage self-sufficiency in all living creatures." Here she is undoubtedly including herself as one of the "living creatures" left to fend for herself because of a lack of provisions given to her by her mother (and father). And somehow Jeanette does learn to survive and become self-sufficient in spite of the neglect she suffers as a child.

Calculate the entropy change for the reaction: N2(g) + 3H2(g) -> 2NH3(g) Entropy data: NH3 = 192.5 J/mol K H2 = 130.6 J/mol K N2 = 191.5 J/mol K

The entropy change for the given reaction, involving the manufacturing of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, can be calculated as the difference between the entropy of the products and reactants. In other words:
The entropy change of the reaction = entropy of products - entropy of the reactants
For the given chemical reaction:
N2 + 3H2 -> 2NH3
Entropy of products = 2 x entropy of ammonia = 2 moles x 192.5 J/mol K = 385 J/K
Similarly, entropy of reactants = 1 mole x entropy of nitrogen + 3 moles x entropy of hydrogen
= 1 mole x 191.5 J/mol K + 3 moles x 130.6 J/mol K
= 583.3 J/K
Thus, the entropy change for the manufacturing of ammonia can be calculated as:
Entropy change = entropy of products - entropy of reactants
= 385 J/K - 583.3 J/K = -198.3 J/K
Hope this helps.

In 1916 German historian Fritz Fischer said that it was German ambition that had caused the World War 1. Do you agree, why or why not?

German ambition was a major cause of World War I. But it would be simplistic to say this was the only cause.
Very few significant historical events can be reduced to a single cause. However, the culpability of Germany stands out in this case because unified Germany was a new country at the time, having been created in 1871. The European political world was destabilized, as Germany sought to acquire colonial possessions outside Europe in competition with Britain and France. These countries, and Russia as well, feared German expansionism. Russia felt threatened by the alliance established between Germany and the Ottoman Empire, Russia's long-time enemy. Both the Germans and the Ottoman Turks wished to control the central Asian territories that were part of the Russian Empire. The Germans had an especially aggressive and ruthless imperial policy, shown by their massacre of the Herrero people in SW Africa, and later, their partial facilitation of the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.
All of these factors that were present before 1914 were brought to a head when the heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. Though it would seem that this would have little to do with any of the countries we have mentioned so far, the opposite was true. Germany was allied with its fellow German-speaking Austrians, and Russia saw itself as the protector of the smaller Slavic nationalities such as the Serbs. But this event would not have brought on war if there had not already been tremendous tension (and preparations for military conflict) among the European countries because of their rivalries and imperialist ambitions.

Did the father wolf really want to have Mowgli for dinner?

The Wolf Father doesn't want to have Mowgli for dinner, or any other meal for that matter; he wants to protect him. It's the deadly tiger Shere Khan who wants to get his teeth into the young orphan and it's the wolves who defend him. Besides, the Wolf Father is all too aware that the Law of the Jungle explicitly prohibits any creature from killing man or his offspring except when it is teaching its children how to kill. If this law is broken, then before long men with guns will descend on the jungle looking for revenge. So there's a good reason why the Wolf Father doesn't kill Mowgli, whatever his instincts might tell him.
He's also a proud wolf, and he's not about to take orders from Shere Khan, who demands that he hand over the man-cub. The tiger angrily responds to the Wolf Father's insolence by giving out a mighty roar that rumbles through the jungle like thunder. Fortunately, Raksha the Demon intervenes and rules that Mowgli shall not be killed. Shere Khan retreats into the dark depths of the jungle to lick his wounds while Wolf Father and Wolf Mother take Mowgli back to their cave where they will raise him as one of their own.

What are proofs and their analysis in the book God in Pink by Hasan Namir based on the theme of conforming to the ideas of society due to the fearing the consequences of following your own beliefs?

Hasan Namir's God in Pink is a novel set in Iraq during US occupation in the year 2003. The narrator, Ramy, is a good example of someone who is suspending themselves to the ideal of society. Ramy is gay, but lives with his brother and sister-in-law, who both pressure him to get married. Ramy's brother Mohammed sees Ramy as an outlet for his own shortcomings, and so pushes his unfulfilled expectations onto Ramy.
Additionally, Ramy engages the guidance of a well-known sheikh, Ammar. Ammar, too, for a time is pressured by society to conform to its ideals; he initially does not want to help Ramy because Ramy is gay. Ammar is visited by the angel Gabriel (the angle who visited Islam's prophet, Mohammed), which finally changes Ammar's mind. This visitation suggests that peoples' minds can be changed to break society's mold, at times only by divine intervention.

What the specific passages in Candide that illustrate the behavior of religious figures and institutions?

In Candide, the title character comes into contact—and often conflict—with religious figures and institutions on several occasions. Voltaire overall is critical of both; while he tends to emphasize the individuals’ faults in deviating from or misinterpreting the principles of the institutions, he also implicitly questions the reasons for that religions go to extremes such as the Inquisition.
One set of notable interactions are those that Candide and his former tutor, Pangloss, have with the Inquisition while they are in Lisbon, Portugal. After they survive a serious earthquake and as Pangloss pronounces his philosophical tenets, they encounter a man who challenges them on theological grounds. He turns out to work with the Inquisition and has them both imprisoned. They then must don humiliating garments and march in a procession, after which Candide is flogged and Pangloss is hung. Candide also interacts with the Grand Inquisitor, a high-ranking Catholic Church official. While charged with weeding out heretics, this official exhibits hypocrisy through his lust for Cunégonde, Candide’s beloved. Outraged that the Grand Inquisitor and another man, Issacar, are both keeping her as their mistress—although she claims not to have succumbed to their advances—Candide kills both men, then flees to Spain.
After Candide leaves Europe for the New World, Voltaire considers religion through the youth’s adventures with his valet, Cacambo. Arriving in Paraguay, he first meets, then disagrees with and kills Cunégonde’s brother, who is a Jesuit Reverend Father, because he demeans Candide as unworthy of his sister. Fleeing into the countryside, Candide becomes the hero of the Orejones, who hate the Jesuits. Leaving their territory, the two men decide to take a canoe and end up in a miraculous landscape. In this apparent paradise of El Dorado, jewels are so abundant that children play with them. It is populated by pious individuals who live in harmony. The perplexed Candide questions the 172-year-old man they meet about the absence of religious leaders, emphasizing the conflicts among the different orders that constantly “preach, argue, govern, plot, and have people burned.” Rejecting such doings as madness, the old men emphasizes their singular devotion to God.

From the movie Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee, what​ ​is​ ​the​ ​role​ ​films​ ​play​ ​in​ ​perpetuating​ ​stereotypes​ ​in​ ​contemporary​ ​society?

In considering this question, we need to distinguish between "perpetuating" a stereotype in the sense, on the one hand, of causing or encouraging people to continue believing in it, and on the other hand, of showing a stereotype in order to debunk it, to reveal how false and pernicious it is.
Spike Lee's detractors might assert that he at least inadvertently does the former, in Do the Right Thing and perhaps other films. Much of the behavior of some of his characters, both white and black, seems to conform to negative patterns that people through the centuries have continued to believe in as widespread and typical of all or most members of a group. But whether or not these behaviors are in fact real or negative is usually a matter of perception. A filmgoer who comes into the cinema with preconceived ideas or long-standing prejudices is likely to view the action of a film such as Do the Right Thing quite differently from someone who has a greater understanding of the factors that have led to the stereotyping that has been so tragically common in our society.
Lee realistically presents racial conflicts as they unfortunately have been and continue to be. In Do the Right Thing, Sal's Pizzeria is a microcosm of the dysfunctional dynamic of US society, in which people allow themselves to magnify the differences they see in others, rather than accepting them and trying to perceive others in a positive light. Lee does not "perpetuate" stereotypes, but rather, he examines them. Like any artist who is frank and open with his subject matter, Lee throughout his career has run the risk of being criticized by those who confuse honesty with negativity.

Do you have a set of difficult questions and answers for each chapter (1-12) of the outsiders? Beside the quizzes that provided?

I believe that this question is asking you to come up with some level 2, 3, and 4 questions for each chapter of the book. These types of questions require more than simply providing an answer based on facts found in the text. A level 1 question might ask the answer to provide the names of the Curtis brothers. The "difficult" questions being asked about probably refer to questions about character development, themes, application beyond the text, comparing and contrasting characters, etc.
I think a question that you could use throughout each of the chapters would be the following question. "How does Ponyboy feel about the Socs?" This is an important question to ask throughout the book because Pony's viewpoint of the Socs drastically changes throughout the novel. Another repetitive chapter question could be, "What do you think is the most important event of this chapter? Explain why you think this." Different readers are going to answer that question differently. It's a tough question because it requires a reader to defend his/her position. Finally, you could ask questions that require a reader to apply their personal experiences to. For example: "How would you have responded if you were in this character's position?"

In the poem "Sex Without Love" by Sharon Olds, who is the speaker and the audience, and what is the rhetorical situation?

The speaker in this poem does not define themselves at all. We might assume that it is Sharon Olds herself. All we know about the speaker is that they are confused by, and then grudgingly admiring of, the people who are able to have "sex without love," as the poem describes. We can infer from this that the speaker is not somebody who has ever been able to do this. They associate sex with love; in this poem, they determine that those who are able to separate the two are the true "pros" or purists, recognizing that their lover is not a necessary part of their own pleasure as such, and that ultimately, they are "alone," striving to reach the highest pinnacles of ecstasy as an individual act.
The audience is not defined in the poem, either. Because the subjects of the poem—those who are able to have sex without love—are defined as "they," we can assume that these people are separate from the intended audience: the speaker is musing, either to themselves or to others who are in the same situation that they are in. The audience is other people who look with confusion and potentially admiration upon the "true religious": those who are capable of making love to people they do not actually love.
The situation described, then, is one in which people are capable of "gliding over" others in pursuit of pleasure without actually knowing these people, let alone loving them. They are able to "come to the God" without any concern for their lovers, knowing effectively that they are "alone" in their pursuit of their own pleasure, a quasi-religious experience.

Why do Marxists advocate that a socialist state should have both legislative and and executive power?

Marxists do not advocate a socialist state. They advocate a communist state, which is quite different. Socialism is democratic by definition and may include a state with some or even many capitalist elements. Communism is always a dictatorship, though in theory, the state is supposed to naturally wither away after having achieved the paradise for workers or proletariat.
Both communists and anti-communists often label communism as socialism for propaganda reasons. Communists hope to gain some of the prestige of socialism, while anti-communists may be trying to smear socialism as being no different from communism.
Communists aim to have all power—executive, legislative, and otherwise—in the state, arguing that to do otherwise simply gives capitalists space in which to oppose and destroy the goals of their revolution. From a communist point of view, all states are dictatorships. Nominal democracy is actually a capitalist or bourgeois (middle class) dictatorship, while communism is a workers' dictatorship, or one on behalf of them.
There are some who call themselves Marxists who are not communists or even socialists. Some Marxists are scholars in the social sciences who use Marx's analysis of capitalism while being opposed to any form of communism, communist, or socialist solutions.

I desperately need some ideas of how exile is portrayed in The Last Man. Quotes would be exceedingly helpful too. Consider the metaphorical/ literal/physical/political implications.

Exile and isolation are major themes in Mary Shelley's The Last Man. The most obvious physical example of these themes is Lionel Verney's being the last surviving human being at the end of the story. He slowly watches everyone he loves and the other humans around him die off as the plague takes civilization down. In the end, he is alone with only books and the splendor of nature to comfort him.
However, exile was part and parcel in Lionel's life from the start. He and his sister Perdita are noble-born, but their father fell into disgrace and they were not allowed to be part of the royal court. They lived poor, even savagely, in exile, until a friendship with the prince Adrian civilizes the angry Lionel and brings him back into society. The rest of the novel plays out as a series of exiles. Lionel loses his family, then society, then is utterly alone.
These themes have a connection with Shelley's real life. They reflect her growing feelings of loneliness in the wake of the death of her child and husband, as well as the loss of their fellow writer friends. For her, it felt as if a whole movement—the Romantic movement, to be exact—were ending.

What is interesting and puzzling about act 5 of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing?

One key part of the plot revolves around Don John"s framing Hero to trick his brother Don Pedro and Claudio, her fiancé, into thinking she was unfaithful. When this succeeds, those who believe her concoct another plan, to trick people into thinking she is dead. Everyone then operates based on the notion that she is dead. Because her honor was falsely smeared, she must be avenged. The newly declared lovers, Beatrice and Benedick, believe her, and Benedick (reluctantly) agrees to fight a duel. However, Don John's treachery is uncovered and the duel called off.


Claudio, although grief-stricken over Hero's death, agrees to do what her father asks: marry Antonio's daughter. Not until the wedding is it revealed that the bride is (Surprise!) Hero herself.


The harshness of this plot in many ways seems out of place in a comedy, but it served in part as a device to keep the audience invested in Don John's comeuppance. Also, because Hero is Beatrice's cousin, it is appropriate for her to have a hand in seeing she is avenged. And as Benedick has just sworn his love for Beatrice, he might very well desire to prove himself worthy by fighting the duel as she asks.


Modern audiences also often find it a bigger surprise that Hero doesn't dump Claudio, as he doubted her honor and treated her badly. But she also treasures her honor, so perhaps she interprets his actions as appropriate.

Compare the United States's foreign problems with the Barbary pirates in the 1790s and early 1800s with Islamic extremists today?

In the late eighteenth century, Ottoman rule stretched from Turkey through much of Eastern Europe and into Asia. Some North African states were affiliated with the Ottoman, although the kingdom of Morocco was independent. Those countries' people were primarily Muslims. Pirates along the North African, or Barbary, coast preyed on US ships and took captives. Diplomatic channels were not very useful, because the pirates (corsairs) operated separate from government control. On occasions of suspected or proven official involvement, however, the United States declared war. The two relevant wars were with Tripoli, from 1801 to 1805, and Algiers, from 1815 to 1816.In contemporary situations, one of the most significant US efforts to combat the threat of specific Islamist extremists has been through participation in initiatives toward the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to the U.S. Department of State website. Because this Islamic “state” operates within several nations but is not equivalent to the government of a given nation, a broad international coalition is necessary in the efforts to defeat it. This global coalition of the United States and numerous European and Middle Eastern partners operates along five mutually reinforcing lines. In addition to military support, these lines include expanding available information and supporting humanitarian causes. Overall, similarities to modern conflicts with extremists include the aggressors’ Islamic faith and attacks on US military and civilians. As well, most of the opponents are not official government groups but independent entities, so declared wars are the exception.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/barbary-wars

List the strengths and weaknesses of our social security policy. Does it help explain the evolution of social welfare policy in the US? Why or why not?

In the United States, social security was signed into law in 1935 to provide a backstop against certain predictable and unpredictable life events, including old age, death, and disability. The most common element of social security is the Retirement Insurance Benefits (RIB) program, which provides a basic income for persons above a certain age.
The basic income aspect of RIB is one of its strengths. It is both guaranteed and progressive, meaning it increases with the cost of inflation. Because these increases are built into the system, the guarantee of a certain standard of income cannot easily be politicized, in comparison to some countries where increases in benefit amounts require special statutory authorization.
At the same time, however, RIB is not intended to be a complete replacement of income for work-derived sources among elderly Americans. Rather, it is intended to be a backstop only, a way to guarantee a minimum standard of living that is designed to be supplemented by personal savings or investments.
The nature of this duality has informed the evolution of welfare spending in the United States more generally. Taking its cue from social security, American welfare spending tends to be designed to provide basic levels of sustenance in response to emergent events. This is in contrast to other systems, such as Sweden's, which operates on the principal of "welfare for everyone," that is, enrolling the bulk of the population in welfare programs regardless of any emergent factors. For instance, that country's Barnbidrag program makes payments to parents of all children until they reach their majority.

I need a good thesis for the Inverted World novel. If it's possible, an easy one.

Writing a "good and easy" thesis is tough. Thesis writing in general is tough because of how critical of a single sentence a thesis is. A thesis statement guides everything that comes after it. Additionally, it needs to make an argument. It can't be a statement of fact, because there would be nothing to prove.
I think a relatively easy and consistent thesis format is the two-part thesis statement. This involves an argument and a counter-argument, and it begins with the word "although." Starting with that word guarantees that the statement leads with a dependent clause that then needs to be finished with the other half of the argument.
For the story Inverted World, you could write a thesis that examines certain themes of the novel. I would recommend something about the tight social class structure that the story has and how that affects the flow of information between people and classes. For example, "Although the story's social class divisions are supposed to make the city work more efficiently, they are actually detrimental to a cohesive society."

How is Riverdale different from the Bronx in The Other Wes Moore?

Riverdale, an elite private school, really couldn't be any more different from the Bronx. For one thing, virtually the entire student population is white. This is something of a culture shock for Wes when he starts attending his new school; he's grown up in a culturally-mixed neighborhood, consisting largely of African-American, Puerto Rican, and Chinese-American families.
Little wonder, then, that Wes feels so out of place at Riverdale. And little wonder, too, that his friends tease him mercilessly about attending a white school. Wes responds by exaggerating his recent suspension for fighting. This is a pretty transparent—and unsuccessful—attempt to make him sound tough, to make it seem that he hasn't really left the life of the streets behind despite going to a good school.

How does Cholly embarrass himself asking for a cigarette in The Bluest Eye?

The defining moment in Cholly's life occurs not long after his Great Aunt Jimmy's funeral. During the wake, Cholly's playing around with some of his cousins, one of whom (Jake) offers him a cigarette. Cholly embarrasses himself by placing the cigarette over the match instead of putting it in his mouth. Unable to light the cigarette, he angrily throws it to the ground.
Feeling the need to prove himself as a grown-up, Cholly agrees to go looking for girls with Jake. Eventually, they meet up with a couple of girls and everyone makes their way to the nearby vineyard. After Jake pairs off with a girl calls Suky, Cholly tries to gets intimate with Suky's friend Darlene. But their act of love-making is interrupted by a couple of armed white men who force the young couple at gunpoint to continue having sex. During this terrible ordeal, the men shine their flashlights on Cholly and Darlene, attacking them verbally with racial slurs.
Eventually, the two men leave, but not before Cholly's whole life has been changed forever. From now on, Cholly will always associate sex with violence—an associated that has damaging consequences for both himself and others.

In chapter 5, what trick did they decide to play on Janice Avery?

The big bully Janice has been throwing her weight around as usual. This time, she's been picking on Mae Belle, stealing the Twinkies her dad gave her. Mae Belle would like nothing more than for Jess to give Janice a good hiding. But beating up on a girl is not really a good idea—and besides, Jess and Leslie come up with a much better way of getting back at the bully. They know that Janice has a major crush on Willard Hughes, so they plan to write her a love letter claiming to be from Willard. The idea is that when Janice opens her big mouth about the letter—which she will—then she'll be publicly humiliated, exposed as a liar and a fantasist.
The plan works a treat. Janice's friend Wilma loudly tells everyone who'll listen that Janice has a date with Willard. A boy on the bus accuses her of being a liar, and they get into a big fight. Jess and Leslie wanted to get revenge on Janice by making her look like a complete fool in front of the other kids, and they've certainly done that.

What does Ruth Forman's use of diction in "Poetry Should Ride the Bus" tell you about the speaker?

Diction is the type of words and grammar a poet or writer uses. Diction can be very simple and childlike, using short sentences and words of one syllable. It can also be very complex and literary, using unusual words and difficult grammatical constructions.
The diction in "Poetry Should Ride the Bus" is simple and childlike. It uses words that everyone would know, such as "bright red lipstick" and "sit on the porch," in ways which are very direct and straightforward.
The descriptive language—images that use the five senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell—shows us that speaker is an observant person who has taken note of her environment and can communicate what it is like in concrete terms, such as "orange plastic covered lazyboy."
Her diction also doesn't use perfect grammar, reflecting the dialect of her culture. For example, she uses "n" for "and." This reinforces the childlike quality of her words and also shows she is not trying to impress anyone with her erudition. She comes across as simply being herself in a very authentic way.
However, some of the words interspersed within the bright, childlike prose are disturbing and remind us that this narrator is living in a dangerous place. For example, she mentions the "yellow crack house." This shows she is not ignoring the bad in her world. However, she chooses optimism, saying poetry should "whisper electric blue magic." The poem ends on the simple and upbeat word "smile," which suggests the speaker has chosen happiness.

The diction of a poem refers to the word choice and style used by the speaker. In "Poetry Should Ride the Bus" by Ruth Forman, the speaker uses the social vernacular of the African American community while using rhythmic, descriptive words to describe their experiences. If I were to analyze the author’s purpose for this, I would focus on these key points:


The poem accurately represents the voice of the black community and their common, everyday experiences. When most people think of poems, they think of romantic, lofty poems written in a formal, Old English style by old, white men, long gone, who dressed like Shakespeare (think Dead Poet’s Society). But is that how everyone talked back then? Is that how we talk today? Is poetry dead? The speaker of Forman’s poem is loud and clear: No, poetry is still alive! It can be found and should be sought anywhere, anytime, by anyone—hence, my favorite lines:



poetry should ride the bus in a fat woman’s Safeway bag between the greens n chicken wings to be served with Tuesday’s dinner

Forman personifies poetry, asking it to experience what the regular folks do. She doesn’t want poetry to just be the stuck-up voice of high society.


The poem is meant to be spoken aloud. African Americans have a rich oral history that has been passed down through the generations. In fact, Forman aims to celebrate and continue that tradition and can to this day can be found traveling the country while performing many of her award-winning poems, including this one. Listen to her perform the poem at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC (see YouTube link below). Which words of the poem have a rhythmic sound? Which words does she deliver with the most passion?


Some parts of the poem seem to be autobiographical. Forman grew up as a black girl in the 70s and, according to one biography, “spent many summers on the brownstone steps of her aunts’ and uncles’ homes in Philadelphia." After she earned her degree from the prestigious UC Berkeley and became an award-winning poet, many of her works drew from her childhood experiences and were meant to celebrate the strength, beauty, and pride of her culture. Which lines in the poem seem to represent her experiences growing up in a city? Which lines seem to represent her struggle to fit in with her new life as well as the community she left behind? Which lines seem to show her pride in her community?


All in all, Forman is able to convey through the speaker that everyone deserves to be heard and that beauty can be found in the little things and in the everyday experiences.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/forman-ruth-1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=v6hztae_5GE

What dose Leo learn about the porcupine necktie at the end of chapter 20?

At the end of Chapter 20, Leo finds out that it was Stargirl who had left him a porcupine necktie two years ago on his birthday.
As Leo and Stargirl start discussing a gift she was thinking of leaving for a patient at the hospital, it dawned on him, most likely, that she had been his mystery gifter years prior. And it makes sense. When Leo first moved to Arizona, his mom had told the newspaper that her son collected porcupine neckties. This was true, except that Leo could never find a porcupine necktie to add to the "collection" started by his uncle's gift (which was the only porcupine necktie Leo had ever seen period). When Leo started going on his missions with Stargirl, he realized his gift of the necktie is most likely something Stargirl would mysteriously leave on one of her "missions." Leo wondered where she had found the porcupine necktie and she finally explains that she had asked her mother to sew it on for her.
By the end of Chapter 20, Leo tries to convince Stargirl that it's nice to get credit for gifts. More importantly, he tries to explain that people expect to know who leaves them a gift which she didn't see the importance of before that conversation. The fact that Stargirl leaves gifts anonymously is, eventually, what gives him a clue about who the mystery gifter of his tie was, two years back.

What does Benedick mean by "shall make an oyster of me" in Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, scene 3?

Benedick is expressing astonishment that a man like Claudio, who's always laughed at men making fools of themselves over love, has became just like them. Benedick resolves that he will never end up the same way as them. To be sure, Benedick can't promise that he won't fall in love or that love won't affect him in any way. He's only human, after all, but what he won't do is allow himself to be made a fool of by a woman, no matter how beautiful she is. Only when a woman comes along who combines the key attributes of wisdom, beauty, and virtue will Benedick be transformed into an "oyster."
What Shakespeare is possibly referring to here is the Greek philosopher Plato's distinction between a life devoted to pleasure—as symbolized by the eating of oysters—and one devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, with the latter being regarded as vastly superior. So what Benedick is saying here is that he will only become an "oyster," (i.e., someone who pursues the pleasures of love), once he's secure in the knowledge that he's found the right woman who possesses beauty, wisdom, and virtue.

What are examples of man versus nature in "The Open Boat"?

In “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane, there are a few examples of man versus nature. There are a few ways in which nature is at odds with the sailors on their dinghy. The most obvious is their struggle to survive at sea.
The sailors in the story are in a small boat in the open ocean; their larger ship sank, with most of the crew onboard. They have been at sea for nearly two days when the story starts, and the sea itself is rough and harsh—they risk capsizing and drowning all the time. Crane describes the waves and sea as follows:

These waves were frightfully rapid and tall; and each boiling, white top was a problem in the small boat.

The boat cannot compete with the height and danger present in the waves, and as a result, the men are in constant danger of death. The cook’s main job on the small boat is bailing out the water that is continually filling the bottom. The sea also presents other natural dangers to the crew, like starvation, dehydration, and predators like sharks.
The correspondent, one of the crewmen on the small boat, has a moment to reflect that nature isn't really against the men; instead, it is indifferent to their struggles and problems. The sea doesn’t care for them, and that is part of why their danger seems so terrible:

It represented to the correspondent the calm of Nature against the struggles of the individual—Nature in the wind, and Nature in the sight of men. Nature did not seem cruel to him then, nor kind, nor dangerous, nor wise. But she was not interested, completely not interested.

The idea that it is indifferent to the struggles of humankind makes nature seem even more sinister. A person or animal has a motive; it attacks or steals for a specific reason. Nature in its indifference hurts and helps indiscriminately, and that chance is disconcerting. The men have to contend with the existential dread of knowing that their fate is in the hands of random chance rather than in their control.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, sometimes what happens off stage, or has happened before the play begins, is as important as what takes place during the course of the visible action in the present. By what methods and how successfully does Shakespeare let us know about off-stage or previous events?

There are many ways that Shakespeare informs the audience about prior or offstage actions. The main one is through conversations between characters about those events. In Hamlet, there are many instances of this type of reporting. In this play, the supernatural also plays a huge role in telling what probably happened to old King Hamlet.
Two important reports of offstage events concern Hamlet's aborted trip to England. He comes onstage and explains that he had found a letter with instructions to kill him when he arrived. He swapped it out for one that said to kill his companions, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern. He escaped the boat en route. The news of his escape was reported already in a letter to Horatio. Later at the play's end a messenger comes on with the news of their deaths.
Another major event that happens offstage is Ophelia's death. This is major because she is such an important character, and because Gertrude delivers the news to Laertes. She tells him Ophelia drowned after falling into a river. The other important aspect is that we never hear the story from anyone else, and Gertrude does not actually say she witnessed it. The extreme ambiguity of her account leaves the door open to interpret Ophelia's death as accident, suicide (as the gravediggers discuss later), or that someone else killed her.
The Ghost is problematic as a source, as Horatio warns Hamlet. What if he isn't real, or what if he's an evil spirit pretending to be the dead king? In any event, Hamlet believes him that Claudius killed him, and therefore swears revenge.

How is Cash Bundren a hero?

As I Lay Dying is rife with selfish and senseless characters. However, Cash Bundren stands out as a character whose dedication, compassion, and sacrifices contrast with the rampant self-interest in the rest of the novel. Cash is rational where the other Bundrens are not, and because of this difference, no one listens to Cash. Several times over, he takes care of the other characters’ well-beings to his own detriment. Despite this, he is still underappreciated by them.
Cash Bundren’s heroic actions, both physical and compassionate, are devalued by the other characters due to their selfishness. He is a morally strong person whose convictions lie in expressions of dedication. Consequently, Cash responds to these demands on his compassion with unfailing strength, beginning with his devotion to his family.
From the first, Cash Bundren is shown to be lovingly considerate in his own way; the first introduction to Cash is the sound of him crafting a coffin for his dying mother. He works all night in the pouring rain to finish it, refusing to stop for anything. “The rain rushes suddenly down, without thunder, without warning of any sort; he is swept onto the porch upon the edge of it and in an instant Cash is wet to the skin. Yet the motion of the saw has not faltered” (44). He is “tireless” in his efforts (44). Even when Cora Tull warns him that he will “catch [his] death” if he continues to work, Cash does not stop until he “drives the last nail” (46).
Cash shows goodness towards both his parents; despite Anse’s complaints about Cash, Cash only treats his father with respect and deference. Anse whiningly criticizes Cash for “making me pay for Cash having to get them carpenter notions when if it hadn’t been no road come there, he wouldn’t a got them” (22). Cash essentially sacrifices everything he wants on Anse’s whim. Anse digs through Cash’s clothes and steals eight dollars. “Cash aimed to buy that talking machine from Surratt with that money” (110). The graphophone Cash has coveted is sacrificed so Anse can buy a team of animals. Yet, in spite of all of this, Cash still attempts to save Anse from harm. When Cash is working on Addie’s coffin, he tells his father, “Why don’t you go on to the house, out of the rain? … You go on in… Me and Vernon can finish it” (45). He keeps his father’s well-being in mind, even if his father does not do the same for him.
Furthermore, Cash shows that he is always protective of his younger siblings and acts with their best interests in mind, particularly in one scene at a flooded river. When the Bundrens reach a river that has flooded over the bridges, they must cross the river on a ford. There, Cash demonstrates his heroic nature by attempting to save his family, even though his leg is broken and his family will not listen to his technical advice. First, he insists that “Dewey Dell and Vardaman and pa better walk across on the bridge” (72). Therefore, he saves them from being dragged into the flooded waters. He also attempts to save Jewel, saying “I tell you what you do. You ride on back and walk across the bridge and come down the other bank and meet us with the rope. Vernon’ll take your horse home with him and keep it till we get back… Three cant do no more than two can” (84). He basically tells Jewel to save himself while the two oldest brothers undertake the risk. However, he even tries to leave Darl out of it at the end. He tells him to “jump clear” off the wagon and save himself from the flood while Cash is still holding on to Addie’s coffin. “Darl jumped out of the wagon and left Cash sitting there trying to save it and the wagon turning over” (88).
Cash also takes care of his siblings in other ways. He shows concern for Dewey Dell, whereas others treat her like a housemaid. Anse commands her to prepare dinner immediately after Addie’s death, and when she only makes vegetables, he tells her that she “ought to took time” to clean and cook the fish (36). However, Cash says, “Here sister […] never mind about the fish. It’ll save, I reckon. Come on and sit down […] You better eat something” (36). He offers her dinner while Anse is selfishly complaining about the food she makes, showing Cahsh's kindness. Cash is also the only one to notice that Vardaman is missing after Addie’s death. He alone asks, “Where’s Vardaman?” (35). He does not become angry at Vardaman when he is discovered asleep next to the coffin, with “the top of the box bored clean full of holes and Cash’s new auger broke off in the last one” (42). His kindness and patience do not wane even though Vardaman destroyed Cash’s work and broke one of his beloved tools.

In My Beloved World, how does the visit to Puerto Rico enrich Sotomayor's appreciation of her background?

Sotomayor visited the island of her childhood in her adult years. The visit enriched her appreciation of how her fellow Puerto Ricans treasured the electoral process.
In the book, Sotomayor recounts her amazement at how politically involved Puerto Ricans were. During elections, she saw party symbols everywhere. There were straw hats signaling support for the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, palm trees represented support for statehood, and green flags (with white crosses) symbolized support for independence.
Sotomayor noticed that people pored over newspapers and discussed the positions of all of the candidates on a variety of issues. Puerto Ricans were politically engaged, unlike those in New York, who believed that their voices didn't count.
In New York, Puerto Ricans felt that they were second class citizens. It was a different story in Puerto Rico, where all self-respecting Puerto Ricans believed that they were fully-fledged citizens with a say in political affairs, and ultimately, their futures.
Sotomayor came home with the belief that Puerto Ricans (in both New York and the island) needed to work together for their mutual advantage.

How did the War on Poverty, the war in Vietnam, and the Civil Rights Movement influence each other?

They all influenced each other in the sense that they all happened during the Johnson administration. Johnson hoped to be known for his social programs in his War on Poverty but instead he was known for getting the United States more involved in the unpopular Vietnam War. In the end, Vietnam proved to be his undoing as he chose not to run for reelection in 1968 due to Vietnam protests. Johnson believed that the United States's economy was strong enough to fight both Vietnam and have robust social programs; however, the war took all the attention away from his social welfare projects.
The Vietnam War affected poor people more than the affluent, since people who could afford to go to college often received draft deferments. African Americans and other minorities were also more likely to die in Vietnam than their white counterparts, thus leading to famous protests against the war by sports figures such as Muhammad Ali. Martin Luther King Jr. protested the war as well for pacifist reasons. One argument that civil rights protesters used during this time was that they were being treated unfairly by white society; therefore, they did not like the idea of fighting to keep the Vietnamese oppressed by other whites. Not only did King stand for civil rights, he was also against the poverty of African Americans everywhere; he was protesting bad treatment against Memphis garbage collectors when he was assassinated in 1968. After his death, the movement stagnated.

President Lyndon Johnson launched a War on Poverty in the mid-1960s to tackle the crushing poverty that affected many Americans, especially including many African American communities. His administration put a lot of federal funds into the War on Poverty, working in particular through community-based organizations. However, after the War in Vietnam began with ground troops in 1965, the nation became increasingly mired in the war. The administration began to pour a great deal of money into fighting the war, and inflation was in part a result of this spending on military outlays. As a result, the administration had to pull back from fighting the War on Poverty.
By the late 1960s, the stymied results of the War on Poverty, along with the continued fighting of the Vietnam War, caused feelings of disillusionment. The civil rights movement had begun to focus on issues of employment and poverty of African Americans before Martin Luther King's death in 1968, and in many ways, these issues proved harder to solve than the earlier issues of black voting and other civil rights. Therefore, the movement lost some momentum, and African American people began to feel that the movement was not gaining traction. Therefore, the late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of disillusionment.

The War on Poverty, the protests against the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement were all parts of an awakening of the forces of social justice in the 1960s. This was an era of great prosperity in the United States, with the American dream being in reach of many, and the number of Americans enrolled in and completing higher education having skyrocketed, in part due to the GI Bill. However, this prosperity was distributed unequally, and many people sought to remedy these inequities.
World War II and the Vietnam War had meant that soldiers of all races and social classes served together as brothers and sisters in arms, something that made the unfairness of racial discrimination all the more apparent. Many of the protests against the war were grounded in an awareness that people under twenty-one (who could not vote at that time) and black people were dying in disproportionate numbers and yet had little say in the choice to go to war.
The War on Poverty brought into focus the disparity in poverty between ethnic minorities and whites. As a legacy of the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction to address economic inequality, African Americans had lower incomes, education, net worth, and opportunities than white people. Thus, solving issues of poverty required addressing racial inequality, and civil rights required addressing economic inequality.

The politics of the War on Poverty, the Civil Rights Movement, and the war in Vietnam intersected in many ways. Lyndon Johnson saw the War on Poverty and the Great Society, which was the centerpiece of this "war," as his signal achievement. The War on Poverty basically entailed the creation of a large welfare state aimed at bringing about equality of opportunity for the millions of Americans below the poverty line. This, of course, had the support of many Civil Rights leaders, who realized that many of the nation's poor were African Americans and saw that the War on Poverty was a social justice issue, a new stage in the movement for civil rights. In his 1967 speech "The Other America," Martin Luther King, Jr. argued that the struggles for political and legal equality were in many ways won, and he framed this as a struggle for "genuine equality," advocating government measures to remove some of the structural and economic barriers to success that existed for many African Americans. It was precisely for this reason that King and many Civil Rights leaders objected to the Vietnam War, which drew money and political capital away from the War on Poverty. Lyndon Johnson was sensitive to this, famously describing the war, in vulgar terms, as taking him away from the "woman" he loved—the Great Society that was at the heart of the War on Poverty. In the end, Johnson's commitment to the war in Vietnam lost him the support of many Civil Rights leaders who objected to the war on moral grounds and the grounds that it interfered with the War on Poverty.
https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm

How is Hamlet a tragic hero?

A tragic hero is more than just the hero of a tragedy who dies in the end. When we identify a tragic hero, we look at a character who loses everything and everyone close to them over the course of the play, usually because of one of their own flaws, or hubris.
Hamlet has many strong character qualities. At the beginning of the play, he's loyal to his father and vows revenge for his death. He feigns insanity to convince the people around him that he is crazy while he investigates the ghost's claims that Claudius is the killer.
However, Hamlet's once-noble intentions fall apart as his desire for revenge consumes him and as each event is linked to his inevitable death. We see him mistakenly kill Polonius and simply shake off the murder:


Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.



His cold and harsh language towards Ophelia could be the cause of her madness and even suicide; he convinces her that he never loved her and warns her not to become a "breeder of sinners" (act III, scene 1). Once he realizes that she is dead, he sees what he has done, but it is too late to stop, and he continues his downward spiral by accepting a duel with Laertes. This duel has nothing to do with his revenge, but he is tricked into accepting the duel: Osric details just how good Laertes is at fencing, but he says that he believes Hamlet is better.

The duel serves as Hamlet's final action. Before he is killed by Laertes's poisoned sword, he kills Laertes with the same sword. His mother dies by accidentally drinking poison—the poison Claudius intended for Hamlet—and Hamlet both stabs his stepfather and forces him to drink poison.

As a tragedy, we know from the beginning of the play that things will not end well for our main character, but as a tragic hero, we can link his decisions and events to clearly lead to his inevitable death.

How does Psalm 8 demonstrate contemplation on the significance of God?

While it is clear that David's Psalm 8 contemplates God's glory, it is not equally clear that the psalm leads to a complementary contemplation of man's insignificance.

1b You have set your glory above the heavens. ...4 what is man that you are mindful of him

Through interlacing ironies, the poet illuminates the majesty of God, not the insignificance of man.

9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

David begins with the power of God in his majesty, above the heavens and against his foes. Immediately we confront an irony: the weakest beings there are establish God's strength.

2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength

The power theme continues as David witnesses the power of creation in the heavens then contrasts to the powerlessness of man. Remember, David was woefully well aware of man's powerlessness because of his own powerlessness against King Saul. David's personal powerlessness is an irony in itself since he began his career of public service by slaying the most powerful being on earth: Goliath the Philistine giant. David's contemplations ironically juxtaposing the power of God's physical creation with the powerlessness of God's human creations sends us in free-fall, like a meteor, into the next irony: the greatest of the creations is the least.

4 what is man that you are mindful of him

David confirms that this is an ironical statement with the word "Yet" that opens verse 5: "Yet you have made him ...." David has been contemplating God's perfection and contrasting it to the implied imperfection of humanity: "what is man ...?"
After pointing out the irony of God in His perfection caring about imperfection, David points out that humanity is almost as great as the angels (who themselves are imperfect considering the former rebellion in Heaven): "a little lower than the angels" (NIV). Rather than contemplating humanity's insignificance, David is contemplating humanity's significance: [paraphrase] Nonetheless, you have made imperfect man only a little less important than the holy angels, who are the ministers of the Lord. This is indeed an irony: unimportance elevated to importance.

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.

A potentially controversial psalmic couplet follows. It is potentially controversial (or maybe outright controversial) because factions use it to defend a laissez-faire attitude to environmental changes and problems while other factions use it to defend heightened stewardship over the environment to try to reverse, stall or limit these changes and problems.
Remembering that, in English, the Subject leads the Verb and Object SVO, except for rhetorical or poetical effects, if we look at a loose transliteration of the lines from Hebrew to English, we see that, in English syntax, the Object of the sentence precedes the Verb and Subject and is repeated in varied words on the other side of the Subject: [transliteration] his feet under You have put all of Your hands [things] over Your works made him to have dominion (BibleHub.com).
The sense this gives is that the Subject in the transliteration, "all of Your hands [things]" ("the works of your hands"), is what is most important. Reading the loose transliteration, the sense that comes across might be expressed like this: [paraphrase] Under his feet You have put all the things of Your hands, over Your works You have given him dominion or power. This actually creates a parallel rhetorical structure (a chiasmus).
The sense that emerges is that David's wonderment at the string of ironies continues and not only continues but grows. The irony is that God, the majestic, has given power over the fruit of His work to the weakest and most powerless: the most exalted task has gone to the least exalted.
It is understandable that after these meditations, after realizations of all these ironies, after an epiphany of the power of God that grants greatness to the most lowly, David would again proclaim the majesty of God:

9 O Lord, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!

[To hear Psalm 8 sung by a Cantor: http://www.smithcreekmusic.com/Hymnology/Sound.Files/Psalm8.mp3 ]

What makes Huck decide to run away and resist being “civilized” from Miss Watson and her sister, Widow Douglas?

You have to understand that, for Huck, the so-called civilized world is something he's not used to. He's spent virtually the whole of his short life living as a child of nature, eking out a hardscrabble existence off the land. So buckling down to the kind of neat, ordered lifestyle that the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson have in store for him is a bit of a culture shock, to say the least.
Huck knows that the widow and her sister mean well, but he just can't fit into a daily routine of clean clothes, regular mealtimes, and rigorous bible study. He's like a fish out of water in this buttoned-up environment, and though he tries his best to conform, he knows deep down that he's fighting a losing battle. Huck's just too much of a free spirit, too much of a force of nature, to be tied down to any one place for any length of time. He desperately needs to breathe the sweet freedom of the open air once again. So he decides to escape.

Huck is in his early teens by the time he is being fostered by the Widow Douglas, and it is a bit too late in his development to change some habits that have become ingrained. Huck has had no religious upbringing or instruction, so the Widow Douglas's habit of going to church and saying grace before meals has no resonance (and makes no sense) for him. He is used to going barefoot, living outdoors when he pleases, and wearing clothes that don't restrict his movement. She won't allow him to smoke, either.
Miss Watson's efforts to teach Huck are equally futile. He has no desire or patience for her lessons, and he has a hard time sitting still. She micromanages his posture and admonishes him when he yawns with his mouth open. Huck does not value what the two women do, and the two women don't understand what is important to him. He is a pragmatist content with living outside society, and so his departure from their well-intentioned ministrations is inevitable.

Given all the reasons people have trouble seeing the power of social structure according to Lemert's "The Mysterious Power of Social Structure," formulate an explanation for why some people do come to see this power.

Charles Lemert claims that social structures are obscured from the people who participate in them and on whose lives they exert constant influence. Such structures are difficult both to define and to observe; Lemert refers to them as routinely appearing like “a mysterious fog.” Yet structures are important to define because of the force they exert, as social structures “inexorably determine what individuals can and cannot do.” The “social energy” of structures to make such determinations is what Lemert calls their “power.”
One factor that masks social structure is belief systems. Lemert uses the example of white settlers’ justification of the North American land grab as a matter of divine providence. Rather than admit that desire for power and greed over the land were reasons that whites tried to take it from Lakota people (and overall succeeded), Lemert observes, white people understood “the theft of land and life as a right of their god’s providence.”
This example, the author continues, is actually easier to see through than most other applications of social structure. Whites clearly did take Native lands. Competition over a scarce good, land, resulted in one competitor achieving it. The structural influence on outcomes is not always manifested in material terms but in abstract concepts that in turn shape material gains.
The importance of prestige is another factor in both expressing and obscuring social structure. People feel the benefits of prestige as they acknowledge their superiority—or sense of superiority—over others but rarely question the broader forces through which that prestige accrues. They tend to internalize the benefits, especially when they derive from everyday forces such as family connections.
One key element of social structural power is authority. The idea that the authority that others hold over us is a limiting factor in our experiences is more likely to be understood by people with relatively little power. Those who have more power, in contrast, either cannot or will not see the importance of authority; this is the case precisely because it is rarely exercised overtly and negatively on them. Those who exercise authority are likely to accept the deference of others as their due and to associate disrespect with individual deviance rather than an expression of structure. In contrast, people who are used to having authority exercised over them are likely to understand the structural bases of that behavior; a contemporary example is mistrust of the police in poor neighborhoods.
https://books.google.com/books?id=8Bboanc2l6AC&dq=lemert+social+structure&source=gbs_navlinks_s

How and why did the federal minimum wage in this country start?

When he took office in 1933, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's goals was to establish a federal minimum wage.
Regulations establishing a nationwide minimum wage were part of his National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. However, the Supreme Court ruled on May 27, 1935, on what was called "Black Monday," that a minimum wage was unconstitutional, overturning the regulation.
Roosevelt pushed for a minimum wage because he wanted everyone who worked to earn enough money to live on. He fought for this as part of his New Deal for the American worker. After the disaster of the 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, Roosevelt felt that the average American needed greater protection to ensure a decent standard of living.
Roosevelt believed that paying working people enough to live on was the morally decent thing to do; he also hoped that higher wages would help lift the United States out of the Great Depression. In addition, Frances Perkins—his pick for Secretary of Labor—would not agree to the job unless Roosevelt was firmly behind a minimum wage law.
While some argued that a minimum wage would hurt business, Roosevelt argued that a business that could not pay its workers a fair wage deserved to fail. As he put it in 1933:

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

In the 1936 presidential campaign, which he won in a landslide, Roosevelt campaigned on a promise to enact a minimum wage. In 1937, the Supreme Court reversed its 1935 decision and supported a minimum wage law in Washington State. This paved the way for Congress to pass the first minimum wage legislation, called the Fair Labor Standards Act, in 1938.
This legislation established a minimum wage of $0.25 per hour; in addition, it enacted child labor laws and a 40-hour workweek, with time and a half paid for overtime work. Ever since that time, the United States has had a federal minimum wage. Roosevelt called the Fair Labor Standards Act one of his most important legislative victories, and it has remained popular ever since.

Why does Anne Frank call her diary "Kitty"?

As with many young girls of her age, Anne looks upon her diary as a close friend, someone in whom she can confide her innermost thoughts, fears, and desires. As the diary is more of a person than a little book, Anne gives it a name—Kitty.
There's no particular reason why Anne gives her diary that specific name; it just happens to be a common girl's name which fits the identity of a trusted friend. However, Anne did think carefully about what name she would give to her diary. At first, she thought about calling it Jettje or Emmy, but she finally settled on Kitty. She settled upon a name and an identity to whom she was comfortable addressing her deepest thoughts. From then on, all her diary entries would begin with "Dear Kitty . . ."

Write a biography of Oscar Wilde, including a summary of his life, a popular myth or distortion about him, and the best contribution he's made to American History.

Oscar Wilde was a renowned author, poet, and playwright. He was born on October 16th, 1854, in Dublin and was renowned for his flamboyant style and brilliant wit, as well as his iniquitous imprisonment because of homosexuality. Oscar Wilde’s father was William Wilde, while his mother was Jane Francesca Elgee. He went to Portora Royal School until 1871, after which he was granted a scholarship to join Trinity College. In the year 1874, he was awarded the Berkeley Gold Medal and later awarded the Demyship award to study in Magdalen College, located in Oxford. He continued writing while in Oxford and, upon graduation, his poem Ravenna won the Newdigate Prize. In the year 1881, he was able to publish his very first compilation of poems. In the year 1882, he went on a journey to New York, and while in America, he gave a total of 140 lectures within a period of nine months. On the 29th of May in 1884, he got married to an English lady by the name Constance Lloyd. Together, they had two sons name Cyril and Vyvyan. In the year 1885, he was hired to manage The Woman's World magazine, and during his tenure, he was able to revitalize the magazine through the expansion of its coverage. Some of his most acclaimed works include The Happy Prince and Other Tales, The picture of Dorian Gray, Intentions, and A Woman of No Importance among others. As he enjoyed literary success, he got into an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas. This became the beginning of his downfall, as Douglas’s father, Marquis, got wind of the idea. On February 18th, 1895, Douglas’s father left Wilde a calling card at his home addressing him as a “sodomite.” Outraged by the accusation, Wilde sued Marquis. However, when the trial began, Marquis was able to provide adequate evidence of Wilde’s homosexuality and Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment on May 25th, 1895. In 1987, he was released from prison, but he was both emotionally and physically depleted. He died on November 30th, 1900, aged forty-six years.
Wilde’s visit to America came with a very important contribution to the country’s history. Apart from the many lectures he gave, Wilde, through his agent, purchased three sleeping car tickets and three first-class tickets, a set of which belonged to his black servant. Once Mr. Thweatt, who was one of the train’s employees, discovered that, he offered to make a refund of the ticket. However, Wilde declined the offer and insisted on having his servant travel in the first class coach. This was an uncommon occurrence, especially in a period where racial discrimination was the norm of the day. The story was published in The New York Times on July 9th, 1882, drawing criticisms from racists and admiration from crusaders of equality.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Jh7z_7TgTloC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Oscar+Wilde+and+American+history&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH77iftuPdAhVHPN8KHQszBPIQ6AEILjAB