How did the mourning dove die?

The mourning dove is Michigan's state bird of peace. It therefore has deep symbolic significance in the story despite its relatively brief appearance. Byron tells Kenny that nothing can shake up a mourning bird, and to prove his point, starts throwing cookies at it as it sits on a telephone wire. Initially, the bird doesn't move, but when Byron throws his fourth cookie, it lands smack in the middle of the bird's chest, causing it to crash to the ground, dead.
Byron is crestfallen at what he's just done. His immediate reaction to the sight of the dead bird is to throw up. For the first time in the story, we get to see his sensitive side, something we never knew existed. After killing the bird, Byron suddenly stops acting like a tough guy. He now realizes just how precious each individual life is, whether it's a human life or an animal life. The killing of the mourning bird, a symbol of peace, will be paralleled later in the story by the fatal fire-bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham by white supremacists, which will cause the deaths of innocent people, including children.

What does Helen believe is the real reason for the repairs to Stoke Moran?

Helen doesn't trust Dr. Roylott—and with good reason, too. She suspects that her wicked stepfather's after her inheritance. Just before her sister was due to be married, she died in mysterious circumstances in her bedroom at Stoke Moran. Had she gone ahead with her marriage, Roylott would've lost control of his stepdaughter's inheritance, and so he had her killed. Having only recently announced her own engagement, it's clear to Helen that Roylott plans a similar fate for her.
Although Helen is pretty sure that Roylott murdered her sister and plans to murder her in a similar fashion, she's unsure of precisely how he carried out his dastardly deed. That's why she does the right thing by going off to consult Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective, to get to the bottom of this whole sorry business.

Helen believes the real reason for the repairs to Stoke Moran is to allow her stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott, to murder her.
As Helen recounts to Holmes when she goes to visit him, her sister died under mysterious circumstances two years ago, shortly after she had become engaged to be married. Now, because of the repairs to the house, Helen has been forced to move into her sister's old bedroom and even sleep in the same bed. She also has heard the strange whistling sound that her sister heard for some nights in a row before she died. She fears that whatever killed her sister will kill her, especially as she is now engaged to be married, just as her sister was.

Who was to blame for Britain's failure to win a quick victory over the American rebels: General Howe, General Burgoyne, or the ministers in London?

Failure on the part of the British to win a quick victory over the American rebels can only be placed on the grounds of a retrospective, hypothetical appraisal of what would have happened had one battle or event had a different outcome. It is important to note that this thought experiment is hardly a conclusive exercise, and it is possible that the British army would have been thwarted even had each of these three parties behaved differently.
Most prominent of the ministers in London was Prime Minister of Great Britain, Lord North. North made an unusual and creative conciliatory effort toward the colonists in 1775: He offered to relieve colonies that helped to suppress rebellion of paying taxes. The Continental Congress ignored his efforts, and North had no way of carrying them out. Still, the fact that North made such a gesture (added to the fact that he was only minimally capable of affecting matters on the ground in the colonies), suggests that he is less responsible on an individual level. North also demonstrated a focused effort on tactical matters. His was the idea to isolate New England by means of a three-pronged attack against Albany, New York (using the forces of General John Burgoyne, Colonel Barry St. Leger, and General Howe in concert).
British officer John Burgoyne seems to have been more assertive and determined than General Howe. Burgoyne, a British general who fought in the Seven Years' War, was appointed major-general in the American Revolution. Burgoyne was dutiful in bringing his troops south from Quebec to Saratoga (after having saved Quebec from siege by the Continental Army). While Burgoyne might have been overconfident in his ability to defeat the rebels on this march, the failure of this move to isolate New England owed to General Howe's renegade move to campaign against Philadelphia instead of aiding Burgoyne.
Howe unilaterally decided to attack Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress regularly convened. This move was somewhat successful, as he was indeed able to march on Philadelphia); however, the Continental Congress fled and thus robbed Howe of a total victory. Moreover, the opportunity cost of Howe's strategy was significant; because he was with his troops in Philadelphia, he was not able to aid Burgoyne's troops at Saratoga. Burgoyne, assailed by militiamen from New Hampshire and Massachusetts as well as rebels from New York led by Horatio Gates, waited for help that did not come. The British commander in New York recalled 4,000 troops intended to go to Albany to support Burgoyne, in order to send those troops to Philadelphia to support General Howe. Ultimately, Howe's maverick tactic in this northern theater brought defeat to himself as well as Burgoyne.

How can I describe the influence of the father and mother on their son Bruno?

To some extent, both Bruno's parents exert a similar kind of influence over his upbringing. Bruno's father, Ralf, is a strict disciplinarian, very much of the old school when it comes to raising children. He is lord and master of his own domain and expects absolute obedience from both Bruno and his sister. This makes him quite an intimidating authority figure. At the same time, Ralf's strict regime of discipline merely serves to heighten Bruno's curiosity about life on the other side of the fence, with tragic consequences.
For her part, Bruno's mother attempts to protect her son from the harsh realties of the war and all it entails. She pointedly refuses to talk about the war with her children and gets noticeably cross when they start asking too many questions. But again, her keeping of Bruno in a state of ignorance about the horrifying reality of life at Auschwitz tragically backfires. Bruno is still only a young boy, full of curiosity about his new surroundings. His mother thinks that by stifling this curiosity she'll turn Bruno into an obedient child. But as with her husband, her disciplined approach to raising Bruno does no such thing, and it also contributes to Bruno's tragic demise.

What is implied by the word "mud-luscious" in "in Just-"?

This poem by E.E. Cummings is set in springtime. There is an adage that "April showers bring May flowers," and that feeling of an abundance of rain is the backdrop of the setting. Suddenly, the world that was frozen and hard just a couple of months before has turned "mud-luscious." There is a connotation of this invented word of a joyfulness in mud. It is reminiscent of words like delicious and luscious. Who would find such joy in mud? Likely not adults, who are tasked with cleaning the mess it creates.
Kids.
Most kids love a deep puddle and, even better, a muddy one. These images of children running into the joy of springtime are woven throughout the poem. There are balloons, dancing, hop scotch, and jump rope for kids to enjoy.
The mud is another wonderful result of a world thawing into spring. It is mud-luscious.

What is the startling revelation at the end of The Wife?

Meg Wolitzer's novel The Wife is a memoir that tells about the life of Joan Castleman. Told through the perspective of Joan, the wife of famous American author Joseph (Joe) Castleman, the book relies on Joan's flashbacks to explain the decisions in their lives leading them to his point.
After fifty years of marriage and three children, Joan has realized that she must leave him. As the book opens, the couple is on a plane to Helsinki, Finland, where Joe will be awarded the Helsinki Prize for Literature. During her reflections, Joan realizes that her life has been an unhappy one; she has continued to put his needs and career ahead of her own, and she is tired of his philandering ways. She describes him as

one of those men who own the world . . . who has no idea how to take care of himself or anyone else, and who derives much of his style from the Dylan Thomas Handbook of Personal Hygiene and Etiquette.

The revelation is that Joe isn't really the author everyone thinks he is; Joan is actually the one who has written all of his books. Once they land in Helsinki, Joan tells Joe that she no longer wishes to be married to him and threatens to tell everyone the truth about their books. Despite his limited plot suggestions, she is the true author. The fear of being found out sends Joe into a panic, and he has a heart attack.
The book ends with Joan returning home to the US feeling a mixture of both relief and sadness. She decides not to tell the truth about Joe's books and wonders what it is that creates a successful life. She decides, even at her advanced age, to pursue her own literary career.

How can I distinguish between Beowulf the hero and Beowulf the poem?

Beowulf is the name of the Scandinavian hero and the Old English epic poem about him.
The poem, considered to be one of the most important works of Old English literature, is a fictional story written in Old English (also known as Anglo-Saxon). With over 1,300 lines, the manuscript was written about 1,000 AD with no known authorship. The poem is a part of the Nowell Codex, named for the first owner of the manuscript Laurence Nowell. In the manuscript, there is no title above the poem. So it has become known as Beowulf, named after the protagonist. The Codex contains other poems, and is currently located in the British Library.
Beowulf the character is the hero of the Geats. He comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes. Beowulf slays monster Grendel by tearing off his arm. The Grendel's mother attacks as an act of vengeance. Beowulf is a great warrior and slays her as well. Rewarded for his victories, Beowulf returns home. He rules as King of the Geats for fifty years, until a dragon attacks. He is able to slay the dragon with the help of fellow warrior Wiglaf, but not before the dragon bites Beowulf in the neck. Beowulf dies from the dragon's poison, and he is mourned and remembered as a hero. His subjects worry what life will be like without him.
The poem Beowulf tells the story of the character Beowulf. It focuses on his three great battles: with Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. While it covers much of his life, the poem does not tell us everything about Beowulf. It is not quite a biography, as we do not follow him beginning at birth. Some themes in the poem include fate, religion, and the warrior's code of honor. The character is religious, as he gives credits to the gods for his victories. Beowulf is an honorable character who strives to protect and serve.
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/beowulf

What techniques does Aristophanes use in Lysistrata to make us laugh?

Aristophanes's Lysistrata is widely considered to be his most popular work thanks to its bawdy comedy and clever exchanges, all focused on the battle of the sexes. Modern audiences may find certain elements of the comedy more humorous than others, and these elements may be different to the ones that inspired the Greek audiences who first attended productions of Lysistrata to laughter.
For example, one very funny element that would have amused Greek audiences is the fact that the women in the play felt in the first place that they could actively influence the men in their lives by withholding sex. This overarching principle is perhaps the biggest joke of all, as women in this day and age had very little power at all. As well, the tradition of staging Lysistrata, whether back then or now, involves only male actors. The audience's experience of dramatic irony, hearing women speak of their men in sexual terms while knowing men were playing the wives, could also inspire laughter. Finally, the play is full of sexual innuendo and double-entendres. These subtle jokes are often pleasing to an audience mature enough to appreciate such humor.

Summarize and give examples of three positive effects that art and creativity have on early childhood aged children in each of the following areas of development: cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional.

Cognitive: Language skills can be developed through the early introduction of art and creative materials. Music in particular has been shown to foster language and reading related skills. Even just using tactile materials to create simple shapes and demonstrate the connection between objects and their descriptive words can help an infant start to develop those same connections in their minds and making learning to speak much easier.
Physical: Almost every facet of art can help develop a child's motor skills. Playing an instrument or learning to draw very young fosters a greater awareness of one's body that helps when the child is learning to write. Fine motor dexterity is a very useful skill to have that will make early education easier for the child who already has some amount of control over their limbs and extremities.
Socio-emotional: Art and media go hand in hand. The exact kinds of media that young children are consuming and then creating is very important. Especially in a world that grows more and more diverse, it is vital that young children can develop empathy for others who don't look like them because they've seen differences depicted positively in art. The PBS article I cite down below says that

teaching children to recognize the choices an artist or designer makes in portraying a subject helps kids understand the concept that what they see may be someone’s interpretation of reality.
https://ecc.gov.jm/benefits-of-the-arts-in-early-childhood-development/

https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/the-importance-of-art-in-child-development

How does Dahl describe Mary’s characteristics? What textual evidence does the author use to describe Mary and her house in order to achieve this effect?

Dahl first describes Mary as a gentle angel of the home by describing such externals as her physical appearance, activities, and demeanor. She bends over her sewing, a domestic task, looking "curiously peaceful." She is sixth months pregnant, and her calm eyes seem larger and darker than ever. Everything about her exudes a gentle, madonna like quality.
We are shown too how Mary waits on her husband when he gets home, hanging his coat and making his drink.
Dahl's narrator also gets inside Mary's head to record some of her thoughts. For instance, she is looking forward happily to her husband returning from work. We learn that the time of day when he comes home is "wonderful" for her.
However, Dahl shows that while Mary's calm, cool exterior never changes, her emotions do, turning from love and appreciation for her husband to intense anger. After she learns he is leaving her, she whacks him on the back of the head and kills him just as calmly as just made him a drink—and then just as calmly cooks the murder weapon for the police to eat.
At the end of the story, when we are left with Mary laughing over having deceived the police, we understand that she may be externally calm but she is not all innocent.
Although this is a seemingly simple story, Dahl paints a portrait of woman whose actions show she is more complicated than her innocent exterior might suggest.

In order to answer your question, I will first define characterization and what you should look for in order to assess a character. Direct characterization occurs when an author tells the reader what a character is like, while indirect characterization occurs when an author demonstrates what a character is like. A reader should focus on a character’s words, actions, appearance, thoughts, and relationship with other characters to assess his or her character.
In Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Mary Maloney is a dutiful, pregnant housewife to her police officer husband. Throughout the story, Dahl relies on indirect characterization to reveal her traits. Chiefly, Dahl’s use of the third-person limited omniscient point of view gives the reader direct access to Mary’s thoughts and feelings as she awaits her husband’s return from work. For example, one could infer from her anxious thoughts at the beginning of the story that Mary doesn’t like being alone.
In addition, Dahl describes the details of the Maloney home in a way that makes everything seem clean and organized. The specific way in which Mary arranges her home, one might argue, demonstrates her meticulous attention to detail—a trait that serves her well after her husband’s accidental death.
I hope these suggestions allow you to fully understand how Dahl lets the reader infer what kind of person Mary Maloney is despite the expectations that are placed upon her by others.

What does the poet of "A Photograph" intend to suggest through the words "the laboured ease of loss"?

In this poem, Shirley Toulson writes of gazing at a photo of her mother at the beach with her cousins. The photo was taken before Shirley was born in 1924, and she used to look at it with her mother. Her mother would laugh looking at the photograph, remembering those beach days and the clothes they would wear. The mother's memory was of the events at the beach; the speaker's memory is of her mother laughing at those memories. The speaker says the memories are:

Both wryWith the laboured ease of loss

The word wry means ironic or mocking and wry can have a connotation of bittersweetness. If you smile wryly about something, it is with mixed emotions. Wry can also mean twisted or bent. So we could also say the memories are twisted by the sense of loss.
"Laboured ease" is a contradiction or oxymoron, and expresses a paradox, or seeming contradiction, that turns out on examination to have some truth.
What Toulson is saying is that we labor—or work—to feel easy (lighthearted) about loss. When we look at a photo, we are, paradoxically, looking at something we have preserved—an image of a past time—but also, inevitably, at a time that is lost.
As the speaker's mother tried to laugh lightheartedly over her lost girlhood at the beach, so the speaker tries to lightheartedly remember the laughter of her now deceased mother. Yet this ease is twisted and bittersweet—the speaker and her mother both work to achieve it.

The relevant lines from the poem are "The sea holiday/was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry/With the laboured ease of loss."
The speaker is looking at a photo of her late mother as a girl enjoying a holiday at the beach. Her mother was clearly very happy as she frolicked gaily on the beach with her cousins. And the speaker, too, is happy at recalling her mother's laughter. Yet both these sources of happiness are no more, and so they are tinged with a certain sadness. They are wry in the sense that the speaker's late mother lost her happy childhood memories, and the speaker herself lost her mother.
"Laboured ease" is an oxymoron; that is to say, a contradiction in terms. Ease, of its very nature, cannot be labored. And yet the speaker uses this expression to convey the sense that both she and her mother struggled over a long period of time to deal with their loss, yet eventually did so. Once they accepted their loss was final, they were at ease.
http://www.english-for-students.com/A-Photograph.html

List the four things that Emerson says everyone learns eventually in "Self-Reliance."

Towards the end of the essay, Emerson summarises his views on self-reliance into four key points.
The first one is prayer. Emerson states that

Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.

Prayer that asks God for material things is not only wrong, but won't work. Prayer involving regret will only, over time, erode the soul.
Instead Emerson says we should forget the past and be self-helping. "For him all doors are flung wide."
The second point Emerson makes is that

The wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or onto foreign lands he is at home still.

In other words, he is saying that people that travel to find something greater than what they have at home will be sorely disappointed. Most likely, they will move only away from who they are. Or, at best, wake up with the same "sad self, unrelenting, identical that I fled from." When one travels, they should always know who they are and where they came from. As Emerson states: "My giant goes with me wherever I go."
For his third point, Emerson says that even when we don't travel, our minds wander to foreign places. Our homes, for example, are often full of foreign and exotic objects. What we are doing is moving away from ourselves and imitating others.

If the American artist will study with hope and love . . . considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.

For his fourth point, Emerson says society also looks abroad for its inspiration and as such "society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other."
As an example, he compares the white man to the New Zealand aboriginal. The aboriginal, he claims, is far stronger than the white man. While the white man needs a watch to tell the time, an aboriginal only needs the sun.

His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and maybe a question whether machinery does not encumber.

To prevail, Emerson, states that humans must put all these material goods and services to one side.

Ralph Waldon Emerson's "Self Reliance" is a pivotal essay, not only in terms of Emerson's output, but in regards to the transcendentalist movement and the foundations of American individualism. In this essay, Emerson argues that there are four things everybody learns eventually. These things are:
1. Envy is ignorance. By this, Emerson means that only those who do not properly understand the world are envious of other people. With understanding comes the realization that there is no need to be envious of what other people have or can do because each of us is an individual with our own skills and gifts.
2. Imitation is suicide. This is key—Emerson is saying that by imitating someone else, we are effectively destroying ourselves. Every moment that we spend pretending to be someone or something other than ourselves is a moment spent killing our own gifts and uniqueness.
3. Each person must "take himself for better, for worse." By this, Emerson means that everyone must realize eventually that he or she is as he or she is—there is nothing to be done about how we inherently are. Things such as intelligence level, attractiveness, and so on cannot be changed.
4. Even though the world is full of good things, no "nourishing corn"—no thing of value—can come to anyone except as a result of his own efforts ("toil") on the portion of the world that has been afforded to him by birthright.

What is the reason that the stranger gives Mrs. Hall for his sudden arrival?

In the first chapter of the novel, the stranger introduces himself to Mrs. Hall and exhibits some peculiarities which take her by surprise, such as his refusal to let her take his hat to be dried. She notices that he is covered in bandages and assumes that he has had some kind of accident or operation which means he doesn't want to show his face. However, she is unable to solicit any information out of him on this score, and he does not, at this point, offer any explanation as to why he is there.
In the second chapter of the book, however, the stranger apologizes for his abruptness and says that he is "an experimental investigator." The cases which he would like to have sent for are, he says, delicate and contain the instruments of his trade. He says that he has come to stay in Mrs. Hall's establishment because of "a desire for solitude." He does not want to be disturbed while he is working, and, moreover, he tells Mrs. Hall that "an accident" has given him certain peculiarities. He says he has weak eyes, which mean he sometimes needs to be locked in a dark room for a time, and that noise annoys him.

Do you think one of Hamlet's tragic flaws is that he is too hard on himself?

Whether Hamlet, the prince of Denmark and protagonist of William Shakespeare’s play, is too hard on himself is a matter of perspective. As Hamlet begins and following the first appearance of the ghost of the young prince’s recently deceased father, King Hamlet, the newly-crowned king, Prince Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius, and the prince’s mother, newly-remarried-to-the-new-king, are discussing the prince’s melancholy state. In act 1, scene 2, Hamlet is engaged with Claudius and Gertrude, his mother. Both “parents” lament Hamlet’s continued mourning of his father’s death, Claudius asking, “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” and Gertrude commenting:

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy vailèd lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.

To King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, Hamlet has failed to accept his father’s death and get on with his life. To them, the conspiring (the audience will learn) king and his strangely acclimated mother (recently widowed but already remarried to her late husband’s brother), King Hamlet’s death is in the past and the imperative of governing a kingdom is of paramount importance. The period of official mourning is over, and the citizenry must look to the future. Hamlet, however, remains disconsolate, and his mournful demeanor is wearing on the king and queen. The depth of Hamlet’s sadness and hopelessness is apparent in his repeated references to suicide, as in that same scene in act 1 following the king and queen’s departure and Hamlet’s reflections on the futility of life measured against the sin of taking one’s own life:

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!

And, of course, in act 3, scene 1, Shakespeare has this tragic figure make one of the English language’s most famous and solemn monologue’s, in which the prince again contemplates committing suicide:

To be or not to be—that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep—No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, . . .

This is pretty serious stuff. Hamlet is in the depths of despair and, having by now been exposed by his late father’s ghost to the truth behind the dead king’s demise, has been compelled to contemplate the extent of the depravity permeating the kingdom’s soul. He is, indeed, hard on himself. Whether he is too hard, however, requires more thought. When the play begins, it has been a mere two months since the death of King Hamlet. Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, has just wed Claudius, a figure not even remotely to Hamlet’s liking even without knowledge of his uncle’s responsibility for his father’s death.
Consider the situation: a young, emotionally damaged man mourning his father’s untimely death only two months after that death. In many modern cultures, a period of mourning can extend to a full year, and this was Hamlet’s beloved father. It is all a matter of perspective. To feel suicidal under these circumstances is tragic, and many people condemn suicide as an unjustifiable waste of human life under any circumstance. To a troubled young man having only recently lost his father and now witnessing his mother’s marriage to his uncle who, Hamlet learns, was responsible for his father’s death, the emotional burden would, it would seem, be too much to bear.
One can argue that Hamlet is being too hard on himself the above notwithstanding. He has been raised, as a prince, to one day rule a kingdom. His inconsolable demeanor, even before learning the facts of his father’s death, would appear excessive to many observers. A more noble attitude given his stature would be to stand tall, accept, maybe even avenge, his father’s death, and act the part of a king himself. He has, after all, been denied the crown due to Claudius’s machinations, and a conduct more becoming a potential force with which to be reckoned would be less tragic and more heroic. Even the way he plans his revenge, including the somewhat cryptic use of a theatrical production to embarrass and indict Claudius, is indirect and a little weak. Killing the wrong man—Hamlet stabs Polonius to death thinking that he is killing Claudius—is a little pathetic, although Hamlet does, ultimately, acquit himself quite well in his duel with Laertes and subsequent stabbing of Claudius.
Whether one concludes that Hamlet is too hard on himself is dependent upon one’s perception of the proper period of mourning and of the morality of suicide. Again, two months is hardly excessive with respect to an appropriate period of mourning for the death of one’s father. Hamlet is, however, too hard on himself in that he has allowed himself to become a rather pathetic figure, giving up on life during the exact period when he should be emerging as a more dominant figure in his own right. Rather than rise to the occasion, he has instead withered away, developing a mission—avenging his father’s murder—only following the revelation of Claudius’s role in King Hamlet’s death. All in all, Hamlet was too hard on himself.

What is the setting of "Footnote to Youth"?

"Footnote to Youth" is a short story written by Jose Garcia Billa in 1933. The setting is not explicitly stated, but it is in a rural area where they work as farmers. The story takes place around the same time it was written, and it tells of a couple that gets married at a young age.
Although Dodong's, the husband's, father warned him that he was too young to get married, he still gave Dodong his blessing. Dodong believed that, at 17, he was a mature adult and ready for marriage. Nine months later, with the birth of his first child, he realizes that he is young and becomes troubled with his life.
He and his wife continue to have more children, and the difficult life begins to wear on Dodong and his wife. When his first son turns 18, he approaches Dodong and asks for his permission to marry. Dodong sadly looks at his son while realizing that he is making the same mistake he himself once made.

Jose Garcia Villa (August 5, 1908–February 7, 1997) was a Filipino writer and artist. He was born in Manila to a prosperous family and attended high school in Manila and studied at the University of the Philippines. He then graduated from the University of New Mexico and continued postgraduate studies at Columbia University. He continued to live in New York City, where he combined writing and university teaching careers.
Villa's 1933 short story "Footnote to Youth" is set in the "contemporary" period (i.e., at approximately the time when it was written). While the particular location of the story is not specified, the cultural and physical context are those of the Philippines, with local traditions, foods, and terms creating a sense of place.
The focus of the story is on the characters and how they are trapped in a cycle of traditional lives and roles and the way marriage narrows their choices and possibilities. The setting, in a village or rural area, gives a sense that the cycle of marriage and children is echoed by the cyclical nature of agricultural work. The very lack of specificity of setting emphasizes the universality of the story.

Why does Calpurnia change her dialect or "code-switch" in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

Code switching refers to the practice of alternating back and forth between two (or more) language styles when one is in conversation with different groups. For example, when a student speaks to her teachers, she likely employs good verbal manners (e.g. please and thank you) and good grammar; however, when a student speaks to her friends, she likely employs some slang and is less formal and careful about her word choices. Sometimes we use language to fit in or to be viewed in a particular way. One may want a teacher to think of them as a good student and respectful, but one may just want to be "one of the group" with one's friends.
When Calpurnia is in the Finches' home, she speaks as they speak. For example, when she speaks to Scout one day, she says,

Baby, [. . .] I just can’t help it if Mister Jem’s growin' up. He's gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin' whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome. We’ll find lots of things to do in here.

She sounds like the Finches, for the most part, when she is with the Finches. However, when Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout with her to her black church one day, Scout is shocked to hear Calpurnia's speech change when she's around other people of color. Scout says,

I felt Calpurnia’s hand dig into my shoulder. "What you want, Lula?" she asked, in tones I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly, contemptuously."I wants to know why you bringin' white chillun to nigger church.""They’s my comp'ny," said Calpurnia. Again I thought her voice strange: she was talking like the rest of them.

Scout, a child, obviously does not understand why Calpurnia would speak differently in different contexts, but it likely makes sense to the reader. First, as a black woman—especially in this time and place—it benefits Calpurnia to sound like whites when she's around whites. People of color are often seen as suspect by whites, so the more similar to whites Calpurnia can sound, the better for her. However, if she were to continue to talk like whites around her black friends, she would likely be seen as suspect by this community. It benefits Calpurnia to fit in as much as possible with each group, and her speech is a powerful way to achieve this.

Towards the end of chapter 12, Calpurnia explains to the children that she is one of the few educated, literate black citizens in their community and Jem brings up Calpurnia's ability to change her dialect and code-switch by saying,

"That’s why you don’t talk like the rest of ‘em...Rest of the colored folks. Cal, but you talked like they did in church…" (Lee, 127).

Jem notices that Cal speaks informally to her fellow community members instead of using proper diction and clearly pronouncing her words like she does around the home. Calpurnia explains why she changes her dialect and utilizes code-switching by telling the children that it is more appropriate to speak in the same dialect of her present company and says that her fellow community members would think that she was "puttin‘ on airs to beat Moses" if she spoke formally around them. Despite knowing how to speak formally and properly pronounce her words, Calpurnia tells the children,

"It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike—in the second place, folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin‘ more than they do. It aggravates ’em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin‘ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language" (Lee, 127).

Scout is astonished by Cal's "modest double life" and discovers that she changes her dialect and utilizes code-switching to connect and blend in with her audience. Calpurnia is careful to not offend her fellow community members, which is also a reason that she alters her dialect and utilizes code-switching.

Read the famous interpretation of this play by Sigmund Freud. Explain the famous Oedipus Complex Freud created after reading this play. Do you agree with Freud's Oedipus Complex?

In Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus was a young man who killed his father and married his mother. Thus, Freud used the term “Oedipus complex” to refer to the sexual attraction a child feels toward the parent of the opposite sex. He also used it to refer to the jealousy that child feels toward the parent of the same sex and the resentment that child feels toward that parent for having to compete for the father or mother’s affections. Sigmund Freud formulated the concept of the Oedipus complex in the late 1800s, and he described it in his classic work The Interpretation of Dreams, which was written in 1899.
Much of Sigmund Freud's work focused on the development of a theory of psychosexual development. An Oedipus complex typically refers to a boy’s erotic attraction to his mother, and an Electra complex refers to a girl’s erotic attraction to her father. According to Freud, children have these desires but repress them, but even though they’re repressed, they play a defining role in the child’s sexual development. Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex was highly controversial and much has been written that explains different criticism and support. To help you develop an opinion on the theory, I’ve provided a few links to articles that shed light on the controversy.
https://www.learning-mind.com/freuds-oedipus-and-electra-complexes-right-or-wrong/

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-an-oedipal-complex-2795403

What is Hermia threatened to be punished by when she continues to disobey her father in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Hermia faces dire choices when she appeals to Theseus to allow her to marry Lysander against her father's wishes. Theseus, upholding the patriarchal order, tells Hermia she must mold herself to her father's wishes and marry Demetrius whether she likes the idea or not. That Hermia is in love with Lysander and hopes to make a companionate marriage based on mutual esteem means nothing to Theseus at this point. He believes obeying the father is the most important consideration in a woman's marriage choice.
Therefore, Theseus tells Hermia that if she does not marry Demetrius, she will either face a lifetime shut up in a nunnery or the death penalty.
Hermia might have realized, had she thought about it, that Theseus, a ruler who is insisting the captured Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, marry him against her will, would expect Hermia to show the same obedience to a male authority figure.
Hermia, of course, deals with this by running away with Lysander. And later, Theseus repents of his harsh decision.

The dispute between Hermia and her father lies with the subject of her marriage. Hermia has two suitors. Demetrius is her father's preferred choice for his daughter to marry, but Hermia wishes to marry Lysander and refuses to accede to her father's wishes. To her father, Egeus, this amounts to an act of disobedience, with his daughter rebelling against his paternal authority.
In the play's first scene, Egeus and Hermia take their dispute before Theseus, Duke of Athens. In this scene, Egeus demands that, should Hermia continue to resist his wishes on this subject, she be put to death, in accordance with Athenian law. Theseus, taking Egeus's side in this dispute, holds that, in such situations, a daughter must submit to her father's authority, or else she will be either sent to a cloister or executed.
Ultimately, Hermia's response to this dilemma is to retreat with Lysander into the woods and flee from Athens.

Compare and Contrast Pushkin’s “A Prisoner of the Caucasus,” Tolstoy’s “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and Sergei Bodrov’s film “A Prisoner of the Mountains.”

These three works can be seen as showing a continuity of thought in Russian literature dealing with the Caucasus region, but also a progression to a more liberal and tolerant view of foreigners and non-Russian cultures and an implied criticism of Russian actions and values.
Pushkin's narrative poem was written in the 1820's, at a time when the Russian incursion into the Caucasus was a process begun relatively recently. The peoples living in the region are variously called Circassians, Chechens, Avars, or, more broadly, Tartars. Pushkin seems to view them in the same manner in which foreign, exotic people were generally seen during the Romantic period, as Byron views even the Greeks in Don Juan and other works. There is a fascination with their lifestyle and customs, as they are depicted as a people still in a kind of state of nature, uncorrupted by the more "civilized" modern world. But Pushkin also describes them as savage and ruthless. They keep the Russian prisoner in chains, and it is only through the help of a Circassian girl who falls in love with him that he manages to escape in the end. Especially in the Epilogue to his narrative, Pushkin makes no secret of his belief that the Russians are endowed with a mission to conquer the Circassians and bring "civilization" and the superiority of Russian, European culture to them.
In Tolstoy's similarly titled story, there is a much more subtle approach. The sharp difference between Russian culture and that of the Tartars is still delineated but without the implied value judgment of Pushkin's story. As in other works dealing with the region, such as The Cossacks and Hadji Murad, Tolstoy seems to respect the indigenous culture of the Caucasus. His overall message is simply that these people should be left alone, that the Russians do not have the right to impose their values upon others. At the same time, there is no sugar-coating. As with Pushkin's prisoner, Tolstoy's Zhilin is kept in chains. The Tartars intend to obtain a ransom for Zhilin and the other soldier, Kostylin, taken prisoner at the same time. After a failed escape attempt, the two men are thrown into a stench-filled pit, shackled, and given nothing to eat but unbaked dough. Eventually, however, the young girl Dina, whom Zhilin had earlier befriended by making toys for her, lowers a long pole into the pit and helps them escape. They reach a squadron of Cossacks, allies of the Russians. Kostylin returns to Russia, but Zhilin stays on to continue serving in the Caucasus. This last fact implies a dual meaning in the title. Zhilin is no longer literally a "prisoner," but he has been captivated by the atmosphere of the region so that even after the cruelty inflicted upon him by the Tartars, he wishes to remain in what is still, essentially, their land.
The film version by Sergei Bodrov needs to be seen in the context of the 1990's war in Chechnya. Over 150 years after the first Russian invasions, the same war was still being fought. The Caucasus peoples never accepted the incorporation of their territory into Russia and continued to resist it. In the film, we see even more of their side of the story. Zhilin's captor, Abdul-Murat, is hoping to exchange Zhilin for his own son who has been taken prisoner by the Russians; in the novella, it was to extract a ransom. And in the film, the ruthlessness of the Russians against the Chechens is shown as well.
Culture-clash and the ongoing theme of the Other—both the Caucasus people as Other with respect to the Russians, and vice versa—are at the heart of all three versions of the same basic scenario. But as stated, the differences are a matter of emphasis. Pushkin was a flag-waving Russian patriot in a time when one could still be so without sacrificing one's artistic integrity. Tolstoy, though he served in the army in the Crimea, had a far more measured view of the virtues of Russian culture and European civilization in general, to the point where he eventually was opposed to Russian imperialism in the Caucasus and elsewhere. By the time of Sergei Bodrov's film, so much had occurred in the history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and post-Soviet Russia that it would be difficult for any writer or filmmaker to approach the subject without a deeper melancholy and pessimism than that of the Romantic nineteenth century.

What are the main points of argument of "Keats’ Sylvan Historian: History Without Footnotes"?

Cleanth Brook's essay "Keats's Sylvan Historian" is not merely a persuasive reading of Keats' great poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn," but also a textbook example of the close-reading strategy of New Criticism in action. Brooks revels in contradictions and paradox in the poem, in contrast to critics who insist on the poem's yielding up one straightforward meaning. Thus, problematic aspects of the poem (such as the fourth stanza, in which the speaker imagines a town not depicted on the urn, bereft of its residents who have travelled to perform a sacrificial rite) defy "reduction to any formula." Instead of being a defect, for Brooks this is an aspect of the poem's greatness.
The poem's famous last lines "Truth is beauty, beauty truth...", which T.S. Eliot found to be a weakness, are one of the poem's great strengths for Brooks. These lines resist easy translation into a theme or meaning, and instead call for the reader to adopt an attitude of healthy "distrust." Brooks's essay revels in this aspect of Keats's poem, one of the greatest examples of the poet's theory of "negative capability."

Cleanth Brooks in the essay "Keats's Sylvan Historian: History Without Footnotes" analyzes Keats's poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" with special attention to the much discussed statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" which appears in the penultimate line of the poem.
Brooks first lays out the major criticism of the statement before the reader. He quotes T.S. Eliot and Middleton Murry who think that the line is a blemish on the poem and that it does not grow naturally out of the preceding lines and thus feels out of place.
Brooks also points out that the statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" is not supposed to be taken as an isolated philosophical statement. He argues that the line has to be read in the context of the poem. Brooks analyzes the poem stanza-by-stanza while foregrounding the internal paradoxes and irony present in it. He concludes by stating that the urn has been dramatized throughout the poem to tell its stories and histories with the use of paradoxes and irony in such a way that it can utter in the end the final paradox "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" in a way that actually fits the tone of the poem.

In his 1944 essay, “Keats’s Sylvan Historian: History without Footnotes,” Cleanth Brooks offered an analysis of John Keats’s famous poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” A key feature in the analysis is part of the last line, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty . . . ” Brooks used this line to challenge the prevailing opinion, first voiced by TS Eliot, that this line was a flaw, which seemed tacked on rather than an integral part of the poem.
Looking at the entire poem in a different way than Eliot, Brooks argued that Keats had established a central paradox that unified the poem. That central paradox, Brooks claimed, was the relationship between “beauty,” as embodied in the poem, to “truth” as the message of the poem. In this interpretation, the subject of the poem is poetry and, by extension, art.
The paradox of the urn recurs in each stanza, reiterating the theme of tension between the dynamism depicted in the scenes on the urn and the frozen character that holds them in place. In each stanza of the poem, as in each location on the urn, that paradox of motion contained in stillness is reestablished. An example is the depiction of sexual activity contrasted to the purity of a vessel which is “still unravished . . . ” Brooks argues that Keats thereby effectively prepares the reader for the final line, which is the reconfirmation of that paradox.

What could be a possible thesis statement in providing a Character Analysis for John, especially pertaining to his practicality and lack of empathy?

One of the first things the narrator tells us about her husband, John, is that he "laughs at [her], [...] but one expects that in a marriage." Further, she says that he is "practical in the extreme," and he does not believe in anything that cannot "be felt and seen and put down in figures." Moreover, the narrator believes that her husband—who is also a doctor—is one of the reasons that she is not getting better faster, in part, because "he does not believe [she is] sick!" John can find no reason for his wife to be ill, no symptoms other than the mental and emotional ones she reports to him, and so he does not think that she actually is ill; he thinks it is all in her head. He tells her and her friends and family that there is "nothing the matter" with her except a "temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency," undermining her own perceptions. Certainly, this seems to invalidate her own feelings of her lived experience, and John does not allow her to have a say, to tell him what would make her feel better. To this end, the narrator says,

I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

Of course it would! This poor woman is prevented from working—reading or writing or even, really, interacting with others—and made to engage in complete rest; for heaven's sake, she's even confined to an attic room with a gate on the stairs and bars on the windows! She feels that her husband (and brother) are trying to help her but their methods do not actually help her. She likely feels guilty for being ill at all, then guilty for doubting her doctors' methods, then resentful of their dismissive treatment of her, and then guilty for that resentment. John seems totally oblivious to this, treating his wife almost more like a child, and failing to recognize that his methods are hurting more than helping her. Therefore, one might argue, in a thesis statement, that the narrator's husband's lack of empathy and respect for his wife's feelings and experiences actually lead to her health deteriorating rather than improving. It is ironic, isn't it, that the so-called "cure" is actually what makes the narrator's illness worse? She reports to us that she feels "exhaust[ed]" [...] having to be so sly about [sneaking in work], or else meet with heavy opposition." Moreover, she says that she gets angry with John, but he encourages her to have "proper self-control" and so she "take[s] pains to control [her]self—before him, at least, and that makes [her] very tired." Again, his lack of empathy for her and his dismissal of her experience actually enables her illness to worsen rather than abate.

In the poem "Ladybird" by David Malouf, how does Malouf present the theme of innocence and experience, and how does he use the nursery rhyme as a way to explore traumatic events in life? Where do innocence and the nursery rhyme become evident?

The poem "Ladybird" by David Malouf is found in his grand collection of poems Earth Hour. Throughout the poem, a tiny ladybird insect is used as a metaphor for the innocence of childhood and the natural destruction of this innocence over time.
The feel of the poem is somewhat childlike in that it takes on a nursery rhyme tone at the end of the fifth stanza:

Ladybird, ladybird,fly away home, we sang,our full hearts liftedby all that was best

In this excerpt, the delight of a simple visitation from an insect is compared to the optimism and innocence of being a child. However, the tone quickly changes when the sudden question “but was her house on fire?” is asked. The suddenness of this question shows how quickly childhood innocence can be shaken.
The poem ends with the child fearing for this small insect:

mother, quick, flyhome! The house, our hair, everything closeand dear, even the air,
is burning! In our hands(we had no warningof this) the world is alive and dangerous

The nursery rhyme tone of the poem, along with the sense of the insect’s fragility, may give us insight concerning Malouf’s view of innocence. The poem seems to assert that childhood innocence is fleeting and fragile, just like the delicate amber wings of the ladybird.

What did Granny say about Grandaddy Cain when he killed the birds?

When Granddaddy Cain comes home from his hunting expedition, a near-dead chicken hawk slung over his shoulder, Granny doesn't actually say anything to him about it. She just stares ahead and mumbles. Mr. Cain wants to show his wife that he's managed to bag the chicken hawk at long last, but Granny has other things on her mind at this precise moment, such as the two trespassing filmmakers in her flower-bed. Even when Granddaddy Cain loudly nails the twitching hawk to the toolshed door, she's not really paying much attention. Instead, she calls on her husband to get those bothersome filmmakers out of her flower bed. He does so, but only after he's finished off another chicken hawk, who's swooped down to claim his mate.

What are some literary devices used in "The Necklace"?

The narrator uses a great deal of imagery in order to show us the life that Madame Loisel imagines for herself. Imagery consists of descriptions of sensory experience, and so it can be visual (sight), auditory (hearing), tactile (touch), gustatory (taste), or olfactory (smell). The narrator says,

She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.

Thus, we have auditory imagery ("silent antechambers"), visual imagery ("Oriental tapestries lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets"), tactile imagery ("heavy warmth of the stove"), and even olfactory imagery ("perfumed rooms").
The narrator also uses hyperbole, or overstatement, to exaggerate the truth, thereby emphasizing how Madame Loisel feels. He says, "She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved." Of course, Madame Loisel has clothes and things—just not anything that she thinks of as worthwhile or as beautiful as she would want.
The narrator uses personification when he declares that Madame Loisel "looked at [her husband] out of furious eyes." Eyes cannot be furious, but she is so angry with him over the invitation he brings home that her eyes are characterized in this way. Personification is the attribution of human qualities to something that is not human. Later, her heart is personified as "beat[ing] covetously" when she sees Madame Forestier's beautiful necklace.
The narrator also uses a metaphor when he says that Madame Loisel danced as though she were "drunk with pleasure." A metaphor compares two unalike things; in this case, Madame Loisel's intense pleasure is compared to being drunk.

There is a wonderful example of foreshadowing when Madame and Monsieur Loisel go to the jeweler's shop, hoping to find an exact replacement for the lost necklace. The jeweler recognizes the empty case, but checking his records finds that he hasn't sold such a necklace recently.
This episode ominously foreshadows the climax of the story, when Madame Loisel will realize to her horror that what she thought was the valuable necklace loaned to her by Madame Forestier was actually a fake. This is also a clear example of situational irony, where there is a huge discrepancy between what is expected, and what actually happens instead.
There's important symbolism here, too. The fake necklace symbolizes the phoniness of Madame Loisel, someone who always thought she was better than her modest surroundings, craving wealth and social respectability. And yet because of her greed, her overweening desire to be rich and glamorous, she's ended up as a poverty-stricken housewife, old before her time, much lower down the social ladder than she was before that fateful night when she first put on the (fake) diamond necklace.

What happened at My Lai?

My Lai was a small village in Viet Nam that Americans believed to be a center of the Viet Cong (communist military) activity. There, on May 16, 1968, US soldiers of the Charlie Company (an infantry unit) engaged in one of the worst war atrocities in US history, killing 504 people—women, children, babies, and the elderly. Women and girls were raped and mutilated before being slaughtered. The massacre was covered up for more than a year.
The massacre, while inexcusable, grew out of plummeting morale among US troops over how the war was being handled and frustrations over the Viet Cong's Tet offensive, which increased US troop casualties, including in the Charlie Company.
The army command ordered the My Lai village to be razed, fearing it was a Viet Cong hotbed. Although it seemed like a peaceful village when US troops arrived, commander William Calley ordered his men to begin shooting and burning out the villagers.
The villagers were unarmed, tried to flee, and offered no resistance to the US troops, who suffered no casualties. Before Hugh Thompson, a US army helicopter pilot, intervened to protect the remaining fleeing villagers, 182 women, 117 children, and 56 infants had been killed.
The massacre was covered up until Seymour Hersh, a journalist, revealed it in November 1969, due to the persistent effort of US solider Ron Ridenhour, who was horrified by reports of the massacre.

Describe Joe's visit to Pip in London.

Pip is positively dreading Joe Gargery's imminent arrival. The young man's moving in fashionable circles now, and as he openly admits, he's become something of a snob. So when Pip finally catches up with his old friend in London, Joe's unwelcome presence acts as an uncomfortable reminder of the humble life he once lived on the Romney Marshes.
Poor old Joe's completely out of his depth in the big city. He's just a simple country blacksmith and behaves even more awkwardly than usual in his new surroundings. To make matters worse, Pip's whole demeanor has changed, which makes Joe feel even more out of place. The former apprentice blacksmith has been transformed into a young gentleman about town thanks to Abel Magwitch's generous bequest. He's a different man to the one Joe used to know.
Much of the humor of Pip's reunion with Joe comes from the blacksmith's complete lack of social graces. When Pip offers to take Joe's hat, Joe's reluctant to hand it over, holding it ever closer to him as if he were taking care of a precious bird's nest. Joe's trying so hard to act properly in polite society so as not to embarrass Pip, but he just makes himself look ridiculous. And he insists on calling Pip "sir," indicating that Joe's so overawed by Pip's new status as a gentleman of means that he's gone from being a bosom pal to little more than a servant.
When he's invited to sit down at the table, Joe finally lets go of his precious bird's nest of a hat. But as we might expect, all does not go according to plan. After Joe places his hat uncomfortably on the mantel-piece, it keeps falling off. Each time it does so, Joe picks it up, dusts it down and places it right back in the same place. After repeating the process several times, Joe ends up dropping the hat into the slop-basin, from where a highly embarrassed Pip retrieves it.
Even worse is to come when Joe sits down to lunch with Pip and Herbert. Joe's so self-conscious and nervous about breaching the rules of proper etiquette that he keeps accidentally dropping more food than he eats, all the while pretending that he hasn't dropped any. But Pip eventually realizes that Joe's awkward behavior is largely his fault. If he'd been more easy-going with Joe, then Joe would've felt more relaxed in his presence. As it was, though, Pip was too much of a snob, too quick to forget just how much Joe meant to him, that he treated him more as a country bumpkin than a dear old friend.

Explain how the setting influences the story in the book Hoot.

Hoot is a mystery that also is intended to raise awareness about environmental issues. Therefore the setting (i.e., physical environment) of the story is very important. The story takes place in the real town of Coconut Grove, Florida, where burrowing owls really do live. A new chain restaurant planned to be built in the town on the site where owls live will threaten the owls' survival. The importance of the environment is highlighted to the reader through the protagonist's external and internal journey. He has just moved to Florida from another state and often makes comparisons between the two places. As he becomes more invested in the plight of the burrowing owls and in uncovering the chain restaurant's attempt to cover up their negative environmental impact, his appreciation for his new home grows. He cares deeply about preserving the natural environment of a place he originally did not move to by choice. By its ending, Hoot raises awareness about the importance of the environment and our responsibility to respect our natural setting and protect it from destruction in the modern world.

What does the kenning "hell-forged hands" in line 64 of Beowulf suggest about Grendel?

Recent treatments of Grendel, from John Gardner's novel (of which the monster is the eponymous protagonist) to Robert Zemeckis's 2007 film, Beowulf, have tended to portray the monster in a rather sympathetic light as a lonely outcast who attacks mead-halls as an expression of frustration. This sympathy is entirely absent from the Old English poem, which consistently portrays Grendel as a terrifying force of nature long before nature was romanticized by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
In Beowulf, the world outside the mead-hall, Heorot, is cold, dark, and terrifying. Grendel brings that terror into the bright, cheerful abode of humanity. He is not a misunderstood outsider: he is a representative of everything diabolical and demonic which humanity must withstand and destroy if it is to continue to exist. All the works of "hell-forged hands" are necessarily evil, bringing chaos and destruction to the small enclave of light that it has taken humanity so long to create. This is what the kenning conveys.

The kenning "hell-forged hands" suggests that Grendel is not simply a neutral force of nature but distinctly evil. This reinforces the theme that Grendel's intentions are demonic, framing this epic poem as a narrative centrally about the struggle between good, represented by Beowulf, and evil, represented by the malicious desires of Grendel.
Beowulf is not simply fighting and killing a monster: he is upholding the values that make civilization precious. Grendel's attack on the mead hall Heorot is framed as a deliberate attack on those virtues that make life worth living and which separate virtue from vice: the congeniality and community formed between men as they break bread, talk, and sleep together before the fires of the hall. Heorot represents the security from danger that allows a culture to flourish. In attacking Heorot, Grendel is attempting to destroy society itself, and this makes labeling his destructive impulses as "hell-forged" hardly seem like an exaggeration.
Nature in this poem is not presented as a good thing (as it is represented by Grendel and his mother)—it is a force of chaos and darkness that brave warriors like Beowulf must defend civilization against.

Kennings, which are an old English and Norse literary device consisting of a compound word used as a metaphor, are found throughout the epic poem of Beowulf. This one is typical of many in the poem.
By stating that the terrorizing of Heorot was done by "hell-forged hands" it is suggested that Grendel is not of this world. It implies that he is pure evil. The lines that follow describe how Grendel has no respect for the laws of civilized people. He answers to no code of honor and follows his own evil impulses. Therefore, his acts are like those of demons from hell. Indeed, Grendel is described as being forsaken by God. He is a descendant of Cain and therefore carries the sins and evil ways of his ancestors with him. This kenning and the many other descriptions of Grendel suggest that he cannot be reasoned with and peace cannot be bought for any other price than the monster's death.

The use of this kenning is part of a range of similar descriptors applied to Grendel, all trying to convey the same thing. He is variously described as a "fiend," as a descendant of Cain—who betrayed and killed his brother and was then sent away into exile, in the book of Genesis in the Bible—and as having come from hell. This description, then, is another implication along the same lines. Grendel is a monstrosity, a fiend, and something that was, as far as Hrothgar's men are concerned, forged in hell. Although he is not literally a demon, what he does to the men, tearing them apart and wrecking their hall, seems the work of the devil. Moreover, he has absolutely no regard for social norms. He does not recognize the strict boundaries of honor and respect for context which were placed on this society; this is part of why he is represented as a descendant of Cain, someone else who was exiled for his flagrant flouting of the rules of society. Grendel is hellish because he exists on the fringes of society and then attacks it for his own ends.

Does the setting function as a character in Neighborhood Rosicky?

“Neighbor Rosicky” takes place in the farmland of Nebraska. The Rosicky family, the parents of which are Czech immigrants, has difficulties making a living on rough territory. Like all farmers, their livelihood is dependent on natural forces. This short story takes place in winter, when Anton Rosicky is informed that his heart is failing. This winter turns out to be a bad one for farmers, and the following spring is not much better. On top of the crop failure, Rosicky is challenged to not do the things he loves (drink his wife’s coffee, help out on his farm, etc.) for the sake of his heart. However, Rosicky is a notable character because he does not grow pessimistic; having lived in two big cities (London and New York), he realizes how lucky he is to live on open land instead of in the stuffiness of a tenement building. Anton and his wife Mary accept that neither they nor their children will ever be wealthy, and yet they have a deep pride which is rooted in their home.
The setting is an uncaring antagonist to the farmers in this story. However, because the story is focused on Anton Rosicky, it is not portrayed as malevolent. Rosicky cherishes the beauty of the Nebraska farmland and its openness, which allows him to live in close quarters with loved ones rather than strangers: “In the country, if you had a mean neighbour, you could keep off his land and make him keep off yours. But in the city, all the foulness and misery and brutality of your neighbours was part of your life.” This quote shows that Rosicky values, more than anything, a place for himself, or a place to root himself and to watch his family grow. In contrast, he regards cities as “unnatural.”
To Rosicky, and therefore to the reader of this story, the setting is a friend, not a foe. Rosicky is an unfailing optimist, even to his dying day. He sees the beauty in the rough weather and even in the country graveyard, a place which most people would regard with discomfort or fear. The setting functions as a character because it is a friend to Rosicky; what he achieved on his farm, though he was never had monetary success, was his life goal of freedom. Thus, the setting is the force by which Rosicky shows his ability to appreciate what he has and to see the tiny possibilities of pulling through in the face of adversity.

What is the significance of Part 2 of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?

Part 2 of this wonderful story is significant because of how it practically functions in terms of explaining Farquhar's unfortunate opening situation. Part 1 opens by telling readers that there is a guy about to be executed on a bridge. Part 2 is a flashback that explains why the man is being executed on the bridge. Part 2 builds Farquhar's character for readers. By the end of the first part, readers don't really care for Farquhar. We don't have any reason to care for him. We sympathize that he is about to die, but we do figure that he is an enemy combatant, it is war, and his death is nothing new or significant. Part 2 gives readers reason to care for Farquhar. We see that he's married, and that he wants to play a bigger role for the side he supports. What then makes us so sympathetic to his plight is that part 2 lets readers know that Farquhar has been set up through a devious ploy.

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. Hethanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. Anhour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

Ambrose Bierce's story has a marvelous opening. A reader could hardly stop reading after being captured by the first sentences.
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners.
Bierce is able to open his story like this because he postpones the necessary exposition until Part 2, which works like a flashback. In Part 1 the man is waiting to be hanged. In Part 3 he imagines the rope has broken and he is in the surging creek trying to free his hands and escape. But Bierce never describes what the man actually did to get himself into that situation. Part 2 supplies the necessary information to enable the reader to imagine pretty vividly, without being told, what Peyton Farquhar actually did and how he got caught:
"The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."
The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder."
Part 2 of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" ends with the ominous words,
He was a Federal scout.
We can picture Farquhar riding north, leaving his horse hitched to a tree some distance from the bridge, sneaking up silently in the dark with his matches and kerosene. Everything is perfectly quiet. He reaches the dry driftwood and pours his kerosene, then strikes a match and gets ready to run back to his horse. By the light of his own fire, plus the lights of dozens of suddenly uncovered dark lanterns all focused on him, he sees that he has walked into a trap. He is surrounded by Union soldiers, who are all witnesses to his arson attempt and who will be prepared to hang him tomorrow morning.
None of this is expressed in the text, but it is so obvious that it speaks for itself. There is something a little uncanny about the way Ambrose Bierce creates a sort of fourth-dimensional scene.

Analyze the film Glory.

Glory is a film that addresses the long-neglected story of the participation of African American soldiers in the Civil War. For at least a century after the war ended, white America attempted, partly unconsciously, to act as if black people had had no active role in the war and even to claim that the whole question of race and slavery was somehow irrelevant. In reality, the principal issue that caused the war was slavery, and several hundred thousand African American men served in the Union Army and contributed to the Union victory.
Earlier Hollywood treatments of the war ignored these facts, portraying the conflict wholly as a white man's war. The two most famous Civil War films are still, arguably, The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939), both of which are pro-Southern. The former is openly racist, portraying black people negatively and stereotypically. Despite its exalted status and the fact that it is still frequently shown on television, Gone with the Wind also perpetuates these stereotypes (albeit in a more subtle way) and suggests that slavery was a benign institution in which the enslaved people were well-treated and were happy with their lot.
Glory, by contrast, is realistic in depicting the desire of African Americans for freedom and their wish to serve in the Union Army. They knew that a Union victory was the only hope for the abolition of slavery. In the attack on Fort Wagner in South Carolina with which the film culminates, although the 54th Massachusetts Reginent was ultimately unsuccessful, African American soldiers demonstrated through their courage that they were greater in defeat than the Confederate forces that triumphed over them. Prior to this, even many on the Union side had doubted that black men had the ability or the will to fight for the cause. Ultimately, African Americans were a decisive factor in the war as a whole and helped immeasurably in facilitating the Union victory.

Glory is a 1990 feature film directed by Edward Zwick and written by Kenneth Jarre. Praised for its fine performances and powerful evocation of a particular episode of the Civil War as well as for its overall historical accuracy, it is one of few films to highlight the contributions of African American soldiers to the Union Army’s efforts. The true event is that in 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry played a pivotal role in the assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. The regiment sustained massive casualties and injuries, including their white commanding officer, Colonel Shaw, but proved to all that black soldiers would step up to do their part, which white officers had sometimes doubted.
The film featured outstanding performances by numerous African American actors, notably Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington; white actor Matthew Broderick plays Colonel Shaw. It traces the formation of the regiment in Massachusetts and takes the soldiers through the Fort Wagner attack. Shaw is the only real historical character, however; the African American characters are composites of actual soldiers, of which, because they were from the North, only some were former slaves. Those characters, although not fully rounded, convey the differing viewpoints of “volunteers” who enthusiastically joined the fight or needed convincing that they had a role in the conflict. The film has also been influential as it has stimulated increased attention by historians to the role of African American troops.
https://newrepublic.com/article/91210/tnr-film-classics-glory-january-15-1990

Describe the visions of the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party for the future of the new nations after the birth of the Unites States. How did this contribute in the shape of our current government?

Following the Independence of the United States, two major political parties emerged in the new country. Federalists, led by individuals like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, hoped to establish a more powerful federal government. They had noted the failure of the nation's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and hoped that the new Constitution would address those issues. The Articles of Confederation left the United States federal government without a president, national court system, ability to settle disputes between states or regulate interstate commerce, and largely without an army. The Federalist vision of the United States hoped to see a federal government that addressed those issues.
Federalists also typically believed in a loose interpretation of the Constitution that allowed the federal government to do more than what was specifically stated in the Constitution. An example of this would be the creation of the National Bank. The "Necessary and Proper Clause" of the Constitution was cited by Federalists as giving the federal government the power to do more than what was specifically stated, such as the creation of a national bank. Federalists also tended to view the future of the United States as being focused around manufacturing (as opposed to agriculture), shipping, and closer relations with Great Britain. Federalists also favored the idea of the wealthy as the nation's ruling class.
The Democratic-Republicans were led by individuals like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Democratic-Republicans favored the idea of state governments having more power than the federal government. They feared the idea of a strong federal government, largely because of their experience under the strong federal government of the British prior to the Revolution. They held a stricter interpretation of the Constitution in which the federal government was limited to the powers expressed in the Constitution.
Democratic-Republicans had greater support amongst farmers and saw more of a future based around agriculture. Democratic-Republicans also believed in free trade that provided greater access to cheaper imported manufactured goods. While Federalists felt that the wealthy should constitute much of the ruling class, Democratic-Republicans felt the common people should have more influence on the nation's government. Democratic-Republicans also felt that the United States should have closer ties to France than to Great Britain.

Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels is also a warrior. What battles has he faced, and what are his values? Did he win those battles or lose them, and why did he fight?

In Gulliver’s Travels, there are two nations which have been at odds with each other since before Gulliver arrived in Lilliput: Lilliput and Blefuscu. They’re fighting because of an event which Gulliver feels is ridiculous, but he concedes to assist Lilliput and the emperor. The conflict began when a citizen cracked an egg from the large end, after the emperor declared that all eggs must be cracked from the small end. Although Gulliver does not feel that it is right to intervene, he does anyway. He helps to destroy Blefuscu’s army by stealing most of their ships and bringing them back to Lilliput. The emperor wants Gulliver to take the rest of the ships so that he can conquer Blefuscu and make them his subjects, but Gulliver convinces the emperor not to do so, because he is opposed to the injustice that this would incur. This causes many people to turn against Gulliver and call for his execution, which he eventually does not face. Eventually, Blefuscu surrenders to Lilliput, and the people of Blefuscu want Gulliver to come visit them.
Even though Gulliver thinks the dispute is silly, he takes it seriously. He fought because he was asked to help Lilliput, which he felt obligated to do, but also because he knew he could help resolve the conflict with minimal injury to either side. Some values which are revealed during this situation are an inability to watch others endure slavery and a willingness to put himself into a dangerous situation to stop people from getting into a battle which would cause harm.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) tells of Janie Crawford’s alternately joyful and tragic search for love, autonomy, and self-realization in a society and cultural environment where any one of the three was exceedingly difficult for a black woman to achieve. In her essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston commented that she refused to be a part of “the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature has somehow given them a low down dirty deal,” and she expressed her belief that “bitterness is the underarm odor of wishful weakness . . . the graceless acknowledgement of defeat.” In what ways does Their Eyes Were Watching God exemplify these statements?

Hurston decries the state of almost morbid, passive acceptance of misfortune that seems to run amok in what she calls "Negrohood" at the time—the idea that fate has dealt black people a harsh hand and they can do nothing to change that fact. Her seminal work Their Eyes Were Watching God is a perfect exemplification of this idea, because the main character, Janie, rebels against the bad circumstances in her life and vows to get what she wants.
Initially, the character is raised without a mother and in a very low class and state. She accepts an arranged marriage from her grandmother, but when she is mistreated and does not have love in her marriage, she departs, vowing that she will not settle for mistreatment. Marrying again, she suffers an abusive and loveless marriage, worse than the last, but profits massively from her husband's ambition. Eventually, with a wealthy estate in tow after her husband's passing, she finds the loving relationship she wants, with a man named Tea Cake.
Janie constantly strives to make her life something new, something her mother and grandmother never had, and something she feels like she deserves. She even outright decries the attitude of the black citizens in Florida, saying they are resigned to their lot, while she and her husband make a concerted effort to advance in status and wealth. While it is difficult, she proves that with determination, she—not fate—can decide what her life looks like.

How does the depiction in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar differ from the actual facts?

Julius Caesar was almost certainly based upon Plutarch's Lives, a compendium of biographies published in the first century CE and translated into English during Shakespeare's life. Much of the plot of Julius Caesar, and even the lines attributed to certain characters, are derived more or less straight from Plutarch. So, in many ways, the question is how true Plutarch was to facts—and this is very difficult to ascertain, given that Plutarch is one of the most important sources for the life of Julius Caesar as a historical figure. That said, one major deviation from the historical record is that Shakespeare collapsed nearly three years of events, from Caesar's assassination to the battle of Philippi, into a few days, for the purpose of maintaining the flow of the play. Shakespeare also emphasizes the virtues of Brutus, relative to the other conspirators, more than Plutarch does. Even Caesar himself comes off as a more sympathetic character in the play than history might allow—there is talk that Caesar is "ambitious" but little detail about the political (and military) maneuvering that he undertook to put himself in the position to effectively rule over Rome.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/essays/fromhistorytostage.html

https://www.history.co.uk/biographies/julius-caesar

Describe the main characters: what do they look like? What are they like?

Regarding the first part of the question that asks what Tom Canty and Edward Tudor look like, the story gives readers almost zero information about what they look like. We aren't even given an eye color for either boy. What readers are specifically told is that the two characters look practically identical.

Thou hast the same hair, the same eyes, the same voice and manner, the same form and stature, the same face and countenance that I bear. Fared we forth naked, there is none could say which was you, and which the Prince of Wales.

While Tom and Edward might look identical, they most certainly are not very much alike in other regards. Tom is everything that you would want in a friend and/or king. He's patient, kind, loving, and looks for ways to make a situation better for others. He's also someone that dreams of a better world.

His head grew to be full of these wonderful things, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw, tired, hungry, smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace.

Edward, on the other hand, is a jerk through most of the story. He's ignorant of how the world outside of the palace actually works. He's extremely proud, and very selfish. He believes that the world exists for his benefit and pleasure, and he looks for ways in which a situation can benefit him. Thankfully, by the end of the story, Edward is a much reformed person that then uses his royal powers for good instead of for himself or threatening other people.

Who were the new migrants to the middle colonies? Why did they leave Europe? What were their goals in British North America?

As much of the territory of the middle colonies, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, was given to Quaker William Penn, many of the new residents of this vast area were Quakers from Great Britain. Many Quakers were also given land grants (such as the Snowdens) or simply migrated (the Ellicotts) to nearby Maryland. The Quakers primarily moved to the colonies, as earlier the Puritans had to New England, to escape religious persecution in Britain. The persecution in Britain was often severe, as Quakers were seen as enemies of the state. The late seventeenth century was also the heyday of British Quakerism, when there were many more there, both in actual numbers and as a percentage of the population, than today. There were also many more Quakers in the middle colonies than exist in the comparable states today.
Penn, understanding the sufferings of religious minority groups, insisted on religious tolerance and invited in such persecuted groups as the German anabaptists. Thus, German speaking peoples settled in large numbers, becoming the Pennsylvania Dutch (Deustch, meaning German). As much of the territory had originally been settled by the actual Dutch, a strong Dutch influence remained. Scots-Irish, also feeling persecuted by the British, who wanted to contain (and in some cases wipe out) militant groups in those areas, also migrated to the middle colonies. Some Italians and Portuguese came. The new migrants were largely northern (with a few southern) Europeans, forming a vibrant mix from that part of the world. Those not arriving for religious reasons were seeking economic opportunities not available to them in Europe.

Who is Pierre Aronnax?

Pierre Aronnax is a professor; he works for the Paris Museum of Natural History. He also leads a voyage on an American shipped called the Abraham Lincoln. His goal is to find an aggressive sea creature attacking and destroying ships around the world. However, an explosion lands him on Nemo's submarine.
Aronnax is attracted to Nemo and the Nautilus because his driving passion in life is research and gaining knowledge about the ocean and its creatures. His devotion to science and his lust for knowledge cause him, at first, to cast a blind eye on Nemo's excesses. He is willing to put up with the man to get access to the information and data he craves, which the submarine affords him in a way a surface ship cannot. Only after Nemo attacks and destroys a warship does Aronnax's moral instinct override his quest for knowledge.

What does "The Gift of the Magi" teach us about true love?

From Della's point of view, her appearance is of less importance to her than her love for her husband, Jim. She is willing to sacrifice what she assumes to be her best feature, her beautiful long hair, in order to buy a present that will express her love for him. When Jim comes home from work, he is astonished by her appearance. She must look entirely different with all that hair replaced by tight little curls held in place by hairpins. But his love for her is of much greater importance than her appearance. He is only astonished because he has sold his watch in order to raise enough money to buy her a Christmas present: a set of combs for her vanished hair.
“Don't make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less."
Neither of them has really lost anything as long as they still have each other. As Shakespeare writes in his Sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love


Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken....
O. Henry is saying that true love is not, and cannot be, based on mere appearance. Della loses her beautiful hair but gains something more important: the assurance that Jim truly loves her. And Jim loses his valued watch but gains something more important too: the proof of Della's love for him. No doubt both of these young people realize that they have been attaching too much importance to material things.
A popular Irish folk song of O. Henry's time, based on a poem by Thomas Moore, expresses the same thought as Shakespeare's sonnet. The first lines of the song are the best known:
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will....
https://www.owleyes.org/text/gift-magi/read/the-gift-of-the-magi

Excluding music and drugs, what are the four other things that are most important to Sonny in "Sonny's Blues"?

In 1957, American author James Baldwin wrote the story “Sonny’s Blues” which tells the story of the titular character who gets arrested for drugs in the 1950s. The reader is exposed to Sonny’s life as he struggles with addiction and attempts to escape reality through music. As such, music and drugs are two of the most important aspects of Sonny’s life.
Aside from music and drugs, family, nationality, respect, and acceptance are most important to Sonny. Sonny specifically loves his older brother and his mother. His idea of family is forged through the lens of these two relationships, and he holds his older brother accountable for not intervening enough in his struggle with addiction.
Sonny has a newfound respect for his American nationality following his time overseas. His time overseas was not fulfilling, and despite the issues surrounding racism in America, Sonny prefers American culture.
Sonny wants to be respected as an artist. During the scene in the jazz club in Greenwich Village, the narrator finally sees how revered Sonny is among the other artists and how much they respect his musical talent, even when he has not played in about a year.
Sonny wants to be accepted and appreciated in his station in life. It hurts Sonny that his brother’s family feels uneasy with him around, which otherizes Sonny.

In James Baldwin’s story, “music” is a very large category, so it is worthwhile to explore what the different aspects of music mean to him. As an artist, Sonny’s appreciation of music is concerned both with its meanings and its formal structures. A different interpretation, however, connects music to Sonny’s concerns with family and community. These values could also be divided among the different groups whose views he values. In another way, “drugs” themselves are not important to Sonny; rather, he appreciates how (in his view) the drugs facilitate his connection with his music.
One of the things that his brother realizes when he goes to the club is that his brother has strong connections to the other musicians. His membership in a specific group of musicians with whom he plays at a given moment are important. Even more so, his position and reputation among the larger community of jazz and blues musicians matters to him.
Family is also important to Sonny. Being estranged from his brother causes him real pain. It also bothers him to think that his brother’s family discourages his presence in their home.
We might also consider nationality as significant to Sonny. The time he spent in Europe was ultimately unsatisfactory, and he returned to the United States. He understood that he had a home in America, despite issues such as racism, that he was not finding elsewhere in his travels.

Sonny is a complex character who definitely cares about more than just drugs and music. Here are four of his other passions.
It is clear that Sonny cares a lot about his brother (the narrator) a lot, and vice versa. His brother notes that he was there when Sonny was born, and it makes him catch his breath. When Sonny learned to walk the narrator recalls that:

he walked from our mother straight to me. I caught him just before he fell when he took the first steps he ever took in this world.

Sonny looks to his older brother for hope and guidance, and his brother lets him down along the way, unable to always catch him before his other falls in life. In the end, Sonny is finally able to connect with his brother through music and the narrator sits in awe of his brother's talents. The narrator notes: "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we could listen."
Besides his brother, Sonny also has a strong bond with his other family members. He shared a special bond with his mother before her death, as evidenced by the conversation she attempts to have with the narrator. In this conversation, she notes that Sonny has a personality capable of getting "sucked under" and asks her other son to watch out for him—to let Sonny know that he's there. Sonny sends his heartfelt condolences when little Gracie dies. Even when he is pretty much forced to live with Isabel's family in his brother's physical absence, he longs to be a true part of that family and is devastated when he learns that he is an outsider to them, something simply to endure.
Additionally, Sonny cares about being respected as both an artist and a human. In the fight with Isabel's family, he realizes that he has neither:

He also had to see that his presence, that music, which was life or death to him, had been torture for them and that they had endured it, not at all for his sake, but only for mine. And Sonny couldn't take that.

In the end, it is music which brings the respect that he has so longed for from his brother.
Separate from respect, Sonny wants a place to truly belong and be accepted. Since his parents' death, he has floundered in several attempts to find his place of acceptance. He doesn't find it in school or Greece or even with his brother for most of the story. Eventually, he finds it in the nightclub downtown. The narrator notes:

I was introduced to all of them and they were all very polite to me. Yet, it was clear that, for them, I was only Sonny's brother. Here, I was in Sonny's world. Or, rather: his kingdom. Here, it was not even a question that his veins bore royal blood.

Is intelligence central to everything DHS does? Is there a good example to drive this point home?

The Department of Homeland Security both maintains an intelligence unit and combines forces with other intelligence services, both within the United States and internationally. The intelligence information obtained by these multiple units and organizations is the bases of investigations and the DHS mission to keep the United States secure.
HSIN-Intel is the abbreviation for Homeland Security Information Network–Intelligence, a community of interest located on HSIN. Its stated purpose is “to provide intelligence stakeholders across the Homeland Security Enterprise with a secure platform for effective, efficient, and timely collaboration and sharing of Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) information, data, products, analytic exchange, and situational awareness.” This community of intelligence professionals are part of homeland security, intelligence, and law enforcement communities at every level of government. Their work fuses governance with comprehensive security and collaboration technologies, which aids in protecting sensitive information and privacy, according to law and federal and other agency policies.
One area in which these collaborative efforts have succeeded is international drug trafficking. In concert with DHS, state and local “fusion centers” aid information sharing and analysis within appropriate jurisdictions. Many cases each year are solved through these combined efforts. In 2014, for example, the Alabama Fusion Center participated in the successful national Project Synergy led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Through AFC intelligence and research support, and the work of the Alabama Narcotics Task Force agents, Project Synergy’s investigations of transnational drug networks, including money supply and flow, led to the arrest of more than 38 individuals suspected involved with transnational drug networks and the seizure weapons, hundreds of pounds of synthetic drugs, and a half million dollars.
https://www.dhs.gov/2014-fusion-center-success-stories

https://www.dhs.gov/intelligence

What conclusions can we draw about Ancient Chinese society from the building of Emperor Shi Huang's terracotta warriors?

More than 8,000 clay life-size human figures and hundreds of horse figures, many with wooden chariots, were buried in the necropolis of Qin Shi Huang Di, China’s first emperor, in northern China. He is known for unifying a large expanse of territory, calming the widespread warfare among competing clans to do so, and for building a large part of the Great Wall. Most of the buried figures were warriors, so the grouping is usually known as the Terra-cotta Army. This massive burial, discovered in the 1970s, both confirmed and added to textual information about Chinese military organization and reflected the grandeur of the emperor’s achievements. The remarkably lifelike, detailed figures were especially commissioned to accompany the emperor after his death in 210 BCE, although the necropolis had not been finished by then. Along with the huge number of figures, it is also surprising that each figure is unique. The terra-cotta is now gray in tone; traces of colored paint have been discerned.
The presence of this army is important both for the specific features of the individuals and types of people and for the massive scale of the artistic and political project. (The mausoleum itself also contains figures representing dancers and musicians, indicating court life.) Glorifying the emperor’s accomplishments by surrounding him with such a vast contingent clearly indicates his sense of self-importance and desire to perpetuate his reputation. However, that could have been accomplished with much simpler statues. It has been variously estimated that making, assembling, and burying the army took twenty years, and the planned assemblage would have been still larger. Completing thousands of figures represents the artistic talents and skilled labor of thousands of participants, as well as the coordination of production in various locations, transportation to the site, and installation in precise configurations underground.
The figures vary according to clothing and accessories, indicating the rank and function of different warriors. Archers are very well represented, as well as chariot drivers. The insignia of different military ranks has been determined, while the individualism includes such diagnostics as height, body build, and distinctive beards. The inclusion of a well-organized army surely indicated the emperor’s command of such a fighting force, but how accurately they reflect his actual military power has been debated. The orderly arrangement of the rows of warriors conveys the impression of a tightly organized fighting force. However, the unity he established proved fragile, and fierce fighting for control followed his death.
https://www.ancient.eu/Terracotta_Army/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/archaeology/emperor-qin/

What are five formal elements in George Gershwin's song "Summertime"?

"Summertime" is a 1934 aria composed by American composer and pianist George Gershwin. Gershwin composed the song for his 1935 English-language opera, Porgy and Bess, while the lyrics were written by his younger brother Ira Gershwin and American writer DuBose Heyward. In fact, Gershwin's opera is based on Heyward's most popular novel, titled Porgy (1925).
1. Structure and Setting
"Summertime" has two verses, and the text is syllabic (one note pre-syllable). Gershwin masterfully blends several musical genres, making the song easily adaptable to different styles. Thus, following its production, "Summertime" has been recorded numerous times by various artists—such as Billie Holliday, Sam Cooke, Ella Fitzgerald, and Janis Joplin. Gershwin did, however, receive some criticism for the lyrics, as some considered them racist and offensive to black people:

Summertime, an' the livin' is easyFish are jumpin' an' the cotton is high.Oh, yo' daddy's rich and yo' ma is good-lookin'So hush, little baby, don' you cry.
One of these mornin's you goin' to rise up singin'Then you'll spread yo' wings an' you'll take the sky.But till that mornin', there's a nothin' can harm youWith Daddy an' Mammy standin' by.

2. Melody
Melody could be considered the most important element of a song. A melody is made up of various pitches and notes which form a specific shape or pattern. Although it sounds pentatonic at first, the melody in "Summertime" is actually based on a six-note scale. It is a mixture that includes elements of jazz, blues, operatic and orchestral forms, and African American folk music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The texture of the melody is homophonic, with some examples of heterophony.
3. Harmony
The most common elements used to harmonize a melody are chords and triads, which are, essentially, vertically combined pitches in groups of three notes. "Summertime" has a strong triadic harmony, which is characteristic of jazz and blues. In the first verse, a harmonic ostinato (repetitive motif) is established, which is typical of lullabies. This is why many consider "Summertime" a lullaby as well.
4. Key
When pitches are categorized into groups they form a key. All of the notes within a specific key usually come from a certain scale. The most common keys are major and minor. In "Summertime" the key is in the scale B minor.
5. Rhythm
Rhythm describes the way time is applied to a piece of music. All of the notes in the melody have a different length and thus have rhythm. In "Summertime" the rhythm resembles a beat, which has often been described as slow and occasionally syncopated. The tempo is slow, and sometimes the meter can't be heard or felt.