In Great Expectations, how are different aspects of Pip's personality revealed by his telling of his story and by his participation in the story itself?

In Great Expectations, Pip reveals several aspects of his character; through telling his story in an honest, simple manner, he reveals the complexities and nuances of his character, which gives readers a fuller picture of who Pip is as a person. Pip certainly is caring and provides great empathy to people, such as how Pip extends a friendship to Magwitch, even after the man threatened him as a child.
Pip's selfishness is also revealed, however, when he becomes the recipient of a large fortune and immediately leaves home and his dear friend Joe to live as a wealthy man in London, partially in hopes of gaining the affection of his love, Estella. Rather than share in his newfound wealth with Joe, Pip readily abandons his friend.
However, after finding out that Magwitch was, in fact, the benefactor of Pip's inheritance, he realizes how his behavior has been so harmful and readily leaves for home to try to repair his broken friendships. Through this, the readers can see how Pip is open to growth and change and self-reflection. This also signals to the readers that Pip is ultimately a kind human being.

Explain the difference between ethics and morals, and describe the relationship between the two.

Morals relates to individual beliefs about what is right and wrong and are somewhat subjective. For instance, one person might believe the death penalty is immoral, while another might believe that because murder is immoral, the death penalty is a just consequence for convicted murderers. Ethics refers to generally accepted principles of right and wrong and how to apply those principles to everyday living. It attempts to define acceptable human behavior based on moral values.
For example, it is considered unethical to con senior citizens of their life savings. This is based on the moral belief that lying or deceit is wrong and the ethical principle of respecting elders. Ethical codes can apply to correct behavior within a religion (Christian ethics), profession (judicial ethics), country (Chinese ethics) or specific group (hacker ethics). Ethics can also be personal. For instance, one person might never take home a pen from the office on the principle that it constitutes stealing, while a colleague might see that action as a fringe benefit of working for a company and deny that is stealing in the same sense as, say, robbing a bank.
Though ethics and morals are often used as synonyms, in practicality, morals denote personal, subjective beliefs, while ethics refer to shared principles that regulate conduct within a society. Since ethical principles are typically based on morals, the two are intertwined to a large degree. Sometimes a moral flaw, such as the inability to control your tongue, leads to unethical behavior, such as violating attorney-client privilege.
https://grammarist.com/usage/ethics-morals/

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

How are Wes’s grades, and how does his mom feel about it in The Other Wes Moore?

Wes says that in third grade, he was reading "at a second-grade level." He says that his grades began to slip, so that he would be "pleasantly satisfied with Cs, and celebratory about a B." In response, Wes's mother threatened him with military school if his grades didn't improve. Wes, however, thought that his mother would never send away her only son, because "she needed a man in the house to look after Shani and Nikki."
When Wes's grades didn't improve, his mother began to think that he might have a learning disability. Wes says that because of his grades and because of his lack of discipline, his mother went through "the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance." He also says that she stayed a long while—in large part because of his poor grades—in the depressed stage.
Later, after Wes's mother received a telephone call from the dean at Wes's school, Wes says that she was "disappointed by the conversation she'd just had." She then decided, much to Wes's surprise, to fulfill her threat and send him to military school. Wes was "furious" and "livid" and felt that his mother had "betrayed him." He ran away from the military school four times during the first four days.

Is fire a solid, liquid, or gas?

Fire is not a solid, liquid, or gas; rather, it is a chemical reaction called a combustion reaction, or combustion. Combustion happens when there is the right mix of ingredients that work together to create a combustion reaction. Specifically, oxygen + fuel + heat = combustion. When these elements mix to create a combustion reaction, it is visible to humans as fire.
As mentioned above, a combustion reaction requires heat, fuel, and oxygen. Let's look at those different components.
Heat is generated when energy is applied to matter and the matter produces heat. Heat is measured as temperature and can be measured with a thermometer. Matter in this case refers to particles such as atoms that, when energy is applied, vibrate back and forth, or crash into each other, and generate heat.
Fuel can be any state of matter, such as liquid, gas, or solid. When enough heat is applied to a fuel, the particles will separate and emit a gas (hydrocarbon) that is needed for a combustion reaction. The process of particles breaking down in order to produce the chemical reaction of combustion is called pyrolysis. Sometimes, like in the case of natural gas (cooking gas), the fuel is already in gas form.
Oxygen is a gas found in air on earth. It is needed for fire.
The process is as follows: When heat is applied to fuel (either gas or fuel that has undergone pyrolysis), the particles in the fuel separate, and when they crash into each other, they reconfigure into fire. In a perfect combustion, the fire burns blue and emits only H20 (water) and carbon dioxide, both as gases.
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/747-what-is-fire

A characteristic of this essay is Hughes's use of figurative language. One example of figurative language is "young lambs." To whom does Hughes refer as "young lambs"? Identify two other instances where Hughes uses figurative language.

Hughes begins the essay talking about a “big revival” at his auntie’s church. As part of this revival, the church is holding “a special meeting for children.” The aim of this meeting is “to bring the young lambs to the fold.” The “lambs” here are the children, whom the church hopes to recruit. A lamb is a young sheep, and so the metaphor here fits rather well. In the bible, John the Baptist calls Jesus “the lamb of God,” and so the lamb is also associated with innocence, purity, and gentleness. This biblical symbolism also makes the metaphor particularly apt, as children are also associated with innocence and purity.
In the fourth paragraph of the essay, Hughes describes the people in the church all praying and singing together. He uses more figurative language when he says that “the whole building rocked with prayer and song.” This exaggerates the fervent atmosphere in the church.
Later in the essay, describing his decision as a child to get up and “be saved,” Hughes writes that “the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise.” Hughes here employs another metaphor. Describing the congregation as a sea implies that their joy was vast and also, like the sea, could not be held back.

In Octavia Butlers "Speech Sounds," how does the author's characterizations of the story's protagonist and antagonist "fit" the story's central conflict?

In Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds” there are two protagonists in the story. Rye is a young woman trying to survive after a pandemic illness results in massive deaths and leaves the survivors without their ability to communicate. Some have lost their speech, others the ability to read or write. The world has become a violent place filled with desperation and loneliness. Rye is alone and on the brink of suicide. She meets a man she calls Obsidian. At first she fears him but after a brief interaction she begins to trust him and actually becomes attached to him. Although impaired from the illness, they are able to find a way to communicate with each other without conflict. However they soon come across the antagonist in the story, a man who is threatening a woman and who ends up stabbing her to death. Obsidian kills the man, but his last act before death is to shoot Obsidian. Rye is again alone.
The central conflict of the story is the disease and the lack of communication within society. The real antagonist is the disease that all of the characters are fighting. The aggressive man represents the disease and its cruelty as he takes everything again from Rye, leaving her alone again. Rye, the protagonist, ends the story with purpose and hope when she realizes the two surviving children of the couple can speak and communicate.

How does Ambrose Bierce juxtapose Southern romanticism and Northern realism?

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a story of romanticism versus realism and as such is characteristic of Ambrose Bierce's cynical outlook on life in general. Peyton Farquhar is a Southern romantic. He has dreamt of doing something heroic for the Southern cause. He comes up against the reality of war and the reality of life. He falls for the lies of the Federal scout because he wants to believe he is being given an opportunity to do something heroic and noble. He loses his wife, his plantation, his children, and his life in attempting to sabotage a tiny bridge in the middle of nowhere. Bierce titles his story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" in order to suggest that this is nothing but an insignificant "occurrence" in a place nobody has ever heard of, not a romantic adventure with a heroic outcome. The reader is completely fooled into sharing the protagonist's delusion that he has miraculously survived the hanging and is making his way back to his loving wife and his beautiful home. Farquhar has dreams of glory and vivid fantasies about escaping from his terrible predicament, but in the end there is no escape from an ignominious death.
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.