What is the tone in "Ballad of Birmingham"?

Tone describes the way the author seems to feel regarding the subject of the text. In this poem, Randall presents the mother as incredibly sympathetic—her primary concern is the safety of her daughter, and this is a terribly relatable desire to any parent. She "smiled to know her child / Was in the sacred place" and that the little girl would be safe from violence and discord there. Then, she hears the explosion at the church and her eyes grow "wild" while she "clawed through" rubble, only to find her little girl's shoe and no other sign of the child. It is truly a horrifying thought, and one that feels so visceral and common to any parent—that our children might be subject to some kind of violence, that we could lose them so tragically. In presenting the mother in this way, Randall's tone is quite sympathetic; he obviously feels for the grieving mother. He also seems to be calling out the injustice of the situation via irony; the little girl ought to be safe in church, far away from the dogs and clubs and hoses and guns. This irony adds a good deal of anger to the tone as well.

The speaker in Dudley Randall's 1968 poem, written five years after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in which four little girls were killed, uses a poignant tone. The first four stanzas are a conversation between a mother and daughter; the mother won't allow her child to join a protest march for fear that she'll be hurt or killed but is pleased to send her off to church in her Sunday best, believing that she'll be safe in that sacred place.
The mother's sense of loss is communicated in her final question, "But, baby, where are you?” as she finds her daughter's shoe buried in the debris of the collapsed church. The juxtaposition of "clubs and hoses, guns and jails" with "white gloves" and "white shoes" deepens the poignance of the innocent life lost to organized violence despite the mother's loving care.

What is the main theme in Mrs. Bridge?

One of the themes of Mrs. Bridge is the way in which the white middle class in the years between the two world wars (the 1920s to 1940s) tried unsuccessfully to protect themselves from the changing times. India Bridge, the protagonist, is resolutely dull. In fact, the first line of the novel reads, "Her first name was India—she was never able to get used to it" (1). Her name is simply too exotic for her.
India Bridge approaches life without any idea of her goals and dreams. As Connell writes, "She was not certain what she wanted from life, or what to expect from it, for she had seen so little of it" (2). She wants to drift through life as a wife and mother, except reality has a way of poking its ugly head into her mundane existence. For example, Mrs. Bridge's responds to her daughter Corky's friendship with the black daughter of the gardener by realizing that "the girls would drift apart. Time would take care of the situation" (11). She does not confront the situation of racial tension in America in any way except through patient indifference.
Indifference and passivity are her approach to the way the world is changing, but as the world changes, Mrs. Bridge gets left behind. For example, her daughter Ruth informs her that one of the men who works in her office is gay. Mrs. Bridge simply does not understand what her daughter means, and, after this conversation, Mrs. Bridge feels "as isolated as she had ever been in her life" (191). The world and its changing ways simply pass Mrs. Bridge by.

What are some interesting facts about Warren Harding?

Harding was President during the early 1920s, an especially fraught time for the nation. Some important aspects of his presidency reflect this.
For example, he signed into law a very restrictive immigration bill—the Emergency Quota Act of 1921—that, for all practical purposes, banned immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. This was a function of the nativism and fears of radicalism that characterized the post-World War I era in the United States.
Harding also pursued some economic policies, like imposing higher tariffs and taking steps to balance the federal budget.
But what was most significant and interesting about Harding was the rampant corruption in his administration. He appointed several cronies, sometimes known derisively as the "Ohio gang," to prominent positions within his administration. These men abused their public positions to steal money and peddle influence. This group included Attorney General Harry Daugherty, Albert Fall, and Charles Forbes, all of whom embezzled vast sums of money while in office. Fall (the architect of the so-called "Teapot Dome" scandal) and Forbes (who stole money from the Veteran's Bureau) eventually went to prison for their crimes.
On a personal front, historians now know that Harding carried on at least two extramarital affairs before (and perhaps during) his time in office. One of these affairs produced a child.
He also served a short term, dying in 1923, shortly after becoming the first president to visit Alaska. He was succeeded by his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge, who continued his laissez-faire, pro-business approach to the office—without the corruption, however.
Another interesting fact about his presidency is related to his election, which was the first in which women could vote on a national level. Their right to do so was established by the Nineteenth Amendment, ratified just a few months before the election of 1920.
https://millercenter.org/president/harding/domestic-affairs

https://millercenter.org/president/harding/family-life

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/warren-g-harding

How are the characters in The Goldfinch chained to something like the bird in the painting?

In The Goldfinch, the characters are chained just like the bird in the painting. Sometimes these chains are physical, and sometimes they are emotional.
Theo is deeply affected by the trauma he experiences as a child during the bombing. Over the years, he experiments with drug abuse. In Las Vegas, Theo and Boris spend their days using drugs. Years later Theo becomes addicted to prescriptions. He becomes chained to drugs.
Theo is also chained by his guilt. As an adult, he feels guilty for taking The Goldfinch painting as a child. He also sells fake antiques and is weighed by the guilt of this. Boris also feels guilty, as he reveals he took the painting back in high school. Their guilt leads them on a risky recovery trip, and eventually they are able to get the painting to a museum. Theo uses the reward money to buy back the fake antiques, therefore freeing himself from the guilt.
While in the hotel after Boris is shot, Theo feels trapped. He drinks and almost commits suicide to free himself from the chained feeling.
Pippa fights against the chain to her traumatic experience and avoids getting tangled in Theo's chain. Although they share an emotional bond, she will not be with him.

Explain the struggles between the federal and state during the Jackson's presidency.

Andrew Jackson always liked to present himself as an implacable upholder of states' rights. And it was his consistent championing of the states that was one of the main reasons behind his victory in the 1828 election. Yet once he'd been sworn into office, Jackson found, like so many of his successors, just how difficult it is to square the rhetoric of states' rights with the practical business of Federal government.
A classic example of this difficulty came during the Tariff Nullification Crisis. Jackson's fellow Southerners were outraged at the application of the tariff, which they saw as having a disproportionately negative impact on the South. The President had overwhelmingly carried the South in his election victory, and not unreasonably, Southern opinion held that, with their man in office, they could count on the protection of their economic interests.
When such hopes were quickly dashed by the introduction of the tariff, a full-blown constitutional crisis developed, one that brought the United States to the very brink of civil war. In opposition to the tariff, the state of South Carolina unilaterally nullified the application of the policy within its boundaries.
Irrespective of the constitutional propriety of such an act, there can be no doubt that it represented a full-throated assertion of states' rights, the very principle that Jackson had always claimed to support. But Jackson realized that there were limits to this principle; he knew that if South Carolina could unilaterally nullify federal legislation with impunity, then other states would almost certainly follow suit, potentially leading to the break-up of the Union.
Jackson's response to the incipient rebellion was a mixture of carrot and stick. On the one hand, he prepared a military force to ensure the law's enforcement in the event that South Carolina wouldn't back down. On the other hand, he cobbled together a legislative compromise designed to meet some of his opponents' strongest objections to the tariff. Either way, Jackson was hell-bent on keeping the Union together. When push came to shove, the political and constitutional integrity of the nation came before any notion of states' rights.

Do you find elements of misoginy in Pope's portrait of Belinda?

The short answer is yes. Pope portrays Belinda largely as superficial and coquettish in a way that he judges detrimental to men:

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind.

The use of the word "destruction" is a typically mock-heroic exaggeration, but underlying this one can sense a subtle resentment by Pope of an attractive woman.
On the surface the misogyny, such as it is, comes off as playful, and Belinda is redeemed by the fact of her having inspired Pope to write what he self-consciously (and as it turns out, correctly) assumes will be remembered as a great poetic work:

This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

Here, Pope has none of the seething anger his friend Swift portrays in poetry about women. But elsewhere in his works, Pope would later much more acerbically depict women. He fell in love with the writer Mary Wortley Montagu, and at first alluded indirectly to his feelings for her in the closing lines of Eloisa to Abelard. But when she later evidently rejected him, Pope scathingly ridiculed her, referring to her as "Sappho" and using language that was demeaning and crude. We can partly excuse Pope not so much because the standards of his time were far different from our own, but because his criticisms of other men were, in general, at least as bad as those he directed against women.

Why is Horatio’s role very essential and pivotal in Hamlet? Could the play go on without him? Justify your point of view.

I would argue that Horatio plays an essential role in Hamlet. Primarily, he exists to ground the action of the drama in truth and reality. This is very important, not least because those two qualities are often in short supply among the members of the Danish court. Everyone's playing their own little game, and in the process creating their own truth, their own reality.
Horatio's moderating presence acts as a necessary counterbalance to all the madness that descends upon Elsinore. Without Horatio, that's all it would be: madness. But thanks to him, we're able to take a step back and gain a broader, more rational perspective on things, a perspective which Hamlet is singularly unable to provide.
Horatio's role as a confidant to his best friend is also important. Hamlet can soliloquize from now until Doomsday and yet we still wouldn't have much insight into what he's really and thinking. It's only through his conversations with Horatio that we get a better idea of what's really going on inside that tortured mind of his. And Hamlet for one is most grateful for this, paying tribute to Horatio for his virtue and self-control, qualities which he himself noticeably lacks:

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man/As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. (Act III Scene ii).