Why is Madame Loisel unhappy with her life at the beginning of "The Necklace"?

In "The Necklace," Madame Loisel is dissatisfied because she is

one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans.  She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of distinction....

For Mathilde Loisel, she has married beneath what she should have only because her father could not provide her a dowry which would have allowed her to marry a man of the aristocracy.  Instead, as beautiful as she is, she has had to settle for a husband from the bourgeosie, a government clerk. 

Since money and material possessions have prevented her from advancing in society and living the life she desires, Madame Loisel perceives material value possessions and social status as the quintessential values.  This perception, tragically, becomes Mathilde Loisel's nemesis.

Compare and contrast the relationships of Soraya and Amir and their fathers. How have their upbringings contributed to these relationships?I am...

Amir disappoints is father because of his lack of courage and his bookish personality. Amir looks for ways to gain his father's approval and attention. He does not argue with his father-he only tries to please him.

Soraya constantly argues with her father. She does not try to hide her differences of opinion from him, and she does not find his disapproval crushing, which is a direct contrast to Amir.

Write a letter to a friend explaining how your life is influenced by American culture.Imagine that you are a foreign teenager. Use specific...

American culture is very different form the Indian culture that i grew up in, there are rarely any similarities i see. 

In the american culture there is not a distinct line between what genders can and cannot do

In the american culture you can call a friends mom by name instead of Aunty (which to be honest i still feel uncomfortable doing)

the music here might just be the only similar thing to indian culture. since the modern Indian film industry is coming out with movies and songs faster then ever before, the songs are becoming more and more similar, the older songs in india used to be very high pitched and had a story behind it (because they usually happened in the middle of movies), where as old american songs from my recollection are usually deeper, but like i said with the blending of the cultures the music is beginning to sound the same ignoring the language differences.  

THERE ARE SO MANY CHANNELS ON TV and the internet is 90% of my life now, from what i have seen in India it is the complete opposite, socializing in real life occurs more often then it does here, also in america, people rarely walk anywhere unless the place is close by but most of the time we usually drive. 

another similarity which i'm supposing goes for almost all countries: fashion and sports are still very high on the "keep up with" scale. many people gather to watch football like we used to with cricket, and as usual we have aunties/ teens here too who talk about the latest "hip" or fashion statements. 

During the era of Elizabethan how was the society?

This is a great question.

The Elizabethan era was marked by many things. The Black or bubonic plague had been through several parts of England.

The rich wore fantastic clothing which decorated them with great ruff collars, fancy silks and velvets, tights for men, and little puffy doublets that made their bellies look bigger than they were. The women dressed in great dresses that wents all the way to their feet, up to their necks, and down to their wrists.

The people's belief systems were based on something called the four humors: fire, air, earth, and wind. They thought based on the way the wind was blowing, that meant something. The Catholic church was also a dominant figure, as were people's beliefs in astrology.

The theatre was new, so the Globe Theatre and The Rose were both popular London destinations for rich and poor alike. The groundlings stood close to the stage for a penny, and the rich purchased box seats on the outer edge covered by a roof.

What happened to Mr. Morrison's family on Christmas when he was only six years old in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry?Mr. Morrison tells the Logans...

Mr. Morrison's family was wiped out one Christmas when he was only six years old. The year was 1876, and times were hard. The Morrison family lived in a shantytown outside the city of Shreveport. Reconstruction was just about over, and the Northern soliders whose job it had been to protect the freed men were tired, while the Southern whites were just itching to "turn things back 'round to the way they used to be." That Christmas night, two young Negro men came knocking frantically on the Morrisons' door. They had been accused of molesting a white women, and, not knowing what to do, they sought advice from Mr. Morrison's father, who was known to be strong and wise. Before they could finish telling their story, however, the notorious "night men...swept down like locusts" on the house, setting the house on fire and killing anyone they could get their hands on.

Mr. Morrison's sisters were killed in the fire; Mr. Morrison himself was saved by his mama, who carried him out of the house and threw him to safety before the hooded men could get their hands on him. Then, though they were ultimately killed, Mr. Morrison's mama and and daddy fought "like avenging angels of the Lord," inflicting as much damage as they could before they were overwhelmed. People believed that Mr. Morrison, who was only six at the time, was too young to remember what had happened, but he does. The events of that night are forever seared in his mind, and he makes sure that he never forgets (Chapter 7).

What is A.C. Bradley's opinion of how Shakespeare portrays Cleopatra's character, in Antony and Cleopatra?

A.C. Bradley, the great Shakespearean critic, describes Cleopatra in Oxford Lectures on Poetry as a non-dramatic and non-tragic character. This is a bit of an oxymoron as it is applied to one of the protagonists in a dramatic Shakespearean tragedy. Bradley states that in Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare could have done much more to create dramatic tension and the revelation of turbulent inner emotion.

For instance, Bradley holds that in the first parts of the play, Cleopatra is shown in non-emotive ways, ways that we might term character background. He contrasts the first three acts of Antony and Cleopatra with Romeo and Juliet, the latter of which is loaded with violent emotion and violent action. But the former shows Cleopatra with her ladies in waiting; alternately beguiling and tormenting Antony; asking questions about Octavia's personal appearance.

Cleopatra's most active scene is when she threatens the messenger, which is a scene, Bradley contends, that is completely dispensable as it has nothing to do with the plot. Additionally, Bradley asserts that Cleopatra's scenes do not "bode" tragedy. She is shown as "irresistible" but she is not shown as having powerful inner emotions that enhance the tragic qualities and motivate the plot.

What excuse or explanation does Macbeth give for killing the guards (grooms)? What is his real reason?

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the protagonist Macbeth makes a strategical error when he kills Duncan's grooms after Duncan's body is discovered.  In short, he varies from his wife's plan and, thus, raises doubts as to his innocence and guilt in at least one other thane's mind, Macduff's.

When Macduff asks Macbeth why he killed the grooms (likely the only witnesses to Duncan's murder), Macbeth attempts to explain away or rationalize his actions:

Who can be wise, amazed, temp'rate and furious,

Loyal and neutral in a moment?  No man.

Macbeth excuses his actions here by asking a rhetorical question that emphasizes the contrasting emotions he felt when he saw Duncan's bloody body.  No man can feel these emotions at the same time and act reasonably, suggests Macbeth.

He then elaborates on the same idea:

Th' expedition of my violent love

Outrun the pauser, reason.

His violent love made him act without pausing to think.

...Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden blood,

And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature

For ruin's wasteful entrance; there the murderers,

Steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers

Unmannerly breeched with gore.  Who could refrain

That had a heart to love, and in that heart

Courage to make's love known?

Macbeth saw the bloody Duncan, he explains, and he saw the grooms steeped in the blood they caused to flow, and he could not resist killing them.  No one that loved Duncan as Macbeth did could stop himself from immediately killing his murderers, says Macbeth.  Notice with that last thought that Macbeth is trying to redirect the argument in his favor, establishing that his slaying of the grooms shows his great love for Duncan.

Lady Macbeth swoons soon after.  While it is possible she fakes her feinting in order to take the attention away from what Macbeth has just done (killing the grooms), I suggest that she feints because she is in shock due to the blunder Macbeth has just committed.

How does the setting affect the mood of the story and what is the story's theme? (By the Waters of Babylon)

I think there are two major themes in this story.

First, there is the theme of humanity's ability to destroy itself.  In the story, New York has been destroyed, presumably by nuclear war.  This shows how we are able to use our own abilities in very bad ways.

Second, the story shows human resiliency.   Although New York has been destroyed, John and his tribe have kept some amount of learning alive. At the end of the story, John vows to rebuild.  This shows the strength of the human spirit.

In my opinion, the setting makes the mood quite dark.  The burned out city with its packs of feral dogs is a very gloomy setting.

In what year did the Constitution become the law of the land?

American people began setting up a system of government as soon as they adopted the declaration of independence in 1776. However before the American revolution ended in 1783, each state had its independent constitution. In 1781 the states adopted the Articles of Confederation that established a federal government. Under these articles each state was supposed to work independently for it's own ends. However this system was found to be inadequate for effective functioning of the confederation. Therefore in 1787 delegates of all the states except Rhode Island met to consider revision of the Articles of confederation and  agreed to write a new constitution. After much debate, the delegates reached an agreement on the constitution on September 17, 1787. This constitution came into force when on June 21, 1788 New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.

Bills of Rights, which forms a very important part of the present day American Constitution became a part of it  on December 15, 1791, when 10 amendments containing these rights became a law.

Why did satire become popular in the age of John Dryden and Alexander Pope?pl. ans in detail.

John Dryden (1631-1700)
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Restoration Period (1660-1688)
Augustan Age (1690-1744)

John Dryden and Alexander Pope were Restoration period and Augustan Age poets. The Restoration refers to period of time at which Charles II began his rule of England following the Cromwell's Commonwealth and Protectorate period that ensued after the beheading of Charles I. The Augustan Age, also called the Age of Reason and the Neoclassical Age, refers to a movement of poets who deliberately returned to imitating the Classical Augustan poets Virgil and Horace. It followed the Restoration in c. 1690 and ended with the death of Pope (1744).

The Restoration was a very religious era, nonetheless had a wide variety of kinds of poetry spanning from Milton's religious poem Paradise Lost, written between 1650 and 1660 and published at the beginning of the Restoration in 1667, to the ribald comedy The Country Wife. Literature appeared on the backdrop of philosophical writing calling for humanitarianism and ideals of higher good in government in light of a new understanding of society as such as John Locke wrote about government and Thomas Hobbes wrote about the social contract.

It was also an era of scientific and philosophic investigation, as Locke and Hobbes show, because Charles II encouraged skepticism, philosophy and the examination of nature. Along with valuing an invigorated conversation about new investigations along these lines, he encouraged wit. This milieu was a fertile ground for satire as the aim of satire is to call attention to where society or a group within society is falling sort of an established and valued social moral code while nonetheless giving the show of adhering to it, giving "lip service" to the code.

Satire in the Restoration was a secretive affair. Satirists generally published anonymously because England's defamation laws were very broad and skewed in favor of the claimant. Dryden was beaten more than once for being suspected of having authored anonymous satire. As the spirit of investigation and wit broadened and philosophy more loudly espoused humanitarianism, poets began poking fun at behaviors in society.

By the Augustan Age of Pope, the mock-heroic poem was a popular form that could single out peculiarities in social conduct or in deviations from the accepted moral code and offer a close-up look with a chuckle in its tone. Because these gentle satires poked fun at social idiosyncrasies instead of being political or religious in nature, they side-stepped defamation laws. The primer example is Pope's satirical mock-heroic The Rape of the Lock. Another lively example is The Sofa from The Task by one of my favorites, William Cowper.

[For more information, see English Literature: Resotration Literature and English Literature: Augustan Literature.]

Who is Mr. Donner in Flowers for Algernon? What was he doing for Charlie and why was he doing this?

Mr. Donner is Charlie's boss at the bakery; he had been best friends with Charlie's Uncle Herman. Uncle Herman used to watch out for Charlie's welfare, and had brought Charlie to the bakery long ago, asking Mr. Donner to let him work there and to look after him. Uncle Herman had died a couple of years after bringing Charlie to Mr. Donner, and it was fortunate for Charlie that Uncle Herman had enlisted his good friend's help on Charlie's behalf. After Uncle Herman died, Charlie's mother had institutionalized her mentally challenged son, committing him to the Warren home.  Remembering his promise to Herman, Mr. Donner arranged to have Charlie released on outside work placement, giving him a job and finding him a place to live.

Charlie started working for Mr. Donner when he was about fifteen years old; he is almost thirty-three now, and the kind man has been looking out for him for seventeen years. Because of his mental challenges, Charlie has not moved up in the company at all; his main tasks are cleaning up and making deliveries. Although the bakery business is not currently doing well, Mr. Donner reassures Charlie that he will never have to go back to the Warren home, because no matter what, because of the promise Mr. Donner made to his uncle, Charlie will have a job at the bakery for the rest of his life.

Coordinate geometry...Find the ratio in which the line joining A(6,5) and B(4,-3) are divided by the line y=2. AB also intersects the x axis at P....

First of all, we have to find out the equation of the line AB, in order to express the condition of intersecting 2 lines, which is: the coordinates of the point M, resulted from the intersection between lines AB and y=2, have to verify the equations of the 2 lines :AB and Y=2.

In order to find out the equation of the line AB:

(xB-xA)/(x-xA) = (yB-yA)/(y-yA)

Now, we'll substitute the values of known coordinates:

(4-6)/(x-6) = (-3-5)/(y-5)

-2/(x-6) = -8/(y-5)

After dividing by (-2):

1/(x-6) = 4/(y-5)

Cross multiplying:

4(x-6)=y-5

y=4x-24+5

y=4x-19, this being the eq. for the line AB.

The M point belongs to AB, only if it's coordinates verifies the equation of the line AB.

yM=4xM-19

Also yM=2.

By substituting yM=2 into yM=4xM-19, the result will be:

2=4xM-19

4xM=21

xM=21/4

M point coordinates are xM=21/4 and yM=2.

Now we have to find out the length of the segment AB and segment AM, in order to decide the ratio the line AB is split by the line y=2.

The AM segment's length:

AM= sqrt[(xM-xA)^2+(yM-yA)^2]

AM= sqrt[(21/4 - 6)^2 + (2-5)^2]

AM= sqrt[(9/16)+9]

AM=3sqrt17/4

AB= sqrt[(xB-xA)^2 + (yB-yA)^2]

AB= sqrt[(4-6)^2 + (-3-5)^2]

AB= sqrt(68)

AB= 2sqrt17

MB=AB-AM=2sqrt17 - 3sqrt17/4

MB=5sqrt17/4

The ratio is : AM/MB=(3sqrt17/4)/(5sqrt17/4)

AM/MB=3/5

To find out the coordinates for P, we have to remember again the condition that P coordinates has to verify the equation for AB line also.

yP=4xP-19

But yP=0, because P is placed on x axis, so:

0=4xP-19

4xP=19

xP=19/4

P coordinates are: xP=19/4 and  yP=0

Who are the people who help and support Tom Robinson in the pursuit of achieving justice as well as his family?How do they help?

Judge Taylor made the choice to appoint Atticus to the case, usually the other defense attorney in town received the cases like this one.

Heck Tate helped by realizing while he was on the stand that the marks Mayella had when he first saw her were not marks that Tom Robinson could have given with a crippled arm. At that point of elucidation, Heck asked Atticus while Atticus was questioning him if he could describe the nature of her injuries. This was something Atticus hadn't planned for and it helped the defense.

Link Deas interrupts the trial and shouts out in front of everyone what a good moral and steady employee Tom has been. This is not legal for him to do. He put himself in harm's way by saying what he said. Futhermore, he offers Helen a job after Tom goes to prison.

Atticus Finch obviously helped him by defending him with all him intellect in the trial.

The Negro community collected an additional offering to support the Robinson family and they gave a great offering to Atticus Finch showing their appreciation for his effort.

Who are the gods in ''By the Waters of Babylon"?

In this story, the main character, John is going to go on a journey.  It is the last step in his process of becoming a priest.  On this journey, he will be going across the river to the Dead Place -- the Place of the Gods.

As we go along in the story, we figure out that the Place of the Gods is what used to be New York City.  If that is the Place of the Gods, then the gods must be the people who used to live there.  So, they gods in this story are the people who used to live in New York City before it somehow got depopulated.

Romeo and juliet is considered a classic. Why do you believe it is a classic and is still taught today? What theme are relevant? 2 quotes( Uses...

There are several qualities that enter into a literary work's being considered a classic, one that lasts the test of time.  Among these are the following:

• Universality - themes and language appeal to people of different cultures as well as different time periods


• Effective language - the language has a beauty and appeal of its own.


• Value - a classic explores existential and worthy ideas

Certainly, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet meets the criteria of what makes a classic.  For, its appeal is universal, its themes are forever pertinent, and its language is aesthetic and profound.

The theme of youthful impetuosity vs. the wisdom of age is, indeed, universal:

These violent delights have violent ends,/And in their triumph die, like fire and powder/Which as they kiss consume.  The sweetest honey/Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,/And in the tast confounds the appetite./Therefore, love moderately, long love doth so,/Too swift arrives, as tardy as too slow. (II,vi,9-15)

That the language of Romeo and Juliet is exquisite is clearly evidenced in the meeting of Juliet and Romeo as they speak to each other in a beautiful sonnet:

If I profane my unworthiest hand/This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,/My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand/To smooth that rought touch with a tender kiss....(I,v,88-102)

How to find the radius of a circle if its area is 314 square miles?

The formula for the area is A = pi x r^2 (I don't know how to type out mathematic notation!)

So you have to shift the equation around algebraically to find "r"(radius).

First divide both sides by pi; this eliminates pi from the right hand side of the equation and changes the left to A/pi. Now we have:

A/pi [area divided by pi]=r^2 [radius squared]

In order to isolate "r", we need to take the square root of both sides.

So now,

square root of (a/pi) = r

Because you know the area, you can plug it into this equation to solve for r, radius.  Remember the order of operations: divide area by pi FIRST, then take the square root of that number.

If you don't understand one of the steps, I hope you'll let us know.  You need to learn how to do this!  : )

Why did Hitler hate Jewish people?

Why Hitler hated Jewish people: World War I was a great disaster for Germany.  One of that war's causes was competition between industrial England and industrializing Germany for world trade and world markets. 

Hitler was a soldier in the German army during the war; he was very proud of his war-time service.

Germany was devestated by the war.  The peace settlement imposed upon Germany by the Allies at the end of the war was humiliating and designed to keep Germany in a third-world state of existence. 

During the war, German jews had not rallied to the colors; they did not support the German war effort.  A German once told me that jews were much disliked in Germany after World War I because they had not supported the war.  Considering Hitler's pride in his war-time service and Germany's devestation by the war and the shameful settlement imposed upon Germany by the Allies, it is very likely that Hitler shared this dislike of jews.

Hitler certainly used the German people's displeasure with the jews for his own political advantage, as previous answers have amply described. But how could he murder so many people?

Hitler was extremely power hungry. He started and prolonged World War IIso that he could increase and prolong his hold on power. When it became obvious that Germany would loose the World War II, he continued to make war because it was also obvious that he could hold onto power only so long as the war lasted.

That he could persecute the jews for political power, then use that power to murder so many of them; that he could prolong the suffering and death of so many victims of war so as to hold onto power,demonstrates thatat the very least that he had no value system to form his character. I believe he was a psychopath. Desire for power and lack of empathy for other people's suffering are characteristics of psychopaths.

What literary device does the author use to describe Johnny's mugging?

As already mentioned, the main literary device used is that of flashback,  when the narrator leaves the present moment to relate something that happened in the past. We can also say that Ponyboy, when narrating the story of Johnny's beating, uses a careful build-up technique, revealing what happened in stages. For instance, the first clue that something bad happened to Johnny is when Ponyboy finds his jacket which is described as having a stain 'the colour of rust' on it. The stain of course is blood, but Ponyboy chooses to refer to it obliquely. The badly-beaten Johnny first appears as a 'dark motionless hump' rather than as a person; this is an example of a de-humanizing image. In this way Ponyboy builds up slowly to the terrible revelation of the savage beating Johnny received at the hands of the Socs. The actual beating is never shown at all: we only see the grim results of it in the form of Johnny's battered body and bloodstained jacket.  It is obviously a very painful memory for Ponyboy, which is no doubt why he relates it in a somewhat roundabout manner to the sympathetically-listening Cherry.

As already mentioned in another answer, the story of this incident also uses the technique of foreshadowing, which is to say it hints at an event later in the book. This is when Johnny declares that 'he'd kill the next person who jumped him'. He ends up doing just that. 

Starting a business and you have significant personal assets would you set the business up as an LLC or sole proprietorship?

If you are starting a business and you have significant personal assets you would have to be nuts to set it up as a sole proprietorship instead of an LLC.  Unless, I suppose, you were not going to ever incur any debts (like if you did not have to buy any inventory because you're just working as a consultant or something).

The problem with being a sole proprietor is that you have unlimited liability.  If your business incurs debt, your personal resources can be taken to pay that debt.  In an LLC, only the company's assets can be taken to pay debts.

In the Sonnet "I am very bothered" written by Simon Armatige, is there a volta or shift in mood around line 9?Volta is a turning point which is...

It is questionable that this poem of fourteen lines is, in fact, a sonnet.  Certainly, it is not a Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet, for it has no adherence to stanzaic form or rhyme scheme for either type of sonnet.  So, it may be better to analyze this poem as a monlogue.  Given this format, the volta occurs when the speaker no longer speaks of himself, but changes the last stanza from first to second person and directly addresses person to whom the scissors were given.  And, here, in the third stanza (line 12), there is a movement away from the guilt of "I am bothered when I think of the bad things I have done" to an explanation of behavior:

Don't believe me, please if I say/ that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen/of asking you if you would marry me.

In addition, there is an implication that the speaker is really not bothered:  "Don't believe me, please" he says.  "Listen," he seems to say, "I was a prepubescent boy who did stupid things to girls I liked in much the same manner as most boys of this age because they are afraid that the other boys will ridicule them.  The sad truth is that the speaker, no longer prepubescent physically, still seems prepubescent mentally as he himself is not certain of his being "bothered"; at least, he does not want his twinge of conscience to be noticed, please.

Do you think Shakespeare’s portrayal of the commoners in Act 1 of Julius Caesar is realistic?

Shakespeare’s portrayal of the commoners represents a way some people think, which is to be easily persuaded.  Not only commoners, but educated people might also be easily persuaded to change their mind from one position to the next. Indeed, the “mob mentality” we see in the commoner’s new alligeance to Caesar is similar to the ease with which Cassius convinces Brutus, with no real evidence, that Caesar aspires to be crowned and should therefore be murdered.  The attitude of Marullus and Flavius to the commoners in this scene is very rude: these men are only going about their business, and they want to see “Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph” (1.1 35), which hardly compares to their own evil intentions of murder. So, to answer you question more directly, I think Shakespeare’s portrayal of the commoners serves a dramatic purpose of introducing a theme of how people can be persuaded and of characterizing Caesar’s enemies more than it serves the purpose of realistically portraying an entire group of people. It is a way of thought, not a class of people, that interests Shakespeare here.

How is the tax burden on tobacco shared between buyers and sellers?

I disagree with the above post, because tobacco is always in demand, and has consistently been so over time (it helps that your customer base is largely addicted).  So the key to the focus of the tax burden - on customer or seller, is the degree of competition in a local market.  Are you the only smoke shop or store in town?  Then you can pass on the entire tax burden to the consumer, because you have a de facto local monopoly.  The more local competition there is, the more likely the seller is going to absorb some or all of the tax burden as it increases.  This is also because tobacco is very rarely the only product sold in these stores, and as they can count on tobacco buyers to show up consistently, it may still be profitable to make very little or nothing on the cigarettes if you get them into your store to by high profit items like pop, sundries, lighters, food etc.

What is the central question the book raises in The Awakening?

The Awakening is a book that is similiar to a few other classics which explore gender roles, restrictive societies, and whether one can be happy (such as Madame Bovary and The Dollhouse).  The significant difference here is that this novel was written by a woman, and that alone made it far more controversial by discussing gender role and a woman's sexuality (because confoundedly at the time, while everyone acknowledged that women *had* a sexuality, women themselves were somehow supposed to be completely unaware of it unless it was through male observation).

So the central question in this book is one that is still constantly being examined even today, though perhaps with differentparameters: Can one feel truly happy and free in the role that society prescribes for him or her?

what is the quality of the revenge that montresor seeks

Why the question of quality throws me a bit, after a little thought it began to sink in.  In my estimation, death is the consummate revenge, and Montresor has planned his flawlessly.  Should there be such a thing as a perfect crime, Montresor planned it, but only because of the time period.  He took everything into account from the possibility of being interrupted in the process to being overheard by having the servants away and Fortunato intoxicated.  While his sanity is questionable and his motives unclear, his planning of the revenge is flawless and works seemlessly in his story.  I guess it could definitely be considered high quality revenge.  Hope this helps.  Brenda

In Act I, scene 3 in The Miracle Worker, which phrases helped to indicate that a flashback was taking place?

In Gibson's play, The Miracle Worker, in Act I, scene 3, stage direction indicates the onset/beginning of a flashback by describing a slight change in the stage lighting.

In fact, throughout the play, each time Annie's mind flashes to the past, there is a color change in the lighting that is used as a signal to the reader that Annie is about to remember something, which is generally a painful experience for her, reminding her of the time she spent at the poorhouse with her brother Jimmy, who eventually dies there.

During the resolution of the play, after Annie has told Helen that she loves the little girl, the lights begin to change to signal a flashback, and Annie's face reflects fear as she anticipates another painful memory.  However, since she has opened her heart--to Helen, the first time she has done so since her brother's death, the moment passes without a memory, and the color of the light returns to normal.

Please describe Mathew Arnold's ''Criticism of Lie''.

Arnold's definition of poetry as a 'criticism of life' is an important post-Romantic articulation about the nature of poetry and its supposed relation with life. As different from the Romantic figuration which would foreground imagination over rationality, contemplation and realism, Arnold's definition works the way through a field of thought.

The definition is significant because it looks at poetry in a more realistic way than the Romantics and links the poetic faculty with the critical, something that Arnold's own authorial practice as both a poet and a critic demonstrates. It also argues in favour of the poets critical relation with the process of life that will remain his bedrock, all through. There is a universalism at work in the definition that finds application in works like Dover Beach.

Act 1: Why doesn't Proctor go to Salem to report what Abigail has told him? Act II- Why does Elizabeth want him to go and why does she not trust him?

Proctor is uncomfortable with Abigail's confiding in him on the nights events. He and Abigail had engaged in an illicit affair, and they had been caught by Elizabeth, his wife. This is why she does not trust her husband. Their marriage is in a constant state of turmoil because of it. Proctor does not go to tell what he knows because he feels that he cannot prove that Abigail said it if she decides to deny it. He also does not put a lot of stock into the powers that be.

Furthermore, he does not want to have to discuss why Abigail would be confiding in him in the first place. He is torn up with guilt, and does not wish to cause Elizabeth any more pain or embarrassment.

Elizabeth wants him to go and report what he knows because it is the right thing to do. Elizabeth is a god-fearing woman who believes in telling the truth. The situation is getting completely out of hand, and she feels that this would help.

I am not really good at poetry,and I have to analayse the poem "Woman have loved before as I love now" by Millay,pls help, any analayse helpfull

Poetry is not that subjective and the subjectivity deals with slight variations that make the poem meaningful to different people in different ways.  It doesn't mean that you can't interpret poetry, and it doesn't mean that you can interpret it to mean anything you want.  And the fact that poetry is emotional certainly has nothing to do with whether or not it can be interpreted.  You don't have to have felt the exact same emotions a poet presents in order to understand those emotions.  That's one important role of literature:  to introduce readers to experiences they haven't had. 

That said, here's the poem:

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed.

The speaker is in the process of reading tales of women who have loved like she loves.  As she reads, she is

Hunting [for] the amorous line, skimming the rest,...

Looking for the romantic parts, she finds in literature the same feelings she feels, and thus knows that, at least in literature, women once loved as she loves.  The speaker feels an all-encompassing love and feels that no one else quite loves the way she does--who doesn't feel that when he/she is really in love?  This doesn't mean she's arrogant or full of herself.  It means she's in love. 

The speaker revels in a woman's right to love in the fashion of men, passionately and fully, not worrying about the consequences, as men have loved and been made heroes because of it throughout the centuries.  The speaker loves like a queen who has the power to do whatever she wants loves.  The speaker suggests that all women should love this way, as, at least stereotypically, men have been doing for thousands of years. 

What is a theme in Arms and the Man? Is this theme optimistic or pessimistic?

A romantic comedy about war, this play subverts both romance and war, which the subtitle, "An Anti-romance," indicates.  Not only does Shaw make fun of romance between men and women but he also satirizes the so-called noble reasons countries go to war. As he does in other play, Shaw connects social issues, such as war and relationships between men and women, to capitalism, showing how the latter drives the former.  At the time he wrote this play people glorified war as something Honorable (with a capital H), but he revealed it to be a rather sleazy enterprise, dependent upon businesses that want to make money.

In chapter 49 of Great Expectations is the fire an accident or a penance/attempted suicide by Miss Havisham for her cruelty to Pip and Estella?

To take some liberties with Aristotle's definition of tragedy, Miss Havisham is a tragic character.  Possessing a certain hubris, and in her anger at being jilted on her wedding day, she vows to take revenge on men through the instrument of Estella.  But, in her arrogance, she becomes ignorant of the fact that if she raises Estella to be cruel to people, it follows that Estella will also be cruel to her.  And, in her desire to wreak vengeance upon men, Miss Havisham needlessly harms the innocent Pip. 

In her discovery of her sin of pride and her realization of what it has wrought, Miss Havisham has committed an act of injustice--"Oh!...What have I done!  What have I done!--against Estella and Pip both, and punishment must be exacted.  The fire provides Miss Havisham her punishment.  And, since fire is both symbolic of purification and of punishment, Miss Havisham's fall into the fire in Great Expectations carries the significance of a penance for her transgressions.  After all, as she repeats " Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her'!" she has certainly begged for forgiveness.

What advice does Thoreau offer to thoese who live in Propert? walden

It is not clear to me which part of the book you are talking about here.  If you can be clearer, you will likely get better answers.

I am guessing you are talking about the part where he talks about how many of the people in Concord do not own their own houses free and clear...

If that is the case, then his advice to people is to be less greedy.  It is for them to care less about their property.  He says they wear themselves out trying to get houses as nice as those of their neighbors.  Instead, he says, they should learn to be content with less in the way of material goods.

Demonstrate the elements of absurd drama in Waiting for Godot.

Most of the absurdity in "Waiting for Godot" stems from not only the plot, but also the characters.  This play is non-traditional in the sense that nothing is answered or resolved.  The reader never finds out who Godot is, although many believe Godot represents God.  The main characters demonstrate absurdity because they have no understanding of their purpose - they are simply waiting for something they do not understand.  Faith comes into question also - are the main characters demonstrative of extreme faith in that they wait and wait with no real promise of an outcome?  Or, are they just two characters who are lost in a world that makes no sense to them so they wait with the expectation that something good may come of it?  Then you have the minor characters who, when combined with the main characters, serve to add overall absurdity to the play with their nonsensical ramblings and interplay.  All of these elements, and more, combine to classify this play as absurd drama. 

How can the Nurse be viewed as a foil to Juliet?

In Shakespearean drama a foil is a character who is used as a contrast to another character. This contrast makes the particular qualities of each character stand out. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare uses the Nurse as a foil to Juliet and Mercutio as a foil to Romeo. 

In Act I, Scene 3, we first meet Juliet and the Nurse. Juliet is a thirteen-year old girl who knows little of the world. In the preceding scene, her father, Lord Capulet says,

My child is yet a stranger in the world.
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years.

She's very innocent as opposed to the Nurse, who is much older and experienced. The Nurse is lower class as opposed to Juliet, whose family is very wealthy. One technical difference in the play is that, since she is a commoner, the Nurse rarely speaks in iambic pentameter (ten stressed and unstressed syllables per line) and she never uses couplets (two consecutive rhyming lines). Here she talks about Juliet's age:

I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth (and yet, to my teen
be it spoken, I have but four) she’s not fourteen.
How long is it now to Lammastide?

This contrasts with Juliet, who always speaks in iambic pentameter and often uses couplets. For example, Juliet explains how she will look at Count Paris:

I’ll look to like, if looking liking move.
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

The biggest contrast between the two is how they think of love. The Nurse defines love with its physical and sexual connotation. She uses sexual innuendo and the physical aspects of marriage when she's talking to Juliet about Count Paris. When Lady Capulet and the Nurse try to convince Juliet she should be interested in Paris, the Nurse describes Paris physically:

A man, young lady—lady, such a man
As all the world—why, he’s a man of wax.

And a little later she says,

No less? Nay, bigger. Women grow by men.

referring to pregnancy. Later, in Act II, Scene 5, she speaks of Romeo, not as the ideal love, but as a physical specimen. The Nurse says,

Though his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg
excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot and a
body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they
are past compare.

Rather than discussing Romeo as a spiritual match for Juliet she dwells on the physical and sexual. She tells Juliet she must find a rope ladder so that after the couple is married Romeo can crawl into Juliet's room for the honeymoon. In a reference to the actual sexual act, she says,

I must another way,
To fetch a ladder by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.

Juliet, on the other hand, is more interested in ideal love and the beauty of mutual devotion between a man and a woman. Romeo is perfect for her. In his first words to her he compares himself to a pilgrim worshipping at the altar of her beauty. These words hook Juliet into love at first sight, or first sonnet, as the opening fourteen lines between the two youngsters in Act I, Scene 5, is a Shakespearean sonnet. Juliet is immediately attracted as Romeo holds her hand, and calls it divine:

Romeo:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

This devotional language continues in Act II, Scene 2, as Romeo and Juliet declare their love for each other and decide, despite the bitterness of the feud between their families, that they will get married.

The final contrast between the Nurse and Juliet comes in Act III, Scene 5, when the Nurse advises Juliet to forget Romeo and heed the wishes of her father by marrying Count Paris. The Nurse cannot fathom the depth of feeling Juliet has for Romeo and sees him as just another man. She makes the point that Paris is a better match physically:

O, he’s a lovely gentleman!
Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath.

This alienates Juliet from the Nurse as she is shocked by he confidante's words. When the Nurse leaves, she symbolically breaks her bond with the woman. She says,

Ancient damnation, O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counselor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.

How did the Islamic world deal with its steppeland neighbors?be specific

According to some sources, the southern Steppe people actually blended well with many Islamic peoples because economically and culturally they were very similar except for their religion.  There were also times later where many of the people on the steppes actually accepted Islam as their main religion.  Both of them depended heavily on horses and other hooved animals for transportation and on herding for their main source of food and income.

Some of the connection between the two peoples led to slightly different versions of Islam and other religions including Sufiism and others.

Particularly with the spread of Islam into Turkey, the Seljuk Turks gained a great deal of influence as a nomadic power until eventually much of the nomadic peoples lost a great deal of influence because of their inability to concentrate power for any length of time.

How does The Road service the theme of belonging?

In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a dreary picture is painted where belonging is a rare thing.  If you survived whatever event or series of events that occurred to create the wasteland that is presented, then usually, belonging is something that is as elusive to find as is survival.  If you "belong," it is usually amongst two main groups:  the barbaric cannibals that roam the country in hoards, looking for lone surivivors to kill, or, the groups of people that the father and the son witness locked up in an abandoned house, that are slowly being harvested for meat.  It's pretty awful.  There are also vague rumors of other groups of people, civilized people, that are surviving together, but they only hear about this through the old man, and only in a very guarded way.  The son, adopted by the family at the end, might have found another place to belong also.

The father and the son are lucky, very lucky indeed to have each other.  Because the other exists, they belong.  As long as they have each other, they can fight through their existence.  Belonging is a gift that they give each other every day of their lives.  The father spends his days trying to teach his son how to survive in their world, how to belong in the eventuality that he might one day die.  He hopes that his son can feel a sense of belonging in that world, even if he isn't around.

I hope that those thoughts helped a bit; good luck!

Why must members of this society do volunteer work while they are young?

There are, I think, a couple of reasons why the kids have to do volunteer work when they are young.

I think that part of it is that the community needs the help.  It seems like maybe the community does not have enough resources.  It never actually says this, but it seems like it to me because they collect all the scraps after dinner and they use the kids for work.

Another reason, I think, is to help teach them to be responsible to the whole community.  I think the volunteering emphasizes to them that they are necessary to the community and that they have a responsibility to be of help to the community from a young age.

But more importantly, they have the kids do volunteer work so they can figure out what the kids are good at and what they are interested in.  The elders pay attention to what the kids do for their volunteer work as an indication of what they should be assigned to do once they become Twelves.

How do the characters of Laertes, Fortinbras, and Horatio compare and contrast to each other in terms of their roles in the plot of Hamlet?

Horatio is Hamlet's best friend and the most reliable character in the play. Everyone who knows him trusts him. In terms of what a good friend should be, Horatio is the epitome of a good friend. He even wants to kill himself when Hamlet is killed, but Hamlet begs him not to.

Laertes is different from Horatio in some regards. He is protective of Ophelia, his sister, and swears vengeance for his father's death. He may be jealous of Hamlet and certainly does not trust his honor with Ophelia since he warns her against him. He is too quick to believe Claudius when questioning him. He betrays Hamlet and conspires with Claudius against Hamlet. He is a character who has weaknesses amidst strengths, just like Hamlet. Both he and Hamlet show trustworthy traits at the end.

Fortinbras is very much like Hamlet in terms of his life his situation. His own father has died, and he wants to avenge his father's death also. His father's brother, his own uncle, is ruling Norway just like Hamlet's uncle is ruling Denmark. He speaks well of Hamlet in the end and grants him a noble soldier's burial; Hamlet has named him as the rightful successor to Denmark's throne. His role is to provide a contrast between Hamlet's questioning of the tradition of revenge killing and ready acceptance of it. The ironic unanswered question posed by Fortinbras' triumph in the end is whether rejecting the revenge tradition or accepting it is the right and noble course. Hamlet's death doesn't provide an answer for him or for us.

The "Modern" World is said to have begun with the...

....fall of the Roman Empire.  In the West, The "Ancient" world could be considered to have begun with the advent of agriculture, which enabled people to settle in one area rather than roaming.  Once established, the settlements would provide security for the population, and in concentrating the food supply in one area, certain individuals could become craftsmen rather than farmers.  Eventually, having craftsman would lead to trade, and the establishment of barter or money systems, and eventually the rise of the city.  These could evolve into city-states or empires. The last of these was Rome.  Usually, when an empire falls, another takes its place; after the fall of Rome for nearly 1000 years the West regressed, trade diminished, living standards declined, and areas depopulated.  Only after the Renaissance 500 years ago did culture begin to move forward.  Interestingly, the Medaeval or "Middle" Ages, defined between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, defines the grey area or "no man's land" between the Ancient and Modern world.

I would like to know who the protagonist in the story is. Is it Antigone or Creon?Both characters play a leading role,but who is the protagonist?...

According to critic Northrop Frye:

Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning.

I've always taught Creon to be the main tragic hero.  He is the "highest point in the human landscape" because he is the king.  His tragic flaw appears first: he decides not to bury Polyneices.  Like Oedipus, Creon has the angry confrontation with Teireisias, the voice of reason in the play and the spokesman for the gods.  Like Oedipus, Creon is left to suffer at the end.  Like Oedipus, Creon suffers most from hubris, the arrogance of power.  He loses the most: his son, wife, niece, and respect of his people.

So, if Creon is the "great tree" that gets "struck by lightning," then Antigone, Heamon, and Eurydice are the "clump(s) of grass" and the "victim(s)" who suffer as a result.  Antigone is important: her death haunts the play the same way that Caesar's death haunts Brutus, but Creon is the main lightning rod of suffering in the play.

Describe the feast of the new yam in Things Fall Apart.

There is a good description of the Feast of the New Yam in Chapter Five.  This feast is meant to thank and praise the goddess of the earth, Ani, who is responsible for "all fertility" (36). The feast begins before the actual harvest because it is important to thank the goddess before reaping the benefits she has offered.  Ani is offered some of the new yams, and everyone must get rid of all the old yams. Cooking and eating pots and utensils are cleaned thoroughly, I think because the old is not supposed to mix with the new. This is the beginning of a new year. The primary dishes are yam foo-foo and a vegetable soup, and food is cooked in great quantities. Hospitality is strongly encouraged. On the second day of the feast, the village of Okonkwo and a nearby village hold a wrestling match. 

This harvest tradition has many of the same elements as harvest traditions all over the world, fixing a new year to the harvest, giving thanks for what is bestowed upon the community, customs to create a clean slate, whether literally or figuratively, an emphasis on bounty, and a tradition of hospitality.  In fact, it reminded me strongly of my own Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur. 

Why do the pigs allow Moses to preach about Sugarcandy Mountain in Animal Farm?Also, what is the fable or moral of the story?

The fact that the pigs allow Moses to come back on the farm is supposed to show just how far they have gone toward being just like the humans they replaced in the revolution.

The pigs have gotten to be so much like the humans that they need Moses to come back and fulfill the same role he did before.  They need him to distract the animals from thinking about how bad their lives are now and to get them to focus on the possibility of a better life after they die.

Moses is doing what Marxists say religion is for -- he is being the "opiate of the masses," helping them to feel better even though their lives on earth are terrible.

Does anyone know how to find the derivative of y= ln(lnx^2)?I tried to do everything, but I don't know how to start it. Please help me.

y= ln(lnx^2)

To find the derivative of the y.

We use thr results :  d/dx(x^n) = nx^(n-1) and

d/dx { f (g(x))} ={ f(g(x)}' = { f '(g(x))}*g'(x), the chain rule formula.

Therefore d/dx{ln(f(x)} ={ lnf(x)}'  = {1/f(x)}f'(x).

Coming to our question,

y = ln(lnx^2). To find the dy/dx:

dy/dx = (ln(lnx^2))'. Using the above chain rule formula we get:

dy/dx =  {1/(lnx^2)} (lnx^2)'

= {1/(lnx^2)} (1/x^2)(x^2)'

=(1/(lnx^2)(1/x^2)(2x)

=2/{xlnx^2)

=1/(xlnx)

Why are there no female characters in Robinson Crusoe?

If you are curious about stories in which there are men and women on islands, I recommend that you take a look at a very good novel by Joseph Conrad titled Victory. There is also Pitcairn's Island by Nordhoff and Hall, a part of their Bounty Trilogy. If a man were marooned on an island with an attractive woman, it wouldn't be an adventure story but more of a fantasy. He might never want to leave the island. Then, of course, they would probably be producing babies, and you would have a Swiss Family Robinson type of story. If a man were marooned on an island in the South Pacific and managed to acquire a female companion, she would probably be of a different race, and this would perhaps lead to a plot dominated by the theme of interracial marriage.

It seems to me that Robinson Crusoe is mainly a survival story. He really lucks out by having access to a shipload of supplies before his wrecked ship finally sinks. He has all sorts of tools, plus muskets and pistols and plenty of ammunition. He also has some animals which he can breed for an unlimited amount of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, etc. And furthermore the island is a tropical paradise with lots of fruits and game. So he can not only survive but survive comfortably. Providing him with a girlfriend would be stretching credibility too far, and I think Defoe knew it. We enjoy reading Robinson Crusoe because he has a pretty good life as king of his island--but he has to have some hardships, some problems, or it would be too much like a pure fantasy.

Who is the narrator and what does he say about Emily in "A Rose for Emily"?

In Faulkner's "A Rose For Emily," the narrator is unidentified, but he relates the story from the point of view of the townspeople.  He begins his story:

When Miss Emily died, our whole town went to her funeral:...

So we know he is a person from the town, since he uses "our." 

He tells us that Emily tried to keep her father's body in the home with her and did so for five days until she was somewhat forced to give it up.  He tells us she was courted by an outsider named Homer.  He tells us Emily bought rat poison.  He tells us that Homer disappeared, and then he tells us that after Emily died a skeleton was found in an upstairs bedroom of her home, as was a hair that matched Emily's, on a pillow beside the skeleton. 

He says many other things about Emily as well.  If you're looking for something other than what I've written, feel free to email me and I'll try to help.

How should the United States prosecute its war against global terrorism over the next several years? Should the United States become more...

Terrorism is difficult to fight because most of their activities are hidden. Terrorism is effective because of two reasons, one is the difficulty of knowledge of when , where and how the terrorist will strike. Second the cost and inconvenience caused by the actions to prevent terrorism is also in a way triumph of terrorism. Terrorism, as the name itself implies, is not aimed at causing actual harm, as at creating a fear that harm may be caused. Under these condition a good program to to fight terrorism need to be a mix of following action.

1. Prevention of possibility of terrorist attacks through measures such as security checks.


2. System of intelligence to detect and prevent terrorist activities of planning and preparing for terrorist activities.


3. Firm and quick action in punishing people found guilty of carrying out or supporting terrorist activities.


4. Dealing firmly with governments of other countries in obtaining their support in fighting terrorism. In particular this means being very firm in opposing any lenient treatment by such countries toward terrorists and terrorist activities.

I am really not in a position to know exactly what or how much USA government is doing in each of these four areas. But fro the limited view I have, it appears that there is too much emphasis on the first of the above four activities, and  the last of the four activities is not being carried out very effectively.

What are the figures of speech contained in the poem "The Village School Master"??

Here's the poem:

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The days disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd:
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
The village all declar'd how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too:
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics rang'd around;
And still they gaz'd and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumph'd is forgot.

Alliteration: "terms and tides"; "rustics rang'd"

Anaphora: "Full well they laugh'd"; "Full well the busy"

Analogy: it's a part to whole.  The schoolmaster (part) is compared to the village (whole)

Imagery: 3 types

• setting-based  imagery: "straggling fence"; "noisy mansion"; "little school"


• intellectual/educational imagery: "Lands"; "terms and tides";  "small head"


• rhetorical/linguistic imagery: "words"; "jokes"; "story"

Rhyming couplets: pairs of rhyming lines ("spot" / "forgot")

End-stopped lines (punctuation "." or "," or ";" at the end of a line)

Caesura: punctation in the middle of a line ("Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,")

Speaker/Tone: loves the school master; poem is a dedication to him

What are three quotes that show the progression of George's dignity throughout the book?

Dignity is someone's self-respect or elevation of character. It is a measure of nobility. Considering what the word means, I think we watch George grow considerably throughout the book, but most specifically with how he deals with Lennie.

In chapter 2, George lies to the boss about Lennie so that he'll keep the two of them. When Lennie recognizes the lie he says,

"I wasn't kicked in the head with no horse was I, George?"

"Be a damn good thing if you was," George said viciously. "Save ever'body a hell of a lot of trouble."

Who says that to a friend? or even an enemy? George's character here is completely brutal and demonstrates total selfishness.

In the middle of the novel, George allows Lennie to stick up for himself when Curley tries to fight him,

Get 'im Lennie!

took minutes for George to say while watching Lennie get beat in the face. George knew Lennie's strength would hurt Curley and maybe cost them their jobs, but wasn't going to watch Lennie just get hurt. This was a parenting decision George executed brilliantly.

By the end of the novel when George knows the only honorable and noble thing he can do for himself and his friend and others he comes in contact with is to put Lennie to his Final Rest, George demonstrates compassion.  When Lennie said,

"I done another bad thing."

George replies,

"It don't make no difference."

This relieved Lennie of his guilt. It takes a man of true dignity to release a friend from such consequences as Lennie's actions deserved.

Can anyone find a couple quotes from Chapters 8 and 9 that demonstrate the cultural time period in which the setting takes place?I've done all the...

I think that what you should be thinking about is quotes that can convey what Fitzgerald is saying about the 1920s.  The 1920s were the "Jazz Age," the "Roaring '20s," when people had more leisure time and were finding new ways to spend that time.  It was also a time when (for some) the shadow of WWI lingered.  This combination led some to call it a "Lost Generation" where people wandered aimlessly and frivolously through their youths. You can see this here and there in Chapter 8.

For the first aspect, here's a quote:

For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the BEALE STREET BLUES. while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor.

Here, it seems to me that Fitzgerald is saying that the '20s are somehow empty, that the people are going around, having fun, but with no purpose.

In "The Most Dangerous Game," what happened to Whitney after Rainsford left?Whitney went to sleep and Rainsford went for a walk until he heard the...

Whitney was sailing to Rio in the Amazon to hunt jaguar.  He told Rainsford that he hoped the jaguar guns had come from Purdey's.  Rainsford falls off the ship while the crew is asleep, so they wouldn't know he was gone till it was too late.

Reference: The Literature and Language Book by McDougal and Littell

Interdependence, rigid prices,nonprice competition,mergers and collusion are characterists of oligopolies...give in details of what customers can...

An oligopolistic competition refers to a type of imperfect competition in which the market is controlled by a few large firms, each of which is able to influence market supply and demand by its action. In such a market each firm anticipates actions of its competitors and factors the into their decision making. In this way there is strategic independence among oligopolistic competitors. This interdependence does not impact the customers directly. However, by influencing the competitive strategy of the suppliers, it has significant impact on value received by customers.

Because of this interdependence, the oligopolstic firms do not find it profitable to increase their price very much above those of their competitors. This adds an element of rigidity in the prices. This tends to benefit the customers by keeping prices at comparatively lower level a compared to monopolistic market price.

Because of the price rigidity as explained above, firms in oligopolistic market rely more on non=price competition. Non-price competition refers to any action taken by a firm to increase demand for its products by any action other than cutting its price. Non-price competition includes action such as better quality, better service, more attractive packaging, advertising. Non-price competition results in better quality  and service for the customer. It also gives the customer a wider choice of products within a product category.

While in short run competitors in an oligopolistic markets directly and explicitly compete with each others, trying to out do each other in capturing market share through price and non-price competition, in long term they may also cooperate or collude with each other - for example, competitors firms jointly deciding the prices to be charged. This kind of collusion generally results in higher prices and reduced benefits for the customers.

Merger is not necessarily limited to oligopolistic market, though it is more common in oligopolistic markets, whereby a company merges with or takes over a competitor company. Merger may be considered as an extreme form of cooperation or collusion, which tends to reduce the degree of competition in the market. In his way it tends to reduce the benefits derived by customers. However, mergers may also enable merged firms to reap symbiotic benefit that improves the efficiency, effectiveness, and capabilities of the merged entity beyond what is possible when each company is able to achieve independently. In such cases the merged entity may pass on to customers some of the gains of merger.

How can the American legal system, which is so devoted to protecting individual rights, justify itself morally if it jeopardizes, through its own...

I assume that you are saying that rules that limit what the police can do to catch a suspect, for example, jeopardize the right of the rest of us to be safe.

When the police are forced to abide by rules and such, you can say that our security is jeopardized.  However, if they were not forced to abide by rules, our liberty would be jeopardized just as badly if not worse.

In other words, if there weren't limits on what the police could do, we would be more or less at their mercy.  They could pretty much do whatever they wanted to pin any crime on any person.

So, if we didn't have the protections of the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments, the police would be more of a danger to our rights than crimninals are now.

What is the impression of Sobel in "The First Seven Years"? Positive or negative?

Overall, the reader's impression of Sobel is positive.  Sobel is presented as a hard-worker.  Although not educated as Max is, he is clearly qualified, determined, and loyal.  Despite these positive traits, he is a bit impulsive.  Rather than confronting Feld about his love for Miriam, Sobel gets angry at the arranged date and storms out.  Even so, his loyal love for the daughter of his boss is respectable, and his work ethic admirable.

What is the author's attitude toward Emily Grierson in "A Rose for Emily"? Is she simply a murderous madwoman?

You have one excellent answer.  Miss Emily is an icon in the town...at least what she stands for is the icon--last surviving antebellum lady, daughter of a Civil War hero and affluent family. She is to the town what famous movie stars and professional athletes are to us today...we admire them, but they are untouchable.  They do not always make the best decisions, but we want to be them.

The town, on one hand, admires her.  On the other hand, they are curious and angry that she gets special favors--no taxes are paid by this woman, and no one bothers to ask her why her house smells so horribly (you don't ask a southern lady why she has an odor).

Yes, she murdered Homer.  Perhaps she is mad.  More likely, she was lonely, and so steeped in a tradition of the southern lady that she couldn't allow Homer to muddy her reputation. 

What is the irony of "He-y, Come On Ou-t"?

The story is ironic because the people believe they have found an easy solution for all of the terrible and dangerous waste they have created, and yet they don't realize that they're basically just throwing it on their own heads. When they discover the hole seemingly has no bottom, it seems like a great idea to just dispose of unwanted things into the hole where they can't bother anyone. This is a bit like sweeping dirt under the rug, its not getting rid of it, just hiding it. The scientists who are throwing dangerous material down the hole tell the people that the radiation and chemicals will not harm them, and will not seep up into their ground for thousands of years. And in the short run, people benefited from the hole, making profits from those who spent money to dump things into it. However, in the end, what went into the hole eventually is dumped out the other side, which turns out to be right on top of the people who first discovered the hole. 

What is Finny's theory about the war, and how does his injury influence his attitude toward the war in A Separate Peace?

After his injury, the once "gung-ho-for-the-war" Finny tells Gene and Brinker that the war is simply a ploy designed by fat old men to do away with their competition (young men) by sending them into combat. He even asks Gene,

" 'Have you swallowed all that war stuff?' " (114).

When Finny first verbalizes his theory, Gene does not understand why Finny would have so drastically changed his attitude toward the war.  However, after Finny is injured yet again, Gene discovers that Finny's disillusionment from the war stems from Finny's not being able to participate in the war effort.  He had been writing military leaders from all around the world to see if anyone would accept him.

Give me a brief breakdown of the poem. What is the theme? What are some key points in the poem? What type of poem is it?i just need to understand...

Lord Byron wrote this poem inspired by a cousin named Anne. If you look deep into Byron's biography, you know three things:

1. He had sort of incestuous fantasies and passions 2. He was bipolar, and 3. He was extremely passionate.

This cousin, Anne, according to lore used to wear a black gown that was accented with glittery details, just like the night is glittered by stars, which is one of the similes we find.

He does a play of words with lots of poetic devices to try and explain the complexity of this woman's beauty. She is daylight and nightlight, she is beauty and innocence,  she is depth and breadth.

He goes overboard trying to dig inside the mind and soul of this incorruptible woman (the type of woman that would make him want to corrupt, of course). The way he balances the meeting together of all her amazing qualities is a play on verses to make the reader feel the pull and presence that this woman's face instills in him.

What was one of the arguments that Squealer used to explain why the milk was going to the pigs?

When the secret of the missing milk came out and it was learned that the pigs were keeping it all for themselves, Squealer came to calm the angered animals down. He told the animals that he hoped they didn't think the pigs did this for selfish reasons, he said that pigs didn't even really like milk, but that it aided them in keeping their health and they needed their health in order to help run the farm. If the pigs did not get all the milk and they all fell ill then Jones was sure to come back.

"Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones." How does this ending speak about King Lear's idea of divine and human justice?

The continuation of that quote, in reference to the line about heaven's vault cracking, speaks most to this question.  Lear believes in divine justice, he believes - for example - that if  he is king, he deserves by heaven to be king.  And if his daughter is good, truthful, honest, then she deserves by heaven to have lived.  Lear can not reconcile the idea that heaven has allowed her to die, and turns to animalistic fear and expression ("howle!") to demonstrate this latest blow to his rational understanding of the world.

What 5 good questions would you ask Caesar?

How would you do things differently, Julius?

You are a logical man, yet you repeatedly ignored signs of detriment and danger for your own life--the soothsayer, and Calpurnia's dreams for instance.  What was going through your mind at the time?

These will get you started.  If you think about the play and possibly re-read some of the speeches, you will be able to come up with others.  Imagine you are meeting him and interviewing him for a local paper or radio station.

Good Luck! 

What are Ponyboy Curtis's school experiences?

Ponyboy Curtis is certainly the best student of all the characters mentioned in The Outsiders. In the first chapter, Pony tells the reader that "I make good grades and have a high IQ and everything." Darry scolds Pony that "you must think at school, with all those good grades you bring home, and you've always got your nose in a book." Pony apparently makes mostly A's and B's, since Darry expects him to "make sure they stayed A's."

But after the deaths of Bob, Johnny and Dallas, Pony's grades slide, and he was "lucky if I got home from school with the right notebook." He left his shoes in the locker room at school and was "lousing up my schoolwork, too."

I didn't do too badly in math, because Darry checked over my homework... but in English I really washed out... Now I was lucky to get a D on a composition.

His English teacher, Mr. Syme, took pity on Pony, and promised to give him a C for the final semester "if you come up with a C grade" on a composition theme. Eventually, Pony decided to tell "their side"--Johnny's and Dallas'--and the composition Pony wrote began, "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home..."

What does Lord Capulet think of Juliet's refusal to marry Paris? What do you think this will do to their relationship?

This is easily one of the most emotionally charged scenes in the play!

Juliet basically tells her dad "thanks, but no thanks" regarding her marriage to Paris.

...And Lord Capulet loses it...

He calls her ungrateful and essentially says that if she doesn't get to the church on Thursday that he will disown her! He says that even if she's begging, starving and homeless, he will NOT EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE HER!

He also says that although he and his wife were at first grateful for getting her as their child, they are no longer happy because she is just too much to handle!

He also calls her some rather unsavory names--those you'll have to look up on your own :)

Juliet does her best to "fix" the situation on the surface by telling the Nurse to tell her parents that she'll marry Paris and that she'll go to confession to be absolved of her sin of being disobedient.  Her parents, at that point, think all is well. In fact, her parents (esp her dad) go all out with the wedding preparations after that.

In Night, how does Elie save his father from the selection at Gleiwitz? Interpret what this reveals about his commitment to his father.Chapter 6

In Elie Wiesel's Night, the selection at Gleiwitz happens late in the book. The prisoners have been on a long, deadly forced march in freezing weather. Many died along the way. After reaching Gleiwitz, the Nazis conduct this selection to weed out the weakest of the survivors.

When Elie’s father is told to go to the left (the side for those “selected”), Elie runs to his side. This creates enough confusion for both of them to slip back over to the right (safe) side. This was done at great risk to his own safety, as this excerpt attests:

Several SS men rushed to find me, creating such confusion that a number of people were able to switch over the right—among them my father and I. Still, there were gunshots and some dead.

Wiesel does not say that he ran to his father’s side for the purpose of saving him. Throughout the story he has stressed the idea that he and his father have tried desperately to remain together. It may be that he ran to his father’s side simply to be with him, regardless of the consequences. Their escape to the right might have been a bit of luck, Wiesel doesn’t say.

Elie's devotion to his father will be tested later as his father weakens. This scene helps establish the contrast in Elie's behavior as concentration camp life wears down him down psychologically and emotionally. 

Shortly afterwards, the survivors are loaded onto cattle cars. Of the approximately one-hundred prisoners in Elie’s car, only 12 (including Elie and his father) survive the brutal trip to Buchenwald.

In Act IV of Macbeth, how does Macduff prove to Malcolm that he is trustworthy?

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, in, I believe, the longest scene of the play (Act 4.3), Malcolm creates an elaborate test to prove or disprove Macduff's loyalty.  In an echo of the fair is foul and foul is fair theme in the play, Malcolm suspects Macduff may be just acting like a friend, when he is really an enemy seeking a chance to betray Malcolm to Macbeth. 

The scene is also dramatically ironic, since the audience knows Macduff's family has just been killed on orders by Macbeth, but Malcolm and Macduff don't know this yet.  

Malcolm plays a role or puts on an act--another theme in the play--and pretends to be three things:  lustful, greedy, and an all-around terrible person.  Malcolm is waiting to see if Macduff will continue to support him and go along with him, even when Malcolm convinces him that he'll be a terrible king.  If Macduff just blindly keeps saying "Yes, yes, it's okay, we can make this work (I'm paraphrasing)," then Malcolm will assume that Macduff doesn't really care about Scotaland and that he is really an agent for Macbeth.

Macduff goes along with the lust and the greed, saying Scotland has plenty of wenches and plenty of money, but when he hears Malcolm's final test, and Malcolm asks Macduff if he still thinks Malcolm is fit to rule, Macduff replies:

...Fit to govern?

No, not [fit] to live!  (Act 4.3.103-104)

And that's enough for Malcolm.  He knows Macduff is a loyal Scot and he reveals the truth to Macduff.  They form the alliance that will eventually cause Macbeth's destruction.

In another incidence of irony, these two get the news near the end of the scene that Macbeth has had Macduff's family murdered, ending all possible suspicion that Macduff is an agent of Macbeth's. 

In Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, what problems does Capulet's servant have?

I assume that you are talking about Act I, Scene 2.  If so, the problem that Capulet's servant has is that Capulet has given him a list to read when he (the servant) does not know how to read at all.

This mistake on the part of Capulet is why Romeo ends up at the ball and meets Juliet.  The servant has been given the list and told to go invite that bunch of people to the ball.  He meets Romeo, who helps him read the list.  When he does that, Romeo finds out about the ball and ends up going because Benvolio persuades him to.

What is the resolution to "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"?

The resolution of Half-Blood Prince is comprised of varous events, including Dumbledore's death, the recovery of a Horcrux which turns out to be fake, and the relevation that Severus Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. The book might be seen as a more of a set-up for the Deathly Hallows, but there are several important plot points introduced in the Half-Blood Prince that are also resolved in it.

The Horcrux storyline and the battle against Voldemort are certainly not resolved by the end of the sixth book, but the mystery surrounding Draco Malfoy's activities and the identity of the Half-Blood Prince certainly are. It is revealed that Draco was, in fact, a Death Eater who had been included in Voldemort's nefarious plots, and that the Half-Blood Prince, whom Harry had actually grown fond of, was actually Snape, the man who murdered Dumbledore.  

In Night, describe the tragic incident between a father and a son on the train. What might this event reveal about the fragile nature of...

On the train to Buchenwald, Elie witnesses a tragic scene between a father and son. At a train stop, some people begin dropping bread into the train to watch the Jews fight over it. In Elie's car, an old man gets a bit of the bread and crawls away to eat it, but before he can, his son beats him to death and takes it from him. The son is then beaten to death by two other men who take the bread from him. This scene between father and son stands in stark contrast to the previous scene where Elie comes to his father's defense when some of the others think his father is dead and try to throw him from the train. Elie does everything he can to get his father to show he's alive to save his life.

This scene between the father and son shows that hunger, depravity, and extreme physical needs can break family bonds. It shows that people who are treated like animals, as the Jews were, can become like animals - living by the law of survival of the fittest.

Please can you change this into your own words? Apartheid was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in...

What you need to do is to take the sentences and simplify them and change them around a bit.  Here's how I would do this.

Apartheid was a system in which the various races living in South Africa were kept separate from one another.  The system started in 1948 and ended in 1994.  During this time, South Africa was ruled by the National Party and that party supported and enforced apartheid.  Under apartheid, the black citizens of South Africa, who made up a majority of the population, had their rights taken away.  Apartheid helped the whites, who were in the minority, keep political power for themselves.

Is Edgar Linton a character to be admired or merely a weak, insipid man?

Well, for the most part it's hard to be a fan of Edgar's.  He seems so weak in comparison to other characters.  When Heathcliff decries his own looks in favor of Edgars, and wishes he had his life, Nelly retorts, ""And cried for Mamma at every turn, and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain?"  Obviously she doesn't think much of Edgar as a man.

Yet, when Edgar's wife dies, he displays remarkable love and loyalty.  Observing his kindness, Nelly changes her mind about Edgar, realizing that he displayed "the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul: he trusted God; and God comforted him."

In "Lord of the Flies," why does Roger miss Henry on purpose when he throws stones at him?William Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

Roger, gloomy and sadistic, represents the innate savagery in the boys in William Golding's allegory, "Lord of the Flies."  In Chapter Four he is described as having a forbidding unsociable remoteness.  When Henry, a small boy, tires of his play and goes to the water's edge, he is fascinated by the tiny creatures that live in the shallow water.  As he becomes absorbed in his play, Roger "waited,too."  He hides at first behind a great palm, watching Henry.  With atavistic behavior, Roger stoops and picks up a stone, "that token of preposterous time," and bounces it to the right of Henry.  He misses Henry again and again because

invisible, yet strong, was the taboo of the old life.  Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.  Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.

When Jack appears at a nearby tree, Roger sees him and "a darker shadow crept beneath the swarthiness of his skin...."  Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Roger represents the intrinsic evil in man. While  he is still conditioned by society at this point, Roger does not commit the evil acts that he wishes to do.  However, when he has the opportunity later in the novel, Roger, "with a sense of delirious abandonment," hurls against the rocks the boy most representative of rules and order, Piggy.  It is also Roger who beats Sam and Eric until they agree to be with the hunters; and, it is Roger who sharpens on both ends the stick that will impale Ralph if the hunters catch him. 

Clearly, Roger represents pure savagery, the innate evil in human nature.  While he still wears some vestiges of society, he hesitates; however, as he remains on the island and can wear a mask and hunt with Jack, he gives license to his sadistic and heinous acts on a land free from society--a place pristine and unprotected from the "evil that men do" as Marc Antony says in "Julius Caesar."

What role do Civil Liberties play in American Democracy?

Civil liberties are the backbone of American democratic freedom.  The Bill of Rights 1791 (first 10 Amendments) guarantees individual rights that the government cannot violate such as the right to religious and political freedom, the right to a speedy trial with a jury of ones' peers. (read over the Bill of Rights for additional guarantees) In addition, between 1870 and 1971 five additional amendments increased the civil liberties of Americans they include #14 equal protection under the law/federalizes due process #15 male suffrage, #19 female suffrage, #24 abolishing poll taxes, #26 voting age set at 18 years of age. Moreover, many decisions of the Supreme Court have also served to define and expand the role of civil liberties in the U.S., among them Miranda v. Arizona 1966, Gideon v. Wainwright 1963, Tinker v. Des Moines School District 1969. HOWEVER, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS/FREEDOMS ARE NOT ABSOLUTE meaning that in the U.S. freedom of individual expression walks hand in hand with the security and well being of society. There is always a delicate balance between these powerful perspectives,   which is why the protection, definition, and understanding the scope of civil liberties is vital to the success of American democracy.

What did Frederick Douglass do with the rest of his life after he wrote this book? Explain his personal, professional and political...

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) lived a long and influential life following the release of his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in 1845. My Bondage and My Freedom followed in 1855; his third autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, was published in 1881.

Douglass was active in the abolitionist movement before the Civil War, lecturing in England during the 1840s. He became acquainted with President Abraham Lincoln and gave an impromptu speech at Lincoln's memorial. After the war, he became a bank president, served as marshal of the District of Columbia, and was ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He was nominated for vice president (without his knowledge or participation) of the Equal Rights Party before become a federal marshal in 1877. He continued to lecture on the rights of Negroes. He married a white feminist in 1884 and became involved in the women's rights movement.

Describe Victor's actual response to the creation of his creature.I 've heard different responses.. but I don't know which is correct; I will very...

As Victor is building his creature over two years of his life, Victor is convinced that the creature is beautiful and wills him to live in his experiments.  He has given him long, flowing, black hair, white teeth, black lips, a gigantic stature, and yellowish skin stretched over the huge body frame.  The skin, of course, is stitched together as it comes from different people.  Keep in mind that Victor has not visited home in all this time, so he has been distanced from family and loved ones as well as neglecting nature and exercise--all of this is crucial to Romantic works--(look for evidence of the following:  the individual, love of nature, supernatural, imagination, emotion vs. reason).

One night in November, when the rain is falling and it is very late, Victor is successful in bringing his "beautiful" creature to life.  Only now that the creature is opening it yellowish eyes and looking upon his "father," Victor is repulsed.  He runs from the creature and hides behind the curtains hanging from his bed.  The creature, curious about his creator, follows him and pulls the curtains back.  He grins a hideous grin at Victor, and Victor again screams and runs.  He has realized that the creature is not beautiful, but absolutely frightening to behold.  Victor leaves the apartment, always looking behind him to be sure the creature isn't following him again, and spends the night in the streets scared and confused. 

Victor's reaction is Mary Shelley's way of telling the reader that the creature should have never been created in the first place.   He was playing God in doing so, and this was definitely a fear of the Romantics in the age of industrialism and scientific advancements.  This is underscored by the fact that every time Victor does something that isn't right, he becomes ill and feverish.  As Shelley writes, Victor is still walking around the morning after he abandons his creature, and Henry Clerval discovers him in the street.  Victor falls victim to a horrible fever, from which Clerval nurses him back to health...this will take several months.  Shelley also uses weather to show you want is going on inside a character.  If it's storming, especially sunny and beautiful, or abnormal in any way, take a close look at the character "on stage" at the time.

Mary Shelley is also focusing on the parent-child relationship here.  Shelley herself felt abandoned by her mother who died in childbirth.  So, she has Victor abandon his "child" just after it's born and at its most vulnerable.  She is pointing to the fact that it is the parent's responsibility to take care of and love unconditionally ANY life he or she brings into the world.

Hope this helps you!  This is a wonderful book...one of my favorites.  I hope you will learn to love it, too.

What was one of the strongest motivations for completing the rebuilding of the windmill?

It is also important to remember that Animal Farm is an allegorical tale for the Russian Revolution. Therefore, the windmills are representative of the Russian 5 year plans. Each plan was developed to increase economic development.

So the windmill was orginally planned to have a 3 day work week. Of course at the end of the book it only stored corn mill. Each time the windmill was destroyed the animals were determined to prove to Man that they could fight all odds and build the impossible--the windmill.

Why is The Tempest by Shakespeare considered a tragicomedy?

According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, a play was a tragedy if everyone suffered in the end, even the innocent. A play was a comedy if the innocent triumphed and only the wicked came to a horrible end. Comedies weren't necessarily humorous. But during the Renaissance, the genre of tragicomedy became more accepted. In this genre, the ending was happy but solemn topics of danger, fall from position, and important public figures or events were dealt with. Comedy as we think of comedy, with jokes and buffoonish characters, was also part of tragicomedy.

Looking at tragicomedy through this lens, we can see it applies to Shakespeare's The Tempest perfectly. Serious issues normally portrayed in tragedies are present, including Prospero's fall from power, the low sub-human villain of Caliban, the murder plot of Sebastian and Antonio against Alonso, and the theme of revenge. On the other hand, we have a romance between Miranda and Ferdinand, a humorous subplot with the lower-class Stephano and Trinculo, and the lighter elements of the bridal masque and other harmless magic. Ultimately when Prospero draws those who have wronged him into his magic circle, the play hangs in the balance between comedy and tragedy: Will he take revenge on those who have wronged him, showing himself to be no better than they, or will he overcome his desires for retribution and heed his higher nature? When he forgives those who wronged him and dons his ducal robes, order is restored, and the happy ending for everyone ensues, confirming the play to be a perfect example of tragicomedy.

How does public opinion originate? Can it be manipulated?Public opinions impact policy making process.

I am assuming you mean history when you say "it."  I am basing this on the fact that you tagged this with "history making."  I am also basing it on the fact that you had it in the history section before someone moved it and edited the question.

History is, as Napoleon said, "a fable agreed to."  In other words, it is just a story that manages to get the most people to agree to it.  To me, competing visions of history are put forward by historians and journalists and such.  The ones that fit best with our ideas of what our past should be like, win.

Of course history can be manipulated.  We emphasize the things that fit with our vision of how the past should be.  We try to ignore those things that do not fit with our image.

Once we have a given history that we have agreed to, we often base public policies on it.  For example, since we in America believe that we came from independent pioneer types, we do not need a welfare state to take care of us -- we can do it ourselves.  Arguments based on the idea that we are self-sufficient do well in the US because of this view of our past.

How does Janie overcome obstacles to achieve social and economic independence?Whats the process by which she overcomes the obstacles.

In the first few decades of her life, Janie is controlled by forces beyond herself, most notably her grandmother and Logan Killicks. Yet when Joe Starks comes along, she makes the choice to leave with him, & begin her life anew in a different town. This is the first step toward developing her own life. She seeks an experience of love and marriage according to her own definition, which does not involve being used solely as a wroker, rather than a life partner.

Yet she soon finds out that she is no better off, & in fact, she must separate her true self from her social self. She wears a mask for Jody and the other townspeople, and buries her own desires and thoughts deep in her mind. Yet when she reaches her breaking point, she willingly speaks her mind and lets Jody know exactly what life has been like for her. She regains control by telling him "Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me." No longer will she allow this to go on: she is claiming herself in the here & now. After Jody dies, she has an inkling of independence, although she is still bound to his grocery store, as well as the town of Eatonville. The suitors begin to court, and she feels the pressure of being a single, wealthy woman in a small town.

Thus, when Tea-Cake comes along, and she feels a connection beyond that of either of her first 2 relationships, she chooses to leave with him. This leaves her open to all sorts of gossip and scandal in the town, but she doesn't care. Although at first her relationship with Tea-Cake may seem to counteract this new found independence, she finds in Tea-Cake an equal unlike any other. She is freed to be herself; "her soul crawled out from its hiding place." Indeed, when she is forced to kill Tea-Cake to save herself, her journey is complete. Although it took losing the person she loved most, she now realizes that she is the only person she needs, & she can live contentedly in her own skin.

Does the king not enjoy jury trial or does he not have absolute power in The Lady, or the Tiger?

The king has complete power because he controls who is accused. Although the king contends that his "semi-barbaric method of justice" is perfectly fair, once someone is accused, he is in effect already punished. Of the two choices, of course, death is worse, but either way, the accused's life is forever changed. Guilt or innocence does not play a role here. The narrator indicates that the amphitheater, where the choice of two doors is made, "was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance."  All the king has to do is to accuse someone, and the king's problem is solved. He is "semi-barbaric" so the concept of a jury trial does not even exist. The king actually absolves himself of the responsibilty for the fate of the accused by using his method based on chance.

In Chapter 5 of Number the Stars, why did the night seem different from a normal night?Was it because the German soldiers came, or was it because...

I believe that the underlying reason the night seemed different from a normal night was because of the whole situation involving the German threat to the Jews, and the necessity for Ellen to masquerade as Lise Johansen. Mr. Johansen had told Annemarie and Ellen that they should act like "normal sisters," and that it was all right for them to giggle and talk as they got ready for bed, but the truth was, things were not normal at all. The girls had been talking about Lise, and what they knew about her death, but their discussion was an outgrowth of the upheaval that was occurring in their lives that night. Ellen's parents had gone into hiding, and Ellen herself had been sent to stay with the Johansens as their daughter Lise as a means of "hiding in plain sight," so to speak. Everything had changed in the lives of both Annemarie and Ellen that first night they spent together, so it could not help but seem different from a normal night.

The fact that the girls perceived that it was not a normal night undoubtedly helped them when the Germans did burst into their room a short time later. As they had been readying themselves for bed, Annemarie and Ellen had enjoyed a spirit of levity, with Ellen talking about her love for acting, and pretending to be Lise. The atmosphere turned serious, however, when they sensed that the night seemed "somehow, different from a normal night" and the discussion turned to Lise's death. Having had a chance to realize the gravity of the situation, Annemarie and Ellen might have been slightly more prepared when the Germans did arrive, allowing Annemarie to have had the presence of mind to make sure Ellen removed the Star of David from her neck (Chapter 5).

Can someone give me the quote and the page number for the following question please? Which characters are symbolically linked to a mockingbird?...

The most central example of the mockingbird is Tom Robinson.  He, like the mockingbird, has done nothing but be nice to people and live his life in peace.  However, he is the target of suffering and violence.  A quote that demonstrates this is from Chapter 23:

The witnesses for the state.have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.  Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you."  Atticus, page 217. 

Here's another one:

".As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."-Atticus (233)

The other character that is a mockingbird is Boo Radley.   Boo has suffered at the hands of his father and his town, although he's never done wrong.  He loves and helps the children, even saving their lives.  Scout sums it up best, when she says that if Boo were to be put on trial:

"it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird" (291)