Who is talking in the poem "Once Upon a Time?" Who is addressed and who are "they" that are referred to in the poem?

In my opinion, the speaker in this poem, the person who is doing the talking, is a father.  He is speaking to his son.  That is, presumably, why the speaker calls the listener "son."

I think that what is going on in this poem is that the father is telling the son how much he (the father) misses his younger days.  He is saying that "they" (I believe that he means adults when he says this) are entirely fake.  He believes that adults do not say what they mean and do not really have genuine feelings.  This is why he wishes he could go back to his youth.

What theory about Dimmesdale's disease and its cure is expressed in chapter 9 of The Scarlet Letter? Page. 120 paragraph beginning "thus roger...

Chillingworth believed it was essential to know Dimmesdale well before he could cure him.  He needed to know about his mind and heart, not just his physical body.  The text says that for Dimmesdale "thought and imagination were so active...that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its groundwork there."  In other words, Chillingworth doesn't believe that Dimmesdale's disease is physical.  The cure then, in Chillingworth's mind, was to find out Dimmesdale's secret.  Once the secret was out, then Dimmesdale might be healed.

From whose point of view is the story told?

Everything in the story is seen from the point of view of Jonas, the protagonist.  So I think that you would say that the story is told from his point of view.

However, you should not say that the story is told from a first person point of view.  You do not have Jonas narrating the story saying "I did this" and "I thought that."  Instead, this story is told from a third person limited point of view.  The narrator always talks about "Jonas" and not about "I."  That is third person.  It is limited because the narrator only knows Jonas's thoughts and not those of anyone else in the story.

how does the first sentence describing Atticus's first case give a different impression than when you hear the rest of the story?

The sentence in question is "His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail." This leads us to think that he did not succeed in defending them, and that he was not a particularly good attorney. However, we learn he really didn't have much of a chance to defend them because they committed their crime in "the presence of three witnesses" and then were foolish enough to plead "not guilty." Atticus "was present at their departure," meaning he saw them hanged, which is why he now has a "profound distaste for the practice of criminal law." We learn in the story, however, that Atticus is a very accomplished lawyer, and that no one but he could have made the jury deliberate about Tom as long as they did.

How would you characterize Mr. Shiftlet and Mrs. Crater and her daughter, Lucynell in ‘‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own’’?

Mr. Tom Shiftlet and Mrs. Crater are grotesque characters.  Mr. Shiftlet's obsession with morality and Mrs. Crater's obsession with her daughter drive the story. Mr. Shiftlet and Mrs. Crater are similar creatures: both have selfish motives for their seemingly moral actions.  Mr. Shiftlet wants a car and Mrs. Crater wants a son-in-law to take care of the property.

Mr. Shiftlet is a misshapen drifter whose outer deformity (he is missing half of one of his arms) resembles his inward deformity (his twisted view of morality). His name, Shiftlet, mirrors his shifty and shiftless nature. He is an archetypal trickster and is amoral, which is ironic considering that he is obsessed with the idea that the world is rotten and immoral.  

Mrs. Crater is also portrayed as a trickster. She tries to trick Mr. Shiftlet by lying about her daughter's age.  She uses her daughter and treats her more like an animal than a human. Her loneliness causes her to use Lucynell as an object to get what she wants. Mrs. Crater, like Mr. Shiftlet himself, is the type of person that makes the world rotten.

Lucynell, a grown woman who has the mind of a child, is the one person who can redeem Mr. Shiftlet. Lucynell's innocence is a foil for Mr. Shiftlet's experience. Lucynell represents those who are preyed upon by amoral and cunning people such as Mr. Shiftlet and Mrs. Crater. In the end, instead of redeeming Mr. Shiftlet, Lucynell exposes his true character.

Why does the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" wait till the eight night to commit the murder?He watched him for 7 nights and on the eighth night...

In certain cultures, the number eight is extremely significant.  In the Jewish culture, for instance, the concept of man having the ability to transcend his nature is represented by the number eight.  When the High Priest officiated, he wore eight garments.  And, from their eighth day onward, animals could be offered as sacrifices.  In Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," there seems much importance given to the eighth day by the narrator.  It is the day of completion. Poe's narrator writes,

Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers--of my sagacity.  I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. 

Not only does the narrator sense the significance of the eighth day, but the old man feels the power of this night as well.  He knows that the narrtor is going to kill him.

Gatsby Opinion QuestionSome critics see at least two sides to Gatsby’s character. His unsavory and shadowy activities cannot be ignored, of...

While the motif of the American Dream is inverted in the early chapters of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as the reader perceives the decadence and corruption of the Jazz Age, the character of Gatsby is not merely that of a vulgar and ostentatious criminal.  For, Gatsby does not have parties simply to display his wealth.  Often, instead, he watches "the silver pepper of the stars" and "stretches out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way" toward a single green light, far away at the end of a dock.  Clearly, Gatsby is a romantic. 

Even after Daisy has failed him in the tense confrontation in Chapter 7 when Gatsby asks her to tell Tom that she does not love him and she retracts her statements, Gatsby, dressed in his pink suit of innocent faith, keeps vigil all night outside her window after the fatal accident on the return trip--even while she and her husband conspire against him. And, it is Gatsby who does not contradict the idea that he was the driver of the "death car."  So, while he is satirized as Trimalchio and his car no longer has its mythological characteristics, the "young rough-neck whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd" is not ungenuine as Owl-Eyes discovers in the "high Gothic library" where the leather bound books actually contain printed pages.

It is this genuineness that causes Nick to react to Gatsby, "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together."  And, as Gatsby heads for his pool, Nick comments in Chapter 8,

I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it [the end] would come and perhaps he no longer cared.  If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.  He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw thesunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.  A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...

Truly, Jay Gatsby is a tragic figure who put all his faith into an illusive dream.