Saturday, January 31, 2015

Please comment on the opening of "The Story of an Hour."

It is the initial paragraph of this excellent short story
that we can call the exposition, as it introduces us to the central character and the
situation that initiates the conflict. Consider how this is achieved in an incredibly
concise manner in the first opening paragraph:


readability="7">

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a
heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of
her husband's death.



We are
thus introduced to the central character, Mrs. Mallard, whose husband has just
apparently died. We are also told, in a detail that is easily overlooked but has massive
importance for the ending of the story, that she suffers from some kind of unspecified
heart trouble. Clearly, the beginning of this story leads us to fear that this condition
will result in the shock of the news of her husband's death being too much for Mrs.
Mallard, and that she too will die. Of course, the first sentence of this story can be
usefully compared with the last sentence, giving the story its grim
irony:



When
the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of joy that
kills.



Note how this detail
that is provided for us in the opening sentence is referred to again in the final
sentence, as the doctors conclude that it was the joy of seeing her husband again that
killed Mrs. Mallard, when we as readers know it was actually the thought of returning to
the state of marriage after she had tasted blissful freedom which killed her. Thus we
can see the importance of the opening paragraph both as an exposition but also in terms
of helping to set up the irony of this excellent short story.

What strategies should I use to approach a world literature assignment comparing comparing literary devices in Madam Bovary and Anna Karenina

In order to write such an essay, you need to decide on a
specific theme on which to focus, or a specific critical approach to
use.


One possible focus would be narrative voice. You could
examine how the third person narrator sets the tone of the novel and guides the reader`s
attitude towards the protagonist. (Wayne Booth is a good guide to analyzing
narration)


Another possible approach would be feminist
analysis in which you consider how oppression of women creates the preconditions for
both novels.


You might also choose to do a form of Marxist
literary analysis and look at how the rise of the bourgeoisie affected the institution
of marriage and led to the alienation of the wife as worker.

Friday, January 30, 2015

What message or moral does "The Tell-Tale Heart" give to the readers?

In the end of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale
Heart," readers should leave with one message or moral: that murder is
wrong.


Given that a moral is the relating of behavior in
regards to right and wrong, the speaker, alone, simply cannot come to terms with what he
has done. That being said, while the beating is understood by the speaker as the heart
of the old man, readers know that it is, instead, his own heart beating in his
ears.


While the speaker does not come to understand that
the sounds he is hearing is his conscious bearing down on him, the fact that he does not
allow the police to leave without admitting to the murder of the old man speaks more
profoundly to the morality lesson.


Therefore, it is not the
typical moral story. The speaker does not come out of the story enlightened. More
importantly, the reader does.

Why is it difficult to define ethical behavior in business?

There are at least two reasons why it is very difficult to
define ethical behavior in the context of business
dealings.


First, there are so many kinds of dealings that
businesspeople will have that it is very difficult to make rules of ethical behavior
that will actually cover all of them.  Any rule that will cover many situations must
necessarily be quite general and will be hard to apply to a given
situation.


Second, business is an area in which even
ethical behavior harms people.  An ethical behavior on my part that increases my share
of a market will harm my competitors by taking business from them.  Thus, the whole area
of endeavor is aimed in some ways at hurting other people.  In such a case, defining
ethics becomes very difficult.

What are some of the themes used for the story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin?

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a multi-level story.
The unnamed narrator shares the story of his brother whom he learns from the newspaper
has been arrested. 


readability="10">

I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on
my way to work. I read it and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again…I was scared,
scared for Sonny.  He became real to me
again…



This initial event
makes the narrator reflect back on his life with his brother Sonny.  There are several
themes in the story which portray a man who has struggled all of his life to find his
way.


Sonny’s
Music


Sonny wants to be a jazz piano player,
but the narrator thinks this is a waste of Sonny’s life. The brothers’ inability to see
eye to eye on this is what causes so much strife between them. This is the issue that
kept the brother at odds.


The brother attends the place
where Sonny plays his music.  It is there that the brother realizes that Sonny has a
gift and how important music is to him.  Finally, he gets what the other people who are
listening to him already know. Sonny belongs in the music world.  The brother sends
Sonny a drink, and the inference is that the brothers will be able to resolve their
problems and have a familial
relationship.


Drug
Abuse


Harlem, the setting of the story, has
been a center for drugs and alcohol abuse.  The initial event in the story shows that
Sonny is still caught in this world.  He claims that he is only selling to make money
and that he no longer uses drugs.


Everyone who uses drugs
impacts all of the people who love them as well.  It destroys lives and families.  The
purpose of the drug use offers the user an escape for a small interim---away from the
depression and oppression of racial problems, poverty, and suffering.  Drug addiction
plagues the user as a destructive force which wrenches his soul
away.


In the story, the brother begins to see that Sonny
despite his own problems tries to help the people around him by using music to change
their frustrations.  Members of the community come together to watch over and protect
those who do have problems.


Family and
home


The two brothers love each other, do
not understand the other, and  hurt each other.  The story illustrates how much the
brothers need each other by the struggles they go through trying to find their common
ground. In the end, the narrator makes the connection by looking closer at his brother
and finding the value in his life.


The narrator’s mother
charged him with becoming “his brother’s keeper” when she asked him to watch out for
Sonny.  She understood the difference between the brothers: the younger one was more
stable and knew the way out of the suffering of his situation.  On the other hand, Sonny
needed support because he was weaker and prone to making poor
decisions.


Sonny creates his own family from the musicians
with which he plays.  The narrator creates his family with his wife and children.  In
the beginning, the narrator does not understand Sonny’s ability to surround himself with
people who love the same things that he
does. 


Unfortunately for Sonny, these people also serve as
a negative influence because they too have drug problems.  Hopefully, with the brother’s
new understanding of Sonny, the narrator will help Sonny find his way back to his real
family.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

What is a simple way for me to remember parent functions?I have been having some trouble remembering in Algebra 2.

An excellent way to remember a parent function is to
associate the function to it's graph. The visual aspect plays an important role in
helping someone to memorise something.


For instance, for
the constant function f(x)=a , the graph is a line parallel to x
axis.


If a = 3, the graph of the function f(x)=3 is the red
line, parallel to x axis, that intercepts y axis at
y=3.


src="/jax/includes/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/asciisvg/js/d.svg"
sscr="-7.5,7.5,-5,5,1,1,1,1,1,300,200,func,3,null,0,0,,,red,1,none"/>


For
a linear function, f(x) = ax + b, the graph is a line that is no longer parallel to x
axis.


For instance, if f(x) = x + 3, the graph is the red
line that intercepts x axis at the point (-3,0) and y axis at (0 , 3). type="image/svg+xml"
src="/jax/includes/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/asciisvg/js/d.svg"
sscr="-7.5,7.5,-5,5,1,1,1,1,1,300,200,func,x+3,null,0,0,,,red,1,none"/>


If
the parent function is a quadratic, the graph will be a upward or downward
concave parabola, that will intercept the x axis in two distinct points, one point or no
point, depending on the nature of the roots
of quadratic.


For instance, a quadratic that has two
roots,it will look like:


src="/jax/includes/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/asciisvg/js/d.svg"
sscr="-7.5,7.5,-5,5,1,1,1,1,1,300,200,func,x^2-5x+6,null,0,0,,,red,1,none"/> upward
concave


or


type="image/svg+xml"
src="/jax/includes/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/asciisvg/js/d.svg"
sscr="-7.5,7.5,-5,5,1,1,1,1,1,300,200,func,-x^2+5x-6,null,0,0,,,orange,1,none"/>downward
concave


The parabola that has two equal roots it will look
like:


src="/jax/includes/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/asciisvg/js/d.svg"
sscr="-7.5,7.5,-5,5,1,1,1,1,1,300,200,func,(x-1)^2,null,0,0,,,red,1,none"/>


You
notice that the values of the equal roots gives the location of the vertex, that is
tangent to x axis. Of course, there is a downward concave version,
also.


You can also keep in mind that the logarithmic
function is the inverse function of exponential function and the graph of logarithmic
function can be found if we'll mirror the graph of exponential function, with respect to
the 1st bisectrix.


Therefore, keep in mind
that the visual aspect helps you to remember much more easier the family of parent
functions.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Which element should not be kept in metal or glass bottles and why?The element can only be kept in wooden bottles.

Gallium is the element that should not be stored in metal
or glass containers. The reason is that gallium expands 3.1% when it solidifies at low
temperatures and this can cause the container to break open. In other words, gallium
expands when it freezes. For this reason, it is primarily stored in plastic packets
inside other containers.


Gallium, discovered by French
chemist, Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, in 1875 has an atomic number of 31 and the
symbol Ga. It is in group 13 and is classified as a metal. Gallium becomes a liquid in
the range of room temperature and will actually melt if held in your bare
hand.

Which story is more pathetic "Shooting an Elephant" by Orwell or "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan poe?

The question's use of the word "pathetic" deems a
subjective answer. What this means is that the question will be answered one way by one
reader and another way by another. The answer to the question differs based upon a
reader's personal thoughts only.


Therefore, one could
justify that the story "The Black Cat" proves to be more "pathetic."  Justification for
this answer comes from the fact that the elephant in Orwell's story is "ravaging the
bazaar." The cat, from Poe's story, is not doing anything when the narrator inflicts
harm upon the creature.


The speaker in "The Black Cat" is
simply led about by his own feelings and warped mental capacities. This is very unlike
the speaker in "To Shoot an Elephant" where the choice to kill the elephant comes from
the narrator's assumed views regarding the crowd's expectations regarding the elephant's
death. Also, the narrator is legally given the right to kill the elephant based upon
law. The speaker in "The Black Cat" has no legal right to cause the cat harm--instead,
the action can be justifiably considered animal cruelty.

Monday, January 26, 2015

What effect does the racism displayed in To Kill A Mockingbird have upon the major characters? Just some ideas would be very helpful.Thank you.

Atticus is used to the racism that abounds in Maycomb, but
he is colorblind when it comes to issues concerning blacks and whites. When Scout asks
her father if he is a "nigger-lover," Atticus
responds



"I
certainly am. I do my best to love everbody... I'm hard put
sometimes--"



Even though
Scout is uncertain what a "nigger-lover" is, she recognizes that it is an insult, and
she finds it hard to control her temper when her friends use the term in regard to
Atticus. Scout slowly learns that using the "N" word is "common," and she stops when
Atticus forbids her from saying it. Her relationship with Calpurnia and her visit to
Cal's church teaches her that people--black and white--aren't so
different.


The jury's verdict in the Tom Robinson trial
affects both Jem and Scout. Both of them recognize that Tom could not have committed the
crimes of which he is accused, and they come to the conclusion that the all-white jury
has simply sided with the Ewells' story. Jem is particularly upset with the verdict, and
he believes that juries should be abolished. Scout is puzzled by the racism displayed by
the women at the Missionary Circle tea, who sympathize with the Mruna tribe in Africa
but not with the Negroes living in Maycomb. Scout also sees the hypocrisy exhibited by
Miss Gates, who criticizes Hitler for his persecution of the Jews, but shows a darker
side when it comes to whites and blacks socializing in Maycomb.

In David Copperfield, why did Miss Trotwood come to see David at school?

The answer you are looking for can be found in Chapter 17
of this amazing classic Dickens novel. Having shifted educational establishments to Mr.
Strong's school, much to his relief, David reports how Miss Betsy Trotwood at first came
to visit him at odd hours of the day and night to ensure, he supposes, that is making
use of his time and of the opportunities his education affords him. Note what the text
tells us:


readability="16">

While I was yet new at Doctor Strong's, she made
several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and always at unseasonable hours: with
the view, I suppose, of taking me by surprise. But, finding me well employed, and
bearing a good character, and hearing on all hands that I rose fast in teh school, she
soon discontinued these
visits.



So, we can see these
visits as being part of Miss Trotwood's attempts to discern whether David was working
hard and settling in well to his school. The way in which these visits only came towards
the beginning of his time there and stopped soon after suggests that David was right in
his deduction about their purpose.

What does Hawthorne claim are the similarities and differences in The Scarlet Letter and the historical artifacts he discovered?

In his introductory to The Scarlet
Letter
, "The Custom House," Nathaniel Hawthorne alludes to his ancestors and
provides some background for his novel as well as rationale for his writing about Hester
Prynne, who suffered under the rigid laws of the Puritans.  When he writes of having
discovered the mysterious package that contained the "rag of scarlet cloth" that assumed
the shape of a letter along with "several fooscap sheets" that contained details of the
life and conversation of Hester Prynne, Hawthorne seems to wish to establish
verisimilitude for his narrative.  In his words, he has striven for "the authenticity of
the outline."  And, from this outline, Hawthorne constructs his intensely psychological
novel.


Perhaps because of his brooding ancestral guilt over
the uncle who was a judge in the Salem Witchcraft Trials,  Hawthorne wished to create a
certain realism so that readers would consider the problems of the strict Puritan code
and the Puritanical hypocrisy which yet loom over America. For, he declares that the
ghost of the Surveyor Pue exhorts him,


readability="8">

"I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress
Prynne, give to you predessor's memory the credit which will be righfully its
due!"



And, Hawthorne replies
to the ghost as though he feels an obligation, "I will!"

Sunday, January 25, 2015

What is a good thesis statement for an essay on the renaissance?The thesis statement should answer, Was the renaissance a period of revolutionary...

The Renaissance was a period of revolutionary change in so
many areas, the first thing you need to do is determine what area you want to address in
your thesis. It would be possible to develop an essay regarding the changes brought
about during the Renaissance in many areas of endeavor.


If
I were writing the essay, I would argue that the most far-reaching change of all during
the Renaissance period was the invention of the printing press as perfected by Johannes
Gutenberg. I would support that thesis by demonstrating the impact that the comparative
mass production of printed materials, in contrast to the hand-written copies that were
all that was available prior to that time, changed European cultures in many and radical
ways.

What is the reader to gain through reading the lyrical ballads?

Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads outlines a
theory of the nature and effect of poetry based on the concept that poetry is the "the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling" from the poet. Through poetic activity, the
poet trains, strengthens and refines his sensibility. Following the French philosopher
Jean Rousseau, Wordsworth sees civilization as corrupting and distorting the
sensibility, and feels that only by examining and portraying pastoral life may the poet
recapture authenticity of emotion.


IN his analysis of
reader response, Wordsworth assumes a sympathy of sentiment whereby the reader, as he
reads the poem, vicariously experiences a similar strengthening and refining of the
sensibility through sympathy with the emotions of the
poet.


This notion of poetry as training and refining the
emotions was a commonplace of neo-Aristotelian literary theory of the 18th century
(Dacier, Moor, Twining, Pye, etc.). The novelty in Wordsworth is synthesis of
Aristotelian poetic theory with the individual Romaniticism and pastoralism of
Rousseau.

Why was the Italian military so ineffective as a fighting force in World War II?

There are a number of reasons generally given for the
Italian weakness in World War II.


  • Economic and
    industrial weakness.  Italy was not a major power in economic and industrial terms
    before or during the war.  In a war where success was so dependent on technological
    advances and industrial capacity, Italy was
    lacking.

  • Quality of weapons.  This is closely related to
    the first weakness.  Italy simply did not have a weapons industry capable of creating
    first-class equipment for its troops.

  • Weak morale.  The
    war was not as popular in Italy was it was in Germany or Japan.  Italians were therefore
    not nearly as motivated to fight.  Because Italy lacked a truly strong set of war aims
    that was supported by the people, morale in the Italian army was low.  This was
    exacerbated by the inferiority of their
    equipment.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

For Beowulf's resume, what can I put for Beowulf'swhat can i put for his objective, origin, height, weight, skills, postion applying for and more...

This is a creative assignment, so you can put almost
anything within reason.  His origin, according to the poem, is from the Land of the
Geats.  For height and weight, I would put something pretty tall and pretty heavy
because the poem refers to him as a giant, and he is strong enough to defeat formidable
foes.


As far as skills, he would probably be adept at knife
weilding, battling dragons, inspiring fellow warriors - things like
that.


You can be very creative as to the objective.  He
could be applying for a battle training company, a dragon killing business, or for a
position as lead warrior.


This sounds like a cool
assignment - have fun with it.

In addition to temperature. what other type of factors might affect the rate of diffusion?

First of all, diffusion is generally understood to mean
the spreading of particles through random motion from an area of higher concentration to
an area of lower concentration.  This can be seen, for example, if you put a drop of
food coloring into water. At first the drop is mostly together and the color is quite
intense, but over time the entire amount of water becomes
colored.


Diffusion is seen most often in liquids and air.  
An example in air is when a bottle of perfume is opened and soon you can smell the scent
throughout the room.


In general, diffusion is affected by
temperature (the higher the temperature the faster the rate), particle size ( the
smaller the particle size the faster it will diffuse), and degree of agitation (stirring
or shaking a container of liquid after adding sugar will diffuse the material throughout
the liquid faster), and distance (The larger the volume in which the material is placed,
the longer it wil take for the material to diffuse throughout)

Friday, January 23, 2015

why did faber decide to go to st.luis

When Montag visits Faber, Faber tells him that  the only
way he could possibly listen to him is if somehow the fireman structure of society
itself could be burnt.  So they concoct a plan in which they would make copies of the
books, plant the books in firemen's homes, turn in the alarms, and see the firemen's
homes burnt to the ground.  The firemen would then be considered treasonous and the
firehouses would be destroyed.  However, they ran into a problem in that they needed to
find a printer to copy to books.


After Montag kills Beatty
and he is on the run, he goes to Faber's house and gives him some money.  Faber tells
him about the people on the river.  He, however, has gotten a new incentive in life.  He
is headed for St. Louis to visit a retired printer he knows there.  He still hopes to
put their idea into action.  He was leaving on the 5 AM bus.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

What are rational numbers?

A rational number is one that can be expressed in the form
a/b, if a and b are two integers.


When expressed in the
decimal form a rational number either has a finite number of decimal digits, for example
2.5 or 2.1625, or after a finite number of decimal digits, the set of decimal digits
repeats itself. For example, the number 3.3333... is a rational number as the decimal
digit 3 is one that repeats, this can be written as 10/3. Similarly in the rational
number formed by 25/7, the decimal notation is 3.571428571..., here the set of digits
571428 repeat in the decimal digits.


Irrational numbers on
the other hand cannot be expressed as a/b, where a and b are integers. Examples of
irrational numbers are pi, e, sqrt 3, sqrt 7, etc. When an irrational number is written
in the decimal notation, the decimal digits do not form sets that are repetitive. For
example, pi = 3.141592654... It is not possible to find a group of digits that repeat
even if an infinite number of them are taken.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Please explain the following lines from "The Lady of Shalott."All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, The helmet...

The lines you have quoted come from Part III of this
tremendous poem, and feature the introduction of the bright and vibrant Sir Lancelot and
the way that he literally bursts in to the world of shadows that dominates the life of
the Lady of Shalott. What is important to focus on is the way that Sir Lancelot is
presented. It is the sight of him in her mirror that makes the Lady break the curse and
look out of her window, so he has to be impressive enough to make her want to bring down
the curse upon herself. In these lines, we can see that he certainly is. Note the way
that he is associated with fire and bright light, drawing attention to him and making
him an irresistible sight. We are told that the saddle "shone" as if it was
"Thick-jeweled," clearly making it attractive, and the helment and the feather "Burned
like one burning flame together." What is interesting abotu these images is that they
simultaneously make Sir Lancelot an attractive, oustanding figure but also associate him
with the metaphor of "burning" to damage and destruction. However innocently, Sir
Lancelot is the sight that results in the death of the Lady of
Shalott.

What does it mean when the general says "I will not lose my nerve. I will not" in the story "The Most Dangerous Game"?Would you explain to me what...

First, it was not General Zaroff who uttered the quote in
question from "The Most Dangerous Game": It was Sanger Rainsford, who was being hunted
by Zaroff, who, trying to calm his nerves, nervously
said,



"I will
not lose my nerve. I will
not."



Rainsford had just seen
for himself the uncanny tracking ability of Zaroff, who tracked him through the woods at
night. When the general smiled and then turned back, Rainsford realized that Zaroff had
known he was near and had deliberately returned to his home so he could extend the hunt
on the next day.


readability="6">

The general was playing with him! The general was
saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it
was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of
terror.



Rainsford would call
up his nerve again later in the story when he attempted to make a final escape from the
Cossack.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Summarize the poem "They Flee from Me" by Thomas Wyatt.

Sir Thomas Wyatt has the distinction of having his name
related to Anne Boleyn as a potential lover, being imprisoned in the tower, yet
surviving.   Wyatt was reintroduced to King Henry VIII’s court.  He became an ambassador
to France.  His marriage was unhappy because of his wife’s infidelity.  From his affair,
a son was born. 


In his spare time, Wyatt wrote his
poetry.  “They Flee from Me” portrays an older Don Juan who suffers
from rebuffs by his lovers.  He faces his rejection with great
sadness. 


The poem is narrated in first person point of
view.  The narrator is possibly the poet himself.  This man lives in a male dominated
society. The men held all of the power.  Understanding a woman’s refusal of his
attention was difficult for the speaker to
understand.


Promiscuity was the name of the game in Henry’s
court.  Men were married but usually had mulitiple affairs or a mistress.  Women also
had affairs inside the confines of marriage.  Often, the women suffered for their sexual
trysts with their heads or by abandonment by their
husbands. 


The setting of the story is the bed chamber of
the speaker.  Apparently, there has been a constant flow of women into his bed.  Now, no
one comes. 


1st stanza


The
women who lovingly visited his chamber now hurry away from the speaker.  They came to
him barefooted.  There were various types: gentle, tame, and meek.  These same women are
now wild and no longer remember him.  At one time, they endangered themselves to share
his bed and eat from his hand.  Sadly for the speaker, they seek
change.


2nd stanza


readability="8">

Thanked be to fortune it hath been
otherwise,


Twenty times better; but once in
special…



The speaker thanks
his good luck in having had these experiences that were wonderful.  However, he
remembers one encounter that was extremely special to him.  This lady was dressed in a
thin covering that exposed her to the speaker.  When she took off her gown, the woman
hugged the man close to her and kissed him softly.  She said to him, “Dear heart, how
like you this?”


3rd
stanza


This memory was not a dream.  Everything has
changed.  She has forsaken the narrator despite his gentle treatment of her.  This lady
has dismissed him because she enjoys new things and lovers.    Apparently, this woman is
fickle and prefers to bed men that she fancies.  The speaker has lost his place in her
life.  He would like to think that it is his gentle nature that has turned her
aside. 


Thematically, there are a number of issues that
Wyatt alludes to in his poem.  Sexuality and his sexual encounters are at the center of
the poem.  He also reminiscences about abandonment and the women that once came to him
that are nowhere to be found.  In fact, he feels as though they run from him when he is
enters the room. 


In addition, the speaker lives in a time
when men were the ones who usually chose their lovers.  Caught in a new circumstance,
the speaker finds himself in a quandary about what has happened to his love
life. 

Saturday, January 17, 2015

How can Ernest Hemingway's short novel The Old Man and the Sea be considered a "fable"?

Can Ernest Hemingway’s short novel The Old Man
and the Sea
be classified as a “fable”?  Everything depends, of course, on
how the word “fable” is defined.  For present purposes, the definition of that word
provided by Wikipedia will suffice:


A
fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse,
that features href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal">animals, mythical
creatures
, href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant">plants, href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanimate">inanimate objects, or title="Nature" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature">forces of nature
which are href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphized">anthropomorphized
(given human
qualities), and that illustrates a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral">moral lesson (a "moral"), which
may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_%28saying%29">maxim.


Hemingway’s
novel resembles a “fable” in this sense in a number of ways, including the
following:


  • It is relatively brief and
    “succinct.” Given its rather simple, straightforward “story,” the novel would not seem
    nearly as much like a “fable” if it were two or three times its present length.  Instead
    it would seem too complex and too long to be a fable in the sense defined
    above.

  • It features an animal – the marlin Santiago fights
    – that seems mythical in its significance and symbolism.  If Santiago had caught an
    especially resistant tuna on the end of his line, the symbolic, mythical significance of
    the contest would not seem as great. (He in fact catches a tune and simply eats
    it.)

  • The marlin, the sharks, and the sea itself all seem
    to symbolize the forces of nature in powerful, memorable ways. All test the strength,
    resilience, and determination of the old man.  If he were not alone in the boat, his
    struggle would not seem nearly as mythic, grand, or
    significant.

  • Both the marlin and the sharks are
    anthropomorphized – that is, treated and described as if they were human. Indeed,
    Santiago tends to look at big fish in general as if they are humans and worthy of
    respect, as when the narrator reports that
    he

readability="14">

remembered the time he had hooked one of a pair
or marlin.  The male fish always let the female fish feed first and the hooked fish, the
female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing flight that soon exhausted her, and all
the time the male stayed with her, crossing the line and circling with her on the
surface.



Here the behavior of
the two fish seems completely understandable in human terms, however accurate it may
also be (or not be) as a description of the “real” behavior of
marlins.


  • The novel can be said to exemplify a
    number of “morals,” such as the importance of never giving up, the fact that life is
    unfair, the need to display one’s strength of character even or especially in old age,
    the value of old people as models of behavior,
    etc.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

What are the possible lessons or ideas at the end of the story?"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe

In contraction to the import of John Donne's famous lines
"Death be not proud...Death, thou shalt die," Death is, indeed, the victor in Edgar
Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and, as the narrator, this Red Death is very
proud. For, he boasts in the last paragraph of the story--it must be Death who boasts as
everyone else is dead--that his presence prevails over
all,



And now
was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.  He had come like a thief in the night. 
And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died
each in the despairing posture of his fall....And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death
held illimitable dominion over
all.



Certainly, Prince
Prospero realized that despite all his wealth, despite the "voluptuous scene" in the
extensive and "magnificent structure with its gates of iron and ramparts, despite the
assembly of "phantasms" and masked guests of the highest order, the Red Death stole into
the "castellated abbeys" and spread death to all. For, in the end, no one can cheat
death. 

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

What was the name of the eastern portion of Rome that continued intact for 1000 years after the Fall of Rome?

The part of Rome that continued to exist intact for such a
long time after the "fall" of Rome was commonly known as the Byzantine
Empire.


By the time that Rome "fell," the part of the Roman
Empire that was actually ruled from Rome was called the Western Roman Empire.  There was
another part of the Empire, known as the Eastern Roman Empire, that was ruled from
Constantinople, which was also called Byzantium.  This is the city that is in what is
now Turkey and is now called Istanbul


After the Western
Roman Empire "fell" in 476 AD, the Eastern Roman Empire continued to exist.  It came to
be called the Byzantine Empire.

Discuss the ideology the Old Major represents in Russian History.

Old Major's ideology could be seen as one of two ways. 
Both impact Russian history in a profound manner because they both set in motion the
wheels of Communism in the Soviet Union.  The first way to see Old Major would be as
Karl Marx, the source for Socialism.  Old Major's way of talking about the idea that the
animals' source of all problems lies with the humans and that the ownership of the farm,
the means of productions, must be with the animals is representative of Marx's own
thinking about how individuals are enslaved by capitalist ideology.  Additionally, Old
Major's vision of a world where the animals are economically and socially empowered is
representative of Marxist thought.  Old Major can also be seen as a representation of
Lenin, and his desire to bring Communism to Russia.  Lenin took Marx's ideas and
appropriated them to the Russian situation.  Often seen as the father or literal leader
of Russian style of Communism, I think that Old Major could also be seen as Lenin. 
Either form allows the vision of Old Major to be the inspiration for the start of
Animalism on the farm or Communism in Russia.

Monday, January 12, 2015

What is the climax in Elegance of the Hedgehog?

The climax of a story is defined as the turning point of
the plot, or the moment of highest intensity.


In Muriel
Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog the moment of highest
intensity occurs when Renee dies after barely having discovered her personal meaning of
life. However, it is arguable that prior to her death, another high intensity moment was
her first encounter with Paloma. As a result of that encounter, Renee's life begins to
change. She meets Kakuro Ozu via Paloma, and she begins to realize that life is worth
living. It is because Paloma that Renee finds a reason to live, and how she begins to
slowly unfold into intellectual and emotional
freedom.


Unfortunately, her taste of freedom is
short-lived. Renee dies, but leaves her legacy onto Paloma who, in turn, also finds a
reason to live thanks to Renee.


In conclusion, the first
meeting between Paloma and Renee definitely becomes the catalyst for change in the lives
of the women, and Renee dies after finally experiencing the true meaning of
life.

Describe Lennie and George in the novel "Of Mice and Men" and give a summary of chapter 6 Be the first to answer!

George Milton is by all accounts, a capable worker and a
man of integrity. He is strong and intelligent, brave and ambitious. He is motivated by
his desire to achieve the American Dream. He calculates that, if he works and saves
enough, he can purchase a small plot of land, on which he can use his considerable
agricultural skill to provide himself a means of living. He is also compassionate,
caring for Lennie and protecting him, although he is not bound by bonds of family or law
to do so.


Lennie Small is mentally handicapped. He has the
mental competence of a child, often reacting to George’s instructions with tantrum
behavior. He is not capable of understanding the consequences of his actions and often
risks his own health with his bad decisions. He loves animals, especially it seems,
mice, dogs, and rabbits. He, too, dreams of owning a small ranch. He hopes to contribute
to George’s plan by working and saving his money. He wants to tend rabbits on their own
ranch. Lennie is extremely strong, capable of completing more work than any man on the
ranch. Like a child, he is curious about everything and he fails to understand
boundaries in his interactions with others. 


In the final
chapter of the book, Lennie is in the brush area, where George instructed him to hide if
he got into trouble. Of course, Curley’s wife is dead and the ranch hands have
discovered the body. Curley has gathered a posse of men and they have begun the search
for Lennie. Since George knows where to find Lennie, he goes directly to the area and
finds Lennie. Once there, he comforts Lennie and calms him down. Then, in response to
Lennie’s request, he retells the story of their dream ranch, including Lennie’s
privileged task of caring for the rabbits. As Lennie listens to the story, he calms down
even more. Then, George uses Carson’s pistol and shoots him in the back of the head,
killing him. When the posse arrives in response to the gunshot, George tells them that
Lennie had stolen Carson’s gun. In addition, he told them that he had managed to take
the gun from Lennie and that killed him.  The men accept his
story.

What are some literary devices, besides tone and imagery, used in "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde?

The most prominent device used in this poem is
repetition.  Lorde repeats the lines, “momma’s in the bedroom with
the door closed,” at the end of each verse; this emphasizes the feelings of abandonment
and loneliness felt by our fourteen-year-old speaker.  She is wrought with the
insecurities of her teenage years, and the withdrawal of her mother into her bedroom
cuts off any access she has to a nurturing figure – she is alone in her wonderings, and
this isolation at home is the crux of her insecurity.  Lorde also uses the
form and structure of the poem to great
effect:  by eschewing punctuation and having each verse be a single sentence, we get an
approximation of a stream of consciousness, the young speaker’s troubles running one
into the next in his head, thoughts bleeding into each other.  We see here the seemingly
endless quality of the girl’s simple suffering, and the equal weight of each trial –
learning to dance, acne, death – in the mind of an adolescent.  Her internal struggles
are lent legitimacy by writing the poem from first person
perspective
; this also emphasizes a teenager’s typically egocentric view of
the world – “Nobody even stops to think/about my side of it,” she laments in the final
verse, and thinks, “why do I have to be/the one/wearing
braces.” 


Lorde underscores this point with the
juxtaposition of these small injustices with the heavy permanence
of death.  In each verse we have imagery of the girl’s fear of
death:  “what if I die/before morning,” “suppose I die before graduation,” will I live
long enough/to grow up.”  When coupled with troubles about boys and acne and having
nothing to wear the next day, we see how, at age fourteen, everything can feel like a
life-threatening crisis.  This also indicates that the girl is just becoming aware of
what it means to be an adult, what it means to be alive in the world – the threat of
death is constant; our lives are not guaranteed, our safety is not guaranteed, our
happiness is not guaranteed.  And this is a scary, depressing concept.  Yet still it
cannot erase the everyday woes of simply living.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

In Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt undergoes "exile", as he travels away from his home country, Ireland. Despite the challenges, what are the...

One inescapable fact about the life of the McCourts in
Ireland is that it is dominated by poverty and want. Even though Francis is doing very
well by the time that he leaves and has the potential to climb up in the world by taking
the post office examination, he would be living in an environment that had claimed the
lives of his siblings and which he had struggled against to grow up and reach adulthood.
America, by contrast, represents a blank slate and a land of opportunity. In the
imagination of Francis, and so many other Irishmen like him, it summons up images of
freedom, independence and wealth for the taking for those brave enough and hardworking
enough to take advantage of the many opportunities that are present in the United
States.


Francis, interestingly, does have second thoughts,
as the following quote testifies:


readability="10">

Surely I should have stayed, taken the post
office examination, climbed in the world. I could have brought in enough money for
Michael and Alphie to go to school with proper shoes and bellies well filled. We could
have moved from the lane to a street or even an avenue where houses have gardens. I
should have taken that examination and Mam would never again have to empty the chamber
pots of Mr. Sliney or anyone
else.



However, in spite of
the feeling of responsibility towards his family, at the same time Francis is eager to
leave and the benefits of having a new start and having far more opportunities than he
ever could have had in Ireland outweigh the disadvantages.

What steps are important for semantic analysis of any short story, as applied to "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Hemingway?

This is a broad topic as semantic analysis can take many
avenues of consideration, though some are more relevant to literature. Semantic analysis
follows parsing, which describes language, we'll say text, in terms of grammatical
parts. Semantic analysis relates the parsing to meaning (semantics: the study of
meaning) as it relates to cultural/social context. Semantic analysis determines how
meaning in a defined context (i.e., social/cultural) is constructed by the
speaker/writer, we'll say writer; is interpreted by the decoder (i.e., reader/listener);
is illustrated or contradicted; etc.


Part of semantic
analysis involves recognizing cultural elements of language, like irony, figures of
speech, and idioms, and paraphrasing these to common generalized code, which
incidentally alters the writer's style: "You talk like an old man" might become, "You
sound as though you are in despair."


Some ways in which the
parsed text--its words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs--may be related to
the text as a whole are through analysis for href="http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/lang/semantics.htm#9">connotation;
for inference; for pragmaticism.


  • Connotation:
    cultural associations with a word that reflect emotional, experiential, or psychological
    reactions to a word.

  • Inference: what is meant without
    being said; the meaning the writer wants to convey without writing
    it.

  • Pragmatism in linguistics: a person's awareness of
    cultural conventions, etiquettes, mores, expectations that depend upon familiarity with
    the cultural.

A semantic analysis of any short
story would include the steps that follow and start by relating the parsing to the
cultural context of the story. In "Well-Lighted Place," you might note at the word level
that the vocabulary is simple, for example, there are more English words than Latinate
words. At the phrase level, you might note that verb phrases and noun phrase are very
simple: had left, the cafe, the electric light, the day, was, a little drunk. At the
clause level, you might note that the narrator uses many embedded clauses: an old man
who sat; the street was dusty, but at night; at night the dew settled the dust and the
old man liked to sit. At the sentence level, you might note that while the narrator uses
long sentences, though simply composed, the characters use short sentences. At the
paragraph level, you will note that the characters' culturally biased speech patterns
create many short paragraphs, with the longest near the end of the
story.


A cultural connotation applies to Hemingway's use of
"despair":


readability="6">

"He was in despair."
"What
about?"
"Nothing."
"How do you know it was nothing?"
"He
has plenty of money."



The
connotation is that the old man's despair was existential--in a post-world war
world--because his money was enough to have fixed anything that was wrong. When speaking
of the soldier and girl, there is an inference that life is so given to despair that
momentary physical pleasure is of the greatest
importance:


readability="6">

"The guard will pick him up," one waiter
said.
"What does it matter if he gets what he's after?"



The younger waiter's
pragmatism may be said to fit in with his culture as his life agrees with the soldier's:
"I have a wife waiting in bed for me." The older waiter's pragmatism--as well as the old
man's--may be said to be out of accord with the culture as the older waiter holds ideas
about the cafe and bodegas that do not accord with the cultural norm:



"Otro loco
mas [You are very crazy]," said the barman [to the older waiter] and turned
away.


What might have been Shakespeare's intention in writing 'sonnet 130'?

I think It's a very powerful attack on the contemporary
poets who praised woman's beauty too much. So Shekespeare's intention might have been to
break the conventional ideas.


readability="5">

Love looks not with the eyes but with the
mind


-William
Shakespeare-




Shekespeare
doesn't cling to the concept of ideal love, so i think here he might have needed to mock
at the conventional praise of women by the contempoarary
poets.


readability="12.145714285714">

Sonnet 130 satirizes the concept of
ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art in general during the
Elizabethan era. Influences originating with the poetry of ancient Greece and
Rome
had established a tradition of this, which continued in Europe's customs
of href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtly_love">courtly love and in
courtly poetry, and the work of poets such as href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch">Petrarch. It was customary to
praise the beauty of the object of one's affections with comparisons to beautiful things
found in nature and heaven, such as stars in the night sky, the golden light of the
rising sun, or red roses. href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_130#cite_note-1">[1] The images
conjured by Shakespeare were common ones that would have been well-recognized by a
reader or listener of this sonnet.


Saturday, January 10, 2015

To what extent is Alyosha the hero of the novel?Dosteovsky debated about this point in a note at the beginning of the novel.

Toward the middle of the novel Alyosha is directly
identified as the "hero of the novel" by the
narrator.


Perhaps more significantly, as the philosophical
opposition is developed between faith and disbelief in the novel, the preferred
existential position is clearly established. Faith is the position of virtue and
disbelief leads to chaos, betrayal, crime and evil.


Early
in the novel this is conclusion is neither clear nor foreshadowed and only becomes clear
finally when Ivan faces the devil in his delusion-driven nightmare. Ivan ultimately
represents the inevitable despair born out of disbelief and human pride which the novel
is so interested in exploring and, in the end,
condemning.


Alyosha represents the opposite side of this
existential and philosophical divide, literally characterizing the virtues of faith and
constantly rescuing others through this honest, humble
faith.


Alyosha is the hero of the novel because he
represents the winning side of the novel's central argument regarding which position is
best for mankind - to humbly believe and trust or to push forward to a man-made
revolution, doomed to failure because of the weakness of
men.


There are passages in the novel which do suggest that
Dostoyevsky is open to considering (and maybe believing in) the potential benefits of
atheism and in the socialism attached to it in the novel. However, the idea of a
Russian-Christian revolution wins out in The Brothers
Karamazov
.

"VANITY FAIR" is about the difficulties of personal relationship's,particularly marriage relationship's in the 19th century,upper class English...

First, try to get your punctuation right: 'relationships'
is a plural noun - no apostrophe. Second, is the question yours or one set by some
teacher/tutor/instructor/examiner? On the answer depends how critically I'd advise
tackling it, since in the way you word it, it seems to presuppose all sorts of things
which aren't so. And I can't believe any reputable pedagogue would use " 'the' 19th
century,upper class etc" rather than "19th-century upperclass etc" (note the correct
inclusion of the hyphen and the elimination of the extraneous comma). That being so, try
and reproduce any essay question accurately in future.


Now
let's proceed to the meat of the matter. I assume you mean Thackeray's novel VF.
(Bunyan's VF doesn't deal with the 19th century.) In future, please say so. As elsewhere
on this website, unless the question is thought out properly before being put into
words, and as much useful information given with it, the person providing the answer may
well be puzzled, hence give an unhelpful response.


VF isn't
'about' the difficulties of personal relationships, particularly marriage ones etc in
the sense that they're a central theme. It's 'about' much more. It wouldn't be so very
great a novel if it weren't. It certainly features many tricky marriages. That said, not
all the marriages in it are 'tricky'. The O'Dowds', for instance, is happy, even though
Mrs O'D is presented as absurd and her husband Mick as hen-pecked. (Perhaps because
Thackeray could only conceive of a marriage as 'happy' if the partners were comic; after
all, his own wife was a lunatic.)


If VF is 'about' anything
it is that overwhelming preoccupation of Thackeray's, snobbery - a subject on which he
is the best novelist in English literature. Now snobbery and its ancillary activities,
notably social-climbing, often, though not invariably, lead to unhappy marriages. And
some of the factors involved along the way, such as the deception and ultimate ruin of
one's creditors, as effected by Becky and Rawdon Crawley, were more typical of the 19th
than of the 21st century. But they weren't exclusive to it. One might argue that the
Rawdon Cs' marriage broke up because of their lack of money, a lack caused by Rawdon's
rich aunt's leaving her money away from him to his elder brother Pitt. And since the
aunt's aversion to Rawdon's marriage arose in great part from his 'throwing himself
away' on the relatively low-born Becky, snobbery played an important part But even that
is not the whole story since Becky's brains and Rawdon's stupidity were incompatible
long-term whatever their prosperity.


And VF isn't
exclusively about upper-class English society (again note the preferable hyphen). The
Osbornes and Sedleys are from the mercantile upper-middle classes to start with. The
Sedleys through bad luck in business sink to shabby genteel middle-class status. Even
among the true upper classes there are subtle variations of status, with Lord Steyne
being as greatly 'superior' socially to a provincial baronet like Sir Pitt Crawley as
Sir Pitt is to the Osbornes.


Thackeray does duck showing us
any wholly satisfactory relationships. Would Dobbin and Amelia's marriage have been a
success? We don't know. Thackeray buries it under a 'happy ever after'
coda.

Please explain who the characters are in A Doll's House.

By focusing only on Nora and Torvald, the first answer
ignores the fact that there are seven characters in the play. Let me list them for you
and give a brief description of each one.


The
Porter:
appears in only one scene and doesn't figure in the
action.


The Maid: She has very
few lines and doesn't figure in the
action.


Nora Helmer: The main
character and the person around whom the action revolves. She is married to Torvald, and
she is keeping a secret from him that will eventually ruin their marriage when it is
discovered. She only pretends to be
helpless.


Torvald Helmer:
Nora's husband. He treats Nora like one of the children, constantly
calling her "little squirrel" and "featherhead." He constantly fusses at her for
spending money and eating sweets. He cares very much about appearances and suggests an
unconventional solution to the problem when Nora's secret is
revealed.


Dr. Rank: Torvald's
friend and physician. He is secretly in love with Nora and treats her with more respect
than her own husband does.


Christine Linde:
An old friend of Nora's who is widowed and comes to Nora to ask for help
getting a job. She married for money instead of for love, but she is now penniless
and bitter about it.


Nils
Krogstad:
the antagonist of the play. He works for Torvald but knows he
is going to be fired because of mistakes he has made. He has discovered Nora's secret,
and in a desperate attempt to keep his job, he blackmails her into persuading Torvald
not to fire him. He was the love whom Christine left behind, and they are reconciled in
the end.


I hope this helps you.

Friday, January 9, 2015

In "Best in Class," what is Margaret Talbot's rhetorical strategy in examining Sarasota High School in such depth?Margaret Talbot spends a good...

It is true that Margaret Talbot opens her essay, "Best In
Class", examining the Sarasota High School's valedictorian "problem." In the end, the
former principal, Daniel Kennedy, opened a charter school and refused to give out the
honor of valedictorian based upon the peril he faced at
SHS.



“My
advice to other principals is, Whatever you do, do not name a
valedictorian. Any principal who does is facing
peril.”



While the focus on
SHS basically ends here, Talbot goes on to mention the problems other high schools faced
when determining a valedictorian.


While her "primary
subject is neither that school [SHS] nor its students", Talbot is simply showing the
issues that schools today face regarding the cut-throat fight to gain the
title.


In the end, Talbot fails to offer her definitive
opinion on the subject. Instead, she offers both alternative
views:



In some
ways, it seems that the valedictorian is a status designed for a simpler time, when
fewer people aspired to
college.



and


readability="6">

Still, perhaps something is lost if schools
eliminate valedictorians.



By
doing this, Talbot's rhetorical style is one of ethos. Ethos, according to Purdue's OWL
website, is


readability="8">

the ethical appeal is based on the character,
credibility, or reliability of the writer. There are many ways to establish good
character and credibility as an
author.



Here, the author is
simply offering an objective point of view. The author is not offering up their own
personal feelings on the subject. Instead, they offer both sides of the argument and
shows respect to the reader by doing so.



href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/06/050606fa_fact#ixzz1Xsnn53IH">


href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/06/050606fa_fact#ixzz1Xsngrw75">

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Discuss the major obstacles Jefferson faced in acquiring the Louisiana Purchase.

There were several obstacles being faced in acquiring the
Louisiana Territory.  One was simply financial.  Fifteen million dollars was a great
deal of money, and while the new nation possessed it, there was significant question as
to what was being purchased.  Within this, another objection would be the awkwardness of
granting immediate citizenship to people who were not seen as Americans.  On a domestic
level, there was a certain amount of apprehension in conferring instant citizenship to
people who were not "American," whatever this was seen to mean at the time.  The largest
objection, though, was a philosophical one.  Jefferson and his Republican supporters
were followers of a strict interpretation of the Constitution.  They did not see the
President's role as one that could facilitate such a large negotiation without
Congressional approval.  Firm believers in restraint, many of Jefferson's fellow
Republicans could not embrace the idea that the President was able to fully negotiate
and ratify a deal that would almost double the size of the United States without any
sort of Congressional check.  At the same time, the Federalists were not supportive of
an  emerging relationship with Napoleon, for they preferred bolstering ties with
England.  In this, the largest obstacles to the Purchase presented themselves.  While
this was futile, for the land was purchased, these were the obstacles Jefferson
faced.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

What were the causes of unrest in the American backcountry in the mid-eighteenth century?

The major cause of unrest in the backcountry in this time
period was discontent with the performance of the colonial governments.  The colonial
governments were run by elites from the coasts and the backcountry people felt that
these elites were insenstive to their needs.


Most
importantly, the backcountry people wanted to be protected.  They were living on the
frontier where they faced threats from Indians and outlaws.  They wanted the government
to do more to protect them.  When this did not happen, rebellions like that of the
Paxton Boys in Pennsylvania took place.


In addition,
backcountry people sometimes felt cheated and abused by the coastal elites.  They felt
that the government was acting in ways that helped the rich at the expense of the
backcountry farmers.  This sort of complaint led, for example, to the "Regulator"
movement in North Carolina.

Monday, January 5, 2015

In Guns, Germs and Steel, how does a society that becomes mainly agricultural change in terms of its political structure?

The answer to your question can be found in Chapter Four,
entitled "Farmer Power." In this chapter, Diamond discusses how the move from being a
society that is based on hunting and gathering to a mainly agricultural society also
resulted in the political development of that society. This is mainly due to the way
that the move also involves a huge population boost, which then enables the development
of specialists:


readability="13">

A separate consequence of a settled existence is
that it permits one to store food surpluses, since storage would be pointless if one
didn't remain nearby to guard the stored food... Two types of such specialists are kings
and bureaucrats... when food can be stockpiled, a political elite can gain control of
food produced by others, assert the right of taxation, escape the need to feed itself,
and and engage in full-time political
activities.



This is why the
agricultural societies that Diamond explores are often arranged into political units
that have a greater population and a higher level of organisation which enables them to
mobilise armed forces and invade other territories. Hunter-gathering is thus shown to be
a profound limitation in early societies. Those that got ahead of the starting line were
those that quickly developed into agricultural societies before their
neighbours.

Do you think that widespread internet use (especially e-commerce and social media) has made younger Americans more or less trusting than their...

I think that it has made younger Americans more trusting. 
At least it has made them (and even many of us older Americans) act in ways that are
less guarded than in the past.  Let us look at one economic and one social way in which
we do this.


Economically, we no longer confine our
transactions to people we can see.  We easily give our credit card numbers to businesses
over the internet.  We buy from people we will never meet.  This is more trusting than
in the old days when we did business with brick and mortar stores in our own towns or
neighborhoods.


Socially, we are much more open with facts
about ourselves.  We get on Facebook and post things about ourselves that we might not
have told such a wide variety of people in past days.  In this way, we are trusting them
with sometimes very personal things about us.


In these
ways, younger Americans clearly seem more trusting than past
generations.

How would I start a humorous yet informative speech about why duct tape is the best invention ever in a funny way? I had to pick a speech topic...

Humor speeches are difficult, especially if this is the
expectation.  If the assignment is to speak about the best invention ever, and "humor"
is simply something which you wish to include, my advice is not to try to focus on being
funny.  Your topic (Duct tape), by itself, has a high potential for humor.  Keep in mind
that subtle (or dry) humor is often funnier than someone actually attempting to be
funny.


I think there are two possibilities for the
introduction to this speech.  The first is to tell a personal story about an experience
with duct tape.  To me, it is always easier to speak and write about
myself than other people.  (It helps that I am also very
funny.)


If you do not have a personal experience with Duct
tape, Google it.  Plenty of people do.  There are countless stories
floating around the world wide web about how "duct tape saved my life."  Some of these
are probably serious, but many of them are more than likely pretty silly.  Choose a
short-personal account to retell, then get into the "meat" of your essay by going into
the details of why duct tape is such a brilliant invention.  I
think if you actually try to make the topic serious, and be as factual as possible, if
you can make it through the speech without cracking a smile, most of your peers will
likely find the speech very humorous.


It sounds like you
are already having fun with this, so good luck!

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Solve for x, y, and z: x + y + z = 0 (b+c)x + (c+a)y + (a+b)z = 0 bcx + cay + abz = 1 (all equations under 1 bracket)Show complete solution and...

Solve the following system for x,y,and
z:

(i) 
x+y+z=0

(ii)
(b+c)x+(a+c)y+(a+b)z=0

(iii)
bcx+acy+abz=1


We proceed by
substitution:


(1) From (i) we get z=-x-y. Plugging this
into (ii) yields
(b+c)x+(a+c)y+(a+b)(-x-y)=0 which simplifies
to
(I) 
-(a-c)x-(b-c)y=0


Plugging into (iii)
yields
bcx+acy+ab(-x-y)=1 which simplifies to
(II) 
b(c-a)x-a(b-c)y=1


(2) We now solve (I) and
(II) simultaneously using linear
combinations:


-b(a-c)x-b(b-c)y=0   multiply (I) by
-b
-b(a-c)x-a(b-c)y=1
--------------------
-a(b-c)y+b(b-c)y=1 
subtract (II)-b(I) ; which simplifies
to


`y=-1/((a-b)(b-c))`


(3)
Plug this value for y into (I) to get
x:


`-(a-c)x+((b-c))/((a-b)(b-c))=-(a-c)x+1/(a-b)=0`


So
`x=1/((a-b)(a-c))`


(4) Take these values for x and y and
plug into (i) to get
z:


`z=-x-y=-1/((a-b)(a-c))+1/((a-b)(b-c))=(-b+c+a-c)/((a-b)(a-c)(b-c))=1/((a-c)(b-c))`



So
the values for (x,y,z) are `( 1/((a-b)(a-c)),(-1)/((a-b)(b-c)),1/((a-c)(b-c))
)`

Saturday, January 3, 2015

In The Crucible, what is one shared conflict that multiple charcters have within themselves?

The most fundamental conflict that characters share in the
work is the idea of how the individual can be pitted against society.  This is an
internally focused conflict that different characters feel at different points.  Proctor
feels this with his desire to remain apart from the chaos, but the growing need to take
a stand.  He also feels this when he is forced to confess in front of the court.  Giles
Corey feels this when he is compelled to "name names," but refuses to do so.  Elizabeth
feels this when she has to testify in front of the court, and does not know whether to
lie or tell the truth.  In lying, she capitulates to the community and actually dooms
her husband more.  Mary Warren feels this during her testimony when the power of Abigail
and the girls overcomes her and forces her to recant all she says.  To an extent, even
Tituba endures this struggle between the individual and the community setting in how she
is unable to really articulate the ability to stand up for her own sense of identity and
must cave into that of the group.  In each situation, there is a conflict of the
individual against the larger society and this is felt on an internal
level.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Explain the boys' motvations for destroying the house in the short story "The Destructors" by Graham Greene using a quote.

Destroying Mr. Thomas' grand old house is all Trevor's
idea.  After all, he is the first one to 'scope out' the place as a potential target.  T
presents the idea to the gang as an amazing opportunity to do something that no gang has
done before:


readability="10">

‘They’d never know. We’d do it from inside. I’ve
found a way in. We’d be like worms, don’t you see, in an apple. When we came out again
there’d be nothing there – nothing but just walls, and then we’d make the walls fall
down – somehow.’



The gang is
motivated by their desire to prove themselves worthy to the task of pulling the house
down.  The challenge of the physical task appeals to their creative, destructive talents
immensely. 


The Wormsley common gang also wishes for fame
and increased notoriety.  Blackie predicts that "the fame of the Wormsley Common car
park gang would surely reach around London."  It is important to note that the boys are
extremely resistant to doing anything that they perceive might land them in "the jug"
like "pinching things;" the boys naively do not see their act of destroying the house as
a criminal activity.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

What sectional divisions led to the Missouri Compromise?

The sectional division that led to the Missouri Compromise
(or, more accurately, to the conflicts that made the compromise necessary) was the
division between North and South.  This division had mostly to do with
slavery.


Slavery was, of course, legal in the South and
illegal in most parts of the North.  By the time of the Louisiana Purchase, there were
equal numbers of free and slave states.  This meant there was a balance of power in
Congress.  The purchase upset this balance because the new territories would want to
become states and that would mean an end to the equality in the number of free and slave
states.


So, the sectional difference that was relevant here
was the fact that the North and the South were split on the issue of
slavery.

Please comment upon the use of situational irony in "Harrison Bergeron."

Let us remind ourselves that situational irony is based on
plot, and is the term used to describe a sudden twist in the course of events that makes
the precise opposite of what we expect to happen occur. A classic example would be a
rags-to-riches story in which a poor person suddenly becomes rich at the
end.


If we examine this term in relation to this excellent
tale, we can see that the situational irony relates to Harrison Bergeron's sudden
appearance on the TV show and how it is dealt with. The way in which Harrison bursts
onto the show, crowns himself Emperor and takes one of the dancers for his Empress, then
proceeds to dance in a way that defies gravity itself, leads us to believe that he will
mount a successful revolution against handicapping and end this era of forced equality
and no competition. It is therefore a great shock and surprise to us when this ending
does not occur, and the dance is rudely interrupted:


readability="10">

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the
Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She
fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the
floor.



The grim situational
irony of this story therefore relates to the way in which Harrison Bergeron's revolution
is cruelly crushed with his violent and sudden murder, and the change that the story
looked to offer us never comes to pass.

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