What are Jonas's thoughts in The Giver?

Jonas is apprehensive about the Ceremony of Twelve, and then reflective about the effect of the things the community is missing.

Jonas is very careful about language.  He spends some time trying to think of exactly the right word to describe how he feels about the upcoming ceremony.   Precision of language is the key to his community.

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. (Ch. 1)

Jonas decides that he is apprehensive about the ceremony.  This is because the ceremony will determine what will happen with the rest of his life.  At the ceremony he will receive his new job, and then begin training for it immediately.  The catch is that no one knows ahead of time what job they will get, and the children are only twelve.

Jonas becomes Receiver of Memory.  This is a unique position that grants him access to all of the community’s memories.  The rest of the community has no sense of history, having only one-generation memories.  Jonas receives memories of everything that happened before the community went to Sameness.

The memories change Jonas.  He begins to think about war, love, and a society of differences and choices.  Jonas becomes very reflective, and he no longer accepts his society’s claims that it is perfect.  He has a conversation about this with The Giver.

"We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."

"We shouldn't have!" Jonas said fiercely.

The Giver looked startled at the certainty of Jonas's reaction. Then he smiled wryly. "You've come very quickly to that conclusion," he said. "It took me many years. Maybe your wisdom will come much more quickly than mine." (Ch. 12)

Jonas understands that people want to control everything because they think that this takes the danger out of life.  In reality they are limiting the good with the bad.  They lose war and poverty, but also love and family.  It is not a tradeoff that is worth it to Jonas.  The community’s lack of understanding of death results in the travesty of release, where people are killed for insignificant reasons.  Jonas finds that unacceptable.

`a = 75.4, b = 52, c = 52` Use Heron's Area Formula to find the area of the triangle.

Given: `a=75.4, b=52, b=52`

Heron's area formula `A=sqrt[s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)]`

where `s=(a+b+c)/2`

`s=(75.4+52+52)/2=179.4/2=89.7`

`A=sqrt[(89.7)(89.7-75.4)(89.7-52)(89.7-2)]`

`A=sqrt[(89.7)(14.3)(37.7)(37.7)]`

`A=1350.22`

The area is 1350.22 squared units.

Compare and Contrast political and religious life in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire.

Reforms by Diocletian led to the division of the Great Roman Empire into the Eastern and Western Empires each with its own leadership. The Western Empire was mostly undeveloped, sparsely populated and tribal. The Eastern Empire was urban, economically advanced and highly populated. In both Empires, political control was established and organized along smaller units/provinces.

Constantine succeeded Diocletian. He introduced far-reaching reforms and turned both the East and West into Christian Empires. However, the East became mostly Orthodox, while the West became largely Catholic. Eventually, the West banned all other religions in their territory. Christianity dominated the East, but the Empire was more considerate of other faiths.

Constantine shifted the political and administrative base from The West (Rome) to East (Constantinople or modern day Istanbul). This made the East politically vibrant compared to the West. The West and the East shared a similar political structure. However, much activity was realized in the Eastern Empire.

How is Penelope an archetype of an intelligent female?

The theory of archetypes began with the work of psychologist Carl Jung as an attempt to explain the relationship between myth and the subconscious mind by positing a "collective unconscious" in which we all participate and which is expressed in enduring myths, legends, and archetypes. Two major figures who have applied Jungian psychology to myth and literature are Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye. In none of these is there an "intelligent female archetype". In fact, one feminist critique of these theorists is that they were so focused on the male hero that their female archetypes are quite limited and mainly engage the theme of motherhood. 

Penelope is one of the earliest exempla of a positive, intelligent female character in literature, and as such has been very influential in the literary tradition. Her main characteristic is unswerving loyalty to her husband. Despite women lacking power to act directly within a patriarchal society, she uses her intellect to outwit the suitors, weaving a shroud during the day that she unweaves at night. Her intelligence is also shown in the recognition scene, in which she shows herself to be smart and skeptical, her raising of Telemachus, and the way she helps ensure Odysseus' victory over the soldiers. 

To what extent is the central focus of Boule de Suif a presentation of a microcosm of French Society?

Boule de Suif appears to focus mainly on the interactions between Boule de Suif (Ball of Fat or Butterball) and her bourgeoisie fellow travelers. The series of interactions between the parties highlight French attitudes towards men's oldest profession in the 19th century; the class divide between rich and poor is the central focus of the story.

Boule de Suif is set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian War; soldiers advance into Rouen just as we meet the ten travelers who are about to leave for Havre. Maupassant points out that the travelers have secured safe passage into Havre because of 'the influence of the German officers whose acquaintance they had made...' Most are wealthy: Monsieur and Madame Loiseau are wine merchants; Monsieur Carre-Lamadon owns three cotton mills, is an officer in the Legion of Honor, a member of the General Council, and husband to the beauteous Madame Carre-Lamadon; the Comte and Comtesse Hubert de Breville are Normandy aristocrats. Two nuns, a political agitator, Cornudet, and Boule de Suif make up the rest of the contingent.

The prevailing disdain the travelers exhibit towards Boule de Suif is heart-breaking but very much the epitome of Maupassant's realist type of fiction. In the 19th century, prostitutes were shunned and avoided by the larger public; they were not to be seen in the company of 'decent' folk. The French government oppressed this group of working-class women horrendously. Street women had to register with the French government and were subjected to pervasive and demoralizing health evaluations on a frequent basis. Failure to register and to submit to these invasive tests was considered a crime. Due to economic necessity, working class prostitutes often had to work through menstrual cycles and during outbreaks of venereal disease.

On the other hand, Boule de Suif belonged to an elite class of prostitutes, the courtesan class, and was not subject to government regulation; her influential lovers would likely have fought any attempts to regulate her existence. The courtesans often had their own lavish apartments and jewels to flaunt while living bourgeoisie lifestyles. Boule de Suif must have secured passage in a four-horse drawn carriage due to her connections.

Despite this, the six wealthiest travelers refused to acknowledge her during the first part of their journey. The courtesan class, despite their finesse and delicate manners, still represented a despised social category of French citizenry. Respectable French men and women often vilified the audacity of courtesans in aspiring to bourgeoisie pretensions.

These six people occupied the farther end of the coach, and represented Society - with an income - the strong, established society of good people with religion and principle.

They decided that they ought to combine, as it were, in their dignity as wives in face of this shameless hussy; for legitimized love always despises its easygoing brother.

The fact that the wealthier travelers saw themselves as set apart from Boule de Suif is a great indictment of prevailing, bourgeoisie attitudes about the working class. For his part, Maupassant, who had his share of street women during his life, used the central focus of the story to provide a rare glimpse into a microcosm of French society long neglected by serious historians. 

The travelers did not warm to Boule de Suif until she shared her bountiful food basket with them. However, their capitulation was temporary and purely self-serving. Later in the story, they collectively pressured Boule de Suif to give herself to the Prussian officer's sexual demands because they reasoned that 'such a step would be of so little consequence to her.' Taking turns, they patronized and goaded Boule de Suif into humiliating acquiescence. The unkindest cut of all occurred after Boule de Suif's sacrifice: the self-absorbed travelers, now satisfied that they may resume their journey, proceeded to lay bare their atrocious hypocrisy. They collectively reverted back to type and ostracized Boule de Suif, offering her no food or comfort during the last leg of the journey to Havre.

In this story, Maupassant indeed uses the central focus on the divide between the classes to cleverly highlight hypocritical bourgeoisie attitudes. This short story is realist fiction that attempts to capture the cruelty of life without embellishment or evasion.

For a school project, we each have to pretend that we are a person in the revolutionary war, and our classroom will be the wax museum. My person...

It’s hard to determine what is accurate information when you are dealing with facts gathered from long ago where perfect records may not have been kept.  I researched Mercy Otis Warren, as well, and got the same results you did. So, the best thing to do when you have contradicting facts is to look at the sources where you got your information.  Sources associated with government or public institutions such as colleges or universities are probably the most reliable because they often have access to important documents or scholarly research from which to draw information.  Therefore, sources with .org, .gov, and .edu are your best sites to choose from rather than .com sources. 

Remember, too, that historical records could differ because of the infant mortality rate at the time.  Many babies didn’t survive childbirth or their first few years of life due to disease and other health issues.  The mortality rate of the time could affect the historical accuracy of records kept at that time.  In addition, because Warren did not achieve fame until she was older and not a child, this could cause a discrepancy in the facts.  Brothers and sisters move away and get married making it harder to track down exact facts.

In addition, since several of the sources below say that she is one out of 13 children but differ in her place in the 13, I would go with the most consistent facts repeated by the sources, and that would be that she had 12 brothers and sisters. 

Here are a few sources I feel will be reliable information for your project.  They seem to be the most likely to be accurate.

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/creating-new-government/essays/righteous-revolution-mercy-otis-warren

(Library of Congress)

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mercy_Otis_Warren

http://www.revolutionary-war.net/mercy-otis-warren.html

What is Dexter Green's financial status?

Published in 1922, three years before his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, the short story "Winter Dreams" evokes many of the same themes as that book, including the impetuous nature of the rich, the quest for wealth and social status and the preoccupation with ideal love.

Dexter Green is, in some ways, like Jay Gatsby. He comes from a modest, middle class background. Fitzgerald writes:

"...Dexter Green's father owned the second best grocery store in Black Bear--the best one was "The Hub" patronized by the wealthy people from Sherry Island..."

Also, like Gatsby, Dexter is a self made man. He is not nearly as rich as his college friends, who come from ultra rich families, but he does vey well for himself in the laundry business and by the time he is into his middle twenties Fitzgerald suggests that Dexter is making quite a bit of money. In section II, Fitzgerald writes:

"Before he was twenty-seven he owned the largest string of laundries in his section of the country. It was then that he sold out and went to New York."

We assume that Dexter does equally well in the big city because in the story's final section Fitzgerald writes:

"It took place in New York, where he had done well--so well that there were no barriers too high for him."

While the text never reveals just how rich Dexter has become the reader can assume he has risen to the top, much as Jay Gatsby had done. 

What are Joel Cairo's and Brigid O'Shaughnessy's involvement in the plot and what do they want Spade to discover?

Joel Cairo has been retained by the Russian General Kemidov to retrieve the Maltese falcon, which was stolen from him by Brigid O'Shaughnessy and brought to San Francisco from the Orient by her and Floyd Thursby. Cairo comes to Spade's office in the early evening. He has read in the papers that Spade's partner Miles Archer was killed and then Floyd Thursby was gunned down a few hours later. Cairo thinks Spade killed Thursby to avenge Archer and may have gotten possession of the falcon. Cairo pulls a gun on Spade and says he is going to search his office. But Spade takes the gun away, and Cairo ends up paying Spade a two-hundred-dollar retainer fee to get the falcon.

Brigid originally came to Spade's office earlier because she had a scheme to get rid of Thursby so that she wouldn't have to share the proceeds of the sale of the black statuette with him. Thursby was a mobster wanted by the police. Brigid thought she could get a private detective to tail him and Thursby would be scared into leaving town, thinking the other man was a cop or an enemy gangster. Either that, Brigid thought, or Floyd would get into a shoot-out with the private eye and either get killed or have to go on the lam to avoid being arrested for murder. Or if Floyd did get arrested, she would be rid of him that way. Miles Archer volunteers to tail Thursby that night. Brigid points Archer out to Thursby, but Thursby isn't sufficiently alarmed and doesn't try to shoot Archer. So Brigid separates from Thursby and leads Archer up a blind alley, where she kills the infatuated, unsuspecting private eye with one of Thursby's guns.

Brigid knows that Thursby was really killed by Caspar Gutman's gunman, Wilmer Cook. She is terrified because she knows she will be next. It was Gutman who hired her to steal the falcon from General Kemidov. She got it but double-crossed Gutman and kept the falcon. She gets in touch with Sam Spade because she needs someone to protect her after Thursby has been killed. Brigid doesn't have the falcon. She had Captain Jacobi bring it over on his own ship while she and Thursby sailed to San Francisco on a faster passenger liner. She is just waiting for Jacobi to bring her the black bird so that she can sell it. What she wants from Spade, besides protection, is for him to keep it a secret that she is his client, having come to his office to get a private detective to trail Thursby that night. Spade might have taken the job himself, but Miles Archer volunteered because he was strongly attracted to the beautiful young Brigid. That's why it was easy for her to lead him up the blind alley and kill him. In other words, Brigid now wants Spade to protect her from both the police and from Caspar Gutman. Once she had the statuette, she would probably do something to double-cross Spade and get rid of him; she might even be thinking of killing him.

Cairo wants Spade to get the falcon for him, but Brigid doesn't want Spade to "discover" anything. She just wants protection and secrecy until she can recover the black bird and get away from San Francisco. But Spade makes her confess that she killed his partner with the intention of pinning the murder on Floyd Thursby.

Spade said: "You thought Floyd would tackle him and one or the other of them would go down. If Thursby was the one then you were rid of him. If Miles was, then you could see that Floyd was caught and you'd be rid of him. That it?"

"S-something like that."

"And when you found that Thursby didn't mean to tackle him you borrowed the gun and did it yourself."

How is a magnet made from magnetic substances?

Magnets are substances that have a magnetic field and can attract other magnetic substances without actual direct contact. Magnets are made from magnetic substances and can be temporary (such as electromagnets) or permanent. Electromagnets are made by passing electricity though a coil of conductive wire (like copper wire) wrapped around a metallic core (such as an iron core). When the current flow is stopped, the electromagnet loses its magnetic properties.

In comparison, an extensive manufacturing process is required to prepare a permanent magnet. Powdered magnetic material (whether made directly by crushing magnetic material or by first melting the material or a mixture and then powdering the cooled mass) is used for this purpose. Powdered magnetic material is compressed to form a given shape, while aligning the magnetic elements through the use of an external magnetic field. This pressed material is then melted and cooled in the process of sintering, followed by another heating and cooling step, known as annealing. These pieces are then machined to a particular finish and are magnetized by using strong electromagnets.

Hope this helps. 

Is Columbus a hero or a villain?

The answer to the question of whether or not Christopher Columbus was a hero or villain is complicated. The Europeans alive when he sailed to the New World in 1492 would certainly have considered him a hero, for he introduced them to a new continent to colonize and extract wealth (gold, silver, profits from agriculture) and resources (sugar, vanilla, tobacco, etc.). Moreover, Columbus--a very pious man--truly believed he was accomplishing the will of God.

The indigenous Americans, on the contrary, would have doubtlessly considered him a villain. He and his men exploited the natives and treated them harshly, and the Europeans who later colonized the New World obliterated the indigenous Americans and their cultures.

Thus, the answer to your question is that Columbus exhibited both heroic and villainous characteristics. He was pious and courageous--willing to explore uncharted waters and lands--but he could also be quite cruel.

What evidence indicates that Tom Robinson is guilty or innocent in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

In the chapters relaying the trial scenes of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus's cross-examination of the witnesses reveals several points of circumstantial evidence that point to Tom Robinson's innocence, not his guilt.

The first piece of crucial evidence is revealed during Sheriff Heck Tate's testimony, who confirms that Mayella Ewell had been bruised on the right side of her face. This proves to be a crucial point because Mayella also testifies that she had been attacked from the front, which means that only a man who could use his left hand could have hit her on the right side of her face while facing her. Heck Tate's second point of crucial evidence is that Mayella had been strangled by a man gripping her neck with both hands, which was evident due to the fact that she had bruises all around her neck. Again, only a man capable of using both hands could have bruised her entire neck.

Atticus's cross-examination of Bob Ewell, Mayella's father, is even more revealing. While on the witness stand, Atticus asks Ewell if he is literate, and when Ewell answers in the affirmative, Atticus asks him to write his name. Interestingly, Ewell writes before the court using his left hand. When asked by Judge Taylor if he is ambidextrous, Ewell responds with the very intelligent answer, "I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other," which shows that Ewell was very capable of having bruised Mayella on the right side of her face and of having strangled her with both hands (Ch. 17).

The most irrefutable evidence is revealed during Mayella's cross-examination. At one point, Atticus asks Mayella to point out the man in the courtroom she is charging with having attacked her. Mayella points to Tom Robinson, and Atticus has Robinson stand before the court. As he stands, he reveals that, as Jem points out, "he's crippled!" (Ch. 18). Scout further describes in her narration that Robinson's left arm was a whole foot shorter than his right and "hung dead at his side" (Ch. 18). His left hand was also shriveled and appeared to be completely useless. In fact, his left arm and hand are so useless, Robinson finds it impossible to keep his left hand on the Bible long enough for him to be sworn into the witness stand. Reverend Sykes explains to the children that Robinson had caught his left arm in Dolphus Raymond's cotton gin when he was a boy and nearly "bled to death" (Ch. 18). Robinson's physical status serves as undeniable proof it would have been impossible for him to have bruised Mayella on the right side of her face or to strangle her, which makes him look completely innocent of all he is being accused of.

In "Through the Tunnel," how are the beach and the wild bay different?

The beach Jerry has always visited with his mother is very much associated with childhood innocence; even the narrator refers to it as "the safe beach."  It is a place without danger where he is ultimately protected and watched over.  When he looks back on it from the water, the description of his mother is telling:

There she was, a speck of yellow under an umbrella that looked like a slice of orange peel.  He swam back to shore, relieved at being sure she was there, but all at once very lonely.

Sunny, cheerful colors of yellow and orange characterize that beach (and his mother).  It is bright and secure: a place he knows well.  

The "wild bay," on the other hand, is a place full of dangers.  The water itself shows "stains of purple and darker blue," underwater "rocks lay like discoloured monsters" beneath the surface, and "irregular cold currents from the deep water shocked his limbs."  This beach is full of hazards, the water perilous.  The connotation of words like "stains" and "monsters" is overwhelmingly negative, while the image of purple and blue stains sounds like a bruise.  Moreover, the shocking, cold currents are unpredictable and unpleasant as well.  If the safe beach is symbolic of childhood, then this rocky beach and its dangers are symbolic of adulthood and the transition into it.  Jerry is no longer protected as his mother cannot see him anymore.  He is alone and wholly responsible for himself here.

Calculate, to the nearest cent, the future value of an investment of 12000 after 3 years, at 1.5% per year, compounded quarterly (times per year).

To solve, apply the formula of compounding interest.

`A = P(1+r/n)^(nt)`

where 

A is the accumulated value after t years

P is the principal amount

r is the rate

n is the number of compounding periods in a year, and

t is the number of years.

The given in the problem are:

P=$12000     r=1.5%     n=4     and     t=3

Plugging them to the formula yields:

`A=12000(1+0.015/4)^(4*3)=12000(1.00375)^12=12551.2779`

Rounding off to nearest cent, it becomes 12551.28 .

Therefore, future value of the investment is $12551.28  . 

(Note: Assume that the investment is in dollars.) 

Why is condensing a story to only 50 words difficult?

Stories like The Great Gatsby contain multiple layers of discovery. Generally condensing a story into something like 50 words leaves room only for the most basic plot summation.

A well written novel encompasses well-defined characters with strengths and weaknesses, a clear story with exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action, symbolism, themes that convey the author's message to the reader, and a setting that complements all of these elements.

F. Scott Fitzgerald weaves all of this together skilfully in The Great Gatsby. Nick, Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy each have their own backstory. Some of their character traits are admirable, like Nick's honesty. Others are not, like Tom's racism.

The intrigue of symbols permeates the work: the green light at the end of the dock and the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg to mention two.

Fitzgerald's treatment of such universal themes as love, selfishness, class systems, and the American Dream still create discussions today, many decades after the book first appeared in print.

It is hard to condense a novel to 50 words because by its very nature, a novel is not intended to be that short. The true richness and worth of a classic work of fiction can't be easily summed up.

In Arthur Rowe's The Essence of Jesus, how do the portraits of Jesus compare/contrast between the four Gospels of the New Testament? Consider...

In his introduction, Rowe states that the essence of Jesus involves who he was as a person as well as his teachings. Starting with the four gospels, which Rowe calls "our earliest sources," Rowe attempts to outline who Jesus is.

Chapter 1 reviews the few extra-biblical references to Jesus in the earliest period following his death: Josephus, the Jewish historian, and Tacitus, the Roman historian. They add little to the gospel record, Rowe says, but Josephus notes that Jesus "was a doer of startling deeds." 

For Rowe, distinctive portions of Matthew's portrait of Jesus include a genealogy that connects Jesus back to such Old Testament figures as Abraham, an extended birth story that includes Jesus' father Joseph's dream, and an emphasis on appealing to an audience of early Christians who came from Jewish roots or felt the need for better grounding in Jesus' connection to Judaism. 

In contrast, Mark has no birth story and was probably written as reassurance to early Christians who were enduring persecution. Mark also may have hoped to encourage people who were shy about their faith or who felt they had failed in being faithful, as Peter at times felt he had. Finally, Mark wanted to "correct the false picture of Jesus as a wonder worker" and instead to focus on his crucifixion as "integral" to his mission.

Luke emphasized Jesus' role as a prophet. This tone is set from the beginning, with a story of Jesus' birth that includes the angel's prophetic message to Jesus about his destiny. Luke could well have been writing to gentile converts to Christianity, in other words, people who had never been Jewish, and, also, possibly, wealthy people.

Rowe notes the gospel of John is in a "different key" from the other gospels. It begins with a "majestic prologue" that identifies Jesus as no less than the Word or Logos of God. This gospel focuses on miracles and the crucifixion. John wrote this book to bring people to the faith or to encourage them in their faith. 

Despite these differences, the four gospels share common elements: all tell of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, the temptations of Jesus, Jesus' public ministry, the fact that he challenged people, the fact that he taught people, the fact that he had a turning point in which he began to tell the disciples about his coming death, the Passion (the last week of his life, culminating in his crucifixion) and the concept that Jesus rose from the dead. 

What reasons were used by many Europeans to justify colonialism?

The Europeans had established many colonies throughout the world. They had reasons to justify their imperialism.

One reason they gave was to spread their religion. The Europeans saw an opportunity in the lands they colonized to send missionaries to the lands where no formal organized religion existed. For example, the Spanish saw this as a great opportunity to spread Christianity.

Another reason the Europeans gave was to say the colonies were better off being ruled by the Europeans. The Europeans believed their way of governing was superior. They believed they had an obligation to show people whom they considered to be less advanced how to run a government so these people could one day run their own government. The Europeans also pointed out that their ways of living were more civilized and therefore better than the ways of living in the countries they were colonizing. The Europeans believed they could show these people how to improve their way of living and how to develop a more civilized society.

The Europeans also believed their colonies would be better off economically. The Europeans felt they could bring their economic system and their manufactured products to their colonies. These people would then have access to products they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get. The Europeans hoped to develop these economies, mainly for European financial gain, to help the people economically that lived in the colonies.

The Europeans believed there were many reasons why their imperialism was justified and was a good thing.

What is the range of the scale which measures wind speed?

The Beaufort Wind scale is commonly used to measure wind speed at sea. It was developed by Sir Francis Beaufort, an officer in the Royal Navy of the U.K., in 1805. This scale divides wind conditions into 13 categories, ranging from 0 to 12. At the lowest level, 0, the wind speed is less than 1 knot and the sea is calm. At the other end of the scale, level 12, the wind speed is more than 64 knots and the conditions can be described as those of a hurricane, with wave heights of 45 feet or more.

Another scale is commonly used to measure wind speed and is known as the Saffir-Simpson scale. This scale provides a rating of 1 to 5 to the wind speed in hurricane conditions. At category 1, the wind speeds are 64-82 knots. A major storm, on the other hand, is denoted by category 5 and has wind speeds of 137 knots or higher.

Hope this helps.  

Who aids Scout in her coming of age journey in To Kill a Mockingbird?

While Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is obviously a classic tale of race relations in the South, it's also a story chronicling the education and growth of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. While many characters aid Scout in her journey, none are as essential to her coming of age than her father, Atticus Finch.

Principled, intelligent, independent, and kind, Atticus Finch is one of the most brilliantly written and most beloved characters in contemporary literature. While he often consigns himself to "doing the best he can" with raising his children, it's clear from the beginning that he is instrumental in helping Scout to become a mature, principled adult in her own right. For instance, in the first chapters of the novel, Atticus urges Scout to consider things from other people's perspectives, rather than simply condemning a person for holding beliefs other than her own. This simple advice, the advice to walk around in someone else's shoes for a change, becomes a central mantra in a novel that increasingly focuses on alternative ways of perceiving race, gender, family values, education, and the legal process. While this nugget of wisdom is not the only advice Atticus offers Scout, it is certainly one of the most important, as it helps elevate Scout above the ignorance and dull devotion to tradition that paralyzes most of the other residents of Maycomb County. 

Why were both the French and British governments sympathetic to the Confederacy during the Civil War?

There was considerable sympathy among wealthy Britons for the Confederacy, but generally the working classes favored the Union in the conflict, as did much of the liberal middle class, which was strongly anti-slavery. The French and British governments, especially Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, were not all that sympathetic to the Confederacy, at least not enough to justify intervention in the Civil War. Rather, at the beginning of the war both governments calculated that their economic and strategic interests might be aligned with those of the South. Both the British and the French had developed a thriving industry in textiles, and they depended on Southern cotton to keep the mills running. For this reason, the Union blockade, some thought, would be ruinous to the economies of these nations. Dire predictions of a "cotton famine" never materialized, however, largely because there had been a glut of cotton in the years preceding the war, and because Great Britain was able to turn to India and Egypt for cotton. Generally, France was following Great Britain's lead, and while there were a few diplomatic crises (the Trent affair, in particular) the British government generally kept out of the conflict. The Emancipation Proclamation, promulgated in 1863, redefined the conflict as a struggle to destroy slavery as well as preserving the Union. After this, there was little chance that either government would intervene in the war.

Who put the blanket around Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Although Harper Lee never explicitly tells us who put the blanket around Scout, we can infer that it is Boo Radley who does the kind deed. When a sudden snowstorm blankets Maycomb with a think layer of snow, Miss Maudie’s house catches on fire from an unattended stove she lights to keep her plants warm from the cold. The fire brings everyone in the neighborhood out to gawk at the scene.  Atticus tells Scout and Jem to go down the street to get away from the fire, and they stop and stand in front of the Radley house to watch the chaos of the fire.  It’s cold outside, and suddenly when the fire is put out and Scout and Jem are ready to go home, Scout finds a blanket gently placed over her shoulders.  The children were so enthralled with the fire that they didn’t hear or see Boo Radley place it there.  Jem and Scout are amazed, and Jem tells Atticus about his ripped pants and the presents in the tree revealing all he has learned about Boo. The kind gesture with the blanket is just another sign that Boo is not a “malevolent phantom” but is a kind friend to Scout and Jem. 

What principles taken from the Glorious Revolution were found in the French and American Revolutions?

The man who is often credited with being the "voice" of the Glorious Revolution, John Locke, was widely admired by both American and French Revolutionaries. In his Second Treatise on Civil Government, published in the wake of the Glorious Revolution (but written a bit before) Locke argued that men had certain rights that could not be taken away. The purpose of government, he said, was to protect these rights, and it was for this reason that people, born free, formed government. If a government failed to protect these rights, or acted in a way that was injurious to them, the people had the right to replace that government. Essentially, Locke argued for what has become known as an "appeal to God": the right of revolution. Many of the leaders of the American and French Revolutions claimed that their revolutions were based on precisely these sorts of violations. The Glorious Revolution also established a limited monarchy, as did the early stages of the French Revolution, and many of the ideas enshrined in British law as a result of this event--religious tolerance in particular--were also established in France and the United States. So while one can't exactly draw a straight line from the Glorious Revolution to the American through the French Revolution, its ideals, especially those articulated by John Locke, were known, admired, and emulated by revolutionaries in both countries.

What did Meg have to do to break the spell of the Black Thing in A Wrinkle in Time?

When Meg returns to Camazotz to save Charles Wallace from IT, she is not sure how she can possiby to do this. She finds her brother, but he has changed so much that she begins to hate him, especially when he tells her that Mrs. Whatsit hates her, Meg, something she knows to be a lie. As her loathing grows, she feels the power of IT growing stronger inside of her. Then she suddenly realizes that love is the one thing the power of the Black Thing can't fight. She focuses all her energy on her love for the Charles Wallace, saying over and over again that she loves him, while tears run down her cheeks. Finally, this breaks the spell and Charles Wallace runs towards her, telling her she has saved him. The two then escape Camazotz. 

How did Faber influence Montag in Fahrenheit 451?

Montag initially contacts Faber to help him understand the texts that he has read. Faber, a retired English teacher, explains to Montag the positive qualities of literature but is too afraid to act on his beliefs out of fear that he will be imprisoned or killed by the authoritative government. After describing how books preserve knowledge and examine the "infinite details" of life, Montag becomes excited to challenge the government policy of censoring works of literature. Faber influences Montag by motivating him to pursue the life of an intellectual. Faber eventually agrees to help Montag who is in search of a fulfilling life by giving him the "green bullet" to communicate. After hearing Faber's thoughts about literature and society, Montag is encouraged to not only change his life but also feels motivated to positively impact society by challenging the government's censorship policies. When Montag becomes an enemy of the state, Faber tells him where to find a group of traveling intellectuals. Faber's affinity for knowledge and literature influence Montag to drastically change his life and seek intellectual pursuits.

What are the Wife of Bath's weaknesses in The Canterbury Tales?

The Wife of Bath comes across as one of the more abrasive characters in The Canterbury Tales, the kind of person it would probably be very tiresome to spend a long journey with. Still, she is also a favorite to modern readers, who generally enjoy her spunk and bawdy wit. 

She definitely has some traits that her fellow travelers and even some modern readers might view as negative. First is her appearance. Despite having married five men (so far!), the Wife of Bath is far from conventional beauty. She has wide hips, a gap tooth, and a red face. She also is very ostentatious with her dress. From her hat the size of a "bokeler" (a small shield) to her scarlet clothes and scarves to her "moiste and newe" shoes, she is clearly a lady looking to show off her wealth as her most marriageable feature. Aside from the general dislike some people have for this look, her physical description also fits the medieval stereotype of someone who is lustful. 

Beneath the surface, her personality certainly seems to fit the "lustful" stereotype as well. She mentions "oother compaignye in youthe" – the men she has slept with before her many husbands. She is also quick to become angry or recognize slights, such as when other women upstage her in the Church offering.

A look at her five marriages also gives readers a sense of her flaws. They all sound unhealthy to abusive to the modern audience, and the Wife herself seems incredibly manipulative, using sneaky arguments, Biblical examples, and sexual favors to get her way. Each marriage seems to be a back and forth of insults and criticisms and phony compliments and praise, with each party trying to gain as much as possible. 

While the Wife is no role model, most readers forgive her these faults, enjoying her brass humor and sassy outspokenness, while empathizing with and respecting her ability to make so much for herself in a world where a woman is worth so little. For many readers, her flaws make her that much more enjoyable as a character.

What did the narrator wish to do her daddy, according to the opening line of the novel Ellen Foster? How did she propose to do this?

In the opening line of the novel Ellen Foster, written by Kaye Gibbons, Ellen reflects that when she was younger, she wished to kill her father. This is due to the fact that her father was an alcoholic and abused her mother and Ellen to the point where her mother committed suicide and Ellen ran away. She also states that her favorite way that she had thought of to kill him was by engineering a bite by a poisonous spider. She had even thought about the reaction she should have when she called for help and when they told her that he had indeed died from the bite. While ultimately she was not responsible in anyway for his death (he drank himself to death), she readily states that she is better off with him dead as it allowed her to have a better, healthier home. 

How does Fredrick Douglass portray the Fourth of July?

This speech, given in 1852 by Frederick Douglass to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in New York in commemoration of the Fourth of July, is one of the most powerful of all the abolitionist speeches. Essentially, Douglass uses the Fourth of July, when Americans celebrate their independence and their freedoms, to illustrate what he says is the "immeasurable distance" between enslaved people and the rest of Americans. He juxtaposes the ideals of America, celebrated on the Fourth, with the reality of slavery. As a result, he says, to him the Fourth is not a reminder of American liberty, but a reminder of how his people are separated from this liberty:

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

To the enslaved person, American boasts of liberty sound like "hollow mockery." Freedom is a "sham." Indeed, Douglass tells his audience, "[t]here is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices...more shocking and bloody, than are the people of the United States." So Douglass portrays the Fourth of July as a holiday that simply underlines the hypocrisy of a nation that, though espousing freedom, continues to allow the existence of an institution that is in every way the antithesis of freedom. 

What quotes show that Scout does not understand the trial?

Atticus gives Jem and Scout strict instructions not to go to the courthouse on the day of the trial. Jem has other ideas, and since Dill happens to be there, too, all three kids sneak into the balcony to watch the proceedings in chapter 17. When Bob Ewell gets up to give his testimony, though, discussion about the rape comes up and Reverend Sykes tells Jem that he should take Scout home to protect her ears. Jem doesn't want to leave for a minute, so he tells the Reverend the following:

"I think it's okay, Reverend, she doesn't understand it. . . she ain't nine yet" (173).

Scout argues that she can understand anything that Jem can, but that's debatable when Atticus starts to demonstrate the Mr. Ewell is left-handed, which will prove that he beat up his own daughter in order to make it look like she had been raped. Scout says the following:

"I was becoming nervous. Atticus seemed to know what he was doing--but it seemed to me that he'd gone frog-sticking without a light. Never, never, never on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to. . . Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want" (177).

This passage above shows that Scout does not know what Atticus is getting at by asking Bob Ewell to demonstrate the use of his dominant hand. Jem has "a quiet fit" because he understands that Atticus just proved Mr. Ewell is left-handed, and Scout could follow that, but then she says that Tom could be left-handed as well. Scout sees Tom sitting down there with strong shoulders and thick neck and determines that he could have beat up Mayella just as well as her father could have. It isn't until the middle of chapter 18, when Atticus has Mayella on cross-examination, that Tom Robinson stands up and shows everyone that his left arm is crippled and about a whole twelve inches shorter than his right arm. Scout and Jem realize more fully at this point what proving Bob Ewell's dominant hand does to support Tom's side of the story. 

Because of how far back and up the kids were sitting in the courtroom, Scout and Jem could not see, nor could they have known, that Tom's left arm was crippled. Until he stood up to show the courtroom that he physically could not have strangled or hit Mayella as she was testifying, Scout did not understand the full implication of her father's left-handed writing demonstration with Mr. Ewell. Anyone else who may not have known about Tom's disability should have been able to reasonably see that he could not have done what the uneducated and lying Ewells were saying he did. 

Is the statement, "As the play progresses Nora learns a lot about herself," true?

The statement is very true. Nora's character is round and dynamic. This means that the perceptions, attitudes, behavior or beliefs of the character will change throughout the story, novel, or play. Main characters are usually round and dynamic. This is because the main problem of the story will likely have an impact on them that will result in change.

Nora's character undergoes a change when her husband, Torvald, discovers the secret that she had been keeping from him: That she had borrowed money from a man in order to pay for medical expenses for Torvald. The act of doing such a transaction constitutes misconduct from a wife to her husband, at least during the time period when the play is set. However, Nora had internally wished to see a "miracle" unfold in case the secret is ever found out. She expected, or at least wished, that her husband would ignore the social conventions and praise Nora for this act. After all, she did it for him, and nobody else.

However, the exact opposite happens. Torvald is offended and mortified about what Nora did. He insults Nora and even says that she is an unfit wife and mother. Yet, after he finds out that Krogstad, his disgruntled employee and the man who loaned the money, will not blackmail them for the secret, Torvald immediately changes his tone and tells Nora that she is forgiven.

This was all Nora needed to see that her presence in the household for all these years had been simply ornamental; that her husband only expectation of her was for her to be a plaything, a doll, for his own entertainment. She also realizes that she had enabled such expectations by acting the way that Torvald wanted her to.

Another realization that hits Nora is that she has always been this way, even with her own father. That she has always sought her validation as a woman without avail, since the society in which she exists fails to recognize the efforts and sacrifices of her gender. This is when she decides that it is time to quit the charade that has been her life. She chooses to leave everything behind, even her children, and she walks out of her home for good, in hopes of perhaps finding herself one day.

What are the acheivements of sumerians?

The Sumerians were an important civilisation which emerged in Southern Mesopotamia (now modern-day Iraq) more than 5000 years ago. You may not realise that but so many of features of modern life were invented by these ancient people:

• The Sumerians invented the first system of writing, called the Cuneiform Script. They used this primarily to record business transactions but they also wrote books on law, history and grammar - a first in human history.


• The Sumerians were very technologically advanced and created the plow, the potter's wheel, irrigation and a clock that used the flow of water to tell the time. They also invented the wheel.


• The Sumerians developed a math system based on the number 60. They divided a circle into 360 circles and a year into 12 months (a multiple of 60) which we still use today.


• They also developed medicines using plant, animal and mineral ingredients and wrote these recipes down.

In "The Necklace," why doesn't she like to visit her friend from school?

When you refer to “she” in this question, I assume you are asking about Madame Loisel.  If this is the case, she does not like to visit her friend from school because the friend is richer than Madame Loisel is.

Mathilde Loisel is the main character in “The Necklace.”  She is a beautiful woman who thinks that she was born to hold a higher station in life than she actually holds.  She was not born rich, and she married a middle class man, but she thinks that she deserves better.  She suffers, we are told, because she feels “herself born for every delicacy and luxury” but her husband cannot afford to give her these things.  Because she suffers from the lack of luxuries, she hates to do anything that will remind her of her plight.  This is why she does not like to visit her friend.  When she visited her friend,

she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

Her friend was rich and visiting the friend reminded her that she herself could not have all the things her friend has.  Therefore, she does not like visiting her friend.  We are told this in order to help us understand just how fixated Madame Loisel is on material goods and on the trappings of wealth.  This will help us understand her character, which is what drives the events of this story.

We see few women in Macbeth, yet they play an unbelievably strong role throughout. Discuss the role of feminism and women in Macbeth.

The primary female characters in Macbeth are Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, and the witches. All of these female characters are strong people who are unafraid of their male counterparts and are often able to exercise power over them.

Lady Macbeth’s ambition and manipulative powers are well known. She takes a recalcitrant Macbeth and molds him into a murderous force. At one point she actually asks spirits to “unsex” her and enable her to act with the cruelty of a man.

Lady Macduff is another strong female character, although she is less well-known. When her husband flees to England to help Malcolm gather an army, she decries him a traitor. She does not simply accept his decision as right and just, and she does not consider it her place to passively accept what she considers his betrayal of his family.

The witches are the catalysts that set all the problems in motion. Although Macbeth tries to command them, they will not be directed by him. They hold him in little regard and have no qualms about leading him astray. Hecate is a female, the goddess of sorcery, and she does not seem to be answering to any male supernatural force.

Feminism was probably not much of an issue in Shakespeare's time, so it may have seemed odd to audiences that so many of his female characters were of independent mindsets. It certainly led to many interesting conflicts in his plays.

In the book Gathering Blue, why doesn't Kira leave with her father?

At the end of Gathering Blue, Kira is about to journey with her father to a different town called The Village of Healing. It would mean that Kira would have to leave everyone and everything behind, including her job, Thomas, and Jo. Kira decides that she will stay behind and send her father with Matt, who will be there to travel back and forth between the two towns as the messenger.

Kira believes that, along with Thomas and Jo, they have the gifts to make the town better than it already is. If she left, she would not be able to use her gifts to change the town. Kira wants to use her gifts for the greater good, and once she has completed her goal of changing the town for better, she will then travel to The Village of Healing to be with her father.   

What explanation does Mr. Nathan give for sealing up the knot-hole?

Boo Radley leaves presents for Scout and Jem in the knot-hole of an old tree by the Radley house.  They find gifts ranging from sticks of gum to carved soap to an old spelling bee medal.  The children eagerly reach into the knot-hole to find their surprises.  One day, they go to the knot-hole and Jem notices something different about it.  He calls to Scout and she sees a strange expression on his face.  He is shocked because "someone had filled [their] knot-hole with cement" (To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 7).

They wait for Mr. Nathan Radley so they can ask him why cement is in the knothole.  The next day, they spot him.  They greet their neighbor and ask him if he was the one who put the cement in the knot-hole.  He tells them that yes, he had done it:

"Tree's dying.  You plug 'em with cement when they're sick.  You ought to know that, Jem."

Jem and Scout are still uncertain, so they ask their father.  They point the tree out to him, and ask him if it is indeed dying.  Their father looks at the tree, and he seems puzzled by their question.  He tells them that the tree is healthy: "Look at the leaves, they're all green and full, no brown patches anywhere..."

Where can I find scholarship on the Greek gods depicted in the Odyssey?

There are many thousands of books and articles on ancient Greek religion. As you classified this under Homer's Odyssey, the most relevant works would probably be ones that talk about the Homeric epics or early Greek religion.

An excellent starting point for research on classical topics in general is the website of the Society for Classical Studies. Your university library website should provide access to L'Année philologique, a searchable database of articles on classic studies that is the standard research tool in the discipline. 

Another good starting point for your research would be Walter Burkert's Greek Religion, which covers in great detail the idea that rather than ritual enacting myth, the stories of the Greek gods may have instead originated in an attempt to explain religious ritual.

Paul Veyne's book, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?, is a good starting point for thinking about how the original audience would have understood Homer. Veyne argues convincingly that the ancient audience would not have believed Homeric epics and their stories about the gods literally. 

As the Homeric epics are part of an oral tradition, another good starting point would be books on Homer as oral tradition literature such as Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy or Eric Havelock's The Muse Learns to Write. 

What are some examples of images in Song of Myself section one?

The first image in this section is an image that will recur through the rest of the poem: "I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass" (5).  The speaker's observance of this "spear" of grass (which is an unusual word--normally, one would say "blade" instead of "spear" of grass) gives him the moment to consider Nature's connection to humanity, because afterward, the speaker comments on how "My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, / Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same (6-7).  Whitman sees in this one piece of grass the connection of humanity throughout the ages, through generations of people who have come before him and who will come after.  Again, this is a theme that will continue through the poem.

The other image that is consistent throughout the poem is the speaker himself: "I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin" (8).  This poem is like an autobiography of sorts for Whitman, and he is beginning of journey, "Hoping to cease not till death" (9), which is reminiscent of the Transcendentalists.  Through this poem, he hopes to discover something about himself before he dies, and he is hoping that Nature will give him the answers.

How was the Italian unification completed?

Italian unification (known as "Risorgimento," which literally means "resurgence) was a slow process which took several centuries to complete. When Napoleon conquered Italy in the early 19th century, the French introduced revolutionary ideas to the Italians. 

Guiseppe Mazzini--the ideological father of Italian unification--was among the first Italians to advocate a unified Italy. He failed in his quest, but the communist revolutions of 1848 sparked a growing nationalist sentiment in Italy. The conservative regimes suppressed these revolts, but the gears of unification could not be stopped from spinning.

Now that the ideological foundation of unification had been laid, Count Camillo di Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia (the wealthiest Italian kingdom), began the physical process. He helped orchestrate the Franco-Austrian War of 1859, which forced the Italian states to unify militarily against the Austrians. Then, in 1861, a number of Italian states voted to join Piedmont-Sardinia.

Several other events brought Italy further toward unification, but the process was officially complete when Italy moved its capital to Rome in 1871.

Who are the antagonist and protagonist in The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough?

The protagonist is Meggie Cleary. Even though there are a lot of characters and the story spans several generations, Meggie is the most central character and her plot (her impossible love for Father Ralph de Bricassart) is the most heavily weighted.

There are different kinds of plots in story-telling, and all revolve around a conflict. Sometimes the plot conflict is between one character and another, the protagonist and the antagonist, but quite often, the protagonist is in conflict against something other than another character. The conflict could be against nature (for example, lost in the woods or fighting a bear), society (for example, on the run from the law or fighting for civil rights), a machine (such as a giant robot or trucks that come to life), or even him/herself.

In the case of The Thorn Birds, Meggie's greatest antagonist is herself. She makes decisions that lead to problems, and then she has to search for solutions. For example, when Ralph chooses not to destroy the secret will, inheriting Mary's 13 million pounds for the church, Meggie could say, "Oh, Ralph chose money and power over me. I guess he does not love me strongly enough. I should forget him and move on." Then Meggie would probably meet a good man and have a pretty decent life. But there would be no story. Instead, Meggie pines for Ralph and marries Luke, who treats her like property and isn't a good companion or husband to her. So Meggie's main antagonist is her own thoughts and feelings, and her conflict is mainly internal.

Meggie and Ralph also have some conflict with society; specifically, the rules that the Catholic religion has in place to govern morality. According to the church, priests are not allowed to marry. They should be fully devoted to God and married to the church. Therefore the morals of the church can be considered a secondary antagonist in Meggie's story as she struggles through life in love with a man she can never have.

How can I write a mass communication email to inform 2,000 employees about the new grading system which the organization will use during the year...

There are several strategies that will help you compose this sort of email, some having to do with the form and some with the content.

First, you should send this to a distribution list set up as a blind carbon copy (BCC) so that the recipients don't end up seeing a list of 2,000 addresses in the "to:" field. 

Next, your subject line should read: "New Employee Grading System Effective 2016". You should flag this email as important. 

If you wish to have employees contact HR rather than yourself with questions, set the "reply to" field appropriately.

Your email should be no more than one screen in length. That means that you should include an active link to a page where the details of the policy are available rather than trying to include all the details in a single email. The general style of the email should be formal, including grammatically correct sentences and appropriate punctuation and capitalization. 

The email might consist of three paragraphs:

• Reasons for changes and how the new system benefits employees


• Highlights of changes (perhaps as bullet points)


• Where to find more information

Explain the relationship between George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck?

John Steinbeck significantly developed the relationship between George and Lennie by making George the intelligent and lonely but weak character and making Lennie the mentally disabled and lonely but strong. “The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, with large, pale eyes, and wide sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws.” This proves Lennie strength but, also lets you know he is like an animal strong but, not very intelligent and acts on instinct not thought, which means he doesn’t think before he does something which is why George is there to guide him with his wits.“With us it ain't like that.  We got a future.  We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us…” this shows George has the ability to think ahead and plan for the future. Therefore making George need Lennie for his strength and Lennie need George for his wit’s and self-control.

John Steinbeck also makes Lennie portray a child like figure and makes him unable to control himself making George have to be the parent figure. Like when Lennie pets the mice to hard and kills it George gets mad and throws the dead mouse across the river. "The hell with the rabbits. An' you ain't to be trusted with no live mice.”  In the book you will notice how George tells Lennie what to do and how to do it. For instance in Weed when Lennie wants to touch the little girl’s red dress so, he holds on “'cause that's the only thing he can think to do.” The girl starts yelling and George  was just' a little distance away, and he heard all the yelling', so he came running, and by that time Lennie's so scared all he can think to do is jus' hold on. In the book George socked him over the head with a fence picket to make him let go. He was so scared he couldn't let go of that dress. George’s exclaimed “And he's so God damn strong, you know." Not only do these quotes show that Lennie is strong it also shows he doesn’t have the mentality to know what he was doing and to stop. George then tells him to run and they run off to the new ranch where they meet Curley and them. Lennie often tests George the way a child tests a parent. When George yells at Lennie, Lennie threatens to run away. He is not capable of caring for himself, yet he imagines living in a cave. These are the escape fantasies of a child. As the child, he has little to offer his father figure other than his devotion. Knowing that George loves him and would miss him, Lennie threatens to leave when they argue. This is Lennie's only way of asserting any type power in the relationship.

Steinbeck also made the dream farm to make them have a common goal and have them try to reach it together and to have what childish animals on the farm for Lennie and have home and place for them to do whatever pleased them. He also made George have a strong emotional connection with Lennie making Lennie show the nice,caring, etc.. side of George. John Steinbeck  made their relationship this way because it gave the readers an emotional appeal to the book.

What word does Jack begin to call his hunters in chapter 8 of Lord of the Flies?

In chapter 8 of Lord of the Flies, Jack tries to depose Ralph as chief. He takes up the conch at the meeting and asks boys to raise their hands if they don't want Ralph to be chief anymore. He is brought to tears when no boys take his side, and he stalks away, declaring he won't be part of "Ralph's lot" anymore. Many of the older boys join him, and soon Jack has his own group of boys who live away from the others. After his boys have killed a pig, they return to Ralph's group. Jack wants to entice more of the boys to join his band. After describing where their new camp is, he explains, "We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us." He calls his group a "tribe." There has never been a need for a separate designation before, for they were "hunters," but that symbolized their role within the large group. Now they have formed a separate society, and Jack calls it a "tribe." He also has "two savages" who accompany him, and after his declaration, they state in unison, "The Chief has spoken," showing that there are now two chiefs on the island.

What is a potential thesis statement for Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan?

There are a number of different themes in Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan, including, but not limited to, man vs. nature, identity, and freedom vs. confinement. 

Because the novel contains so many themes, you have the option of choosing from a variety of unique thesis statements. 

Here's one potential thesis statement you could use: 

In Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan, the theme of identity is explored as Ivan, a silverback gorilla living in captivity, goes from being totally content living out his life in the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade to realizing that he's a wild animal who's not meant to be caged.

* As I mentioned before, though, there are a number of different themes in this novel, so if you don't want to write about identity, you could always choose to write about man vs. nature (the people in the book represent humankind and the animals represent the natural world) or the concept of freedom vs. confinement instead.

In order to help you choose your theme, I've left you some questions to mull over:

• Can Ivan still be "free" while living in captivity?


• Is freedom about physical limitations or is it a state of being?


• Where does Ivan's sense of self come from?


• How does mankind impact the natural world?

Good luck!

Identify a few examples of synecdoche and metonymy as they are used in Act 3, scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet.

Metonymy and synecdoche are two figures of speech which are often confused since they are so similar. In metonymy one replaces the name of a thing with another name with which it is closely associated. One of the most popular examples is, 'The pen is mightier than the sword,' where 'pen' refers to writing and 'sword' refers to war or battle.   

In synecdoche, a part of something is used to represent the whole or vice-versa, where the whole is used to represent a smaller part. An example would be where one refers to a person having nice 'wheels.' This is a common reference to a car as the wheels are part of a vehicle. Alternatively, one can say, 'America' won the World Cup.' The reference is obviously not to the entire population of America, but to a part thereof, i.e. the team that represented the country.

There are a number of examples of both synecdoche and metonymy in this particular scene. At the onset, Benvolio tells Mercutio that 'the day is hot.' What he actually means is that the sun is hot, not the day itself. Since there is an association between the sun and heat, this is metonymy. He also refers to 'the Capulets abroad.' In this instance, he is not referring to the entire Capulet clan but to certain members of the family, such as Tybalt and his friends, being out and about. This is synecdoche since the whole is used to refer to a part.

Benvolio further speaks about the 'mad blood stirring.' This is another example of metonymy because of the assumed association between blood and one's emotions. It is not the blood which becomes volatile, but the individual's emotions which are excited. Even though blood can be seen as part of the whole (synecdoche) the reference is, primarily, to heightened emotions.  

Mercutio refers in his response, to 'the operation of the second cup' suggesting the effect of taking a second cup of alcohol. It is not the cup which affects the individual, but its content. Another example of metonymy. The association between the two is clear. It is not synecdoche since the alcohol does not form part of the cup, it is merely contained therein.

Mercutio later asks, 'what eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?' 'Eye' as it is used here is an obvious reference to a person and is, therefore, synecdoche - using a part to refer to the whole. 

There are quite a few other examples of both metonymy and synecdoche in the rest of the scene. One can look at, for example, the reference to 'fiddlestick' used as metonymy by Mercutio as well as his mention of finding him a 'grave man,' an obvious reference to death, therefore, metonymy. He also pronounces a curse on the Capulets and Montagues by saying, 'A plague on both your houses' (synecdoche).

Where in the cell do you find lipids?

Cell membranes have lipids, in fact, it contains almost a billion lipid molecules. These lipid molecules constitute almost half the mass of cell membrane. These membranes are made up of phospholipid bilayers. These lipid molecules are amphipathic, that is, they contain both a hydrophobic end and a hydrophilic end. The phospholipid molecule contains the hydrophilic head and two hydrophobic tails. This unique structure enables these molecules to instantly form bilayers. The cell membrane acts as a selectively permeable barrier between the cell interior and the outside environment. Only certain select molecules can pass into the cell, either through active or passive transport; the rest are unable to enter the cell. Waste molecules generated during cell operations are also excreted through the membrane, thereby maintaining cell homeostasis. 

Hope this helps. 

If Lily continued to make rude comments about individual differences,she would be called in for what in The Giver?

Lily would be called in for chastisement if she continued to call attention to individual differences.

Chastisement is another word for punishment or scolding.  It is not clear exactly what being called in for chastisement means, but most likely a town elder would explain to Lily that she should not mention traits of individuals because the community considered it rude.

No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals. (Ch. 3)

Lily has been rude because she mentioned Gabriel and Jonas’s “funny eyes.”  Jonas and Gabe both have light eyes.  It is uncommon for anyone in the community to have light eyes, and this is why Lily thinks they are funny looking.  Jonas is upset by the comment because being different from the other citizens makes him uncomfortable.

The community prizes Sameness above all else.  This means that everyone looks alike and acts alike, and differences are minimized.  No one calls attention to them.  No one values them.  Being different is dangerous, because it might make people uncomfortable.

The community has strict rules for behavior, and they are strictly enforced.  There are cameras everywhere, and every interaction is recorded.  The community elders know what everyone is doing, and public commenting on individual infractions are common.  Parents are also expected to teach their children proper behavior and control it, and this is why Jonas “waited for his father to chastise Lily.”  Errors by children reflect on the parents.

But each such error reflected negatively on his parents' guidance and infringed on the community's sense of order and success. (Ch. 6)

Jonas is disquieted by the incident.  He does not like being seen as different.  Calling attention to Gabriel calls attention to him.  In Jonas’s community, the only other people who have pale eyes are a younger girl named Katharine and The Giver.  The comment about Jonas’s eyes foreshadows the importance of those eyes.  They indicate that he has the Capacity to See Beyond, and that is the reason he is chosen as the Receiver of Memory.

Job assignments are the only time when differences are relevant.  The community tries to identify each individual’s strength and give the person a job that utilizes it.  After Jonas is selected, it becomes clear that pale eyes are the least of what makes him different.  His community will rely on his differences to save them from the memories of their past.

What are your feelings after reading the poem "Death the Leveller", and why?

Feelings experienced after reading the poem "Death the Leveller" by James Shirley include:

1. Resignation

2. Sorrow

3. Regret

(1)

Regarding Resignation, I have these feelings because I accept the fact that death awaits us all no matter our battles and confrontations in life. We as individuals and as nations, can fight with our real and perceived foes, but in the end, the victor and the vanquished all end up in the grave. It makes one wonder if it is at all worthwhile to engage in conflicts that only bring ruin and harm to humanity. Is all this war, fighting, and conflict worth it in the end? I believe not and I believe what the opening two lines of this poem say, as follows:

“The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;”

(2)

Regarding Sorrow, I have these feelings because I can see and understand how conflict has taken the lives of so many individuals through the centuries and primarily the young men and women of nations – in the prime producing and creative years of their lives. These men and women sacrificed their lives for their respective nations, died young, and never reaped the benefits of living into old age with families of their own to grow old with.

War is a waste of human lives as well as resources. War ruins the beauty of our physical environment. In addition, as is alluded to in the above quoted passage, glorying in wars and battles is not what is important – they are fleeting events -  they are not substantial and they produce no lasting peace or a Utopian society.

(3)

Regarding Regret, I have these feelings because at times I have gloried in victories that certain nations have had over diverse adversaries, without really knowing the whole story concerning some conflicts. Upon further study, I have come to realize that each side was fighting for what they believed was right. Each side, and again, mainly these young men and women, were fighting for a cause they believed in, no matter what side they were on.

In addition, these combatants were following orders of their superiors who they no doubt trusted (at least most of the time); they felt it was their duty to country to carry out the actions they were doing. I regret that I have looked down on brave men and women of opposing nations who may have gone to war without really knowing why – but did it because they felt they were duty-bound to serve their fellow citizens.

Why was Leonardo da Vinci significant in world history?

Most people know Leonardo da Vinci as a gifted painter from the Renaissance period. This is certainly true as paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are historically respected works of art. But da Vinci was involved in many areas of study including botany, geology, and physics. This reflected the desire of the Renaissance period in the exploration of human reason and science. He helped lead a movement to revive the arts and sciences in Europe. His keen sense of the importance of the visual senses and observation inspired scientific inventiveness. He was an architect and engineer who sketched weapons likes tanks and crossbows. Da Vinci also had a keen interest in anatomy and his diagrams of the human body were centuries ahead of their time. His sketches appeared futuristic at the time and he seemed to predict the use of bicycles, airplanes, and helicopters. Da Vinci was one of the most important players in the Renaissance period, a time period that saw European states thrust into modernity.

What did Jean Jacques Rousseau write about?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a social philosopher who was born in 1712 and died in 1778. He is most well known for his political theories and writings on human nature. His writings were influential to the French Revolution.

Most of Rousseau's writing was focused on the values of equality and liberty. He believed that when left to their own devices, most groups of humans opted for an egalitarian society. He believed that in the earliest days of man, all societies were egalitarian and free of values which serve to discriminate against or stratify the people. He was very interested in what he called Primitive societies (as in hunter-gatherer societies) and felt that their lifestyles were the best representations of the origins of human society. Rousseau felt that the root of stratification of people began with the notion of property or ownership.

You may be familiar with a quote of Rousseau's- "Man is born free but everywhere is in chains." This means that Rousseau felt that at birth, humans are free beings, but as we grow up we learn the restrictions of society. This is a good example of the kind of philosophy Rousseau wrote on and pushed for in religious, social, and political reform.

Why does water boil faster at the top of a mountain than at the bottom?

The boiling point of a liquid decreases with decreased pressure. Since air pressure is lower in the mountains, water will boil at a lower temperature than it does at sea level. This means that it requires less energy and therefore a shorter heating time to reach its boiling temperature. Air pressure is caused by the weight of the atmosphere above us. The higher the altitude, the less air above us so the lower the pressure.

The boiling point of a liquid is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals atmospheric pressure. The vapor pressure, which is the pressure exerted by gaseous molecules of the substance at its surface, increases with temperature. Water’s vapor pressure reaches 760 mm Hg at a temperature of 100 C, its normal boiling point. This is the normal pressure at sea level. If the atmospheric pressure is less than 760 mmHg the vapor pressure of water will reach the atmospheric pressure and boil at a lower temperature.

Cooking directions are often altered for high altitudes because the lower boiling temperature of water results in slower cooking.

What does Malcolm X tell his teacher he wants to be when he grows up?

Malcolm X told his junior high school English teacher that he wanted to be a lawyer. His teacher responded by telling Malcolm that this was an unrealistic goal. He tells Malcolm that he should think about becoming a carpenter instead. In his autobiography, Malcolm X describes this encounter as a turning point in his childhood. He dropped out of school the next year at the age of fifteen, having received the message that there was no point in a black man pursuing his education.

Malcolm was the only black student at his junior high school and he felt that he was smarter than most of his white classmates. Although his teachers supported the aspirations of his white peers, they did not give Malcolm the same hope.

Based on the stories in the Ramayana, what motivates the actions of gods?

The preservation of dharma motivates the actions of the gods in the Ramayana.

"Dharma" can be seen as acting in the way that is right. It provides structure to the universe. Without dharma, the universe becomes lawless and descends into chaos. Dharma is critical in the actions of the gods in the Ramayana. For example, Lord Vishnu takes the Rama avatar because he recognizes that dharma must be represented on earth. Rama believes that "truth is the highest form of dharma" and acts in accordance to this maxim. Rama does not swerve from his path. Specific examples are when he willingly accepts Kaikeyi's banishment, when he stands up for the rights of those who are silenced, and in the way he focuses on retrieving Sita from Ravana. In these instances, dharma motivates Lord Vishnu in the Rama avatar.

Devi Sita, Rama's wife, also embodies dharma. She is an avatar of the goddess Lakshmi. In this form, Sita represents the essence of dharma in her loyalty to Rama, adherence to the strict standards of an ideal wife, and in the way she fights injustice. Ravana is able to kidnap her because he assumes the form of a mendicant, and Sita knows that her dharma is to serve a visitor, even though it goes against the instruction that Lakshmana gave when he drew his line. Sita also embodies dharma in how she repels Ravana. Even though she is promised wealth, privilege, and luxury, she refuses because she knows her dharma as a wife. As an avatar of Sita, dharma motivates Lakshmi.  

What were some differences between Kush and Egypt?

One major difference between Kush and Egypt is their locations. Kush was an empire to the south of Egypt and was built at the base of the mountains. They had a steady amount of rainfall. This rainfall coupled with the runoff from the mountains meant that they almost always had fertile soil. This was a different story for Egypt. Egypt depended on the annual flooding of the Nile River in order to have good soil to plant and grow food needed for survival. This flooding was vital to their civilization. Another difference between Kush and Egypt is that queens ruled Kush, unlike the male kings and pharaohs that ruled Egypt. They also built tombs like the Egyptians did but the Kush generally built tombs with flat roofs on them. Kush also had natural resources such as gold, ivory, and iron ore. Mummification is also an area where they had some differences. The process of mummification in Egypt was often reserved for those with wealth because the process was expensive and the common people could not afford it. Kush nobles also mummified their dead but the common people mummified their dead as well. 

Why does Junior get so angry when he reads his mother's name in his math textbook?

In Sherman Alexie's semi-autobiographical novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold Spirit (called Junior) becomes so fed up with life at his school that he makes the decision to go to a school miles away. Junior has grown up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, an impoverished area with little opportunity for development. Junior's friends, family, and everyone he knows are stuck in a cycle that puts them at a disadvantage. Junior's people are unable to find gainful work, and many resort to alcohol abuse to cope with the stresses of poverty. Junior is angry that his people are denied so much, and when he sees his mom's name in his text book, something snaps.

Junior's school is so behind the times that students still use textbooks from thirty years prior. Information is so fast-paced these days that textbooks inevitably contain outdated information. Junior's school cannot afford new, up-to-date, and accurate textbooks every year-- apparently not even every thirty years! To Junior, this textbook bearing his mother's signature is a physical example of the institutionalized oppression the Spokane people suffer from. Junior is so mad at the textbook and his teacher, a man who benefits from and enforces this oppression, that he throws the book right in the teacher's face!

Explain clearly why the United States started to look to expand overseas during the late 1800s.

There are many reasons why the United States began to look to expand overseas, a process known as "imperialism," in the late nineteenth century. Let us look at a few. 

First, to look at ideological factors, the United States looked overseas because the nation's conquest of the lands west to the Pacific Ocean was complete by midcentury, and especially after victory over the Plains Indians in the 1870s. Many who saw America's destiny in terms of expansion began to look beyond North America. The late nineteenth century was also a period when many people were influenced by Social Darwinism, and many viewed the world in racial terms. They believed that the United States had the right and the obligation to spread its influence around the world. Many argued that imperialism would actually be beneficial to the peoples under American control--allegedly superior American white Christians would bring their culture to allegedly primitive peoples around the world. This concept is often called the "white man's burden," and it was a powerful argument for imperialism.

The desire for expansion was also stoked by business interests. American business leaders sought secure markets for their manufactured goods, and the best way to gain them was, they thought, through the use of the US military (for example, in several Central American countries), or at least through aggressive diplomacy (for example, in China). Some territories, like Hawaii, were annexed largely due to the influence of business interests. Wealthy American planters on the island thought an American presence would benefit their business interests. Most of them were sugar and fruit planters, and their influence also underscores another reason for US imperialism--the acquisition of cheap raw materials and labor for goods to be sold in the United States and abroad. 

Finally, imperialism was viewed as a military and strategic necessity. The book The Influence of Naval Power Upon History, published by Alfred Thayer Mahan in 1890, convinced many in the US government that the nation would have to expand its naval power if it was to join the great nations of the world. To have a navy, the United States needed friendly ports and coaling stations around the world. For this reason, the nation expanded into the Pacific, acquiring small islands. The expansion of naval power made the expansion of economic and diplomatic power possible as well.

How are Cal and Zeebo different in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

Zeebo is Cal's eldest son. He appears in Chapters 10 and 12. As a garbage collector in Maycomb, Zeebo fulfills his responsibilities when he picks up Tim Johnson's dead carcass in Chapter 10. Tim Johnson, of course, is the rabid dog which terrorizes the neighborhood until Atticus kills it with a shot from the sheriff's rifle.

In the novel, we learn that it was Cal who taught her son how to read from the Bible and Blackstone's Commentaries. While Cal is a housekeeper at the Finch residence, Zeebo is a garbage collector. Both lead modest lives; Cal does not let on to her neighbors that she is a literate black woman. However, the main difference between Zeebo and Cal is that Zeebo has a leadership position at the First Purchase African M.E. Church. In Chapter 12, he leads the largely illiterate congregation at First Purchase in the singing of hymns, using a method called 'lining.'  In the chapter, we are told that he lines Jubilee and On Jordan's Stormy Banks for his fellow parishioners. Hope this helps!

What problems in communities impede the teaching of morals and ethics in schools?

One issue with teaching morals and ethics in schools, at least in public schools, is that many aspects of ethics and morality are culture-specific. What people from some cultures hold to be morally wrong may not be so in other cultures. Even within cultures, what some people regard as immoral might be perfectly acceptable to others. This is not to say that societies cannot educate their children in ethical behavior, or that there are not shared norms within societies--respect for the property of others, academic integrity, and tolerance spring to mind--but it can be very difficult to get people to agree what these things are. In short, one problem in teaching ethics and morality is determining what we agree on, and what a curriculum in this area would consist of. Educators would also have to expose students to the contested nature of these concepts, and what they mean in everyday life, without being overly prescriptive. Within certain constitutionally-defined boundaries, it would be inappropriate to use the classroom to force a moral system on students.

What is the connection between conservation and ethics as it applies specifically to zoos? Please give some examples.

An artificially-enclosed space in the middle of a major urban area is hardly the natural habitat for most of the animals that populate the average zoo. Elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, zebras, and hundreds of other species are captured in the wilds of Africa, Asia, or Latin America, and are systematically transported to zoos for the entertainment of people. Is this ethical? Some, as is the case with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, argue that zoos are the antithesis of ethical human behavior, arbitrarily forcing wild animals into public spaces for our own amusement [See on this point the link provided below to PETA’s website addressing this issue]. Many others, however, argue that zoos are, in fact, an ethical response to the man-made and natural threats most species of animals confront on a regular basis. Recognizing the moral dilemmas inherent in the operation of zoos, and aquariums, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums follows a “Code of Ethics and Animal Welfare,” which includes such guiding principles as:

“Assisting in achieving the conservation and survival of species must be the aim of all members of the profession. Any actions taken in relation to an individual animal, e.g. euthanasia or contraception, must be undertaken
with this higher ideal of species survival in mind, but the welfare of the individual animal should not be compromised,” and

“Promote the interests of wildlife conservation, biodiversity and animal welfare to colleagues and to society at large.”

 The connection between conservation and ethics with respect to the function of zoos, then, lies in the moral and, depending upon the individual society, legal responsibility for advancing a broader social agenda rather than merely introducing the public to varieties of species it will otherwise never encounter except on nature shows on television. Because the process of capturing animals in the wild, transporting them to metropolitan locations thousands of miles from their natural habitats, and containing them in necessarily-constrained man-made enclosures is inherently unethical in some respects, the mission of educating the public as to the threats to biodiversity caused by man-made activities and natural phenomena alike is a core mission of most zoos. Few people fully appreciate the role each species plays in the broader global environment. Ecosystems tend to become abstract concepts when students leave school and begin their adulthoods, becoming absorbed in jobs, raising children, and other elements of everyday existence. Zoos function, therefore, as a reminder of the natural world beyond our borders. Plus, zoos provide important laboratories for the study of animals—studyies that aids in the preservation of many species. One example, discussed in the 2013 article “Ecological Ethics in Captivity: Balancing Values and Responsibilities in Zoo and Aquarium Research under Rapid Global Change,” a link to which is provided below, involves the preservation of endangered amphibians under a global consortium of zoos, universities, and conservation organizations called the Amphibian Ark Project (AArk):

“Zoos and aquariums in the AArk serve as conservation way stations for amphibian populations facing possible extinction because of the combined forces of habitat loss, infectious disease, and climate change. But they also function as centers of research into the drivers of population decline, the possibilities of disease mitigation, and the prospect of selecting for biological resistance to a lethal amphibian pathogen. With the mission of rescuing, housing, and breeding hundreds of amphibian species to return them eventually to native localities, the AArk is emerging as a hybrid or “pan situ” approach to biodiversity protection, a project that integrates (and blurs the borders between) ex situ and in situ conservation."

This is just one example of the connection between ethics and conservation involving zoos. There are others. Here in the Midwest, the threat to species of bats—essential for the control of mosquito populations, including those that carry infectious diseases—due to the spread of a disease called "White-nose Syndrome" would be less visible were it not for the efforts of zoos to educate the public by exhibiting these ugly but important creatures while informing visitors through brief lectures and in placards attached to each cage.

Whether zoos are the only, or even the best way to accomplish the conservation mission is open to debate. One academic study, “The Role of Zoos in Creating a Conservation Ethic in Visitors,” directly targets the debate regarding the ethics of zoos. Focusing on the Taronga Zoo in Australia, the report’s author, Elena Kazarov, argues that the essential function of zoos—educating the public—is routinely undercut by the propensity for zoo visitors to miss the point of their visit. Subsumed as many families are with entertaining and provisioning young children, the educational value of zoos is quickly lost, thereby undermining the ethical argument for these facilities. As Kazarov writes in her report:

“A more effective means of creating a conservation ethic in visitors is going on nature walks in national parks, spending time in one’s local environment, and building connections with local wildlife. Aboriginal philosophy shows us that knowing and loving one’s local environment enables one to better appreciate other environments, no matter how far removed one is from them. Respect for other living beings is the crux of a strong conservation ethic, and it does not matter whether the being is a zebra from Africa or a wallaby from Australia. . .Understanding the importance of biodiversity in ecosystems and the need to preserve and protect the numerous relationships in the web of life serves to strengthen the conservation ethic.”

One cannot help, though, to return to that enlightening passage in Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, in which the young narrator, addressing criticisms of zoos, notes:

“Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured. . .”

“A sound zoo . . . is subjectively neither better nor worse for an animal than its condition in the wild; so long as it fulfills the animal's needs, a territory, natural or constructed, simply is, without judgment, a given, like the spots on a leopard. One might even argue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it would opt for living in a zoo, since the major difference between a zoo and the wild is the absence of parasites and enemies and the abundance of food in the first, and their respective abundance and scarcity in the second."

Zoos do represent the connection between ethics and conservation efforts. A properly-run zoo provides the animals with sufficient space in an appropriate, if artificially-constructed environment, where the animals are safe from natural predators, and where they can be studied with an eye towards the preservation of their species. Yes, that can be done in the wild, and there are certainly zoos in the world that lack the proper amenities for the animals in their care, but the scientific and educational attributes of zoos could be said to outweigh the ethically-questionable nature of their existence.