In Holes by Louis Sachar, what, according to Sam, could onions cure?

Sam says that onions can cure everything. 

Sam is known as “the onion man.”  He claims that his donkey Mary Lou is fifty years old, and her old age and good health are a result of eating onions. 

"She eats nothing but raw onions," Sam would say, holding up a white onion between his dark fingers. "It's nature's magic vegetable. If a person ate nothing but raw onions, he could live to be two hundred years old." (Ch. 25) 

Basically, to Sam, onions are the cure-all.   They will heal whatever ails you.  Soon, the people of the village go to Sam instead of the doctor when they are sick.  He has made all kinds of medicines and lotions out of onions and swears by their use. 

He said that onions were good for the digestion, the liver, the stomach, the lungs, the heart, and the brain. "If you don't believe me, just look at old Mary Lou here. She's never been sick a day in her life." (Ch. 25) 

So Sam says that onions can cure old age, arthritis, baldness, and just about anything else.  A lot of people just get medicine from the doctor and onions from Sam, to hedge their bets.  They do not want to take any chances by skipping the onion cure. 

Sam gets into a little trouble for kissing the schoolteacher, Katherine Barlow, because he is black and she is white.  This causes a stir in the village.  They set fire to the schoolhouse and Sam is shot. Kissing Kate never recovered psychologically. 

There may be something to the onions.  When Stanley runs away, he finds some of the old onions and eats them.  It turns out that the onions have another use.  They protect you from the dangerous yellow-spotted lizards, who don’t like “onion blood.”  The onions come full circle.

How does Arthur Miller's play The Crucible invite audiences to consider the detrimental effects of a repressive society?

A section of the Salem community was persecuted based on superstition, religion, and personal vendetta. The power of religion over the people and the enforcement of the religious code on the community by the authorities made the society a repressive one. Individuals had no choice with regards to religious practice. They were expected to remain silent about their concerns on the administration of the church and religious practice in general. The people were also expected to go to church consistently, and failure led to suspicions of witchcraft. For instance, Hale suspected John after he unconvincingly responded to his questions about church attendance, his child’s baptism, and the Ten Commandments.

The author showed the detrimental effects of a repressive society by singling out the individuals who took advantage of the situation to forward and/or protect their interests. For instance, the issue of witchcraft was used by some individuals to get rid of their foes. Mr. Putnam used the situation to try and appropriate privately owned property by falsely accusing Giles. Judge Danforth failed to uphold justice and instead sought to protect his position. In conclusion, People in positions of power and those that can manipulate the situation have the last say in a repressive society.

Compare and contrast Nora Helmer from A Doll's House and Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. How are their loss of innocence and gaining...

Both Nora and Holden find themselves in a society with rules that can be confusing, self-contradictory, and often harsh. Both have a keen sense of justice, though in Nora's case, she begins the play naively expecting to receive justice, whereas Holden already realizes that in most cases nobody is going to right the injustice. 

Nora's journey is one of slowly realizing that her society, and even her husband, are not going to support her in the financial decisions she has made to pay for his needed health care (to "save his life"). When she finally realizes that she can't hope for protection or justice from the people around her, she abruptly decides to leave her family (her husband, in particular) and live on her own. We don't discover how this turns out for her, but clearly she does not feel that she can remain in a relationship that does not deliver on its promises—that is, as Holden would say, "phony."

Holden's case is different. He begins the book having already lost his innocence due to events he has witnessed—his brother's death, the death by bullying of a fellow student, and the inability of adults to right the wrongs that Holden sees. He has already concluded (for the most part) that he can't count on the people in his life. Holden sees no obvious decisive action that he can take, as there was for Nora. As a result, Holden spends most of the book trying to self-medicate to dull the pain of this depressing realization. He self-medicates with alcohol, cigarettes, and interactions with a variety of friends and strangers.

Like Nora, Holden does consider running away. He considers starting a family in the woods with Sally, and later he actually plans to run away "out West" to find work on a ranch somewhere. He changes his mind about this plan when he finds out how much it would hurt his sister Phoebe, who is one of the people he most cares about and for whom he can still prevent some loss.

These two characters' trajectories are very different. Nora starts out basically innocent, loses her innocence, and experiences a moment of clarity where she reacts to what she has learned and makes a break with her past life. Holden starts out cynical, remains cynical, and tries to make a break a number of times, only to find that none of his attempts are a really good solution.  

It's interesting that for both characters, their awareness of the flaws and limitations of those who should be protecting them produces restlessness. In Nora's case, it's a desperate, defiant urge to get away. In Holden's case, he is constantly trying to get away. He has dropped out of many schools. In the course of the book, he keeps going from one place to another—school to hotel to ice rink to his house to teacher's house to museum—each time thinking the next place will be better. It never is, and there is a chance that Nora's striking out on her own may not turn out well, either. Nevertheless, this restlessness is something the two characters have in common.

Dexter's father owns the second best grocery store in Black Bear in Fitzgerald's story "Winter Dreams." What is the best one?

The other grocery store is called "The Hub." This is considered the "best one" as it is patronized by the wealthy people, who live on Sherry Island.

The mention of these two stores initiates the dichotomy between the society in which Dexter resides and the one in which he desires to be. Those who frequent "The Hub" are members of the society of his "winter dreams." For, when Dexter has an opportunity to attend a state university, where his father could pay his way, he passes this up in order to attend a more prestigious school in the East so that he may eventually move up in society.

After having encountered the rich little Miss Jones on the golf course, Dexter receives a "strong emotional shock," and he quits his job as caddie. For, now Dexter is "unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams." Henceforth, Dexter pursues a new life. After he graduates from college, he goes to the city from which Black Bear Lake "draws its wealthy patrons." There Dexter borrows a thousand dollars and buys a partnership in a laundry. Ingenuously, Dexter learns how to wash the fine woolen English gold-stockings that the wealthy wear without shrinking them. Within a year, he exclusively caters to the golfers who bring him their Shetland sweaters, as well, and Dexter expands his laundry into a company throughout Minnesota.

Then, one day Dexter receives an invitation to play golf at Sherry Island, where the wealthy people play and shop at "The Hub." Now Dexter feels that he has arrived at the society of his dreams.

I'm a high school student, and English is my second language. I'm really struggling with understanding the Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair...

The narrator, the "I" of the story, frames his narrative with his present-day life in which he awakens with the old feelings and the old urgency from the time when he stayed by his father's side and fished the sea from May first to the end of November, when the North Atlantic seas became brutal with man-killing waves. He establishes the reality of his present-day life by saying that, after dreams of the old days, and four a.m. walks through bitter cold to chase off memories, he rushes off to teach at "a great Midwestern university." A reminiscent tone of jolting sorrow in a life once lived is established by this narrative frame, which isn't enough to prepare the reader for the jolting ending.

In a broad allusion to Dickens' David Copperfield, an allusion later brought into clear relief, the narrator starts his life's story with a recollection of his early consciousness of "the boat" and of his father's "gigantic rubber boots," boots seen from the vantage point of the floor when an infant. Later, from the vantage point of his father's shoulders, he became conscious of the "galumphing along the gravel beach" of his father's rubber boots, accompanied by his father's song.

The boat to which he was introduced and his father shared the same "odour of the salt." The boat was part of everyday conversation: mended clothes were "'torn in the boat'," prepared food was "'to be eaten in the boat'," his mother always looked out the kitchen window for sight of "'the boat'." "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" A "Cape Island boat," it was "named Jenny Lynn." The people who knew to call it a Cape Island boat had ancestors from Ireland, from Scotland's Highlands and from the Tories fleeing the thirteen colonies after the American Revolution left them unfavorably disenfranchised from England.

The most important room in the house, for the fact of its belonging to the most important person in the house and of its being the most disordered room in the house, was his father's room. The repository of old cigarettes and volumes of magazines and books to read (both being the enemy of the narrator's mother), no one went into the father's room unless given permission. And when someone by some misguided fancy thought of cleaning it, or at least of getting rid of the cigarette litter, they soon were captured by the words of the volumes' pages--volumes like David Copperfield--until the mother forcibly put an end to it (in the end, her intervention doing no good). It was also home to the "woollen sweaters, mitts and socks which [the] mother knitted for him." The narrator's mother "despised the room and all it stood for and ... despised disorder ... [and] had not read a book since high school."

The father disapprove of the "daughters of the house" playing by the wharf, but this was a point of contention because the mother, a woman of the sea, said, "'Nothing will happen to them there" or "They could be doing worse things in worse places.'" After disobediently reading books in the father's room, the daughters "grew restless" and soon began to work "as waitresses at the Sea Food Restaurant ... [that] catered to the tourists" from Boston, the wealthy tourists from Boston. Despising "the whole operation," the mother protested that that lot were not "our people."

In another point of conflict between father and mother because of the vacationer crowd, she expected they'd get "knocked up," and he was irate that she'd suggest it. The narrator, unseen on the porch, wondered if his father "would kill [his] mother while [he] stood there ... [with] three foolish mackerel in [his] hand." The daughters would talk to the father in his room late on "hot summer nights," their voices "blending with the music from his radio into a mysterious vapour-like sound floating softly up the stairs" to where the mother waited with exasperating questions.

The mother's daughters married Boston vacationers. The mother didn't understand. The men did no physical work. She couldn't see where their earnings came from: their earnings didn't come from "the boat." She "had each of her daughters for fifteen years, then lost them for two [years] and finally forever. None married a fisherman." In the end, she stopped caring because the men were "not of her people ... not of her sea." The mother and father age noticeably, and there are "only three" in the house, now empty but for them. When the narrator was fifteen, his father took to his bed with illness.

May first opens the fishing season and, with the father in bed beginning in January, they are far behind on their preparations, like knitting "lobster trap headings" from sharp twine, even with the mother's fisherman brother helping (he with twelve children). In a state of worry and uncertainty because the boat would not be ready "with her gear and two men," the narrator said "good-bye" to his schooling and to David Copperfield and The Tempest. Yet, his father sat up in his sick-bed to ask--not tell--him to go back to school the day after he quit school. A great conflict emerged from this because the mother, following her son out to porch the next morning, in her hatred of all but the sea said:

"I never thought a son of mine would choose useless books over the parents that gave him life."

Miraculously, the boat and the gear and the men were ready and the Jenny Lynn painted "by the last two weeks of April .... On the first day of May the boats raced out as they had always done. [...] And at night my mother asked, 'Well, how did things go in the boat today?'" The narrator's father had never wanted to be a fisherman; he had wanted to go to university. The narrator dismissed his father's saying this as something absurd, like wanting to do tightrope walking. The narrator learns to believe that it "was very much braver to spend a life doing what you really do not want rather than selfishly following forever your own dreams and inclinations."

He resolves to forever protect his father against the "iron-tipped harpoons which [his] mother would forever hurl into his soul because he was a failure as a husband and a father who had retained none of his own [for the sea]." As his father's room piles high with books and more books and pictures of "small red-headed grandchildren and baseball bats"--grandchildren who, to the mother's wistful sorrow, would "never know the sea in hate or in love"--he promises to stay with his father "as long as he lived" and to "fish the sea together."

Fishing through the autumn and into early winter, the boy now at the tiller, "in the place and manner of [his] uncle," the father withstood the snow, salt and ice freezing his eyelids shut and stood in the stern. But on November twenty-first, on what seemed to be the last run of the winter, the narrator looked toward the stern and his father was not there, and he "knew even in that instant that he never would be again." Even if the fierce Atlantic winter storm waves would allow for turning around for a search, even if the "burden" so lost over the stern would stay in the spot it fell rather than go a mile or more away, his father, in "the final irony ... cannot swim a stroke." After this, no one from near or far can fish those waters. Buoys are mysteriously cut if they try. Gear is mysteriously destroyed if any try. To his mother and others, "the [fishing] grounds are sacred and they think" the fishing grounds wait for the narrator to return to them to fish them.

The mother is alone with no husband, no son, no son-in-law who walks from the house to the boats nor from the boats to the house. She "looks on the sea with love and on [the narrator] with bitterness." The father was found on November twenty-eighth "ten miles to the north. ... There was not much left of [his] father, physically, as he lay there with the brass chains on his wrists and the seaweed in his hair." In a jolting realization, we understand, as did the narrator back on November twenty-eighth, brass chains hold "such a burden" down, deep down, and it seemed as before that the "bracelets of brass chain which he wore to protect his wrists from chafing seemed abnormally large...."

Interview with Alistair MacLeod, William Baer, Michigan Quarterly Review

How is "Mending Wall" ironic?

Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" is told in the first person. The narrator describes the task of maintaining a wall between the neighbor's pine trees and his own apple orchard. The wall is difficult to maintain. It is a dry stone wall that partially collapses due to snow and freezing in winter and parts sometimes get knocked down by hunters. The narrator speculates that there is no real reason for the wall's existence, as there is nothing to be walled in or out, and the wall is neither high nor durable. 

The main irony in the poem has to do with the phrase the narrator's neighbor repeats, "Good fences make good neighbours." On the one hand, it seems odd, as fences separate people. The narrator speculates, though, that in the case of dairy farmers, a wall prevents mingling of animal herds and ensuing disputes. The irony is that although the narrator and his neighbor have little in common, the shared annual duty of mending the wall brings them together, and thus maintaining good fences, does, in fact, serve to make them good neighbors by letting them bond over this shared task. 

What is the relationship between rate of cooling and crystal size?

As the rate of cooling increases, crystal size decreases. This means that something which cools very quickly will have smaller crystal formations, and something which cools slowly will have larger crystal formations. This is easily seen in igneous rock, which may cool at variable rates. Sometimes, larger crystals are trapped among lots of smaller crystals, showing that parts of an older, slow-cooled rock were broken up and mixed in with magma which has cooled quickly.

We can also see this principle in our very own homes! Sometimes when we put meat into the freezer to keep and then thaw it out, lots of fluid is lost during the thaw process. This can make a mess and even make the meat dry after cooking. Why might that be? It all has to do with the rate of cooling! When larger pieces of meat, like a roast, are placed directly into the freezer from room temperature, they do not cool at an even rate. This slow process of freezing-- sort of from the outside inward-- creates large ice crystals in the meat. When we take it out to thaw, those ice crystals melt, leaving behind big holes in the cellular structure. It's almost like the meat has been poked through with an icicle! Because the cellular structure has been damaged, fluid is let free in the thaw process. One way we can avoid this damage is to increase the rate of freezing. Begin by putting the meat into the refrigerator so that it can cool to a low temperature (without freezing) as uniformly as possible. When it's cool all the way through, transfer it to the freezer! Because the meat is already at a very low temperature, it will freeze faster, resulting in much smaller ice crystals and less tissue damage.

What sort of weapon is Jack using to hunt pigs in Lord of the Flies?

Jack uses a spear to stick the pig and a knife to cut its throat. 

The pig-hunting is very important to Jack and to the other boys on the island.  It is about much more than getting meat.  Jack also just wants to kill something, because he has an innately savage nature.  He was also appointed head of the hunters, so he considers it a failure if he doesn’t get a pig. 

Killing a pig turns out to be more difficult, physically and psychologically, than the boys ever imagined.  The first time there is a pig, Jack finds himself unable to stick it.  It would be the first time he killed something.  The enormity of it overwhelms him.

He raised his arm in the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm. (Ch. 1) 

The boys continue their desperate efforts to kill the pig.  They even develop a song and dance centered around pig killing.  It is symbolic of their new life and existence on the island.  They want to be self-sufficient and grown-up.  Jack uses a “sharpened stick about five feet long” to hunt the pig. 

From the pigrun came the quick, hard patter of hoofs, a castanet sound, seductive, maddening—the promise of meat. He rushed out of the undergrowth and snatched up his spear. The pattering of pig’s trotters died away in the distance. (Ch. 3) 

The pig dance became more disturbing when they had a boy actually playing the pig.  Robert screamed and struggled while “Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife” (Ch. 7).  One boy had already died in the fire, and soon Simon and Piggy would also lose their lives to the boys’ frenzied and desperate worship of hunting.

What evidence is there that Lord Capulet truly loved his daughter?

Although Lord Capulet becomes frustrated and enraged with Juliet in Act III, Scene 5 when she refuses to marry Count Paris, Shakespeare gives his audience three examples of Capulet's love for his daughter. Right away, in Act I, Scene 2, Capulet expresses his devotion and sense of loyalty to his only child. When Paris asks to marry Juliet, Capulet can think only about his daughter's feelings. Even though marrying his daughter to the Count would be wise politically (Paris is a relative of Prince Escalus) and economically (since Paris is a Count, he probably has wealth), he considers his daughter's position, first arguing that she is too young:

My child is yet a stranger in the world.
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years.
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

When Paris persists, claiming that other girls Juliet's age are already mothers, Capulet then urges Paris to win Juliet's love:

But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;
My will to her consent is but a part.
And, she agreed, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.

Capulet is taking a sensible approach to Juliet's well being, and this scene seems to indicate that he truly loves his daughter and only wants what's best for her. Later in the play, when he changes his mind about the marriage to Paris, he is again doing it for Juliet. He mistakenly believes that Juliet is in terrible grief over the death of Tybalt (she's actually grieving over the banishment of Romeo) so he believes a marriage to Paris will provide a "day of joy" for the family after such a devastating loss. That Capulet ends up berating Juliet and threatening her is more an indication of his frustration than a lack of love for Juliet. Even the most even tempered fathers sometimes become angered by their children's attitudes, especially when they feel as though they have the child's best interests at heart.

A final example of Capulet's love for his daughter appears in Act IV, Scene 5, when he shows genuine grief when he believes Juliet to be dead. He is definitely distraught at losing his only child. He bitterly expresses the feelings of a man who has lost all of his hopes and dreams:

Despised, distressèd, hated, martyred, killed!
Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?
O child! O child! My soul and not my child!
Dead art thou! Alack, my child is dead,
And with my child my joys are burièd.

To what extent is it true that Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a timeless play that continues to hold value for modern audiences?

Shakespeare's Macbeth still has value for modern readers because it addresses, in part, human nature, and human nature is timeless.  Yes, it is about a man who does a number of terrible things in order to acquire and retain power, but this is not really what makes the play interesting (or relevant to a modern audience).  What makes the play relevant is that it shows how little, relatively speaking, it takes for a good man to be corrupted, for him to turn bad. 

Macbeth is manipulated by both the Weird Sisters and his wife, but once they help him get the ball rolling with the murder of Duncan, Macbeth becomes more and more evil, ruthless, power-hungry and violent all on his own.  He begins the play as a brave and loyal subject to his king, and by the play's end, he has all but destroyed Scotland, his marriage, and himself.  It is this progression that makes the story tragic, and it is likewise what makes the story relevant to any time period.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," what does Nagaina do alone to try and complete her and Nag's original plan?

In “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” Nag and Nagaina are a married pair of cobras living in the garden of an English family in India. They want to get rid of the English family because they believe that, if they do so, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, who is a mongoose that lives with the family, will leave the area. They know that mongoose and snakes are enemies and they believe that the presence of Rikki-Tikki will be dangerous for them.

In order to get rid of the family, the two snakes plan that Nag will kill them. He will start by killing the father when he comes for his morning shower. Then he will kill the others.  Nag says,

I will kill the big man and his wife, and the child if I can, and come away quietly. Then the bungalow will be empty, and Rikki-tikki will go.

This is their original plan. However, Rikki-Tikki hears of it and ends up killing Nag. This means that Nagaina is left to carry out the plan on her own. The next morning, she goes to where the family will eat breakfast and waits there.  When Rikki-Tikki gets there,

Nagaina was coiled up on the matting by Teddy's chair, within easy striking-distance of Teddy's bare leg, and she was swaying to and fro singing a song of triumph.

Teddy is the child of the family. Nagaina has come to kill him and then kill the rest of the family. This is how she plans to complete her and Nag’s original plan.

Where does the cuckoo sing, and how do the islanders react to the maiden's song in "The Solitary Reaper"?

The cuckoo sings in the wild islands of the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland, and the traveler on the islands reacts to the break in the silence by the "melancholy strain" of the maiden.

In another of Wordsworth's poems, the cuckoo symbolizes innocence and childhood. Here in "The Solitary Reaper," the innocent cuckoo is alluded to as having broken "the silence of the seas" and the pristine forces of the rugged islands of the Hebrides in the "springtime." However, in the harvesting season, the cuckoo is not heard by the speaker; instead, it is the melancholy song and the "thrilling voice" of the maiden who "cuts and binds the grain" that "[B]reaks the silence of the seas" on the fossil beaches.

The song of the maiden certainly must affect those who hear her stirring and "welcome notes." While there is no specific mention of how the islanders react, the speaker is profoundly moved by "the plaintive numbers" of her song, and he feels that others are affected, as well. For, he remarks upon her sweet voice as more welcome to travelers than the song of a nightingale, and he argues that her voice is more thrilling than that of any cuckoo-bird that "[B]reak[s] the silence" on the fossil beaches of the Hebrides. So affected is the speaker by her song that he remembers the music long after he has heard her, as he interprets her song as an articulation of the spirit of the area and the universal emotions of humankind.

In the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, why is Pavel not allowed to lay his hands on Bruno when he is injured despite the fact that Pavel is a...

In Chapter 7, Pavel witnesses Bruno fall from a tire swing and runs out to help him. Pavel picks Bruno up and takes him inside where he immediately cleans and bandages Bruno's wounded knee. Pavel then tells Bruno he used to be a doctor before Bruno's mother walks into the kitchen. Bruno then overhears his mother telling Pavel not to tell the Commandant that he took care of Bruno's wounds. The reason Bruno's mother doesn't want the Commandant to know that Pavel laid his hands on Bruno is because of the prejudice against Jews. Pavel is a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz. The German Nazis viewed the Jews with contempt and believed that they were dirty subhuman beings. Jews were compared to animals, and the thought of a filthy Jew touching a German boy was unthinkable to a Nazi. The Commandant would be disgusted and upset to hear that Pavel laid his hands on Bruno and probably would have killed Pavel after hearing this information.

What is a short summary of "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost?

In this poem the speaker (let's assume he's a man), is out for a morning walk during the autumn. He comes to a place where the road he is following splits into two paths, and he has to decide which way to go. Both ways look equally appealing to him, and he wishes he could "travel both and be one traveler." One of the ways is "grassy and wanted wear," so it is the one fewer people have used, although not to a huge extent because he also says that "as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same." No one has traveled on either road on this particular morning. The speaker makes his decision to take the second road, the one that "was grassy and wanted wear." He thinks at first he will go down the other road some other time, but then he realizes that, since one road leads to another and another, he will probably never come back to take the first road in the future. The speaker then fast-forwards in his imagination to some day in the distant future when he will remember and talk about the decision he has just made. He thinks he will tell the tale "with a sigh" and that he will realize that taking "the road less traveled by" is what will have "made all the difference."

The last stanza shows that the poem is about more than taking a walk in the woods. The poet obviously means the poem to be taken metaphorically. The walk represents one's life journey, and the forked path represents a critical decision point. Many people interpret the poem to mean that the speaker believes his choice was the right one and that his sigh is one of contentment; in this interpretation the speaker believes going down a path of nonconformity results in greater gains in the end. The poem is ambiguous, however, and allows the opposite interpretation. The speaker's sigh could be one of regret, and choosing to buck the crowd or ignore tradition could end up having undesirable consequences. Another interpretation is that the poem satirizes people who agonize about every little decision in life, which gives the poem a lighter feel.

In Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, how does handling conflict help Max and Kevin's friendship?

Whenever people face the same trials or adversity together, a bond is bound to form. This is no different for Max and Kevin in Philbrick's Freak the Mighty. The first conflict they face together is on the night of the Fourth of July when Tony D. and his gang threaten to hurt them. This is when Max and Kevin discover that if they work together, they can help each other face the difficulties of life. When Max lifts Kevin up on his shoulders, for example, they are both able to run away from the bullies. If Kevin does all of the thinking, and directs Max on what to do next, then they are armed with a strategy rather than with just physical strength. Even though, on this occasion, Max and Freak run into the pond and get stuck, they do avoid the bullies and place themselves in a position to be saved by the cops. Once the two boys realize what a great team they can make together, they feel successful and more prepared to face any other conflicts they may face in the future. Max and Kevin's friendship becomes stronger as other conflicts arise. Not only that, but their appreciation and love for each other also grow. With each conflict the two boys resolve together, their friendship grows beyond anything they could have imagined before.

`log_2 (1/8)` Evaluate the expression without using a calculator.

`log_2 (1/8)`

To evaluate this, consider the base and argument of the logarithm. The base of the logarithm is 2. And the 8 can be expressed in terms of factor 2. So factoring 8, the expression becomes:

`= log_2 (1/2^3)`

Then, apply the negative exponent rule `a^(-m)=1/a^m` .

`= log_2 (2^(-3))`

To simplify this further, apply the logarithmic rule `log_b (a^m) = m * log_b (a)` .

`= -3 * log_2(2)`

Take note that when the base and argument of a logarithm are the same, the resulting value is 1 `(log_b (b) = 1)` .

`= - 3 * 1`

`= -3`

Therefore, `log_2 (1/8) = -3` .

When Macbeth hallucinates the dagger before murdering Duncan, he says, "And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood, / Which was not so before....

This blood that Macbeth sees on the dagger that he hallucinates, after he draws his own dagger, foreshadows the way in which Duncan's blood -- and the idea of having blood on one's hands -- will become so central to the story.  Macbeth is about to commit an incredibly bloody murder, so bloody that he will be too traumatized to reenter the room to replace the daggers with which he kills Duncan, and his wife will have to do it.  It will be Duncan's blood on his hands that so disturbs him after the murder.  He asks, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" (2.2.78-79).  His guilt is so intense that he says all the blood on his hands would turn the green sea red.  On the other hand (pun intended!), Lady Macbeth says, "A little water clears us of this deed" (2.2.86).  For now, she believes that their consciences can be cleansed of guilt as easily as their hands can be washed clean of blood, but she will later have her own hallucination that she cannot wash the blood from her hand, symbolizing how heavily-laden her conscience by her guilt.  The phantom blood on Macbeth's hallucinated dagger initiates the importance of blood as a motif in the play.

What is the use of fermentation in pickled vegetables?

Fermented foods have an extended shelf life. Pickling was done traditionally to keep excess crops from spoiling and to preserve them during the long winter months.

Pickles, sauerkraut, even certain deli meats could be prepared with a brine solution. This process slows down bacterial action that can lead to spoilage.

Vinegar can be used to help preserve foods because it prevents the growth of bacteria that cause food spoilage. Salt brine allows the process of fermentation by bacteria which is used in producing pickles.

Fermented foods can have health benefits. Lactic acid bacteria use the carbohydrates in the food to obtain energy and through a metabolic pathway, produce lactic acid. This gives the sharp taste associated with fermented foods. However, additional health benefits are produced when enzymes and vitamins are produced as well.

Worldwide, most cultures have used fermentation and pickling as a way to extend the shelf life of the precious food supply.

What are some conflicts in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan?

One example of conflict in the text is the antagonism between Percy and Nancy Bobofit at Yancy Academy.  They've had a history of poking at each other, literally and figuratively, but at the art museum, things come to a head.  Percy says, "I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, 'Percy pushed me!'"  This episode helps to lead to his expulsion from school.

Then, of course, there's the conflict between Percy and Mrs. Dodds (one of the Furies), after the conflict with Nancy.  He says, "The look in her eyes was beyond mad.  It was evil," and she proceeded to attack him.  Were it not for the pen/sword that Mr. Brunner tossed to Percy, he would likely have followed Mrs. Dodds' orders to "'Die, honey!'"

Once he arrives at camp, it doesn't take long for Percy to conflict with Clarisse, daughter of Ares.  When they play capture the flag, she says, "'we don't care about the flag.  We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid.'"  She tries to skewer him with her electrified spear, and one of her half-brothers slashes Percy's arm with his sword, leaving him for dead.  Luckily, the water he collapses in restores him. 

One of the most important conflicts of the novel is the one between Percy and Luke.  Percy has been told by the oracle, "You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend," and this comes to pass when Luke betrays Percy.  Once Percy realizes this, he accuses Luke, who "stood calmly and brushed off his jeans" while the scorpion he called up creeps slowly up Percy's leg.  Luke finally tells him, "'Good-bye, Percy.  There is a new Golden Age coming.  You won't be part of it.'"  He thinks that Percy should be willing to abandon the Olympians, as he has, and work with Kronos to begin a new world order.

There are also conflicts between Percy and his step-father, the Minotaur, Medusa, Annabeth, Echidna, Ares, Hades, Zeus, even Percy himself (consider when he must decide on whom to use the pearls when he's in the Underworld).  The novel is riddled with conflicts involving poor Percy!

What does Cassius reveal to Casca in Julius Caesar?

Cassius tells Casca that they have many like-minded Romans ready to act against Caesar.

Cassius seems to be going around recruiting assassins in this first act.  He convinces Brutus to work with him against Caesar.  He also tells Casca that he has been recruiting other Romans for their efforts.

Now know you, Casca, I have moved already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
To undergo with me an enterprise
Of honourable-dangerous consequence … (Act 1, Scene 3)

Cassius wants to have as many people involved as possible so that they all are in it together.  He tells Cassius that he has been convincing others, so he must have been at this for a while.  Cassius and the others want to make sure Brutus is on board.  They need his name and reputation to lend legitimacy to the cause.

Casca, for his part, is highly opposed to Caesar.  He says that he would rather die than be Caesar's slave.  Casca and the others think that Caesar is making himself out to be king, and will gather more and more power until he is unstoppable.  Casca is the first to stab Caesar, and his wound is the fatal one.

Cassius and Casca are sneaky in convincing Brutus.  They leave letters for Brutus to find that will make him think that they are from various people, asking him to act against Caesar.

CASSIUS

Be you content: good Cinna, take this paper,
And look you lay it in the praetor's chair,
Where Brutus may but find it … (Act 1, Scene 3)

Brutus finds the letter, and in his speech where he says “it must be by his death,” he seems to talk himself into believing that Caesar is too dangerous to be left alive.  All of Rome is for Brutus acting against Caesar, he thinks.  Brutus believes that killing Caesar is what is best for Rome.

Please explain the U.S. relationship with Britain prior to the War of 1812 and how the U.S. emerged victorious from that war.

America had a curious arrangement with Britain following the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War in 1783.  Under the terms of the treaty, the British would evacuate the forts around the Great Lakes and America would control the territory to the Mississippi River.  After the war, more settlers moved into the region where they encountered stiff resistance, especially from the Shawnee tribe who were getting assistance from British soldiers who would not leave the region.  In 1795, John Jay went to Britain and negotiated more trading rights for Americans in the British West Indies.  However, Britain still occupied the western forts and still seized American sailors off ships in a practice called impressment in order to gain more sailors in its war with France.  It would be these seizures and the continued occupation of the forts that would lead to the War of 1812.  

The War of 1812 went disastrously for America.  Due to cuts in the military budget under Jefferson and Madison, America had little in the way of a navy to stop the British.  American militia was turned away in its attempt to conquer Canada.  The British burned the American capital in retaliation for America's burning of Toronto.  This war was really a sideshow of the greater Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the War Hawks in Congress (Calhoun, Clay, and Webster among them--you'll see these names again throughout the early 1800s) thought a war with Britain while they were distracted would lead to territorial gains for the young country.  America was able to end the war when the Napoleonic Wars ended for Britain and the British people did not want to stay involved in the conflict.  No territory changed hands, and the war does not get much coverage in history books today compared to other wars America fought.  

Why is gymnastics difficult?

Gymnastics can be difficult both as a hobby and a profession because it requires a person to set aside a lot of time for practice. Additionally, a person should be in good health to be able to keep up with the demanding physical activity gymnastics involves. Most people to practice gymnastics as a hobby or profession begin their training from a very young age. This is both to get an early start on learning technique as well as to begin developing the muscle strength and flexibility necessary to perform. If an adult tries to begin performing gymnastics without any prior experience, they would likely find it very difficult because they haven't grown up learning to perform the kinds of activities gymnasts do. What's more, a person's flexibility generally decreases as they age, and this applies to both gymnasts and people who do not practice it. Many gymnasts grow out of their practice, either because their physical shape is not conducive to the activity, or because of bodily aches and pains.

As with any skill, gymnastics takes a lot of practice to even be able to perform the intricate leaps and twirls, let alone do them with any finesse. The profession of gymnastics is also highly competitive because there is such a small market for the kinds of abilities gymnasts have, but quite a lot of people grow up taking gymnastics lessons for physical fitness. Gymnastics is not only physically demanding, but requires the gymnast to do a lot of real-time calculations, spatial awareness processing, and memorization in order to pull off a performance.

Where does the novel The Madwoman in the Attic take place?

The Madwoman in the Attic is not a novel, but instead a feminist study of a collection of nineteenth-century British novels which are quintessential of the Victorian period. 

The authors, Susan Gubar and Sandra M. Gilbert, are both professors in the fields of Women's Studies and feminist studies. The novel was published in 1979, at the tail-end of second-wave feminism. 

The book takes its inspiration from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. In that novel, Jane encounters Bertha Mason Rochester, the first wife of her employer, Edward Rochester. In Bronte's novel, Bertha is mysterious, crazy, and a burden. Jane is her foil: sweet, orderly, and dutiful. If Jane is the "angel" of the Rochester estate, then Bertha is the "monster," based on the dichotomy created by Gubar and Gilbert. This metaphor coincides with the notion of "the angel in the house," an idea of ideal femininity taken from the title of a poem by Victorian poet Coventry Patmore.

Other authors explored in The Madwoman in the Attic include Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Emily Dickinson. As disparate as this medley of poets and authors is, they all deal with common themes in their work: domesticity, the expectations for middle-class women, romance, and, in the cases of Shelley and Rossetti, aspects of the grotesque and Gothic, a theme that was once also explored by Austen in Northanger Abbey.

Why did Pope Pius XI want Reconstruction of the Social Order?

In the text Quadragesimo Anno: Reconstruction of the Social Order, Pope Pius XI examined the potential effects of laissez-faire capitalism as well as totalitarian socialism on human freedom, and argued for a solidarity-based social order. This text was written in 1931, and the social context of the late 1920s influenced this examination of different economic systems. Stalin's first Five-Year Plan was established in 1928, and the USSR's transition to a totalitarian socialist economy created massive social upheaval, nationwide famine, and millions of deaths due to starvation, forced labor, and the Great Purge. Within the context of this transition, as well as the Great Depression in the U.S. and the rise of fascism under Mussolini in Italy, examining the shortfalls of different socio-economic systems was a very relevant question. Pius XI wrote the text to promote an economic system away from the extremes of unfettered capitalism or totalitarian communist states, instead arguing for societies based in solidarity with freedom and equal opportunity for all people.

How does London use the man and the dog to illustrate the difference between instinct and knowledge?

Throughout the story, London compares the man's knowledge to the dog's instincts, and the dog's instincts seem to be superior. The man knows that it is cold. Unlike the dog, he can read a thermometer and give the precise temperature, but he does not understand the significance of these facts. London writes, "He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances." Despite knowing the temperature and despite knowing about frostbite, he still chooses to travel alone in these harsh conditions.

The dog, on the other hand, has no precise knowledge, but its instincts tell it that it should not be out in the cold. If it weren't for its obedience to the man, the dog would seek shelter. Once the man dies, the dog's instincts tell it to go to camp to find others.

Interestingly, London writes that the man's blood has instinct and, like the dog, it attempts to flee the cold. London writes, "The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it wanted to hide away."

How do the actions, motives, relationships, and dialogue preceding Chapter 6 of George Orwell's Animal Farm affect Old Major, Snowball, and...

Old Major, it seems, has quite a bit of sway with the other animals, since not only is he a prized boar that Mr. Jones has exhibited, but he is 12 years old and considered wise by all of the animals.  When he calls a meeting one night, they all gather and listen to his lengthy speech with full trust and respect.  We actually see no dialogue between him and any others, but even though he dies three nights after his speech, the animals follow his advice. His motivation appears to be gaining freedom and a better way of life for all the animals.

Old Major’s action of putting rebellion in the minds of the animals allows Snowball and Napoleon to gain power by developing Animalism from Old Major’s main points, executing the rebellion, and ultimately taking control of the farm and the animals.  Their relationship to Old Major, being pigs, apparently gives them the right to do this in the eyes of the others.  All of their dialogue with the animals is centered on the rebellion, defending the farm, laboring, or following the seven commandments of Animalism. In fact, they don’t often talk to the animals themselves, instead using their propagandist, Squealer, to do it for them.  There is never any comradery, in spite of the fact that the pigs call the animals “comrades.”    We also rarely see Napoleon and Snowball talking to each other, which makes sense, considering that they are vying for top leader position.

Napoleon leaves Snowball alone in the early chapters, since he will benefit from Snowball’s training of the animals for the Battle of the Cowshed, even allowing Snowball to receive the award of Animal Hero First Class. And what could he say, given that he seemed absent from the entire battle?  Napoleon is also able to benefit from Snowball’s designs for the windmill, since he later takes credit for it without having to lift a trotter.  Napoleon’s sabotaging of Snowball becomes obvious when he has the sheep start bleating their “‘Four legs good, two legs bad’” slogan during any speech that Snowball tries to make.  Although the two pigs are clearly pushing different agendas, Napoleon is the more underhanded one, twisting things to get the animals to side with him, and finally using his dogs to chase Snowball off the farm for good. We will never know for sure, but Snowball does seem motivated to make improvements on the farm, whereas Napoleon’s goal all along is to become dictator and use the animals as laborers for his own luxury.

`f(x) = xsinh(x-1) - cosh(x-1)` Find any relative extrema of the function.

This function is defined on entire `RR` and is infinitely differentiable. The necessary condition of extremum for such a function is `f'(x) = 0.`

The derivative of `f(x)` is

`sinh(x-1) + xcosh(x-1) - sinh(x-1) =xcosh(x-1).` 

The only solution of the equation `f'(x) = 0` is `x = 0,` because `cosh(x) gt 0` for all `x.` Moreover, this fact gives us that `f'(x)` is positive for positive `x` and negative for negative `x,` so `f(x)` decreases on `(-oo, 0)` and increases on `(0, +oo).`

Therefore `x = 0` is the point where a local minimum is reached. The value of the function at this point is `-cosh(-1) = -(e + 1/e)/2 approx -1.543.`

How is expansionary fiscal policy beneficial to an economy?

Expansionary fiscal policy is helpful to an economy because it helps to increase the amount of money that people have. By doing this, it helps to increase aggregate demand.  This causes the economy to improve, which means that more people have jobs and a better standard of living.

Expansionary fiscal policy can consist of either or both of two things.  The government can lower taxes and/or it can increase its spending.  In both cases, this puts more money in the hands of the consumers. If taxes are lowered, people do not have to give as much money to the government and they have more to spend. If the government spends more, it is giving more money to people in exchange for work (such as building roads or teaching school).  If people have more money in their hands, they will be able to buy more things. This will increase aggregate demand in the economy.

When aggregate demand rises, the economy improves. As there is more demand for goods and services, companies have to hire more people so as to produce the things that the consumers want.  When companies do this, more people have jobs and the overall standard of living for people in the economy rises.  For these reasons, expansionary fiscal policy can be beneficial to an economy.

What injustices do female characters in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein fail to confront?

Certainly, Justine fails to truly confront the injustice of her trial.  She ultimately confesses to a crime she did not commit, the murder of William, an act that devastates Elizabeth.

Elizabeth never truly confronts the injustice of Victor's treatment of her.  He distances himself from his family while he's at Ingolstadt, then delays their intended nuptials again and again, sometimes for years at a time, seemingly without much regard for Elizabeth's feelings.  She never addresses the injustice of this treatment.

Safie never confronts the injustice of her father's actions toward Felix and the rest of the DeLacey family.  She simply shows up at their house one day and is taken in.

Even Mrs. Saville, the sister to whom Captain Walton writes all his letters, is treated somewhat unjustly by him.  It doesn't seem as though he'd had a conversation with her about his intentions and goals when he left on this very dangerous journey.  Then, because of the nature of the expedition, he can write letters to her, but she has no way of getting a response back to him.  He has, effectively, silenced her and taken away her ability to express her opinion concerning his voyage.

In Washington's First Inaugural Address, what does he say about himself as being elected or chosen to be president of the United States?

In George Washington’s first inaugural address, he portrays himself as a reluctant leader who would have been happy to live out his life in obscurity.  He says that he was called by his country and that he could not refuse.  He says, then, that he accepted leadership of the country not because he wanted it but because he felt that it was his duty to do so.

After the Revolutionary War, Washington dropped out of public life for a while.  He wanted to be like Cincinnatus, an ancient Roman leader who led his country when it needed him and then gave up power to go back to his farm.  Washington admired Cincinnatus, thinking that he was a great example of what a true leader and patriot should be like.  He thought that a person should serve his country when it needed him but should not love power for its own sake.  This is why he retired from public life.

By 1787, though, Washington was worried about the direction the US was taking.  He participated in the Constitutional Convention and allowed himself to be elected president.  In his inaugural address, he talked about having come out of retirement because his country was calling him to serve.  In the address, he says

I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection…

In other words, he had chosen to retire and loved being retired, but he came back to public life because his country was calling for him to serve it.

What appeal to emotion does Jefferson use in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence?

In the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson appeals to the "Laws of Nature," and "Nature's God" in order to make his argument for separation.  He states that the colonists are seeking "the separate and equal station" to which the colonists are entitled to have.  Jefferson was not a Christian in the truest sense of the word, but his religious preferences can best be described as Deism.  Jefferson was heavily influenced by the English philosopher John Locke who believed that nature had God-given natural laws.  Jefferson used the argument that it was God's will for the colonies to seek separate status at this time, as the colonies and Britain could no longer be reconciled.  Another reason Jefferson used this language was to capture religious sentiment in the colonies--if given the holy cause of creating a new nation, the colonists would try harder to do the nearly impossible task of leaving Britain.  

In "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber, what are the interactions Walter Mitty has with the other characters?

Walter Mitty's interactions with other people are not emotionally restorative.  

Walter's interactions with people in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" are distant.  He does not experience any meaningful emotional connection.  The opening interaction with his wife shows this disconnect.  When she reprimands his driving, Walter sees her as "grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd."  The interactions between Walter and his wife show how she does not validate his experience. She condescendingly speaks to him, suggesting he needs to see a doctor or get his temperature taken when he disagrees with her.  At the end of the story, she stops at a store and orders Walter to wait outside because she "won't be a minute." Thurber writes, "She was more than a minute."  This capstones interactions between husband and wife that lack a healthy emotional connection.

A lack of social connection reflects the same distance that Walter experiences with his wife.  For example, the police officer and the parking lot attendant bark at him in imperative sentences.  They speak to him with commands such as, "Pick it up" and "Back it up."  Such orders focus on a task as opposed to a human being.  These interactions show how others easily subdue Walter into submission.  When Walter comes out of one of his dreams saying "Puppy biscuits," he passes a woman on the street who ridicules him to the friend with whom she is walking: "A woman who was passing laughed. 'He said 'Puppy biscuit,' she said to her companion. 'That man said 'Puppy biscuit' to himself."  In his interactions with the outside world, Walter is the source of derision and is easily bullied.

The emotionally distant level of Walter's interactions justifies his retreat into daydreams.  In this world, respect and importance dominate his interactions. They show an authentication of voice, something not taking place in Walter's daily life.

In The Chrysalids, what is the plot and setting of Chapter 16?

David and the other telepaths, including Rosalind, fled to the Fringes once they were discovered after the incident with Petra’s horse.  She called to them and they came without her making any noise, causing suspicion.  They end up in a cave, where David has to deal with the meeting between his girlfriend Rosalind and his former girlfriend Sophie. 

David and Sophie were young and when they were friends. Then her extra toes were discovered and she was sterilized and sent to the Fringes society. Sophie and Rosalind are clearly jealous of one another. 

Sophie's eyes travelled over Rosalind, in her russet woollen dress with its brown cross applique, and rested for a moment on her leather shoes. She looked down at her own soft moccasins, then at her short, tattered skirt. (Ch. 16) 

Sophie tells Rosalind that she has to remove the cross that is sewn to her bodice.  The cross is required of all women in Waknuk, a strictly religious society, but is a vestige of the restrictive society they have left.  Sophie tells Rosalind that the men resent the cross, because the women are sterilized before being sent to the Fringes. 

Rosalind tries to treat Sophie with caring and compassion.  However, Sophie resents Rosalind.  When she tries to help Sophie, Sophie lashes out at Rosalind while David looks helplessly on, waiting to see what will happen. 

'Damn you!' she said again. 'Go on, laugh at me, God damn your lovely face. Laugh at me because I do want him, me!' She gave a queer, choked laugh herself. 'And what's the use? Oh, God, what's the use? If he weren't in love with you, what good would I be to him — like this?'  (Ch. 16) 

In the end, it passes because David and Rosalind are on the outside too now.  Since they have been exposed as telephaths, they are also deviants.  They can’t return.  The problem is that they ran away before they could be caught, so unlike all of the other women there Rosalind is intact.  She has not been sterilized.  Seeing her, Sophie imagines what she might have had.  To make matters stranger, Sophie is with Spider, who is the leader of the Fringe group and David's uncle.  His arms were too long.

David awakens, and communicates telepathically with Michael.  They are being chased by Waknuk hunting parties.  Petra, meanwhile, is communicating with distant Sealand, where someone is coming to rescue them.  There, telepaths are not considered deviants.

Before the Sealanders can rescue them, they have to battle the religious fanatics of Waknuk, including David and Petra's father.  The Fringe people fight back.  Spider, David's uncle, shoots David's father.  Sophie is killed in the chaos.  The Sealanders land with their "gleaming white fish-shape" and rescue the telepaths.

What are some characteristics of Daniel and Rosh?

Daniel is a passionate, strong eighteen-year-old boy who joins Rosh's band after he flees his master, Amalek. Daniel is full of hate and bitterness directed towards the Romans after the death of his parents and vows to fight them for the rest of his life. Joel and Thacia's friendship gives Daniel hope, and he begins hearing Jesus preach. Daniel's attitude gradually begins to change, and he becomes more sympathetic to his sister's needs. Although Daniel is still an intense individual, he displays his kind, caring nature towards his close friends and family. Daniel is essentially a pure soul who has suffered traumatic experiences throughout his life. At the end of the novel, Daniel finally lets go of his hate and bitterness after Jesus heals his sister.

Rosh is an equally intense character but does not display a caring nature like Daniel. Rosh is selfish and violent throughout the novel. He is a ruthless individual, and his only concern is benefiting from others. Although he is a cunning and respected leader, Daniel realizes that Rosh's plans are self-serving and refuses to be a member of his band anymore.

What is the plot of The Devil's Arithmetic?

In speaking about the plot of The Devil’s Arithmetic (or any other literary work), we should speak about six specific things:  exposition, inciting incident/conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.   

The exposition is the part of the story where we are introduced to the setting, the characters, the time period, etc.  In the case of The Devil’s Arithmetic, this involves the beginning of the novel where we learn about the character of Hannah, her family, and their Jewish traditions during Passover. 

The inciting incident (that some people call the conflict) of the novel is the point where the tension begins to rise.  In the case of this novel, the inciting incident happens when Hannah’s family opens the door for Elijah to come in to the Seder meal (a common practice on Passover).  Instead of seeing the hall outside, Hannah sees a field.  After turning around, Hannah sees her home has changed as well.  Hannah has been transported back to the time of the Holocaust, and she decides this must be some type of dream. 

The rising action of the plot is always the time when the tension rises.  Hannah learns about her new situation.  It is 1942, the people taking care of her are Gitl and Shmuel.  Soon they are forced to board a train to a concentration camp and Hannah, along with the rest of them, has her head shaved and is tattooed with a number.  Hannah lives within the concentration camp until her friend, Rivka, is sent to the gas chamber. 

At this point, the story reaches its climax (the height of the tension).  Hannah sacrifices herself for Rivka.  Hannah walks into the gas chamber in Rivka’s place. 

During the falling action of the plot, Hannah finds herself back in her apartment with her own family and continues the Seder meal.  The resolution happens when Hannah realizes her Aunt Eva is Rivka and becomes appreciative of her Jewish heritage. 

How did Helen earn fame through her determination?

Helen Keller became famous later in her life.  Her autobiography, The Story of My Life, covers the time period from her birth until her early twenties.  When Helen was in her early twenties, she was somewhat famous.  She became more well known around the world as time went on.

Helen was not the first deaf and blind person in the world.  There had been others, but they had not accomplished all that Helen did.  Helen was a determined person.  She worked hard and did not give up as she learned to communicate, read, and speak despite being deaf and blind.  She also studied a variety of academic subjects both in school and in college.  It was highly unusual for someone who was deaf and blind to attend a regular university, as Helen did.  As Helen became more well known, people were in awe of all she had accomplished.

Throughout the years, Helen befriended many famous people.  Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain were two of those friends.  Helen met many people, and this helped her to gain fame.  She noted, however, that she valued all her friends, be they famous or not.  She mentioned how much she valued the influence of her friends who were not famous:

But their influence, though it escapes fame, shall live immortal in the lives that have been sweetened and ennobled by it (Chapter XXIII). 

Helen wrote what would eventually become her autobiography.  It was published when she was in college, and this also helped her gain fame.  Though she was a hesitant writer because of a past experience, Helen was determined to tell her story.  This story earned her fame.

What was the impact of the invention of the sewing machine?

The major impacts of the invention of the sewing machine were to 1) create the clothing industry and 2) to help allow people to have more clothing.

Before the invention of the sewing machine, all sewing had to be done by hand.  Cloth could be made by machines, but the actual sewing of garments and other things could only be done by hand.  People would either make clothes at home by hand or would buy them from tailors.  This made clothing very expensive (if you bought it) or time-consuming (if you made it yourself).  The invention of the sewing machine changed this.

Once Elias Howe invented the sewing machine, clothes could be made on a much more industrial scale, much as cloth was.  People could set up factories with large numbers of sewing machines.  Workers using sewing machines could produce garments much more quickly than was previously possible.  When workers can make things more quickly, that also means that the products can be sold more cheaply because the workers do not have to be paid as much.  When clothes become cheaper, people are able to buy more clothing.  In addition, the invention of the sewing machine even helped people who sewed at home.  Sewing clothing at home with a machine was much quicker than hand-sewing and so a woman (almost always a woman) could make more clothes for herself and her family.

In these ways, the invention of the sewing machine had important impacts.  It helped to build the clothing industry and it improved people’s quality of life by allowing them to own more clothes.

How was Helen's life like little insects that crowd a whole existence into one brief day?

Helen did very little in her life for the first seven years. She lived in a world of silence and darkness. She rarely traveled and she spent most of her time at home. She had interaction with very few people in the early years of her life.

When Miss Annie Sullivan came to be Helen's teacher, the little girl's world changed for the better. Miss Sullivan taught Helen how to communicate using the manual alphabet. After this, the world seemed to open up to Helen. In a little over ten years, she traveled all over the country and to Canada. She visited oceans and cities. She met many famous people and took up a variety of activities. She lived a life of fullness. Helen described this in her autobiography, The Story of My Life:

The treasures of a new, beautiful world were laid at my feet, and I took in pleasure and information at every turn. I lived myself into all things. I was never still a moment; my life was as full of motion as those little insects which crowd a whole existence into one brief day. I had met many people who talked with me by spelling into my hand, and thought in joyous symphony leaped up to meet thought, and behold, a miracle had been wrought! (Chapter XI)

Helen crowded her life with experiences in a short amount of time. She compared this to insects who live their entire lives in a day.

What happens after the sniper puts his cap on his rifle in "The Sniper" by Liam O'Flaherty?

"The Sniper," a short story, describes a conflict between two unnamed snipers during the Irish Civil War in 1922. The main character is the Republican sniper, who has been camped out on a rooftop for hours, covering the street below him. He takes the risk of lighting a cigarette, knowing this will give away his position to anyone watching. The fire from the match is seen by another sniper, who manages to hit the Republican sniper in the arm, pinning him down behind cover on the rooftop. He is faced with a few choices. If he waits for daylight, he may succumb to his injury, or lose the advantage of darkness to cover his position. If he attempts to escape, he will be seen immediately, and probably killed. His injury also renders him unable to use his rifle. He still has a revolver with him, so he decides (unannounced to the reader) to trick the enemy sniper into revealing himself, so the Republican sniper can kill his enemy with the revolver.

To do this, the Republican sniper places his hat on top of his rifle, and raises the cap into view, so it will look as if he is attempting to peer out from behind cover. The enemy sniper takes the bait and shoots at the cap, hitting it, and the Republican sniper pretends to die, even dropping his (useless) rifle off the roof, in order to mislead his opponent. The trick works; the enemy sniper believes the Republican is dead, and stands up, revealing himself. The Republican sniper then kills him with the revolver, leading to the story's tragic ending; on inspecting the dead sniper's body, the Republican discovers the sniper was his own brother.

What are signs of breast cancer in a male?

You may be surprised to know that most of the symptoms of breast cancer are not affected by a person's biological sex.

In general, breast cancer can be outwardly noticed by persistent changes to the breast tissue. A change in the texture of the breast tissue, such as a thickening of the skin over the pectorals or the growth of a lump, can indicate breast cancer. Changes in the color of the skin over the breast—especially the nipple and areola—should be brought to the attention of a physician. Pain or discharge from the nipple is also a potential sign of breast cancer. Retraction of the nipple or puckering of the skin over the breast tissue may also be a sign. Finally, it is important to note breast cancer is not always limited to the mammary or breast tissue itself—any swelling or pain in the lymph nodes of the underarm should be addressed by a physician.

In "A Rose for Emily," why were the townspeople glad to find out that all Emily’s father left her was the house?

The townspeople are glad that Emily’s father only left her the house because then they can pity her. 

Emily is a very unusual woman.  She is very reclusive, never coming out of her house.  She also refuses to pay taxes.  She keeps insisting that she does not need to pay taxes because of her father. 

Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it. 

Emily’s odd behavior is a direct result of how strange her father was.  He ran her suitors off with a horse-whip, because none of them “were quite good enough for Miss Emily.”  As a result of this, Emily never marries and ends up alone when her father dies.

When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.

In other words, Emily is just like everyone else now.  However, she really isn’t.  Emily still considers herself superior, and still refuses to pay taxes.  She doesn’t even want to give them her father’s body.  When people came to pay their respects she met them at the door and told them her father was not dead.

The smell is another example of how the town made concessions for Miss Emily.  They solved the problem by having a group break into the cellar and sprinkle lime.  The smell went away.  It was not until years later when Emily died that they found out that Miss Emily did have one suitor, and his body was still in her bed.

 

How do you market a virtue?

Virtues can be marketed by assigning virtues to a specific product. To understand how this is accomplished, it's important to consider what a "virtue" is. Attributes like strength, power, stability, dependability, and durability are all virtues that are usually assigned to people, but are also commonly marketed with products.

Consider a laptop, for instance. How might you sell a laptop to a consumer? You may being by explaining how powerful the laptop is - it operates at the most efficient speeds and offers the strongest processor and battery. The laptop may have a dependable solid state drive, guaranteed to never fail "or your money back." The laptop may have the most stable operating system with on-call support available at all times. Finally, the laptop may be able to withstand drops and spills, making it the most durable computer of its type.

The virtues associated with a laptop are part of why the product is marketable in the first place. All of the virtues listed in the above example in bold are positive attributes that make the product desirable. Marketers hone in on these key terms because virtues sell.

Why does the Catholic Church oppose capital punishment?

Followers of Catholicism support something called the "culture of life," a component of moral theology which values all human life at all stages, and attempts to fight what they perceive as destructive components of the "culture of death": euthanasia, unjust war, the use of embryonic stem cells for research, abortion, etc.

One of the key components of the "culture of death" that is opposed by Catholicism is the practice of capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty. This opposition stems from keys Catholic principles, best summarized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB):

A principled Catholic response to crime and punishment is rooted in our convictions about good and evil, sin and redemption, justice and mercy. It is also shaped by our commitment to the life and dignity of every human person, and the common good. The opening chapter of the Book of Genesis teach that every life is a precious gift from God (see Genesis 2:7, 21-23). This gift must be respected and protected.

Thus, to take a life--even the life of someone who has committed a crime--is in itself a sin and a show of blatant disrespect for the gift of life. It violates the concept of dignity as an inherent component of life, rather than as something that is earned or lost. The USCCB asserts that the "closure" offered by the use of capital punishment is an illusion that ultimately does not heal the wounds of those victimized by the perpetrated crime. In other words, taking one life does provide "justice" or resolve a previous loss of life; "an eye for an eye" does not fix anything, nor does it prevent future crimes or losses of life as a result of those crimes. 

If you are interested in learning more about the Catholic Church's stance on capital punishment, an enormous amount of information is outlined on the USCCB's website. Please refer to the link below! 

Why did Nagania try to attack Rikki-tikki?

Nagaina wanted to get rid of Rikki-tikki because he was a threat to her family. 

Nag and Nagaina were the cobras that lived in Rikki-tikki’s family garden.  Nagaina tried to attack Rikki-tikki at several points during the story, because she knew that he was a great danger to her entire family.  Nagaina had a group of eggs getting ready to hatch. 

Nag tries to distract Rikki-tikki so that Nagaina can attack him.

Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement in the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden meant death sooner or later for him and his family, but he wanted to get Rikki-tikki off his guard.

Rikki-tikki is too smart for this though.  He turns just as Nagaina appears, because Darzee warns him that she is coming.  He bites her, leaving her “torn and angry,” but it is a stalemate.  Neither wins, and they must return to fight later. 

After Rikki-tikki fights and kills Nagaina’s husband, Nag, she is even more desperate.  When she learns that Rikki-tikki killed all of her eggs except one, she has no choice but to go after him.  She wants to kill him, and save her baby. 

Nagaina gathered herself together, and flung out at him. Rikki-tikki jumped up and backward. Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the verandah, and she gathered herself together like a watch-spring. 

Rikki-tikki had to put down the egg to fight her, so Nagaina took it and went into her hole.  She was running for her life.  It is very dangerous for a mongoose inside a cobra's hole, because she knows it better than he does, so she probably thought he would not follow.  Rikki-tikki did follow her  though, and killed her in the hole.

Does water and carbon dioxide form while burning a candle ?

Q: 

When burning a candle, do water and carbon dioxide form?

A: 

Assuming the candle wick is made out of organic compounds (usually wicks are braided cotton, which is made up of organic compounds), the answer is yes.

The reason water and carbon dioxide form when burning a candle is because burning a candle wick is a form of combustion of organic molecules. Combustion, which we usually think of as "burning" or "fire", is really just a chemical reaction in which molecules react with oxygen from the air. We experience this as fire, but really, in the case of wood or a candle, it is hydrocarbons (organic molecules) combining with oxygen from the air to form chemical products. Combustion reactions involving organic molecules have the following form:

`X + O_2 + heat-> CO_2 + H_2 O + heat`

In the above, the left side are the reactants and the right side are the products (you can read the arrow as "yields" or "produces"). X in the above stands for the fuel. In combustion, the fuel is some organic molecule, that is, a particular type of molecule made up of some combination of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. In other words, in an organic combustion reaction, organic molecules--along with oxygen and heat--produce carbon dioxide, water, and more heat. This is the general form of a complete combustion reaction.

Candle wicks are made of organic molecules. When candle wicks are heated to a certain point in the presence of oxygen, they burn, forming carbon dioxide and water, as well as heat.

What is Ponyboy's issue with Johnny's suggestion that they disguise themselves in The Outsiders?

Ponyboy does not want to cut and bleach his hair because it is fundamental to his identity as a greaser. 

As Ponyboy tells us repeatedly, hair is very important to greasers.  Unlike the Socs, the greasers do not have much money.  They distinguish themselves through their hair.  It doesn’t really take money to grow your hair out and style it, and so this is what the greasers do.  

When Pony and Johnny are on the run, they hide in an old church outside of town.  Johnny goes out to get supplies and returns with a deck of cards and peroxide.  Pony gets worried as soon as he sees it.  Johnny tells him that they have to disguise themselves so they don’t fit the descriptions in the paper. 

It was my pride. It was long and silky, just like Soda's, only a little redder. Our hair was tuff--- we didn't have to use much grease on it. Our hair labeled us greasers, too--- it was our trademark. The one thing we were proud of. Maybe we couldn't have Corvairs or madras shirts, but we could have hair. (Ch. 5) 

Johnny points out that if they get arrested their hair will be cut anyway.  Johnny explains that it is a way to break them, because “they can't take anything away from them because they don't have anything in the first place.”  The only thing they have is their hair. 

In fact, when Pony returns home the other boys tease him about his hair.  Two-Bit points it out as soon as he sees him, to Pony’s dismay. 

"Man, dig baldy here!" He was staring at my head as he circled me. "I wouldn't have believed it. I thought all the wild Indians in Oklahoma had been tamed. What little squaw's got that tuff-lookin' mop of yours, Ponyboy?" (Ch. 7) 

Losing his hair is part of the transition Pony undergoes from the time they go into hiding.  After the fire, Pony, Johnny, and Dally are all injured.  Johnny’s injuries are life-threatening.  Nothing is the same for Ponyboy ever again, and he questions his very identity as a greaser.  As Johnny points out, Ponyboy isn't really the rumble type.  He has a chance to make something of himself.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, how does Chief Bromden's experience with "the fog" change after the fishing trip?

Returning from the fishing trip, Chief Bromden experiences increased clarity of mind and a strengthened sense of agency. After McMurphy and Bromden are taken to the Disturbed ward, Bromden describes the effects of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy):

There had been times when I’d wandered around in a daze for as long as two weeks after a shock treatment, living in that foggy, jumbled blur which is a whole lot like the ragged edge of sleep, that gray zone between light and dark, or between sleeping and waking or living and dying, where you know you’re not unconscious any more but don’t know yet what day it is or who you are or what’s the use of coming back at all—for two weeks. If you don’t have a reason to wake up you can loaf around in that gray zone for a long, fuzzy time, or if you want to bad enough I found you can come fighting right out of it. This time I came fighting out of it in less than a day, less time than ever. And when the fog was finally swept from my head it seemed like I’d just come up after a long, deep dive, breaking the surface after being under water a hundred years. It was the last treatment they gave me (Kesey 160).

In the above passage, Bromden notes the rapidity with which he recovers from the fog and compares it to earlier experiences lasting upward of two weeks. The language used is particularly important because Bromden describes his recovery as "fighting," and in his word choice we can interpret sensations of inner strength, resilience, power, and agency: key concepts for Bromden, who, as a mentally-ill minority figure, has suffered from significantly reduced agency within the novel. Furthermore, we see that the act of coming out of the fog is purposeful; that is, whereas Bromden's earlier experiences in the fog left him wondering "what [was] the use of coming back," he implies that there is a reason or drive to do so after the fishing trip. It is also worth noting that this is the last treatment Bromden receives in the novel as he leaves the ward by its conclusion, but significantly, this particular experience leaves him feeling as though the fog, which has clouded his thoughts and perceptions for a prolonged period, has lifted in such a way that suggests it will not return. 

Because the fog has lifted for Bromden, it also allows him to contemplate thoughts such as the following:

We had just unlocked a window and let it in like you let in the fresh air. Maybe the Combine wasn’t all-powerful. What was to stop us from doing it again, now that we saw we could? Or keep us from doing other things we wanted? (Kesey 168)

The fishing trip reinforces an attitude that develops in Bromden and the other ward patients throughout the course of the novel: the patients do have the power to dictate the course of their lives and to exist in the outside world. In the passage above, Bromden challenges the authority of the Combine, an entity he has feared throughout most of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. For Bromden, the dissipation of the fog signals the dismantling of the Combine's power.

(Source: Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. New York: Signet Books, 1962.)

Which was the main commodity produced by the Spanish in the Caribbean? gold sugar silver cotton

The main commodity produced by Spain (or any European country for that matter) would be sugar.  Sugar was a very valuable commodity in the colonial era--it was rare enough to be valuable in Europe.  Spices were still a luxury though sugar plantations would make sweets available to more people.  Sugar was also important in making rum, a staple on the world's sailing vessels.  Rum was often included as part of sailors' pay.  it allowed sugar to be preserved on long voyages.  Sugar was also important because its growth was part of the Triangle Trade which provided trade goods from Europe and slaves from Africa.  Per your other choices, gold and silver would be important to the Spanish, but only from North and South America.  The Spanish hoped to find gold in the Caribbean, but it was not there.  Cotton would be too labor intensive and would overly tax the Caribbean soil.  

How does energy flow in a food chain?

Energy flows in a food web from primary producers to many consumers. The food chain is the organization of organisms in a single direction from producer to high level consumers. The food chain (and energy flow) follows this order:

Producers > Primary Consumer > Secondary Consumer > Tertiary Consumer

At the bottom of the food web are producers, which have a unique ability to transform sunlight into ATP energy units. Autotrophs such as green algae and plants convert sunlight into energy and serve as food sources for primary consumers.

Primary consumers are organisms that eat the primary producers, thereby transferring the energy and nutrients from the produce level to the consumer level. One example of a primary consumer is a mouse, which eats things like fruit, seeds, and grains.

A secondary level consumer is an organism that eats a primary consumer. In this case, a secondary level consumer may be a snake. In this example, a snake that eats a mouse will transfer the energy and nutrients from the mouse (originally from the fruits, seeds, and grains) to the secondary level.

Finally, the tertiary level consumers are the highest stop on the food chain. These organisms eat secondary level consumers. In this example, a tertiary level consumer may be a hawk who eats a snake, thereby transferring the energy from the secondary level to the tertiary level.

This entire example shows how the energy from the sun was converted by primary producers (plants) and moved through the food chain from a mouse to a snake to a hawk - thus, the energy moved from the sun to the primary producer, to the primary consumer, to the secondary consumer, and to the final tertiary consumer.

It is important to note that, when the tertiary consumer dies, the energy and nutrients will be returned to the ecosystem through decomposition. At this level, decomposers (such as worms and fungi) will break down the organic matter to the chemical level. The chemicals from this process will be returned into the soil and will support the growth of primary producers to begin the process all over again.

In Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, why does the old man change his vote the second time the jury votes?

In the first act of Twelve Angry Men (Rose), the foreman polls the jury after discussion of the case and finds only one juror voting not to convict, Juror Number Eight.  It is clear from the discussion that the other jurors are not all that interested in the concept of innocent until proven guilty or the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  The jurors show racism, impatience, and a disrespect for the entire process.  It is only Juror Number Nine who has any regard for Juror Number Eight's questions and concerns, and he notes that Juror Number Eight is courageous to stand up to the others, a lone voice for the defendant.  He says he would like to hear more, meaning that he now has a mind open to making a decision based on something more fair and more tangible, no longer willing to bow to the pressure of his peers on the jury. He is the first juror that Juror Number Eight "turns," but by no means the last.                 

What happens to Ichabod Crane after he leaves the Van Tassels' party in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?

After Ichabod Crane departs from the Van Tassels' party, he encounters the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a galloping Hessian horseman whose head was blown off by a cannon-ball in the Revolutionary War. This apparition is seen off and on by the country folk as it hurries along in the night as though on the "wings of the wind," and it gives chase to the local schoolmaster, sending him away from the area.

Ichabod Crane is an established part of the community, as he engages in activities with the older boys after school who have older sisters or mothers who are good housewives and will invite him for dinner. Crane is also

an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, [a]re equally extraordinary; and both ha[ve] been increased by his residence in this spellbound region.

When Ichabod Crane, who teaches psalmody, is invited to the Van Tassel home by Katrina, one of his students, he is thrilled to think of the culinary delights he will be able to eat. In fact, the pedagogue's mouth begins to water at the sight of the bounty before him in the van Tassel mansion.

His rival for Katrina's wealth and affections is also a guest. Nevertheless, the opportunistic Crane does not despair because Brom Brummel is present and has been making quiet advances for some time to Katrina. Because Ichabod will not engage in any activity that will openly confront Brom, 

it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. 

On the night Ichabod enjoys the feast at the Van Tassels, the Yankee songmaster finds himself confronted with the sinister ghost of the Hessian warrior, which drives the superstitious songmaster out of Sleepy Hollow. As Ichabod tries to elude the horseman, the headless trooper throws his head at the songmaster, striking Crane in his own head. Crane falls to the ground as the "head" of the horseman, which is really a pumpkin, shatters on the earth. Thus, Ichabod Crane is defeated by the stalwart, athletic, and truly affection Dutchman, who is among the settlers.

What is the mythological reference in Fahrenheit 451?

The mythical creature is the phoenix, which is the firemen’s logo.

A phoenix is a creature that supposedly burned and was reborn, or rose from the ashes.  Firemen have the logo on a disc on their chest and a salamander on their arms.  A salamander supposedly can live in ashes, according to myth.  The bird makes sense as the mascot and logo of the firemen because they burn the books and the items in the houses, but not the houses themselves.  The houses are fireproof, so they are like phoenixes rising from the flame. 

The phoenix comes into the conversation after the city is burned. 

"It's flat," he said, a long time later. "City looks like a heap of baking-powder. It's gone." And a long time after that. "I wonder how many knew it was coming? I wonder how many were surprised?"  (Part III) 

People were not really paying attention to the war.  It was not real.  Beatty says, “Let him forget there is such a thing as war” (Part I).   All that mattered was their entertainment.  They lived every day on a high, focusing on pleasure and making no deep connections.  They were alive, but not really living.  

Granger brings up the phoenix, a bird he says lived “back before Christ.” 

But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. (Part III) 

Granger says that mankind is foolish, because we keep making the same mistakes in our society. He says that “even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them.”  Montag’s society burns itself up, and it will re-emerge.  Will the new society be better than the former one?

What are some similarities and differences between Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet?

For starters, both Sonnet 18 and Romeo and Juliet were written by William Shakespeare! Though this fact makes further similarities and differences all the more interesting. Let's consider some differences, first.

While Sonnet 18 is a piece of standalone poetry, the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet is but one part of a greater play. What's more, Sonnet 18 is written from the perspective of the speaker to an unknown reader. In this way, it is like a love letter. We have the perspective of the speaker, but not the recipient-subject. The balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet may be considered to consist of parallel monologues until the two characters actually speak to one another. It differs from the Sonnet because we hear both characters' perspectives, and each is the recipient-subject of the other's speech.

What do these two pieces of text have in common? Both are declarations of love! They also bear similarities in their content. Comparisons of beauty and nature are in both, evoking images of beautiful summer flowers. One can easily understand what Shakespeare found beautiful in nature as well as in a person by reading and comparing these two texts.

What is the underlying message that Alexie is trying to get across to the reader? How does he achieve “delivering” this theme to the reader?

There are a number of minor themes that thread throughout the short stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Some of these themes include poverty, alcoholism, externalized and internalized racism, acceptance or rejection of culture, and isolation. While no one of these themes is the sole primary message of the collection, they combine to paint an overall picture of Native American life on the reservation in the 20th Century.

Sherman Alexie's primary goal, then, seems to be to illustrate the various hardships faced by the modern (20th Century) Native American. In doing so, he is giving the reader a lens to a segment of the American population that tends to be underserved and underexplored in American culture. By giving the reader characters to sympathize with and understand in each story, and having those characters deal with -- and sometimes succumb to -- the very real problems that many Native Americans on reservations struggle with on a daily basis, Alexie helps to connect disconnected contemporary Americans with a group of people they may not know much about.

In the story "All Summer in a Day," how do the other students feel about Margot?

The children are jealous of Margot because she is from Earth and she has seen the sun. 

The story takes place in some future time where Earthlings have somehow managed to travel to other planets and colonize them.  One of these colonies is on Venus.  Bradbury’s vision of Venus is a planet where it rains constantly.  The incessant rain really gets to people.  It is particularly hard for the children, because they do not remember seeing the sun.  They were too young when it last came out. 

Margot is nine years old.  She is different from the other kids, because she is from Earth.  On Earth, apparently, the sun still comes out.  Margot desperately misses the sun.  She wants to go back to Earth in the worst way.  

Not only does Margot miss the sun, but she does not get along with the other children.  They are jealous of her, and think she is weird because she keeps herself apart from them.  She doesn’t fit in, and doesn’t try to. 

Whenever Margot is mentioned, she is described as being alone and apart from the other kids. 

She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. 

The children are excited because the sun is about to come out for the first time in seven years.  This means the other children were just two years old when it last emerged, and of course they do not remember it.  For this reason, they are even more stirred up.  Just as the sun is about to come out, they decide to play a trick on Margot.  They lock her in the closet. 

It is not clear if the children really intended for Margot to miss the sun’s brief appearance.  However, that is what happened.  They got all excited about the sun and left her.  The teacher was apparently none the wiser.  By the time the rain started again, the children were horrified at what they had done.

Describe two situations in which knowledge of price elasticity would help a decision-maker to set a price?

1. An art museum would like to increase the revenue it earned from ticket sales. In this situation, knowledge of price elasticity would be very important in aiding the museum manager in setting the price of tickets. After the manager has conducted the necessary market research, it was determined that the price elasticity of demand for museum tickets is inelastic. With this information, the museum manager would decide to increase the price of tickets. This is because the increase in price would outweigh the decline in ticket sales; therefore, the profits of the museum would increase.

2. A pizzeria would like to increase the revenue it earned from the sale of pizzas. In this situation, knowledge of price elasticity would be very important in aiding the pizzeria owner in setting the price of its pizza. After the owner has conducted the necessary market research, it was determined that the price elasticity of demand for pizza is elastic. With this information, the pizzeria owner would decide to reduce the price of its pizza. This is because the decrease in price would induce more people to buy pizza; therefore, provided pizzas are still being sold at a profit, the profits of the pizzeria would increase.

Analyze the effects of the Age of Exploration on Africa and on the Americas. Include specific effects of the Atlantic slave trade. In what ways...

Because your essay must be three paragraphs, I would write the thesis statement as a topic sentence or as a lead-in sentence. In your thesis statement, include what you think were the major effects of the Age of Exploration on Africa, particularly West Africa, and the Americas.

In the Americas, the major effects of the Age of Exploration were disease and displacement. The natives in North and South America were unable to resist the diseases that Europeans were carrying, particularly yellow fever, influenza, and smallpox. This resulted in the decimation of large swathes of the native populations. Those who survived were subjected to displacement, due to European settlement. Having to leave their homes was devastating to many natives, and some were unable to survive in new environments.

In the Caribbean, Native Americans were enslaved. Initially, the Spanish -- the first to arrive -- sought gold. They forced the natives to labor in the mines. Those who refused were murdered; others were forced to starve after the Spanish destroyed their crops in retaliation for their resistance. Others simply died from exhaustion. Mining is taxing work, especially when one is forced to do it for excessively long hours in tropical heat.

The need for laborers who could work in tropical climates caused European traders and planters to look toward West Africa. The first African slaves were introduced into Hispaniola (what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by the Spanish in 1501, nine years after Columbus's arrival in the West Indies. 

According to C.L.R. James, Central Africa (e.g., the Congo) "was a territory of peace and happy civilization" in the sixteenth century, shortly before the arrival of European traders. As far as we know, the same could be said of the Americas before the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese traders, starting in the late fifteenth century. 

Like the Native Americans, Africans greeted the Europeans hospitably. As in the Americas, tribal life was broken up due to displacement and enslavement. Also, crops were destroyed by traders in Africa, just as they were in the Americas, leading to famine.

According to James, tribes had to provide the Europeans with slaves or be sold as slaves themselves. In exchange for providing slaves, they would receive guns and sums of gold or silver. It is true that slavery existed in West Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans. Slavery was also practiced among some Native American tribes. In Africa, however, the system was more akin to apprenticeship. Also, a slave did not remain a slave for an entire lifetime, and physical cruelty was not practiced. Those who try to draw parallels between these systems and that which existed in the Americas, after European settlement, are wrong.

Clearly, the motivation for the European traders and planters was economic. They wanted laborers who could mine and till the lands they had colonized. They also needed laborers who could withstand the tropical climate. Because they wanted to reap maximum profits, they chose to enslave people. They justified their actions by associating Africans and Native Americans with heathenism, or non-Christian belief systems. Later, when Africans and their descendants became the sole source of slave labor, skin color became the marker of the servant class.

The results of Europeans' abuses were similar in both the Americas and Africa: tribes were disbanded, populations were decimated due to famine, and peace became a distant memory.