In Wilfred Owen's poems like "Greater Love" and "Apologia," do you feel like Owen explores any positive virtues associated with combat?

Wilfred Owen was a British war poet famed for his vivid and visceral verses about the atrocities of World War I.  For a span of twenty-one months, from January 1917 until his death on the frontlines in November 1918, Owens served as a solider on the Western Front, but it was during this short period that Owen penned some of the most moving proclamations about the Great War. His poetic imagery is graphic, often detailing the physical carnage and destruction of battle, and he uses his words to not only provide a realistic snapshot of the battlefield, but challenge the notion of “just” warfare.  Yet, while Owen uses his candid imagery to capture the bloodshed and gore of World War I, nearly all of his works uphold an inseparable theme of camaraderie between soldiers on the front lines. His poems tell the tale of sacrifice and love between the men serving in the war, and he glorifies the brotherly bond of his fellow soldiers, often calling on the memories of his fallen friends, as in “Wild With All Regrets.”

Therefore, in “Greater Love” and “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo,” both poems that capture the horrors of combat and the subsequent mutilation of the human body, Owen explores the positive virtues of camaraderie through tropes of honor and brotherly love.  First and foremost, the title of “Greater Love” is a biblical allusion to John 15:13, which states, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  Owen begins his poem with the concept of noble sacrifice and aligns it with the bond between men on the battlefield, and he does this by juxtaposing the love of a woman with the love between soldiers.  The poem begins:

Red lips are not so red

As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

Kindness of wooed and wooer

Seems shame to their love pure. (1-4)

The poem opens with a simile comparing an unidentified woman’s lips to the blood-stained stones of the battlefields.  On one level, the grotesque image is intended to be a sensational depiction of reality, but on a deeper level, the simile uses an iconic image of beauty (“Red lips”) to represent the dead English soldiers.  This suggests Owens is trying to find beauty in the notion that the fallen men served with honor and dignity.  This is supported in lines three and four.  For Owen, the love of a woman, the “kindness of wooed and wooer,” cannot compete with the selfless, “pure” love between soldiers.

“Greater Love” is in fact a poem that contrasts the heteronormative love between man and woman with the brotherly love between soldiers in battle.  Stanza two again addresses the unidentified woman, stating, “Your slender attitude / Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed” (7-8).  The simile again pairs two unlike things together: attitude and severed limbs.  Yet, the diction of “not exquisite” suggests that Owen is again glorifying the sacrifice made by the soldiers.  To Owen, the woman is not as beautiful as the honor of fallen men.  Similarly, the poem concludes with an anthropomorphism addressing the heart: “Heart, you were never hot / Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot” (19-20).  This simile conveys the idea that nothing compares to the hearts of men serving on the battlefield, again upholding Owen's theme of camaraderie. 

In “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo,” a similar stance on camaraderie and brotherly love is found amongst the vivid imagery of the battlefield.  Again, Owen places more value on the love shared between soldiers than any other forms of conventional love.  The persona delivers the following lines:

I have made fellowships, -

Untold of happy lovers in old song.

For love is not the binding of fair lips

With the soft silk of eyes that look and long. (17-20)

The stanza begins with an acknowledgment of the friendships the solider has made on the battlefield, but then a litotes, a literary device used to emphasize a point by denying the opposite, is used to say what “love is not.”  The persona states, “For love is not the binding of fair lips,” suggesting that true and pure love is not the attraction between a heteronormative couple, but rather a sacred and honored bond between comrades. This idea is later supported with the alliteration of “But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong” (22), which metaphorically says men are bound together with “war’s hard wire,” emphasizing the strength and durability of the bond. 

Thus, in both “Greater Love” and ““Apologia Pro Poemate Meo,” Owens combats the brutal carnage of wartime destruction with threads of honor for the bond shared between fellow soldiers.  He relies on similes and metaphors to compare traditional notions of love with battlefield camaraderie, and he uses contrasting diction, such as “exquisite,” “dear,” “merry,” and “great,” to describe seemingly awful images of slaughter.  This, in fact, paints the fighting soldiers in a glorified light, despite being surrounded by the chaos and atrocities of World War I.

From A Separate Peace by John Knowles, how does Gene feel about having seen the tree? Why?

In the opening scene of A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene, the protagonist and narrator, visits the infamous tree from his high school fifteen years after the death of his friend Phineas. Because the tree is the location for the tragedy that occurred in the summer of 1942, Gene visits the scene to find closure for his part in it. Gene describes the tree as follows: 

"This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but that they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age" (14).

In the above passage, Gene realizes that the tree seems physically smaller than how he remembers it. Gene's impressions of how the tree looks fifteen years later symbolize how the effects of his personal trauma have also diminished. The next passage explains how Gene feels having seen the tree:

"The tree was not only stripped by the cold season, it seemed weary from age, enfeebled, dry. I was thankful, very thankful that I had seen it. So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all. . . Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence" (14).

In this passage, Gene expresses gratitude for having taken the time to visit the scene of the accident because his feelings about it seem to have changed "after all." He's relieved to discover that he can find peace in his lifetime after carrying around the devastating effects of the loss of his friend's life because of his responsibility for the first broken leg. This moment of viewing the tree after fifteen years leaves Gene "changed" because he also says "it was time to come in out of the rain" (14). When Gene refers to coming in out of the rain, he is also saying that it is time for him to let go of the past, accept the tragedy for what it is, and move on with life without any more guilt.

How are Jo and Laurie alike in their behaviour when it comes to gender norms? How does Laurie protest against male stereotypes in the same way that...

Jo and Laurie are alike in terms of the way neither one really embodies the qualities typically associated with their own gender. Jo is bookish and headstrong; she hates getting dressed up, and she envies the men who go away to the war as well as Laurie when he gets to go away to school. She is quite prideful rather than submissive, even refusing to ask Aunt March for money when Marmee needs it. Instead, she sells her own hair, wearing it short (like a boy's) until it grows out again.

Laurie prefers music to study; he is sentimental and romantic. Jo is more logical than Laurie, another apparent gender reversal. For example, Jo tries to subtly prevent Laurie from proposing to her, and then, when he does, she rebuffs him. Society would dictate that Jo, a girl from a poor family, ought to jump at Laurie's offer, that she should be not only grateful but also wildly in love with him, the handsome well-to-do family friend who is so solicitous of her happiness. Then, she goes far from home to strike out on her own and become a published author (also a profession usually associated with men at that time). Even their nicknames are gender-swapped: Jo is typically a boy's nickname, and Laurie is typically a girl's.

What similarities do we find in the Assyrian and Persian Empires?

The Persians and Assyrians were both large empires in the Middle East from the Iron Age world. Both kingdoms boasted powerful militaries that protected their vast holdings and expanded their borders. The empires were not protected by natural barriers so a strong military was a necessity. Despite this geographical shortcoming, the empires utilized arable land, both being located in the fertile crescent around two rivers.

The two empires were both ruled by monarchs. The empires employed organized bureaucratic systems to enforce laws and collect taxes. Both empires are mentioned in the Old Testament, or Torah as having conquered the Hebrews, although the Persians are painted in a more positive vein in the scriptures. While both empires were known for their decisive military strength, both treated their new subjects with tolerance as long as the new citizens paid their taxes.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, how does Scout describe the physical appearance of Mrs. Dubose? How is this similar to the description of Boo Radley...

In Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, young Scout does not like to look at Mrs. Dubose any more than she must. Mrs. Dubose is so old that her wrinkles are very deep, she has liver spots, and she drools profusely. In chapter 11, Scout accompanies her brother to Mrs. Dubose's house to read to her. On the first day that the children visit her, Scout describes Mrs. Dubose as follows:

"Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase, and the corners of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin . . . from time to time she would draw her nether lip to her upper plate and carry her chin with it. This made the wet move faster" (106).

Through Scout's analysis of Mrs. Dubose's physical appearance, there seems to be a significant amount of drooling going on. Scout's description mostly focuses on Mrs. Dubose's face, but she also notices her old hands and "knobby knuckles," which must look terrifying to a young girl. The first physical description of Boo Radley is given by Jem in chapter 1 as follows:

"Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained--if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time" (13).

One common denominator between the description of Mrs. Dubose and the one for Boo Radley is the drooling. There is also a connection between the scar on Boo's face and the deep wrinkles found on Mrs. Dubose's. These details provide visual images that are usually associated with villains or monsters as children might interpret them.

How does George interact with Lennie in John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'?

George is Lennie's caretaker, first and foremost. Based on an agreement with Lennie's Aunt Clara, George watches out for Lennie, who is severely mentally disabled yet overly physically strong. 

George is a man of his word, and he takes Lennie in to watch over him. George sees himself and Lennie as a team of two. George knows that, while he can be annoying sometimes, Lennie provides George with companionship that the other men simply do not have. Because of this, he has a level of respect and admiration for Lennie that shows in his actions.

With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us."

Though George does this caretaking willingly, he does struggle from time to time with the burden of care. He has to defend his relationship with Lennie to Curley.

"We travel together," said George coldly.
"Oh, so it's that way."
George was tense, and motionless. "Yeah, it's that way."
Lennie was looking helplessly to George for instruction.

And, every time George lies about his relationship with Lennie, Lennie will call him on the lie.

"You said I was your cousin, George."
"Well, that was a lie. An' I'm damn glad it was. If I was a relative of yours I'd shoot myself." 

Throughout the novel, readers see interactions between George and Lennie that are loving and supportive, as George protects Lennie from Curley and from being a victim of his mental disability. 

Why does Winston call his and Julia's sexual encounter a political act?

At the end of Part Two, Chapter Two of 1984, Winston and Julia have their first sexual encounter. For Winston, this act is as much about politics as it is about passion:

It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

The reason for this attitude lies in the nature of life under the Party. Party members, like Winston and Julia, for instance, are not allowed to have sexual relations with each other, unless it is for the purposes of procreation and is approved by a committee. Failure to abide by this rule can result in imprisonment in the Ministry of Love which Winston and Julia know can lead to torture and possible death.

When Winston and Julia have sex, then, they know that they are breaking this rule. In addition, they know that their lives are at risk, but they do it without regard for the consequences and they do it because they no longer wish to be controlled by Big Brother. In other words, this is their first step on the path to rebellion.