How does spring change the work being done at the tavern in Lyddie?

In spring, the maple syrup sugar making is done and Mrs. Cutler leaves to sell it.

During the winter, Lyddie and the others at the tavern work hard making maple tree syrup into maple sugar.  It is a “frenzy of activity” and also hot and exhausting work.  Lyddie is tasked with clarifying the syrup in addition to all of her other work.

When spring comes, they no longer need to make maple sugar.  The mistress of the tavern, Mrs. Cutler, went to sell what they had made.  This made the work much lighter for Lyddie and Triphena.

Work did not disappear with the departure of the mistress, but it became as pleasant as a holiday. "If I could make life so happy for others just by going away, I'd go more often," Triphena said. (Ch. 5) 

Triphena tells Lyddie that she can take a few days off.  Lyddie is skeptical.  Triphena points out that she always does it.  Lyddie wants to make sure it will be all right. 

"If I say so," Triphena said. "With her gone, I'm in charge, ey?" Lyddie wasn't going to argue. "If you was to wait, the ground would thaw to mud. Better go tomorrow if it's fair.  Take a little sugar to your brother on the way." (Ch. 5) 

Lyddie believes her.  She desperately wants to go home to see her brother. It turns out to be a mistake.  Mrs. Cutler is angry when she finds out, and says that Lyddie left without permission.  It isn’t true, but Lyddie is fired anyway.

It is very unfair, because Lyddie is an excellent worker.  She is happy to go though, because she hates working at the tavern.  Her money is sent directly to her mother and she feels like a slave. Lyddie knows she can make more and have more freedom at the factory.

What is the summary of the poem "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," including the lines "Ah God! to see the branches stir / Across the moon at...

This passage is taken from the poem "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" written by Rupert Brooke in 1912. The poem has a short line before it begins, after the title: (Café des Westens, Berlin, May 1912). This tells us that the poem is set in Berlin, Germany, at a French cafe; this seems to be where the poem was written, as opposed to where most of its imagery is set. The poem begins with the speaker talking about flowers in bloom nearby, and a river that is "green as a dream, and deep as death." The first stanza ends with the words "du Leiber Gott!" which is German for "Oh, God!" (or "good heavens!") and this line repeats in English later in the poem.

The next stanza describes how uncomfortable the speaker is, "sweating, sick and hot," and how he yearns to return to Grantchester, a village near Cambridge, England. He then discusses the different villages and towns near it, and brief images of the people and places that show how none of them compare to Grantchester. The line quoted in your question occurs near the end of the poem, relating the wish of the speaker to be there once again. Clearly he is homesick and these thoughts give him comfort.

It's important to know the historical setting and context of this poem; given the year and location, one cannot ignore that this is the beginning of World War I, a war that would decimate the English population and throw Europe into years of turmoil. The author died during the war in 1915, after joining the Royal Navy. He was considered one of England's finest poets and his death is considered tragic, as he may have continued to write great poems had he not been killed while serving.

What role does race play in this novel?

Race does not play a major role in The Bell Jar, but it does figure in as a subject for Esther's judgment, to some extent. In a novel about a character's conflicts of perception (pointedly including self-perception) and values, Esther's observations of race can be noted as one of many examples of her embattled sense of her place in the world. Race, as so many other labels, can be seen as part of Esther's tendency to look at the world categorically. 

Outside of her early comments on Peruvians, perhaps the most notable episode in the text relating to race comes relatively late in the novel. In it we see Esther using language that distances her racially from an attendant in the hospital. 

While at the private hospital (where Doctor Nolan treats her), Esther has an encounter with an African American staff member who she refers to as "the Negro."

During a dinner scene, Esther remarks on the fact that the meal includes two kinds of beans: 

"Now I knew perfectly well you didn't serve two kinds of beans together at a meal. Beans and carrots, or beans and peas, maybe, but never beans and beans. The Negro was just trying to see how much we would take." 

When Esther reprimands the man at one point, he responds by making "an insolent bow" and calling Esther "Miss Mucky-Muck." The episode ends with Esther kicking the man in the leg.

In the scene that follows, Esther appears to be experiencing a psychotic episode as she delights in knocking over a tray in front of a nurse. The "Negro" fits into this episode as well when his face is spotted at the window grating when Esther is wheeled into a locked room.

We should note a few things here. First, Esther has lost the sense of restraint that had encumbered her in the first half of the novel. In lashing out at the African American figure, she is choosing a person she feels is an easy target, yet she would not have done this at the outset of the novel.

The changes in Esther seen here are ugly, but they are also part of her growth. These are the throes of recovery and they show Esther taking on a power that she initially abuses.

Also, having spent much of the novel judging others, passively and actively, Esther is now being judged. She is at the mercy of the nurses and "the Negro" too. Abusing both the white nurse and the Black staff member, we can see that race is not the principal issue here—status is the principal issue.

One of Esther's most notable habits is her tendency to categorize people. She divides the social world into a variety of categories and applies a certain status to each. For Esther, this tendency is linked to her identity crisis as she cannot see a way to attain a positive identity. For instance, due to her categorical way of looking at the world, Esther feels that there is no way to straddle the boundaries between an identity as a mother and as a writer.

In her identity crisis, Esther is caught up in a drive to attain stability and, to some extent, status. Afraid of the judgments of the world and unable to find a way to achieve an integral identity, Esther breaks down and attempts suicide. The course of her treatment sees her learning to assert herself in her environment, to some extent, while still relying on her sense of a divided social world.

How can we explain the fact that Pilgrims and Puritans escaped persecution only to come to the New World and pass judgement on others?

We can explain this apparent paradox by simply observing that, for the most part, neither Separatist Pilgrims nor Puritans shared our modern concept of religious freedom. What they were after when they left England to settle in North America was the ability to create settlements which would become, in the words of the Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a "bible commonwealth." They wanted to create societies that conformed to their vision. A big part of this vision was community. They thought that people who did not share their beliefs were a threat to this community, and they thus dealt with these people quite harshly. For example, when Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson publicly differed with the leadership of the colony, they were banned to Rhode Island. Many people, such as Quakers, were actually executed.

Puritans believed that the colony would not survive if people they viewed as ungodly were allowed to remain. This belief would be tested, ironically, as a result of the colony's success. It spread so fast and witnessed such rapid economic growth that the sense of community the founders of Puritan New England colonies sought to create came under threat even before the founders themselves had died. 

In the essay "Shooting an Elephant," one of Orwell's purposes in telling his story is to show how it gave him a glimpse of "the real nature of...

Orwell writes this essay about his service as a policeman for the British Empire in Lower Burma. In this position, he witnesses how the local people resent him as an emissary of the empire, and this helps turn him against imperialism, the system that enables Great Britain to control distant territories and administer them. He sees that the people do not accept the British system, and he also sees that the system pushes people who work for it to act in accordance with its ridiculous principles. For example, Orwell is called to take care of an elephant who is destroying the local bazaar. Though he knows the elephant is harmless, he feels that the crowd of people following him push him to destroy the elephant. He winds up killing the beast to avoid looking foolish in front of the local people. This incident makes him realize that the system of imperialism forces people to take foolish and thoughtless actions because the system implies that Europeans must be in control in the areas in which the empire reigns. 

What rule does Ralph establish?

In Chapter 2, Ralph, Jack, and Simon return from their first expedition on the island and hold an assembly. After Ralph explains to the group of boys that they are stranded on an uninhabited island, Jack interrupts him and says that they'll need hunters to kill the numerous pigs. Ralph then creates the first rule on the island. Ralph comments that they cannot have everybody speaking at once during the assemblies, so they will take turns holding the conch shell to address the group. Whenever a person is holding the conch shell during a meeting, no one is allowed speak over them. This system of taking turns is both democratic and civil. The conch shell is an important symbol of civility and structure throughout the novel. As the story progresses, Jack begins to speak over others and breaks the rule of not talking when someone is holding the conch during an assembly.

What would happen to the owls if there were fewer grasshoppers?

In an ecosystem, there are food chains and a food web, which is made up of interconnected food chains. Owls and grasshoppers can be considered to be part of the same food chain, since owls are natural predators of grasshoppers. 

From the point of view of a food chain in which owls are dependent on grasshoppers, if most of the grasshoppers are removed (that is, the grasshopper population falls drastically) then owls will have scarcity of food and will die out. A new equilibrium will be established with fewer owls supported by fewer grasshoppers. 

However, from the perspective of the food web, owls have more than 1 food source and if grasshoppers are reduced, owls will live on other food sources and hence the effect on the owl population will not be as drastic as in the case of a food chain.

In essence, in an ecosystem, a reduction in the population of grasshoppers will result in a decreased owl population and a newer equilibrium between the various species.

Hope this helps.