Given y=3x/(x^2-9) determine the numbers m and n if y=m/(x-3)+n/(x+3)

From enunciation, we'll get 2 equivalent expressions for
y:

3x/(x^2 -9)= [m/(x-3)] +
[n/(x+3)]

Since the LCD of the fractions from the right
side is (x-3)(x+3) = x^2 - 9, we'll multiply by x^2 - 9 both
fractions:

3x/(x^2 -9)= [m(x+3) + n(x-3)]/ (x^2
-9)

Having the common denominator (x^2 -9), we'll simplify
it.

3x = mx+3m+nx-3n

We'll
factorize by x to the right side:

3x = x*(m+n) +
(3m-3n)

The terms from the right side and the left side of
the equality, have to be equal so that:

m+n=3
(1)

3m-3n=0

We'll divide by
3:

m - n = 0 (2)

We'll add the
second relation to the first
one:

m+n+m-n=3+0

2m=3

m
= 3/2

But, from (2) => m=n =
3/2

The numbers m and n are equal: m = n =
3/2.

Would you exactly identify the necessary process of foreign policy decision making? What are the steps to be taken when foreign policy is going to...

Agreed in that there is no one way in which foreign policy
decisions are made, although the Constitution clearly designates the President as being
in charge of this area of government.  In the present day, the President relies on a 
group of key Cabinet advisors to help him with foreign policy advice.  They meet,
usually daily, in a room in the White House called the Situation Room.  One type of
decision making process within that room might look something like
this:

1) The CIA Director presents the latest information
on a situation

2)  The National Security Advisor assesses
the threat to the United States in that situation

3)  The
Secretary of State gives advice about what the US decision/position should
be

4)  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs reviews what our
military options are

5)  The Secretary of Defense advises
what our military posture in this situation should be

6) 
The President makes a decision on a course of
action

Sometimes this process happens several times a day. 
Sometimes the Vice President will be in the room to offer his perspective and so he will
be up to speed on the latest situations in case he has to take over for the
President.

What was the lasting effect of the Bernie Madoff Scandal on our society -- the effect that make it important?

The Madoff scandal is important for two reasons -- it has
two major effects on society (other than impoverishing the people that Madoff
swindled).

First, the swindle makes it more likely that
there would be regulation of the financial industry.  When things like this happen,
people in government tend to try to pass laws to ensure that they do not happen again. 
This could make more regulation of the financial industry (which economists say is a bad
thing) more likely.

Second, it reduces the amount of trust
that people have in one another.  Societies (and economies) are built largely on trust. 
If we do not trust that money that we invest will come back to us, we will not invest
and the economy will be hurt.  If we do not trust one another, we treat each other worse
than we otherwise would and our society is hurt.

So, by
doing what he did, Madoff may have hurt our economy and our
society.

Who is Richmond from Richard III?

As with every historical play that Shakespeare produced,
Richard III contains an array of characters, some with several
titles, and so it can be difficult to keep track of who's who in British History.
However, Richmond, the character who appears in this play, is Henry, the Earl of
Richmond, who actually becomes King Henry VII afterwards. He can be said to be the
antagonist of King Richard III, as he is from the House of Lancaster and raises an army
to find against the rule of Richard III. Although this is quite a major part of the
play, Richmond is a minor character. He acts as a foil in the play to the devilish
tyranny of his opponent. You might want to consider how the speeches that both of these
characters make in Act V scene 3 are compared and contrasted. Perhaps to seal the
goodness of his character, after his success on the battlefield, Richmond effectively
ends the War of the Roses by becoming King and marrying Elizabeth from the House of
York.

How to verify the inequality: {(x+1)*lnx}/2>x-1

First, we'll try to re-write the expression in an easier
manner:

(x+1)*lnx >
2(x-1)

Now, we'll divide both sides by
(x+1):

ln x >
2(x-1)/ (x+1)

We'll subtract the ratio 2(x-1)/ (x+1) both
sides:

ln x - 2(x-1)/ (x+1) >
0

We'll note the given
expression:

f(x) = lnx -
2(x-1)/(x+1)

We'll have to demonstrate that
f(x)>0.

To prove that a function is increasing,
we'll have to prove that the first derivative of the function is
positive.

We'll calculate the first
derivative:

f'(x) =
[lnx-2(x-1)/(x+1)]'

The ratio from the expression of the
function will be differentiated using the quotient
rule.

f'(x) =
(1/x)-{[2(x-1)'*(x+1)-2(x-1)*(x+1)']/(x+1)^2}

f'(x) =
(1/x)-(2x+2-2x+2)/(x+1)^2

f'(x) =
(1/x)-(4)/(x+1)^2

f'(x) =
[(x+1)^2-4x]/x*(x+1)^2

f'(x) =
(x^2+2x+1-4x)/x*(x+1)^2

f'(x) =
(x^2-2x+1)/x*(x+1)^2

f'(x) =
(x-1)^2/x*(x+1)^2

We notice that for any real value of x,
(x-1)^2>0 and x*(x+1)^2>0, so
f(x)>0.

f(x) =
lnx-2(x-1)/(x+1)

lnx-2(x-1)/(x+1) > 0
q.e.d

if your given the midpoint= o,-3 and point A= 0,5 algebraically how do you find the other point?

Given the midpoint M(0,-3) . One end point is A(0,5). To
find the other end
point.

Solution:

Given the end
points whose coordinates are (x1,y1) and (x2,y2), the mid point is given by ( x1+x2)/2 ,
(y1+y2)/2. We use this idea when mid point  and one end point is known is
known.

So M(0,-3 ) = ((x1+x2)/2 , (y1+y2)/2)...(1)  Given (
x1, y1) = A(0,5) . To determine (x2,y2). So substituting x1= 0 and y1 = 5 in eq(1), we
get:

M(0,3) = ((0+x2)/2 , (5+y2)). Now equate x coordinates
on both sides  and also do so for y coordinates on both
sides:

0 =(0+x2)/2 . Or x2 =
0

-3 =( 5+y2)/2. Or 5+y2 = -6. So
y2 = -6-5 = -11.

So (x2,y2) =
(0,-11).

Identify the main social impacts of tourism.

Tourism can have a significant impact on the society of a
country or an area that makes tourism its main industry.  This is especially true if the
basis of tourism is showing tourists something
"exotic."

All tourism has an impact on a society.  It can
lead to resentment between the local people and the tourists.  The locals often come to
resent the tourists because all of the businesses of the area seem to cater to the
tourists and because the tourists can come to treat the locals like specimens in a
zoo.

Tourism that offers exotic experiences (as opposed,
say, to going to Disneyland or a museum) has even more of an impact.  In this kind of
tourism, the destination is expected to cater to the stereotypes that the tourists
have.  This forces the locals to, for example, perform "native" dances or such for the
tourists.  This may help influence a society to retain various traditional ways of life
instead of changing to more modern ways.

How did Gene deal with his friendship with Finny after the acident?

Gene became dishonest. He
made an attempt to tell Finny the truth about what had happened, but with Finny's cool
character, Finny wouldn't accept Gene's words. Gene allowed that to happen and continued
their relationship knowing Finny had no concept of the
truth.

Gene became very defensive on behalf
of Finny and demonstrated feeling guilt. Gene seemed to admire Finny
greatly in the very beginning of the book, grew jealousy just before the incident in the
tree, and after the incident when Finny returned to school tried to help and cater to
Finny's needs. He skipped school with Finny when he didn't really want to, he babied
Finny about his leg by refusing to talk about it.

At a supermarket a chocolate sells for $3, the profit margin of the supermarket is 3%, what is the amount that the manufacturer gets per chocolate?...

Let the amount that the manufacturer gets per chocolate be
C. The supermarket marks up the price by 3% and it is sold at
$3.

So, we have C *( 1 + 3%) =
3

=> C* (1 + 0.03) =
3

=> C*( 1.03) =
3

=> C =
3/1.03

=> C =
$2.91

The manufacturer gets $2.91 per
chocolate.

Compare and contrast the role of strength and gender in Things Fall Apart.

It would be useful to consider this excellent question by
focusing on the character of Okonkwo. It is important to note that his character is
built around a crucial paradox. He is famed for his manly strength and attributes in a
culture that despises any form of weakness in men. Thus he strives and pushes himself to
become as manly as possible, and despises any show of sentimentality of emotion. This
leads him, for example, to participate in the death of his adopted son, Ikemefuna, even
when he was advised not to. He joined in the murder, fearing that others would consider
him weak if he stood back. This desire to constantly prove himself emerges from the life
of his father, who was renowned for his laziness and lack of manly qualities. Note how,
in Chapter Three, which gives us crucial background information about Okonkwo and his
father, it talks about how this desperate desire to prove himself
emerges:

But
in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his father's lifetime to lay the
foundations of a prosperous future. It was slow and painful. But he threw himself into
it like one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father's
contemptible life and shameful
death.

Thus it is ironic that
the show of great strength and masculinity that Okonkwo exudes actually has its basis in
a profound fear: that he will be identified with the same lack of strength and masculine
qualities as his father. This is what drives Okonkwo to always work and to expect
obedience and the same standards that he holds from his son, Nwoye. In his tremendous
masculinity also lies the seeds of his own destruction, as he is unable to back down or
negotiate.

In A Farewell to Arms, according to Passini in Chapter 9 and the priest in chapter 11, why do wars countinue? How are their views different?

Passini and the priest both abhor the war, and they both
allude to a ruling class that makes war and to the officers that support it. Their
opinions differ, however, in regard to why wars continue. According to Passini, "There
is no finish to a war" because wars are not won through military
action:

War is
not won by victory. What if we take San Gabriele? What if we take the Carso and
Monfalcone and Triests? Where are we then? Did you see all the far mountains today? . .
. Only if the Austrians stop fighting. One side must stop
fighting.

Passini believes
war will continue because the controlling class "is stupid and does not realize anything
and never can."

The priest, in contrast, believes war
continues because those who oppose it have no political power and are forced to wage war
by those who do:

readability="6">

They [those who oppose war] are not organized to
stop things and when they get organized their leaders sell them
out.

The priest, however,
unlike Passini, has not given up all hope that the war will
end:

It is
never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I
cannot.

Passini and the
priest both see the war as a terribly destructive force created and continued through
the human failings of those with power.

How are To Kill a Mockingbird and The Glass Menagerie similar in regard to the theme of family?

Finding comparisons between these two works is an
interesting proposition, considering how inherently different they are. In reference to
family, these similarities might be relevant.

1. Each
family consists of two siblings and one parent. Jem and Scout are growing up with a
single parent; Laura and Tom grew up with a single parent after their father deserted
them.

2. The novel and the drama are both set during the
Great Depression, so it could be said that both of these families are living through
difficult times.

3. Both families have ties to the South.
Jem and Scout, of course, are growing up in the South; Tom and Laura have grown up in a
Southern atmosphere of sorts, since they have been raised with their mother's many
stories of the South. Aunt Alexandra imposes the manners of the Old South on Jem and
Scout, just as Amanda expects Tom and Laura to behave in accordance with the manners of
the Old South as she once experienced it.

What are some of the destructions of war and destructive forces explored in Slaughterhouse-Five?

The mechanized nature of warfare is discussed and
emphasized on a number of occasions. One case in point comes when Billy views the war
films in reverse. 

readability="16">

"The bombers opened their bomb bay doors,
exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical
steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes.… The steel
cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America,
where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the
dangerous contents into minerals … [which] were then shipped to specialists in remote
areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they
would never hurt anybody ever
again."

In addition to this
scene of mechanized warfare, the atomic bomb is discussed in the text. The most
prominent "destructive force" or element of destruction in the text is the Dresden fire
bombing. 

This event is discussed repeatedly throughout the
novel, beginning in the opening chapter. The novel ends just after the bombing has taken
place. At this point the narrative has made clear just how destructive this event was,
killing over 100,000 people in a single night. 

In "A & P," when Sammy quits, are there any unconscious targets of his rebellion?

It is worth thinking about the reasons why Sammy chose to
quit. Of course, the obvious target of his rebellion is Lengel, but what really causes
his rebellion is the way that Lengel treated the girls and chose to embarrass them. This
leads us to think that, although Lengel, as he makes clear, has every right to challenge
the girls, Sammy, by quitting, is actually questioning the standards that allow a man
like Lengel to embarrass girls. Sammy seems to be suggesting that there is some form of
a higher standard of common decency that dictates you should not deliberately embarrass
others, especially in front of a crowd. Thus we could argue that Sammy is actually
rebelling against his society's rules of conduct. His act of quitting is symbolic of a
challenge against the values of his society as he stands up for what he thinks is a
higher set of values.

Even though he recognises that he
will "feel this for the rest of hsi life," and that his parents are dependent on him, as
Lengel reminds him, Sammy still feels this is an action he has to go through
with:

... but
remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the
No Sale tab and the machine whirs "pee-pul" and the drawer splats
out.

Sammy acts on instinct
to some higher code of ethics that condemns the lesser form of conduct that he sees in
those around him, and thus quits, daring society's censure for his actions and his
deeper act of rebellion.

Are there characteristics of the literature of sentiment and sensibility in Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"?

The poetry of sentiment or sensibility strives to evoke
sympathy in the reader, thus prompting the reader to commiserate with the feelings of
the speaker and his/her suffering, or to sympathize with the speaker's feelings for
another person.  In Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," the speaker
elicits the sympathy of the reader for the country rustics buried in a "Neglected spot"
who are lost to the memory of the living.

In his elegiac
poem, Thomas Gray employs sensibility, elevating emotional or intellectual reaction. 
For, he appeals to the pity for the ploughman or poor whose "Chill Penury repressed
their noble rage," preventing them from any glory.  In the village Hampden there lies
buried some "mute inglorious Milton" or some "Cromwell guiltless of his country's
blood."  Instead they "kept the noiseless tenor of their way" and were
unrecognized.

Poetry of sentiment and sensibility seeks to
manipulate the reader's emotions; it would seem that Gray's poem accomplishes this by
arousing the reader's sympathies for the abandoned residents of a small country
churchyard.

How could Mr. Bennet's character be described in Pride and Prejudice?

Mr. Bennet is presented as an incredibly humorous
character. It is he that acts as the mouthpiece for Austen's wit and sarcasm,
particularly directed and his "long-suffering" wife. In the first chapter he is
introduced as follows:

readability="11">

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts,
sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and and twenty
years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his
character.

However, although
Mr. Bennet is shown to genuinely love Jane and Lizzie, Lizzie and Austen herself are not
blind to his own limitations. We are told that he married because he was "captivated by
youth and beauty" and therefore married someone with a "weak understanding and illiberal
nature" that killed any affection early on in the marriage. Elizabeth, we are told, is
not so consumed by her love for her father that she ignores the way that he has been a
negative influence on her and her siblings:

readability="15">

Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the
impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain;
but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself,
she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts
that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to
the contempt of her own children, was so highly
reprehensible.

In spite of
this, Mr. Bennet is desperate that his beloved Lizzie should not marry someone who is
unsuited for her character, as he did, and we can see this clearly when Lizzie tells her
father about her engagement to Mr. Darcy. In spite of his faults, he is an affectionate,
loving father, who is always amusing.

What is a good summary of Meditation 17 by John Donne?Needed ASAP

"Meditation 17" is about the unity of mankind through our
faith in God.  The passage begins with a discussion of a bell tolling indicating that
someone is dying.  That someone could be anyone, even the speaker.  We are all connected
because we are all mortal, and therefore the church and its ceremonies--funeral or
baptism--concern us all.  To show this idea, Donne uses the conceit of a book in which
we are all chapters.  When we die, we are translated into another language, but we are
not ripped out the book.  Therefore all mankind is united even in death, with God acting
as the translator who calls us to the next world.  Since we are all as chapters in one
volume, one man's death affects us all.  We do not live and die in isolation--we are
part of a continent; we are not islands. 

The next point
Donne makes concerns trouble or hardship.  He tells us that the suffering we endure
enables us to prepare our souls for God.  If we die, though, without getting right with
God, this suffering is still not in vain.  Others can watch this suffering, and realize
that they  themselves are mortal and that they need to find peace with God.  In this
way, suffering becomes a treasure that can be mined by the sufferer or those watching
another suffer.  It is a treasure because it brings us closer to
God. 

In Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler, what does Helda mean when she tells Eilert to end his life "beautifully"?

Ibsen's Hedda Gabler is something of a romantic.  She
wants to inspire others to greatness--either in life or in death.  When she learns that
she is not the inspiration for Eilert's brilliant masterpiece, she destroys it, and
tries to convince Eilert that the best way to handle such a tragic loss is to kill
himself--beautifully, courageously, heroically. 

 To her,
suicide is a noble act, especially if it is a suicide that she inspired.  Hedda longs to
make a difference; she longs to influence, to control. And if she cannot influence one
to create, she can influence him to destroy.  Of course, the plan backfires.  Eilert,
though understandably upset at not being able to find the manuscript, has no intention
of killing himself.  Not knowing that Hedda has burned it, Eilert goes in search of it
and in a drunkened state shoots himself "in the bowels" accidentally.  Hardly a
beautiful or noble death--not even a tragic one.  Only sad and
unfortunate. 

Considering the outcome of Macbeth, does Shakespeare view evil as stronger than the forces of good?

If you consider the outcome of Macbeth, the answer is
simple. Good is more powerful than evil; and I only say this because, in the end,
justice is served. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are dead and Malcolm reclaims the right to
the throne, which was stolen when Macbeth killed Duncan. As appalling as Macbeth’s deeds
are, the fact that he is constantly conflicted shows that there was some good in him.
The witches did not command Macbeth what to do; they vaguely suggested prophecies which,
interpreted the way Macbeth interpreted them, required evil deeds on his part. His own
ambition, his wife’s and his interpretation of the vague premonitions of the witches led
him to commit an act of evil (killing Duncan). Macbeth became basically mad as he
confused his guilt for fear of losing his power. Macbeth’s actions manifest evil and
each evil act is his own misinterpretation; that is, each death is his attempt to stop
killing (if he kills every threat to his throne, he won’t have to kill anymore). Is it
evil incarnate or Macbeth’s mad ambition? Probably both. But in direct answer to your
question, the play is about manifestations of good and evil. In that sense, abstract
evil and abstract good are equally powerful in their potential. How people/characters
act determines the battle between the two. So, the score between evil and good has a lot
more to do with free will and conscience of the actors. But in the context of the play:
Since the play begins with Macbeth fighting to defend the king and virtuously succeeding
and ends with Macduff fighting to defend the rightful king (Malcolm) and virtuously
succeeding, the implication is that good is more powerful. At least in this case, in the
context of the entire play (not just an analysis of Macbeth himself), everything is
restored to its rightful place.

What is the most popular sport in Texas?

One word- football. Like it has been stated, Texas is huge
on football. As a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan myself, this is easy to see when I go to a
game in Texas (now AT&T... unfortunately) Stadium. The saying "everything is
bigger in Texas" definitely holds true here. The fans are loud, proud, and
bold. 

Of course, it is hard to ignore other sports, such
as hockey or basketball. While not as popular as football, these sports are still very
popular. 

Also, barrel racing, pole bending, and horse
showing in general is extremely popular in Texas. The people involved in the horse
showing world are very, very serious about it, and many train themselves and their
horses as much as professional athletes do. 

Hope this
helps!

What is Winston's most dominant characteristic in 1984?

I tend to think that there are two strongly defining
characteristics of Winston.  On one hand, I think his normalcy and his "anyman" quality
is undeniable.  Orwell's giving him the most common last name of "Smith" helps to bring
this out.  Yet, it lies in Winston's most basic tenets.  Flashbacks of his past, the
desire to seek rebellion on the smallest and largest levels, as well as the
consciousness that seeks more than what is present helps to bring out the fact that
Winston is really no different than anything else.  It seems to be a statement that he
is the hero of  the novel, the person in which the hopes for change rest.  There is
nothing extraordinary about him and this is what makes him perfect for us, the reader,
to place our desires for change.  Along these lines, I think that his authenticity is
probably another dominant trait.  Winston is genuine about his disdain for Big Brother,
his desire to be a voice of dissent, and his feelings.  This is probably why he fails to
recognize O'Brien's duplicity.

Is Philip Larkin an anti-romantic poet?

In answering this question, much depends on how one
chooses to define "romantic" and "anti-romantic."

For
example, if one chooses to define "romantic" as implying optimism, naivete, celebration
of love, celebration of the beauties of nature, and celebration of lofty, transcendent
human potential, then it seems safe to categorize Larkin as an "anti-romantic" poet. His
verse is often realistic, hard-headed, sometimes even cynical, and deliberately
unsentimental. It is not by coincidence that Thomas Hardy, with his bleak vision of
life, was one of Larkin's favorite English poets. Yet part of what gives Larkin's poetry
its peculiar power is that he can often see and appreciate the beauties of life, even if
he considers them inevitably mutable.

In the standard
anthology piece "MCMXIV," which describes the eagerness of men to enlist in 1914 in
World War I, the speaker concludes,

readability="11">

Never such
innocence,

Never before or since, . .
.

.          .          .         
.

Never such innocence again. (25-26,
32)

Here the speaker clearly
asserts that such innocence is a thing of the past, but he also seems on one level to
admire the innocence whose passing he describes.

Likewise,
in "Talking in Bed," the speaker begins by claiming
that

Talking
in bed ought to be easiest,

Lying together there goes back
so far,

An emblem of two people being honest.
(1-3)

Yet as soon as one
reaches the word "ought," one realizes that the speaker is describing an ideal that no
longer prevails, at least in his own life, if it ever did. Indeed, the conclusion of the
poem is decidedly unsentimental. In the intimate relationship he
describes,

It
becomes still more difficult to find

Words at once true and
kind,

Or not untrue and not unkind.
(10-12)

A stereotypically
"romantic" poet might have closed with a solution to this kind of "isolation" (9), but
Larkin rejects such a sentimental ending.  Even so, the closing lines show that the
speaker does value truth and kindness, however difficult it may be to find words to
express such ideals.

"The Explosion" seems, in some ways, a
thoroughly anti-romantic poem, especially since it describes the devastating loss of
life of miners in an explosion in the pit.  The speaker reports, without comment, the
conventionally comforting words of a clergyman preaching at a funeral
service:

The
dead go on before us, they

Are sitting in God's house in
comfort,

We shall see them face to face --
(16-18)

A romantic or
sentimental poet might have tried to convince us of the truth of this assertion. Larkin
does not. He simply lets the assertion speak for itself, allowing readers to decide
whether it is genuinely comforting or merely a collection of predictable cliches.
Neverthelss, the poem does end on a very tender note.  One of the miners, before work
had begun, had discovered "a nest of lark's eggs" and had shown the eggs to his comrades
(8-9).  As the poem concludes, the speaker describes how the widows of the miners, after
hearing the sermon, imagine seeing their dead husbands
again,

. . .
walking

Somehow from the sun towards
them,

One showing the eggs
unbroken.

Thus, although
Larkin is often thought of as a plain-spoken, sometimes even slightly crude writer (his
poem "Sad Steps" begins with the memorable line "Groping back to bed after a piss"),
there is often real tenderness, real feeling in his poems. Larkin could appreciate love
and beauty very deeply; he simply never assumed that they would last
forever.

I need more detailed information on Spenser's Epithalamion.

Amoretti is a sonnet-cycle tracing
the suitor's long courtship and eventual wooing of his beloved. The work begins with two
sonnets in which the speaker addresses his own poetry, attempting to invest his words
with the power to achieve his goal (the wooing of Elizabeth Boyle). From the third
sonnet through the sixty-second sonnet, the speaker is in an slmost constant state of
emotional turmoil and frustrated hopes. His beloved refuses to look favorably upon his
suit, so his reaction ranges from desparing self-deprecation to angry tirade against her
stubbornness. Most often the speaker dwells upon his beloved's beauty, both inner and
outer, and the overpowering effects this beauty has upon him. He uses a variety of
motifs to explicate his feelings and thoughts toward the subject of his ardor: predator
and prey, wartime victor and captive, fire and ice, and hard substances that eventually
soften over long periods of time. Each of these is intended to convey some aspect of his
beloved's character or his own fears and
apprehensions.

In Sonnet 63,
the Amoretti undergoes a drastic change in tone. The long-sought
beloved has acceded to the speaker's request, making her his fiancee. Several sonnets of
rejoicing occur, followed by several expressing the speaker's impatience at the lengthy
engagement prior to the wedding day. Here, too, the speaker turns his attention from his
earlier aspects of the beloved's physical beauty--her eyes and her hair in
particular--and begins to be more familiar with her, to the point of describing in
detail the scent of her breasts. From Sonnet 63 through Sonnet 85, the speaker revisits
many of his earlier motifs, changing them to suit the new relationship between himself
and his beloved. Now he is the hunter and she is the game; he is the victor, and she the
vanquished. His earlier criticisms of her pride and stubbornness also change to become
admiration for her constancy and strength of
mind.

 

How Does Scout Finch, from "To Kill A Mockingbird", view herself?More specific, how does she view herself as a child? And also as an adult and...

Since Scout narrates To Kill a
Mockingbird from a retrospective adult perspective, she gives us a good idea
of how she sees herself during her younger years. She recognizes that she is a bit of a
tomboy: She avoids all efforts for others to make her more lady-like, and she tries to
do everything her big brother, Jem, does. Her favorite clothes are a pair of old
overalls. She has virtually no female friends her own age; in fact, summer visitor Dill
(who becomes her youthful fiance) seems to be the only close childhood friend she has
outside of Jem. Scout is curious, quick-tempered (she loves to fight boys) and very
insightful for a child her age. She acknowledges the differences between right and
wrong, and she attempts to follow her father's advice concerning social
responsibilities.

She gives us less perspective concerning
her adult views, but we know she tries to follow Atticus' advice to view others by
standing in their shoes. She recognized her youthful naivete when she tells the reader
that it "was not until many years later" that she realized why Atticus wanted her to
hear every word of his little speech to brother Jack in Chapter 9. And we know that
Scout and Jem were argumentative even as adults. On the very first page of the book, the
two argue about the causes behind Jem's broken arm; when they both realized they were
too old to settle the argument with a fistfight, "we consulted
Atticus."

In Act 2 Scene 4 in Julius Caesar, why does Portia send Lucius to the Senate, and why is she worried/nervous?Why does she also not want to tell...

You are correct to note that Portia appears to be worried
or nervous.  Shakespeare does a great job, through the text she speaks, of demonstrating
this:

• She tells Lucius to run quickly to the
  Senate and chides him for hanging around, but he reminds her that he hasn't left because
  she hasn't told him what he's going there for.


• She asks
  to be given "constancy," which she considers a manly attribute and comments on "[h]ow
  hard it is for women to keep counsel," which means she's finding it hard to keep a
  secret.

She finally instructs Lucius in his
errand, which is to find out how Brutus looks and to "take good note/What
Caesar doth, what suitors press to him" and report what he sees back to
her.

And, from her request, we can surmise
that, even though it is not a scene played out onstage, Brutus has given in to her pleas
from Act II, scene i to take her into his confidence and tell him what is on his mind. 
Therefore, she is privy to the plans of the Conspirators, which is to murder Caesar. 
This would be the overriding reason for her to be "worried" and "nervous" in this scene,
for her husband is about to commit treason against
Rome.

The fact that Portia is in on the plot is further
supported by the questions she asks the Soothsayer and what she says in her final speech
of the scene:

readability="14">

. . .O Brutus,

The
heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!

. . .Run, Lucius,
and commend me to my lord;

Say I am merry.  Come to me
again,

And bring me word what he doth say to
thee.

So, by the end of the
scene, she confirms that she knows about the conspiracy, but she does not tell Lucius. 
Surely it can be assumed that she does not tell him because she promised Brutus that she
would not tell anyone.  It is also not hard to imagine how important secrecy is to the
potential success of Brutus' plan, another reason for not telling the
servant.

So, she only asks, initially, for Lucius to find
out how Brutus looks and what happens to Caesar, but then, at the end of the scene, she
also wants Lucius to also send Brutus her love and support and come back and tell her
what he says.

For more on Portia and this scene, please
follow the links below.

Why was Quakerism founded?

The Quaker faith was started in the mid-1600s, beginning
from the time in 1652 when George Fox (the founder of the religion) felt that he was
called by God to found a new religion.  The founding of Quakerism was made possible by
the same sorts of impulses that drove the Reformation in
general.

One of the major ideas of the Reformation was that
people should not have to rely on priests and bishops to tell them what God wanted. 
This was why Luther, for example, wanted all people to read the Bible on their own.  Fox
took this idea one step further.  He argued that there should not even be pastors who
would deliver sermons.  Instead, each person should listen to the "Inner Light," or
voice of God, and speak to the others as he or she was moved to
do.

So, in answer to the question of why Quakerism was
founded, you could give two answers:

1. You could
   say it was founded because Fox felt called to found
   it.


2. You could say it was founded because people wanted to
   control their own relationships with God and because people felt that they were able to
   understand God's message without being told what that message was by and priest or even
   any pastor.

How can a sound project be made using recycled household items?apply knowledge about sound to create a musical instrument that makes different...

I like the idea of a xylophone type of instrument. You
might rather use aluminum soda cans for your tone-bars. fill them with appropriate
amounts of water, and then use mallets to hit them. The mallets can be made with pencils
and a bit of yarn wound around the eraser end to create a
ball.

Another type of musical instrument you can make from
recycled items located at home is a percussion instrument much like a maraca. Fill an
empty plastic water bottle with small gravel from the drive way, dry beans from the
cabinet, or uncooked dry rice. Each item will offer a different level of percussive
noise.

You can make a horn type of instrument by using
garden hose and a funnel or a funnel end from a plastic soda bottle. You will need some
duct tape to secure the pieces together and to make them air tight.   You can make a
primitive horn by simply using the soda bottle with the flat end cut off. Buzz your lips
like making a raspberry sound against the narrow funnel end, and
voila...noise!

Check out the videos in the links below for
other interesting and creative ideas.

In context of this saying, "Shakespeare has no heroes, but only heroines," what are the leading traits of Rosalind in As You Like It.

Shakespeare is said to not have heroes in his comedies
because of the significant role the lead female characters play (this may not be as
easily asserted for his tragedies and histories, however). Critical opinion holds that
in his comedies, one thing Shakespeare aimed for was to honor the qualities of Queen
Elizabeth. Other Elizabethan Renaissance writers similarly honored Elizabeth in their
writings, most notably Edmund Spenser in The Faerie
Queene. Since Shakespeare aims to honor Elizabeth, he
endows his heroines, such as Rosalind in As You Like It, with
qualities and attributes widely know to belong to the Queen. One reason writers wished
to honor Queen Elizabeth, aside from the privileges of patronage (e.g., court positions
or pensions), was that Elizabeth was lauded in her own time as one of England's greatest
rulers, who, though a woman, was fearless even in the face of battle as she was noted
for donning armor and riding at the head of troops.

The
characteristics of Rosalind show her with both expected female virtues and weaknesses
and with characteristics that transcend gender expectations, likening her to Elizabeth.
Some of Rosalind's key feminine qualities are compassion and tenderness as illustrated
by her conduct toward Orlando when they first meet at the wrestling challenge match ("we
will make it our suit to the duke / that the wrestling might not go forward." 1.2). Also
notable is her friendship and love for Celia (though some may assert Celia's friendship
and love for Rosalind has more devotion) and her initial fear at being cast by King
Ferdinand from his court and her home (the only home she'd ever known since her father
was the deposed King): "Alas, what danger will it be to us, / Maids as we are, to travel
forth so far!" (1.3).

Some of Rosalind's characteristics
that transcend gender are the qualities she begins to show after Celia has shown the way
and led them in taking disguises ("'ll put myself in poor and mean attire / ... / The
like do you" 1.3) and making the arduous trek to "the forest of Arden." Through the trek
to Arden, while wearing the liberating attire of a young lad with a "gallant curtle-axe
upon my thigh, / A boar-spear in my hand" (1.3), Rosalind becomes brave, assertive, and
outspoken, thus putting her woman's wit to work in addressing others' grievances. This
is seen in the following. Upon entering Arden, Rosalind, though on the verge of tears
herself from braving possible dangers and from weariness, comforts Celia/Aliena,
saying:

I must
comfort
the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show
itself
courageous to petticoat: therefore courage,
good
Aliena!

When they meet Corin
and Silvius, Rosalind takes the lead in asking for food and a resting place ("where we
may rest ourselves and feed / Here's a young maid / ... / faints for succor." 2.4) and
later on in securing a cottage: "Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock," (2.4).
Later Rosalind is outspoken in her dealings with Orlando, for example, when they finally
meet up ("I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind" 3.2). Another example of
her outspokenness is later with Phoebe when Phoebe is so unfortunate as to declare her
love for Rosalind/Ganymede; Rosalind declares: "it is my study / To seem despiteful and
ungentle to you" (5.2).

What are some comparisons between Oliver Twist and Macbeth?

What a fascinating question! These are two very
interesting texts to compare and contrast. If I were you and I had to compare them, I
would try to approach it from the vantage point of looking at the nature of evil and how
evil is presented in these two texts. Clearly Macbeth is a
masterful study of the downfall of a heroic and charismatic individual thanks to the
intervention of witches and the whole concept of free will vs. destiny. Again and again
the audience of this excellent play are caused to ask themselves whether Macbeth was
right in acting to make destiny happen, or whether destiny will happen without any help
from us. The tempting, seductive voices of the witches dominate the play as we question
their ability to reveal the truth and whether Macbeth would have still gone on to do
what he did were it not for their intervention.

The
presentation of evil in Oliver Twist is very different. Here we are
introduced to some characters, such as Fagan and Bill Sykes, who are inherently evil
without any hope for redemption. In fact, it is notable that this text contains
characters that are either "good" or "evil" with no in between. The one exception is
Nancy, who seems to dwell between these two states, but perhaps when we understand her
love for Bill and the pressures exerted on her we can say that she falls more into the
"good" category. Oliver himself seems to be a study of the incorruptibility of youth. No
matter what he experiences, he remains essentially
good.

Hopefully these two paragraphs will give you some
ideas of how to take your ideas further. Good luck! You have picked two interesting
texts to write about!

How were the Americans able to defeat the Japanese when they appeared to be at such a disadvantage?

Are you talking just about the Battle of Midway, which
you've tagged it with?

If so, I have two answers.  First, I
do not think the US was at as much of a disadvantage as your question suggests.  The
number of airplanes available to both sides was not that different, I believe.  The
Zeroes were much superior to American fighters, but the other airplanes were not all
that different.

Secondly, the US had a great deal of luck. 
They managed to catch the Japanese in the middle of trying to switch types of weaponry
on their aircraft and trying to refuel.  This meant that the Japanese carriers were very
vulnerable to attack.

What can an empty boot symbolize that a person wearing boots cannot in Eleanor Antin's 100 Boots series?Art 21 is a show which highlights...

An empty boot, like the ones in Eleanor Antin 100 Boots
series, can be a character.  It can be an entity.  Even when Antin arranges the boots in
pairs, it feels like each boot is a member of the crowd.  An empty boot can be
personified, while a boot on a foot cannot.  Whenever a human figure is in the picture
it totally takes over.  The boots would just be a thing that a person or 50 people were
wearing.  When they stand alone, they carry with them that element of humor that the Art
21 episode is about.  The piece titled 100 boots out of a job is
hilarious; a picture of 50 actual people out of a job would be sad, scary, and
pitiful.

When Daisy says, "He reads deep books with long words in them." Is she speaking highly of Tom's intelligence in The Great Gatsby?

I think that there might be a couple of ways to approach
this.  I don't believe that Daisy is speaking highly of Tom's intelligence.  I think
that she understands Tom and fully understands why Tom does what he does.  Tom's
depiction is fairly one-dimensional, and I believe that she understands what he is.  By
the same token, I think that Daisy might hold multiple dimensions in this statement.  On
one hand, if it is understood that Daisy grasps the full implications of what Tom is,
there is a natural question as to why she cannot do anything to improve her lot. 
Perhaps, her statement about Tom's intelligence is a reflection about her own ignorance
in terms of not being able to change such a setting or her relationship with him.  In
this light, Daisy might be making a statement about her own state of being in the
world.  This is one where she might claim Tom to be stupid, but she would be more
ignorant for being with someone like him, knowing what he is and unable to do anything
about it.

What is the Boo Radley game? Who is Miss Maudie?

To add, the Boo Radley game includes Jem being Boo. He
acts like a ghost and every once in a while comes up with the scissors and attempts to
stab Dill (who is playing Mr. Radley). Scout plays the roll of Mrs. Radley and sweeps
the porch. Atticus comes home one day and notices what the kids are doing he tells them
to stop, acting as if he doesn't exactly know what they are doing but he
does.

Miss Maudie runs a boarding house that hosts both Mr.
Avery and Miss Caroline Fisher. She loves to garden. This is important because her home
is a large part of her identity.

Explain how Iago's opinion of women develops the readers' understanding of his character and the role he plays.

In Othello, Iago is a misogynist from
the beginning of the play to the end.  Quite simply, he sees women as inferior beings to
men, and he has a hand in two of the three female characters' deaths in the
play.

In Act I, Iago uses Desdemona to attack Othello.  He
demeans Desdemona to her father, saying she is "making the beast with two backs" with
Othello.  He uses sexual and animal imagery in describing her, suggesting that Iago
believes women to be mere objects.

Once on Cyprus, Iago
openly condescends to his wife and Desdemona, saying:

readability="0">

Come on, come on; you are pictures out
of doors,
Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your
kitchens,
Saints m your injuries, devils being
offended,
Players in your housewifery, and housewives' in
your beds.

Again,
he uses crude sexual imagery to describe women, even though they may be faithfully
married.  His finishes off the exchange with a punch
line:

readability="0">

You rise to play and go to bed to
work.

This quote
indicts Iago as one who believes women to be evil temptresses whose cruel nature is only
to lure men into their lairs.  Critic A. C. Bradley
agrees:

readability="10">

[Iago] succeeds very often with a mere hint—as,
for example, the suggestion that Desdemona can not possibly escape the corruption for
which the Venetian women (he implies) are notorious:

In
Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their
husbands.
[III. iii.
202-03]

Iago will use his
wife to get to Othello as well.  He urges her to steal the handkerchief.  His plan
almost works, but he understimates Emilia's outspokenness.  She calls him a villain
after Desdemona is strangled, to which Iago responds, "Get you home!"  Again, he
believes a woman's proper place is as a domestic.  When she persists in calling him a
villain, Iago calls her a "villainous whore!"  These are the last words he says to her
before he stabs her.

So, Iago is responsible for two
women's deaths, Desdemona and his own wife's, which show his complete disregard for
their kind.

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when Mrs. Loftus discusses the money that is offered for Jim, which human trait emerges?

Huck's interview with Mrs. Loftus comes in Chapter 11 of
the novel, and is notable for a number of different reasons. However, most of all, and
relating to your question, it is very revealing about the attitudes that it reveals
about slavery. Mrs. Loftus is like other characters in the novel, such as Aunt Sally,
who on the one hand are presented as very kind and generous people, but who on the other
maintain racist views that contradict the generosity of their characters. Note how when
Mrs. Loftus is talking to Huck about his and Jim's disappearance, she states how her
husband is going to hunt Jim down:

readability="15">

"Does three hunded dollars lay around every day
for people to pick up? ... I didn't say any more, but I done some thinking. I was
prettynear certain I'd seen smoke over there, about th head of the island, a day or two
before that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway,
says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a
hunt."

The plan to send her
husband at night to surpise Jim and "hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark"
demonstrates this aspect of the character of Mrs. Loftus. She is presented as a kind and
generous woman in her attitude towards Huck, however the way she talks of hunting Jim
down as if he were some sort of animal shows a darker side to her character. Twain seems
to be suggesting that within all of us lies an equal capacity for goodness and for
questionable deeds.

What are some sentences that indicate that abortion is the theme in "Hills Like White Elephants"?

You do have to read this story pretty carefully to pick up
the central theme of abortion and how it is presented. Hemmingway seems to focus on this
theme and how terrible it is by actually only including very oblique references to it,
so we have to read between the lines to identify what is being talked about. Have you
every had a conversation with somebody when the most important thing you need to
discuss, is actually never referred to or only referred to in passing? In a sense, this
only serves to emphasise the importance of the topic, as the silence and avoidance only
highlights its power and strength. Hemmingway uses this strategy in this short
story.

Let us consider what references there are to
abortion. It is, of course, the man who brings up the first reference to abortion. After
making some small talk about the coolness of the beer, he finally can restrain himself
no longer, and says:

readability="8">

"It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig,"
the man said. "It's not really an operation at
all."

He doesn't seem to pick
up the body language of Jig, who obviously doesn't want to talk about it, and looks at
the ground, to avoid his gaze. So he continues:

readability="11">

"I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really
not anything. It's just to let the air in."

The girl did
not say anything.

"I'll go with you and I'll stay with you
all the time. They just let the air in and then it's all perfectly
natural."

This is actually
the last reference directly to the medical prodecure, though of course the rest of this
short story is dominated by it, as Jig seeks to learn what will be the impact on their
relationship and bows to the inevitable dominion of her partner. Key to considering how
the theme of abortion is presented is how it is linked with the theme of power. The man
deliberately presents abortion in a way that minimises how invasive and destructive the
procedure is, and the way that he keeps coming back to the topic, even when Jig does not
want him to, indicates his manipulation and determination to ensure that Jig has this
operation.

In what way is the setting significant of The Picture of Dorian Gray?

You might like to consider how the city of London is
presented and how it becomes a reflection of Dorian's somewhat divided character in the
story. We appear to be presented with two areas of London. There is the socially
acceptable area, in which Dorian dwells with his friends, Basil and Lord Henry, and then
there are the parts of London where Dorian indulges in his illicit vices, such as opium
dens, brothels and other places. However, these two halves of London seem to suggest the
way that Dorian is able to present a face of innocence and purity to the world on the
one hand, whilst at the same time engaging in ever more decadent acts that spur on his
own corruption. Note how we are first introduced to this darker side of London after
Dorian breaks up with Sybil Vane:

readability="12">

Where he went he hardly knew. He remembered
wandering through dimly lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and
evil-looking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him.
Drunkards had reeled by cursing, and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He
had seen grotesque children huddled upon doorsteps, and heard shrieks and oaths from
gloomy courts.

It is highly
significant that after this act of destroying Sybil Vane, that arguably sets him on the
path of corruption, Dorian discovers the darker side of London. Note how the description
in the above paragraph gives this side of London an evil, dark and oppressive feeling,
with its "black-shadowed archways" and "grotesque children" and "gloomy courts." Clearly
this is a Gothic setting that hints at the division within the character of Dorian
himself. From this point onwards in the book his life is spent divided between the "dark
side" of London and the respectable side.

In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," why does Peyton feel that the idea of hanging is ludicrous?

Let's be very careful here: if you have a look at the
text, you will see that this quote you are referring to does not just refer to the idea
of being hung. This section of this great short story comes in Part III, when he has
been pushed off the bridge, the rope has broken and he has hit the water. Note what the
text says:

readability="7">

There was no additional strangulation; the noose
about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of
hanging at the bottom of a river!--the ideas seemed to him
lucidrous.

Thus what Peyton
Farquhar finds ridiculous is the idea of still dying from being hung whilst at the
bottom of the river. If you fall into a river and die, you should die of being drowned,
not of being hung! We can see how the psychological stress of what is happening to
Peyton is reflected in this somewhat bizarre comment. Most people, we would suppose,
would have other things on their mind rather than the ridiculous nature of their
death.

What was the treaty of Versailles in the historian's point of view?please give me some examples of the historian's quotation who thinks the treaty...

The Treaty of  Versailles, the official end of World War
I, was signed June 28th 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors in the
Palace of Versailles in France.

The treaty was basically
an admission of guilt by Germany for starting the war; it was punitive in that it took
away territory from Germany and gave it to nations that were most heavily impacted from
the war, disbanded the German army and disallowed them any tanks.  They could only have
100,000 men in the armed force. And Germany had to pay reparations to France and Belgium
a damage price to be determined later.  The later damages that Germany was required to
pay amounted to over 6,000,000 dollars, something that Germany could not
afford.

Why is the treaty unfair? Germany started the war,
caused huge losses in human life and destroyed buildings in other countries during the
fight. The losses of civilian lives (women, children, non-combattants) have never been
determined as there was no one assigned to accurately counting collateral damages at
that time in history.

It is unfair because it took both
land and required cash payments.  The industrial base upon which Germany might have been
able to make a cash payment was primarily in the lands that were confiscated by Belgium
and France. Alsace-Lorraine was a very rich coal deposit area and a source for energy
for the German factories.

Germany was not allowed much in
the way of a military, however the limited standing army was side-stepped by keeping
those who had served in the reserves who could be called up at any time. Thus that
portion of the treaty was side-stepped.

The harshest
element of the Treaty of Versailles was the war guilt clause which forced Germany to
admit to full guilt for starting the war in the first place. The other countries who
were allied with Germany through secret pacts and alliances were left out of the "war
guilt" clauses in their treaties: TREATIES OF SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, TRIANON, AND SEVRES
which ended the Austrian Empire, Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire respectively and
redrew land boundaries. However, there were not cash reparations in these treaties as
there were in the Treaty of Versailles.

Because the terms
of the Treaty of Versailles were so harsh, and the French were so insistent on the cash
payments, the U.S. loaned a sum of money to Germany to assist them in payment of their
fines.  This war debt only added to the misery of the German economy. It also set the
stage for the Nationalistic furor that would begin World War II.

Why was Hindley send to college in Wuthering Heights?

It is in Chapter Five of this novel that we can find the
answer to this question. As the health of Mr. Earnshaw begins to fail and the animosity
between Hindley and Heathcliff becomes ever more evident, the curate of the parish is
able to step in and make a suggestion to Mr. Earnshaw regarding the future of his son
and heir that would help achieve harmony in the house through his
absence:

At
last, our curate... advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr.
Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said--"Hindley was nought, and would
never thrive as where he
wandered."

Note the way in
which Mr. Earnshaw seems to have quite an accurate, if not slightly depressing,
impression of his son, recognising the limitations of his character and also
foreshadowing Hindley's later decline into drink and dissipation. Thus it is the curate
who recommends that Hindley goes to college, and it is Mr. Earnshaw who sends him there
even though he has his doubts of the benefit of such an education for
Hindley.

In many parts of the world, wolves have been feared and misunderstood. Do you think "The Interlopers" contributes to the myth of the "big bad wolf"?

This is an interesting question. The wolves are presented
as hungry, man-eating animals who love to prey on the weak and injured, and therefore we
could say that this story does contribute to myths and fairy tales where the wolf is
constantly given the role of the antagonist or the evil, three-little-pig-eating and
Grandmother-chomping wolf. However, I think such a view of the wolves in this story
would be rather superficial. We need to understand what Saki is actually trying to
achieve through casting the wolves in the way that he does and what he is saying about
nature and fate.

Firstly, Saki creates two distinct
conflicts in this story: the conflict between two men and the conflict between man and
nature. Clearly, the latter is harder to resolve and Saki seems to be suggesting that
actually it is easier to settle feuds like the one that is featured in the story than it
is to resolve the conflict between man and nature because nature contains elements such
as wild animals that cannot be controlled.

Secondly, it is
important to realise how this story shows what Saki feels about fate. Clearly, for Saki,
fate is a factor that is beyond human control and unable to be manipulated or managed.
Ulrich's "idiotic chattering laugh" sees the immense irony in this as he is able to see
that the approaching sounds are not men but actually wolves. Their fate is out of their
hands.

So, whilst I suppose Saki could have exchanged the
wolves for a bunch of rabid carnivorous squirrels, we have to accept that wolves
probably work best in this situation. Whilst recognising that it does perhaps build on
stereotypes, we need to be aware of how they function in this short
story.

In "The Fall of the House of Usher," what were some of the themes that were explored in the novels that the narrator chose to read?

It is important to note that during the middle section of
this excellent short story, the activities that Roderick Usher engages in all reflect
his disturbed inner-nature and his troubled psyche. He produces paintings that are so
abstract that the narrator is hardly able to describe them. He sings a song that,
although it starts pleasantly enough, eventually brings in evil spirits that destroy the
idyllic setting created by the lyrics and are clearly representative of Roderick's inner
troubles and strivings. His choice of reading likewise represents his own character, as
the narrator says:

readability="10">

Our books--the books which, for years, had
formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be
supposed, in strict keeping with this character of
phantasm.

Thus Roderick
devotes himself to various arcane tomes concerning such topics as forgotten religions
and journeys of exploration, poring over abstract and recondite pieces of information
that perhaps represent his own desire to work out what is happening to him and his
sister. Thus the choice of reading material perhaps represents Roderick's own desire to
make sense of his own situation and malady, and understand how and why the curse that he
refers to has been brought down on him.

In "The Creation" by James Weldon Johnson, what is the impression provided of God?

“The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson is subtitled “A
Negro Sermon.” Published in 1920, Johnson intended for the poem’s speaker to sound like
a Southern, Black preacher speaking as though he were God.  In the poem, the speaker
embellishes the first twenty-five verses from the book of
Genesis.

The narration of the poem is third person point of
view with the speaker looking through the eyes of God.  The poet gives God human
qualities to accentuate the reasons for the creation and how it was
performed.

The poem is written in free verse. The images
that it brings to the creation story fuse together the black, idiomatic language and the
oratorical power of the African-American sermons. Johnson was intent on not
perpetuationg the stereotypical views of the black man. Therefore, his language is
powerful and expressive.

The descriptions of God and the
metaphorical comparisons place God in his all-powerful position but also humanize him as
well. The qualities of God are expressed throughout the
poem:

1st and 2nd
Stanzas

God steps out into space. [What an
interesting way to begin to show that what man has done, God did
first!]

He is lonely and so he creates a world. To make the
process more visual and memorable, the poet presents a God who walks and talks just as
he eventually creates man to do.

The darkness that Genesis
describes becomes a metaphor in the poem: “blacker than a hundred midnights down in a
cypress swamp.” Now, the reader can understand the depth of the
blackness.

3rd and 4th
Stanzas

When God smiles, the world lights
up.  The poet creates an impression of the light being made into the parting of the Red
Sea by Moses. 

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And the light
broke

And the darkness rolled up on one
side

And the light stood shining on the
other,

And God said: “That’s
good!” 

God shapes the sun
out of light that he gathers and flings into the sky. The light that was left he uses to
create the moon and the stars.  

5th and 6th
Stanzas

God walks on the earth and creates
the valleys and the mountains with his feet as he hollows and
bulges. 

The world looks barren to God.  He vividly spits
out the seven seas. He bats his eyes and lightning flashes; and he claps his hands and
thunder rolls and the rain pours out of the
sky.

7th and 8th
Stanzas

More and more of the beauty of the
earth come from God.  The oak tree spreads out through his arms.  The pine tree points
from the tip of his mighty finger.  The rainbow curls around his
shoulders.

Then the animals begin to come; they are faster
than God can drop his hand. Again God states: “That’s
good!”

9th and 10th
Stanzas

God looks around at the beauty of
the earth and its animals.  He looks at the sun and the heavenly orbs.  He admits that
he is still lonely. Just as man might, God sits down by the river and places his head in
his hands and thinks.

11th and 12th
Stanzas

God realizes that he needs a
companion on earth.  He will make a man.  He scoops up the clay by the river, kneels
down. The almighty God who has made everything on earth lovingly molds the man in his
hands.  The simile creates the picture of a mother bending over her
child.

Then God blows the breath of life into his creation.
And man became a living breathing soul.

The poet creates a
kind, gentle God who proudly affixes the heavens, the earth, and the animals who live
there.  He is most proud of his last creation, and the one who he hopes will keep from
his loneliness: man. 

In Songs of Innocence and Experience, do you think that anger is the predominant note in The Songs of Experience?

This is a very interesting question that is rather
difficult to answer. To summarise my feelings, whilst I think we can identify anger in a
large number of the Songs of Experience, I don't think we can say
that it is the universal tone of this collection of poems, as some of them focus on
other emotions, such as wonder, admiration or
confusion.

Let me expand on this brief summary. If we
consider a poem such as "The Chimney Sweeper," it is clear that anger can be identified
as the predominant tone through the final stanza:

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"And because I am happy, and dance and
sing,

They think they have done me no
injury,

And are gone to praise God and his Priest and
King,

Who make up a heaven of our
misery."

The bitterness and
anger in these last lines, delivered by the poor "thing among the snow," is self-evident
as a system comprising of God, priest and king is blamed for the poverty and misery of
this chimney sweep. We see anger at such institutional structures that create poverty
and suffering throughout many of the poems in Songs of Experience.
However, the reason I don't think we are able to state with any certainty that this is a
universal characteristic of these poems is that there are a few, like "The Tyger," that
do not display any noticeable anger. The speaker instead seems to view the tiger with a
mix of wonder, admiration and fear. There is something of the simultaneous attraction
toward and repulsion from evil symbolised in the tiger, as the speaker finds the tiger
both magnificent and terrifying:

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What immortal hand or
eye

Could frame they
fearful symmetry?

Thus I
think we can safely conclude that anger is a feature of many of the poems from this
exciting collection, but we should be wary of trying to reduce this challenging
selection of poems into any firm categories that would limit their scope and our
understanding of them.

In "Sailing to Byzantium," how are themes of mortality and immortality developed?

Here is the text of the
poem:

That is
no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the
trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls,
the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer
long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual
music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged
man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul
clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal
dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own
magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the
holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy
fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne
in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart
away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not
what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of
eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily
form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths
make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor
awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of
Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to
come.

The poem has invited a
great deal of literary analysis and interpretation. Clearly Yeats develops a contrast
between mortality and immortality and between flesh and intellect. These are established
in the first stanza. The young embrace "in one another's arms. Caught up in the "sensual
music" of life, they give no thought to "[m]onuments of unageing intellect." They glory
in their mortal existence, giving no thought to immortality. Yeats' reference to
"monuments" can be inferred to mean works of art born from intellect. Through these, the
artist becomes immortal; his intellect, the unique part of his being, will not age and
therefore will not die. All that is "begotten, born" dies in "dying generations." Flesh
is mortal; through art, however, immortality can be
achieved.

The remainder of the poem expresses Yeats'
thoughts and feelings about this contrast. Byzantium becomes symbolic; it is an immortal
place of artistic and intellectual culture where creativity can flourish. By choosing to
sail to "the holy city of Byzantium," he wishes to gain immortality through his
poetry.

How is Scout's life enriched by her father's involvement in the law?Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

There is little doubt that Atticus's expertise in the law
influences his parenting of Scout and Jem.  Certainly, his philosophy of considering
things from another's point of view stems from his lawyer's comprehension of the
importance of understanding the motivations of others, as does his impartial treatment
of others, be they poor or rich.  Scout cannot miss the equity with which he deals with
the Cunninghams, Miss Dubose, and others.  His sense of fairness clearly is conveyed to
Scout when she overhears her father discusses the upcoming trial of Tom Robinson when
Atticus says he cannot face his children if he does not take the
case:

I hope
and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without
catching Maycomb's usual
disease. 

In
addition to learning from Atticus's exemplary behavior as a just man such as how he
never raises his voice to any witness, Scout is also exposed to conversations dealing
with legal matters, court cases, and so on.  For instance, little Scout speaks to Mr.
Cunningham of "entailment" when she intervenes at the jailhouse where the men hostilely
surround her father; having overheard Atticus and Mr. Cunningham's discussions, she
thinks this an appropriate topic without fully understanding the meaning of the
term. 

Of course, Scout becomes interested in legal matters
from this exposure and avidly follows the trial of Tom Robinson.  Several times in her
narration of Tom's trial, she alludes to things she has learned from Atticus regarding
witnesses:

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Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a
witness a question you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my
baby-food.

And, throughout
the trial Scout provides not only narration, but analyses based upon her observations. 
For instance, as she listens to the interrogations of Mr. Gilmer and of Atticus, she
observes,

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Slowly but surely I began to see the pattern of
Atticus's questions:  from questions that Mr. Gilmer did not deem sufficiently
irrelevant or immaterial to object to, Atticus was quietly building up before the jury a
picture of the Ewells'
homelife.

Clearly, from her
father's involvement in the law, Scout's experiences are broader than if she were raised
by a man of some other profession, such as an accountant, for example.  For, she
witnesses the interplay of society through her vicarious experiences, and she learns to
think analytically as her lawyer father leads her to seek truth and understanding in the
manner in which he himself does.

How is this quote an example of redemption?"Earlier that morning, when I was certain no one was looking, I did something I had done twenty-six...

Amir retraces his earlier missteps by repeating an act
which he had done more than a quarter of a century before. One of Amir's greatest sins
had been the false accusation of Hassan for stealing his birthday money and watch. Amir
had planted the items under Hassan's mattress where they would be found. His hope was
for Baba to punish Hassan; instead, Baba forgave him. Amir repeats this act again, this
time leaving money under Farid's mattress--a conscious decision that will both help the
poor Afghani family and ease Amir's own conscience.

In "The Open Boat," why do the men not know the color of the sky?

The meaning of Stephen Crane's first line in his
naturalistic story, "The Open Boat" is existentially explicated by the final sentence of
his narrative:

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When it came night, the white waves paced to and
fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men
on the shore, and they felt that they could then be
interpreters.

The men in the
open boat, like all men, cannot understand an inscrutable and indifferent universe
throughout their existential experience in the boat as they desperately try to reach
shore and survive their dangers at sea.  Crane writes that none of the men "knew" at the
beginning; for, man is limited in his ability to understand nature. However, their
experience with the forces of nature teaches them something about the nature of
existence, and for this reason, they feel that they can be interpreters in, at least, a
limited way after they reach shore.  They do know, at least, that it is not a meaningful
or righteous universe in which they exist.

In "By the Waters of Babylon," how do you know the narrator is dreaming when he falls asleep in front of the fireplace?

Well, we are not told specifically it was a dream. It
could have been a very strong vision. Either way, it is clear that somehow John, the
narrator who tells us this story, is seeing the city as it once was rather than seeing
its reality in his time. He describes to us a strange sense of being drawn out of
himself into the past to witness what he then goes on to narrate. Consider the following
description:

I
know that I felt myself drawn as a fish is drawn on a line. I had stepped out of my
body--I could see my body asleep in front of the cold fire, but it was nto I. I was
drawn to look out upon the city of the
gods.

It is clear that the
city he sees is transformed greatly compared to the ruins that he has just made his way
to. He sees lots of light and hears roaring sounds, which we can obviously relate to the
lights at night and the sounds of a city in our time. Thus it is that John does
experience some kind of powerful vision, when he witnesses how the Gods were destroyed,
but it is suggested that this is not a dream.

What did John do when Lenina arrived at the light house?

You can find the answer to this towards the end of Chapter
18.  We are not explicitly told that they girl who comes down out of the helicopter is
Lenina, but it is certainly implied.

What John does when he
sees the girl is to attack her with the whip.  He starts calling her various words that
all mean something like "whore" and he starts whipping her.  He is doing this because he
blames her for tempting him.

After a while, his whipping
her turns into an orgy that he takes part in.  This is why he kills
himself.

What happens with Fortinbras at the end of Hamlet?

The play of Hamlet comes full circle
with the end of Act 5 and Fortinbras's arrival at the Danish court.  In Act 1 we hear
about his plans to try to attack Denmark in order to regain the lands lost by his father
to King Hamlet many years earlier.  In Act 5, Fortinbras is in Denmark on his return
from a battle in Poland.  When he arrives at the court he is confronted with the sight
of four dead bodies:  King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Laertes, and Prince Hamlet.  It
would seem that with no one in the royal family to take the throne, it is going to come
to Fortinbras by default.  It is actually Hamlet's final words that help to solidify
this result.  He tells Horatio that he "sets his election lights on Fortinbras."  As
Denmark is an elected monarchy, this will help ensure that Denmark is left in the hands
of a royal person whom Hamlet knows is capable of decisive action (as we learn from
Hamlet's reaction to seeing him back in Act 4.)  Fortinbras hears the story of how these
deaths came to be from Horatio, and Fortinbras responds with the fact that "it is with
sorrow (for all the needless death) I embrace my fortune."  He solidifies the justice of
his taking the crown when he says, "I have some rights of memory in this kingdom / Which
now to claim my vantage doth invite me."  Fortinbras acknowledges that Hamlet may have
been a good king had be had throne, and he ensures that Hamlet will be given a funeral
fitting a king.  The only problem with all of this is that now Denmark is the hands of a
foreign ruler.  What Hamlet was trying to do -- rid the Danish throne of corruption and
evil -- is done, but the results are not what anyone would have
wished. 

what is my fault in birth. as family does not like arts so never supports me.lover of art, not getting any favour.no scholor shipfor me.why?

If I can make sense of your question - you are wondering
why you have not received an art scholarship?  Are you looking to transfer to a 4 year
college?

Don't be completely discouraged.  Scholarships to
American colleges based on talent (ie: sports, theater, dance, art) are very
very difficult to come by.  You must be the very best of
the best.  That said, there are some alternatives if at first you don't succeed.  As
always, my first piece of advice is to focus on your grades.  Sad but true.  We
constantly tell high school students that extra-curricular activities and community
involvement boost your college resume, but the real truth is that if you are a straight
A student, it doesn't really matter.  Colleges really love straight-A students.  I'm not
sure why we act like this isn't the truth.  Perhaps it is to give hope to the many smart
and talented students who do not have straight-A's.  This doesn't mean that anything
less cannot go to college, but scholarships are reserved for the
best.

Another option is to get accepted to college without
the scholarship, then work on applying for any that are available once you are there. 
Build relationships with your professors.  Ask them for advice and recommendations. 
Perhaps seek a work-study job that could turn into an
internship.

You might also consider a major that results in
a job with loan-forgiveness.  Some options (at least in NC, perhaps in your state as
well) include teaching, social services, or legal
work.

Again, I encourage you to meet with someone at your
college once you've been accepted to talk about options of financial aid.  There are
other options outside of immediate talent-based scholarships.  Good
luck.

What events led up to the Buddhist monk riots referred to as one of the turning points during the Vietnam era?

The main event that led to the rioting by Buddhists
against the Diem regime was the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk named Quang Duc on a
street in Saigon.  This happened on June 11, 1963.

This
monk burned himself to death in protest of the policies of the Diem regime.  Ngo Dinh
Diem and his family were Catholic.  The vast majority of people in Vietnam were
Buddhist.  Even so, Diem discriminated against Buddhists.  An example of this came when
he did not allow Buddhists to conduct public celebrations of a major religious holiday
in the city of Hue.  This led to protests that were repressed
harshly.

In response to actions such as this, Quang Duc
killed himself.  His example, in addition to the insensitive (to say the least) reaction
of the Diem regime (Diem's wife welcomed suicides like that, using the word "barbeque")
led to huge unrest among Buddhists in Vietnam.

Please
follow the link for a more detailed discussion of this topic.

What should be the mass of a block to prevent it from sliding down a ramp with a coefficient of friction .65, inclined at 30 degree?

For a block placed on an inclined ramp which is not
frictionless, there are two forces acting. One of them is the gravitational force of
attraction that makes the block slide down the ramp and a counteracting force due to
friction.

The ramp in the problem is inclined at an angle
of 30 degrees. The force with which it is pulled down due to gravity is equal to the
product of its mass m and the acceleration due to gravity
g.

We divide this force F = mg, into two components, one
along the ramp in the downward direction which is equal to m*g* cos 60 and one
perpendicular to the ramp equal to m*g* sin 60.

The force
of friction opposing the motion of the block is Mu * N, where Mu is the coefficient of
friction and N is the normal force.

Here the opposing force
is .65*m*g* sin 60. This has to be less than the component of the force moving the block
downward.

This gives 0.65*m*g* sin 60 =< m*g* cos
60

We see that m and g cancel from both the sides and we
are left with

=> 0.65 sin 60 =< cos
60

This implies that whether the block slides down or not
is not decided by its mass, but by the inclination of the slope and the coefficient of
friction. Here 0.65* sin 60 = .5629 is greater than cos 60 =
0.5

Therefore the block does not slide down the ramp
irrespective of its mass.

In the book, The Outsiders, what advice would you give Ponyboy?For example, Dally told him "stay tuff and nothing can hurt you, stay smart and...

I guess this is sort of cliche and trite, but I think that
I would tell him that he needs to be true to who he is, not to who someone else thinks
that he needs to be.  I think that this is good advice for
anyone.

I think that Pony, in this book, is at times being
pushed to be someone he does not really want to be.  He is being pushed to be more of a
gang banger than he really wants to be.  So I would tell him that he needs to stay true
to himself.

I actually don't think that that goes against
either of the two pieces of advice you list here, though.

In Romeo and Juliet, how can you compare the love Romeo feels for Juliet as appose to the love he felt for Rosalind?

Very good question! When thinking about Romeo and his
infatuation with Rosalind, it is important to consider Act II scene 4, when Romeo tells
the Friar about his new-found love for Juliet and how it has superseded his former love
for Juliet. What is interesting is how the Friar talks about his former relationship
with Rosalind. Note how the Friar says to Romeo that he had chided him for "doting, not
for loving, pupil mine," which suggests that from the Friar's perspective at least Romeo
was completely infatuated rather than in love with Rosalind. Also let us consider what
Romeo himself says about his love for Juliet, and how he implicitly compares his love
for her with his love for Rosalind. Somewhat exasperatedly he says to the
Friar:

I pray
thee chide me not. Her I love now

Doth grace for grace and
love for love allow.

The other did not
so.

Although therefore he
does recognise that his affections have changed rather swiftly, at least he himself
identifies the difference with his relationship with Juliet. This relationship is one of
equals, where grace matches grace and love is wedded with love. He is able to state
categorically that his relationship with Rosalind, perhaps supporting what the Friar
said, did not allow for such a marriage of true minds.