What is the main setting of the novel? (place, time, economic condition)What are the three ways the setting affects/helps the plot?

This can all be learned in the first
chapter.

The town is the fictional Maycomb, Alabama
(loosely based on Moblie, AL). It was "a tired old town" then, during the Great
Depression. The events of this novel seem to unfold between 1932 and 1935. The town had
just been told that it had "nothing to fear but fear itself." These words of FDR verify
the time period.

The setting of red slop streets and a
sagging courthouse in the middle of the town square help portray the destitution of the
times. The description on page 5 of ladies ambling across
the square, of the sweat and sweet talcum give us a vivid understanding of the hot and
dreary times. This is important because the subject matter of the main part of the novel
is both hot and dreary.

Being set in the
Depression also demonstrates the desperation people may have had. I think
the Ewell family that goes after Tom Robinson does so because the see the opportunity to
take advantage of someone less than them.

The setting
offers opportunity for a racial conflict to brew to complicate
matters being set in the south. Being a bible belt area, this also gave
reason for moral complications to arise which helped the children look at the
perceptions, the example of their father, the question of what is right and wrong.
Rising action is just that, complications.

How does the witches' rhyming couplet refrain add to atmosphere in Macbeth?

The Elizabethan stage practices of Shakespeare's time
would not have provided any information to the audience about weather (nor about time of
day, location, etc., for that matter).  Information about the weather in
Macbeth comes from dialogue.

When the
witches say that fair is foul and foul is fair, they indicate a stormy day, or a day
involving some kind of bad or odd weather, unnatural weather; particularly when they
follow this line by referring to fog and filthy air.  The refrain also meshes with the
choice of day the three shall meet again on as offered by the First Witch in line two of
the same scene:  "In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"  Notice no fair weather option is
offered.

Macbeth, or course, echoes the refrain just before
meeting the witches for the first time in Act 1.3, again highlighting the
weather.

More important than the physical atmosphere (the
weather), however, is the refrain's contribution to the ideas of reversal in the play. 
Gender roles are reversed (Macbeth and his wife).  Grass and hay eating horses become
cannibals.  People that should be and appear to be loyal are not (Cawdor, Macbeth, Lady
Macbeth).  Reversals, opposites are so common that even an honest and loyal thane like
Macduff is suspected of being what he's not (disloyal) by
Malcolm. 

Little is as it should be in the play:  what's
fair is foul and what's foul is fair.   

What morals can be found in The Color of Water? with support

There are a number of possible morals to be drawn from The
Color of Water.  One of the most prevalent is the idea that people can overcome their
circumstances or other people's prejudices against them.  In facing life as a black
Jewish family, James and his family members faced all kinds of discrimination and other
assumptions about them that they all overcame.

Another
moral might be the ability of human beings to deal with tremendous adversity and emerge
stronger afterwards.  If you read about James' mother's life and her abusive father and
the terrible things she endured as a child, it is all the more impressive that she is so
amazingly capable and caring for her own family.

A demand curve is always downward sloping.Discuss.More is always demanded at a lower price than at a higher price.

Although this is generally a true statement, it is not
alway true.

In general, people do demand more of a product
when it is at a low price and less of it when it is at a high
price.

However, it is at least theoretically possible to
have a product for which demand is perfectly inelastic.  For such a product, people will
buy the same amount regardless of the price.  Here, the demand curve is
vertical.

It is also possible for a product to have
perfectly elastic demand where people will buy a given product, but only at one price. 
Here, the demand curve is horizontal.

Why do you think Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is opposed marriage and public life?

Having only just recently read Sor Juana's responses in
"Respuesta a Sor Filotea" and researched her life for the first time, I get the sense
that she is passionate about learning, even from a very young age. She cannot be
dissuaded from reading, and some sources report that she secretly read books from her
grandfather's library, and even considered herself self-taught because an education was
not available for young ladies.

Achieving so much at such a
young age, I would expect that Sor Juana was a practical and wise young woman. With such
a passion for learning, and still so much left to study when a girl her age would have
been considering marriage, two things may have influenced
her.

First, a husband might not have condoned her study; if
he did, having the responsibilities of wife, mother and home would have made it very
difficult for her to pursue her education. And in convent life, especially the one where
Sor Juana finally ended up, the lifestyle was extremely conducive to tranquility, and
would have allowed all the opportunity Sor Juana could have hoped for in order to
continue with her learning.

The second reason may come from
the writings of Paul. In the first book of Corinthians 7:27, Paul states that to truly
be committed to God's work, it is better not to marry. It is possible that Sor Juana had
read this and agreed with it.

However, if I had to choose
one reason why I felt Sor Juana chose not to marry it would be to provide her greater
freedom to study.

In terms of choosing to lead a more
secluded and less public life, as with many people who are particularly bright, keeping
up a social life is difficult in that it takes one away from his/her studies, research,
etc., and it is sometimes hard to relate to people who are not as passionate as that
extremely intelligent man or woman.

In The Scarlet Letter, what underlying meaning does Hawthorne explore by making Hester and Dimmesdale both alike and unlike each other?

The similarities and differences between Hester Prynne and
Arthur Dimmesdale of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter revolve around
the effects of their mutual sins.  For, while they are both guilty of adultery, the
effects of their sins upon them greatly differ; Hester's is an open sin, and
Dimmesdale's is a concealed sin.  And, it is in the examination of the
psychological effects of Dimmesdales's secret sin in contrast to Hester's declared sin
that Hawthorne explores in his novel.

Because hers is an
openly acknowledged sin, Hester initially suffers horribly from the scorn of the Puritan
community; however, she maintains her pride and boldly displays her scarlet letter with
golden embroidery and elaborateness.  Likewise, she dresses Pearl, her living
conscience, in scarlet.  For Hester, her salvation lies in truth.  In Chapter XVII, "The
Pastor and His Parishioner," after Hester confesses that Chillingworth is her husband,
she tells Dimmesdale,

readability="15">

In all things else, I have striven to be true! 
Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all
extremity; save when they good,--thy life,--thy fame,--were put in question!  Then I
consented to a deception.  But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the
other side!

But, unlike
Hester, Dimmesdale is weak, and is unable to confess his sin for seven years.  During
their forest conversation, he tells Hester,

readability="7">

"...thou little, little knowest all the horror of
this thing!  And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of
a sick and guilty
heart..."

And, so, Dimmesdale
suffers the torment of his conscience in the cowardice of his nature as he attempts to
rationalize that he is serving God by keeping his secret in order to continue to preach
and serve the community.  But, his fight is really against his own conscience--a fight
to which he loses his life, while Hester who is open about her sin mainains her strength
and finds redemption for her sin.  Thus Hawthorne's underlying meaning in exploring the
psychological effects of secret sin are given meaning in Dimmesdale's death and Hester's
survival.  When Dimmesdale finally has his victory of soul after the Election Day
sermon, Chillingworth's reaction demonstrates the significance of Dimmesdale's
confession and truthfulness.  He tells Dimmesdale, "Hadst thou sought the whole earth
over, there was no place so secret,--...where thou couldst have escaped me,--save on
this very scaffold! In fact, Hawthorne himself underscores the importance of confession,
a principle contrary to that of Puritanism that forbade sin of any kind. In Chapter
XXIV, "The Conclusion," Hawthorne specifically points out his meaning suggested by the
differences in Hester's open sin and Dimmesdale's secret
sin:

Among
many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience, we put
only this into a sentence:--"Be true!  Be true!  Be true!  Show freely to the world, if
not your worst, yet some trait wherby the worst may be
inferred!"

What makes Edward Scissorhands a modern tragedy?

I think that one of the reasons that the film is a modern
tragedy is that it shows how the community terrorizes the individual.  In the end, Kim
and Edward cannot be together.  Even though that there is obvious love between them,
they cannot be with one another because the community repels difference.  The community
has nothing but disdain towards Edward when they recognize that they cannot use him for
their own ends.  Since Edward will not succumb to Romantic trysts and embrace self
serving ends, he is repelled by the community.  Edward endures the false accusations of
rape and causing harm to others and has no choice but the flee back to his castle, where
Kim must tell others he is dead in order for the mob to disperse.  I sense this is
modern for two particular reasons.  The first is that individual identity is sacrificed
for collective notions of the good.  There is little in this vision that reflects how
freedom and individual choice are validated by the social order.  The film does not
reject these ideas, for Kim employs them in saving Edward.  Yet, it reflects how those
who are different have to carry a different burden or weight than the cultural majority
or the conformist voice.  Along these lines, it reflects that while freedom and choice
are present in the modern setting, happiness might not be the full result of these
ends.  We see this in Kim.