In the poem "Dover Beach" what sort of action is suggested in the first stanza?

In the opening lines of his poem, Dover Beach, Arnold presents a naturalistic description of the calm and full Dover sea, the image of the moon on the straits, the moonlit shore, the gleaming light on the French coast, and the vast glimmering cliffs of Dover. In this nightscape, the action lies with the moving waves coming on to the shore and going back.

In line 6, 'Come to the window......', the poet suggests a piece of action to his beloved/companion ( presumably his newly-married wife ). The poet asks her to come to the window of the observatory to look at the sea, to hear the sound of the tides, and to enjoy the sweet night air. He further asks her to listen to the waves, to hear 'the grating roar of pebbles'. The pebbles drawn from the beach by the waves, and flung back on to the shore produce a frictional noise, a noise having 'a tremulous cadence slow', a music that the poet urges his companion to take note of : 'the eternal note of sadness'.

The action suggested by Arnold is a contemplation of the destiny of human suffering, a contemplation to be had of the close and intent observation of the sea and the melancholy music that the waves produce in terms of the perpetual to and fro motion of the age-old sea.

Love and jealousy in Othello by Shakespeare.

I respectfully disagree with the previous poster.  Jealousy is present before and during the play.  We don't see the wedding.  We only hear the jealous conversations outside it.  We don't have access to the honeymoon suit.  We only see the fighting outside it.  There is no eros (love) in their bedroom, only theros (death).  The play is more about jealousy than love.  In fact, I'm not sure we see love at all in the play.

Before the play begins: Iago is jealous of Othello.  Rogerigo is jealous of Othello.  Brabantio is jealous of Othello.  Othello is jealous of Cassio.  Emilia may be jealous of Desdemona.

I don't think Othello loved Desdemona at all.  It is certainly not a perfect love.  He publicly says he loves her in Act I, but does he show it privately?  We are being deceived, just like Brabantio.  Other critics agree: Salman Rushdie, in The New Yorker, (July 2001) calls her death an "honor killing":

Othello doesn't love Desdemona...He says he does, but it can't be true.  Because if he loves her, the murder makes no sense.  For me, Desdemona is Othello's trophy wife, his most valuable and status-giving possession, the physical proof of his risen standing in a white man's world.  You see?  He loves that about her, but not her...Desdemona's death is an "honor killing."  She didn't have to be guilty; the accusation was enough.  The attack on her virtue was incompatible with Othello's honor.  She's not even a person to him.  He has reified her.  She's his Oscar-Barbie statuette.  His doll.

Othello loves his reputation.  That's why he effectively divorces Desdemona in Act III and marries Iago as a blood brother and co-murderer.  He loves men, because of their status, namely white men: Cassio and Iago.  He wants to be like them.  He certainly treats Desdemona like the way Iago treats Emilia and Cassio treats Biancha.  As property.

What are some Cause and Effects of the story?

The feud between the grandfathers of Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym caused the hatred of the two grandsons for one another.  The effect of that feud, which was the result of a lawsuit over land ownership, was the deaths of Gradwitz and Znaeym.  This, of course, is the main cause and effect relationship within the story.  However, there are other, less significant examples of cause and effect evident within the plot.  For example, the storm that took place as Gradwitz and Znaeym faced one another was the cause of the beech tree's fall, which trapped the two men with no hope of freeing themselves.  The fact that each of the two men, who had

been brought up under the code of a restraining civilization cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbor in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an offense against his hearth and honor,

hesitated in shooting one another led to their entrapment and, ultimately, their deaths.

Background, experiments that consist or comprises , main findings & major conclusions of Hawthorne plant studiesyes

According to Elton Mayo, Professor of Industrial Management, Harvard Business School the Hawthorne plant is "any company controlling many thousand workers tends to lack any satisfactory criterion of the actual value of its methods of dealing with people."

The term gets its name from a factory called the Hawthorne works where a series of experiments on factory workers were carried out between 1924 and 1932.

The term was coined in 1955 by Henry A. Landsberger when analyzing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne works (a western electric manufacturing facility outside Chicago). Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to see if its workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light.

Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

Why don't the people in the community know about animals?

We are not really told in the book why people in the community do not know about animals.  We do know that they know the word but they don't really know what it means.  So we have to think about why this makes sense in the context of the novel.

One of the major characteristics of the society in this book is the fact that it is completely controlled.  People have few choices and less freedom than in our world.  They also seem to have fewer emotional attachments (part of the reason for no sex).  I think that if they had animals, it would be harder for this to be.  Think about the part where Jonas finds out about animals -- he acts affectionately towards the horse and seems to be having more of an emotional reaction than usual.

So my opinion is that having animals would make the society more free and complicated and that is why they do not have them or know about them.

What are some symbols in the short story, "The Scarlet Ibis," besides the bird itself?

    The "red, dead bird" in the James Hurst short story, "The Scarlet Ibis," does indeed symbolize the frailty of Doodle, the beautiful but imperfect child whose life is also suddenly cut short. Like the ibis, which has traveled a great distance only to discover that he is lost in a strange land, Doodle is also a misplaced youth who has lived longer and covered more ground than anyone could have imagined. But there are other symbols in the story.
    Hurst places the ibis in the appropriately named "bleeding tree." It is from here that the bird tumbles and dies. The only person that thought Doodle would live was--also aptly named--Aunt Nicey, who likened him to Jesus. The hurricane which brought the ibis also symbolizes a bad omen, as do the black storm clouds which cause the final rains.

The sun disappeared and darkness descended, almost like night.

The early darkness symbolizes the approach of death.

Compare and contrast of imagery and figurative language between "The Bet", by Chekhov, and "By the waters of Babylon" by VincentI have to write a...

Very interesting question. One of the things you will definitely want to focus on is how the figurative language used in "By the Waters of Babylon" reflects the speaker and his understanding of the world he is in. As this story is written in the first person, we see everything from John's point of view, and he uses similes and metaphors that reflect the importance of nature to his worldview:

I tried to think of my knowledge, but it was a squirrel's heap of winter nuts. There was no strength in my knowledge anymore and I felt small and naked as a new-hatched bird - alone upon the great river, the servant of the gods.

The language that John uses then, is entirely fitting for his character - it reflects the primeval society he is from. Obviously he uses images that he is familiar with to describe himself in this quote, reflecting the small size of his knowledge and then how vulnerable he feels seeing the sights that he is now confronted with.

"The Bet", on the other hand, is told in limited third person perspective, which means we have an omniscient narrator who chooses to tell us the story from the point of view of one character - the banker. The use of language is much more focused on creating vivid descriptions and evoking the almost Gothic imagery created with the man locked up for so long:

At the table a man unlike ordinary people was sitting motionless. He was a skeleton with the skin drawn tight over his bones, with long curls like a woman's, and a shaggy beard. His face was yellow with an eathy tint in it, his cheeks were hollow, his back long and narrow, and the hand on which his shaggy head was propped was so thin and delicate that it was dreadful to look at it. His hair was already streaked with silver, and seeing his emaciated, aged-looking face, no one would have believed he was only forty.

Note how the picture of the man who has stowed himself away for so long is created. A metaphor is used to describe him as a skeleton, and the description draws a harsh portrait of a man who has been isolated for so long and has aged prematurely. We see a man who has experienced and perhaps suffered more than many men of his age, and who has aged greatly as a result.

Hope that helps to get you started!

WHY MIGHT A PRODUCER USE A DESIGNER LABEL TO DIFFERENTIATE HER PRODUCT FROM THAT OF ANOTHER PRODUCER?

The answer to the question is given in the question itself. Labels or, to give it a more generic name, brands are used by producers and sellers to differentiate their products from other products. The brand which may be represented by a name, a logo or some other design, a label, or some combination of these identifies the the product from a particular source.

The brand is a convenient means by which customers remember a particular product and associate it with features specific to the product. In this way the brand helps to simplify the buying decision of the customer, who selects products for purchase largely on the basis of brand rather than get into detailed comparison of features of different products available.

The phrase designer label is used for brands of some products such as ready made apparel in which design and fashion plays an important part of the product feature. The name designer label is used for premium range of products and the source of the product is identified in terms of the person or the group designing the product. A producer will use a designer label type brand for selling premium price products, for attracting fashion conscious people, who are looking for changing designs rather than standard designs.

Please explain Emily Dickinson's poem "I'm nobody."

As an addition to the already given answer, I would like to make some points about Emily Dickinson's poem "I'm nobody".

This poem is about a self-cancellation on both the social and the psychic level of the ego. Dickinson's poetic persona is always a protean. It changes from one poem to another, sometimes a bride, often a corpse and so on. In this poem, the persona is a stripping of the identitarian grab, which might be read as a radical rejection of the entire social process of communication, identity-formation and its complex networking. There is a sense of being exhausted, in the tone of the narrator. One must note that this self-negation is no compulsive plight of haplessness but a deliberate, if not ideological decision on her part.

However, quite ironically, or in an idealistic way, there is a communication developed with yet another 'nobody'. This is a radical commune of an alternative relationality. The 'they' represents some sort of repressive social space with its fixation with nomination. To be 'somebody' is to conform and thus 'dreary'.

There is an ethics of privacy at work in the poem. Dickinson rejects the public idea of a social performance of self. Telling the name throughout the day in front of a bog full of audience , which admires the name-reference is an act of conformism that the flexible artistic self denies.The poem may also be read from a feminist perspective where it may be seen as thematizing the exclusion of the female from the patriarchal set-up. And the woman turns this exclusion on its head to make it a feminist ideology of the rejection of the male order.

What does fundamental mean like when one says there is a fundamental diffrernce between these 2 words?what does fundamental mean?

In this context it means that there is a basic difference. We can even say that there is a difference in the essence of two words. Perhaps an example would be the best way to illustrate this.

A desk is fundamentally different than a piece of metal. There is nothing that is similar.

Here is another example, but a more abstract one. Infatution is fundamentally different than love. Infatuation is really selfish and it is about how you feel, love is robust and uncondition, no matter what you feel. We can say that there is a fundamental difference.

What is the synopsis for "Haircut," by Ring Lardner?

Most barbers are congenial and informative, and this is true of the narrator in Ring Lardner's short story, "Haircut." However, Lardner's barber does not seem to grasp the true irony of the story that he is telling. Set in Michigan, the barber candidly tells the story of the late Jim Kendall and the unusual practical jokes that he played on his friends and neighbors. What seems to be humorous folly to the barber, however, are actually malicious acts of cruelty perpetrated by Kendall. The barber relates how Kendall sends notes to local residents that their wives are cheating on them; how he invites his own wife and children to the circus and then leaves them waiting; how he spends his own paycheck on liquor and thwarts his wife's attempts to collect from him in order to pay the bills; and how he makes fun of a retarded man.

The barber continues his recollection of Kendall's practical jokes, telling his customer how he tries to rape the local doctor's girl, Julie. After she reports him to the local authorities, Kendall gains revenge by playing another joke on her. But the last laugh is on Kendall. When Kendall invites Paul, the mentally disabled man (whose only friends are Julie and the doctor), to go duck hunting, Paul "accidentally" discharges the gun, killing Kendall. The barber sees the killing as only a tragic accident, not understanding that Paul has the mental capacity to understand what the doctor has told him: that "any body who would do a thing like that ought not to be let live."

Trace the development of her strong concern for the feelings of others in Scout FinchGrowth and development of scout finch's feelings and...

Before launching into my own ideas, let me comment on the previous post. Scout's behavior in front of the county jail doesn't show courage; it shows naivete. Scout has no idea why the men have gathered, and she simply wants the father of one of the classmates to recognize her.

To me, Jem seems to more clearly show a growing awareness of the need to consider the feeling of others (by which I mean both human and non-human animals), not just oneself. He's the one who doesn't want to shoot bluejays (Scout does), who doesn't want to squash the roly-poly (Scout does), etc. Of course, Scout develops too throughout the story. One section that you may want to revisit is in the trial scene; here, Scout has some sympathy for Mayella and comes to see Tom Robinson as reasonable and as possessing "manners ... as good as Atticus's". Another section to consider, of course, is the final section of the novel; Scout shows strong sympathy for Arthur "Boo" Radley.

Having written all that, however, I want to add that I don't think the novel does a wholly convincing job of teaching people (including both Scout and us, the readers) to have complete empathy. Several characters -- esp. Bob Ewell and Lulu, the black woman at the church -- are demonized throughout the novel. My view is, no matter how much fault we can find with a person, there's always at least a shred of humanity in them. The novel doesn't show that shred in either Bob or Lulu. I'm not alone in this view. Many critics have made similar comments. See, for example, the article "The Rise and Fall of Atticus Finch." You may be able to access that article through a library computer.

What is the interpretation of this poem "Alzheimer's" by Kelly Cherry?He stands at the door, a crazy old man Back from the hospital, is mind...

What is the interpretation of this poem "Alzheimer's" by Kelly Cherry?

He stands at the door, a crazy old man

Back from the hospital, is mind ratling

Like the suitcase, swingin from his hand,

That contains shaving cream, a piggy bank

A book he sometimes pretends to read,

His clothes. On the brick wall besides him

Roses and colubmine slug it out for space, claw the mortar.

The sun is shining, as it does late in the aftrnoon

In England, after rain.

Sun hardens the house, reifies it,

Strikes the iron grillwork like smithy

And sprks fly off, burnig in the bushes-

The rosebushes-

While the white wood trime defines solidity in space.

This is his house. He remembers it as his,

Remembers the walkway he built between the front room

And the garage, the rhododendron he planted in back,

The car he used to drive. He remembers himself,

A younger man, in a tweed hat, a man who loved

Music. There is no time for that now. No time for music,

The peculiar screeching of strings, the luxurious

Fiddling with emotion.

Other things have become more urgent.

Other matters are now of greater import, have more

Consequence, must be attended to. The first

Thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who

This woman is, this old, white-haired woman

Standing here in the doorway,

Welcoming him in.

According to Spivak, in what way is the intellectual complicit in marginalizing the subaltern?I am writing a paper examining Dr. Gayatri Spivak's...

What Spivak is trying to say is that when the intellectual "speaks for" the subaltern they are being complicit in keeping them in a helpless sort of role. What should really be happening is for those people to be empowered, that is, yield power themselves and speak for themselves.

(If you read Bell Hooks, she has a very interesting view on this subject.)

When intellectuals speak for marginalized or disenfranchised people it is enabling, in the sense that it keeps them in their comfortable position of not being the power behind their own lives. They are like children. It doesn't do anything for them because they are still in a passive role.

A good analogy is how a mother and child interact. If the mother only set's down rules for the child to follow, the child doesn't learn anything for themselves. If the child acts on their own--taking responsibility for their own actions--they can grow into their own power. Eventually the child must function alone in society to be truly free. It is the same with the subaltern. They must be self-defining to be truly free.

If the mother speaks for the child, she is not allowing her child to grow up or speak for themselves. In a sense she is crippling the child, encouraging them to be dependent. In the same way, an intellectual would be complicit in marginalizing the subaltern if he or she continues to speak for them.

All people must be self-defining in order to be free.

How are the sisters in Sense and Sensibility like the women in "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" and The Importance of Being Earnest?

Indeed, it is a challenge to compare Elinor and Marianne to the two sets of women in "The Daughter's of the Late Colonel" and the Importance of Being Earnest. One reason for the difficulty is that, regardless of the narrator's ironic voice, Sense and Sensibility is written as a realistic novel; the characters, silly as some of them might be, are realistic and represent types of people that readers of Austen's day recognized from their own social circles, as was confirmed by remarks from Sir Walter Scott. Whereas, on the other hand, the characters in the other two pieces are extremes of one sort or another. Mansfield makes Josephine and Constantina extremes of incompetence while Wilde's satire makes Gwendolyn and Cecily extremes of ridiculousness. Nonetheless, comparisons can be drawn if one uses a large brush (as opposed to Austen's "fine brush").

The overriding theme of Sense and Sensibility is an exploration of sense versus sensibility as embodied in the sensible approach to life and emotions embodied by Elinor and the violently demonstrative approach to life and emotions embodied by Marianne. Within the other two sets of women, though they are extremes, can be found a similar division between sense and sensibility, a division preeminently demonstrated by Elinor and Marianne.

As a brief example of this, in the one case, Gwendolyn sets her opinions upon her concept of facts that seem to enlighten her. For example, she wants to marry a man named Earnest because of the virtues that are attached to the name. In her satirized way, she lives by sense. Cecily does nothing but daydream and record her daydreams in a journal; she wants to marry the brother with an ill reputation so she can reform him and render him undyingly devoted. In her satirized way, she lives by sensibility.

In the other case, Constantina acts on her concept of sense that overrides emotion, which she briefly demonstrates by locking up the wardrobe containing their father's clothes. In her extreme characterization, she is guided by sense. In the same scene, Josephine yields to the immobilization of her feelings and stands unable to break free from the affects of her emotions. In her extreme characterization, she is being guided by sensibility. Finally, Josephine and Constantine may be called similar to Elinor because they are more subdued in their expressions of emotions, whereas Gwendolyn and Cecily may be called similar to Marianne because they are more flamboyant in their demonstration of emotion.

What type of writing tool is used here: "poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now..."This quote comes from Ray...

I think that the most obvious answer to your question is that the writer is using the literary trick of repetition. Repetition is the equivalent of hammering a nail into the wall and then giving it one more whack for good measure.  It is a way that the author can call emphasis to something the he or she wants to make certain that you understand.

Notice, in the quote you give, how the first "poor family" is repeated twice; in addition, "everything gone, everything, everything gone now" repeats "everything" three times and "gone" twice. Ray Bradbury, in writing this, wants to be certain that you are made away of how the character is feeling.

Be careful when using this trick, though.  It is like a spice that can be easily overdone.  Repetition can "hammer things home," but when used too much it can knock the sense out of the reader.  In addition, don't confuse this creative use of repetition with repeating yourself in other types of work.  In general, repeating what one is saying in an essay is a big no-no.  It makes you look as if you have run out of things to say.  In short, if you are going to repeat a phrase or set of words (as Bradbury does here) make sure you are doing it for a good reason.

On a side note, notice the way that Bradbury, in the quote you mention, is able to convey the impression that the speaker is in a difficult frame of mind.  His repetitions, while providing emphasis to what he is saying, is also indicating that he is "shell shocked."  He sounds like a man muttering incoherently and in a rambling fashion.  That's good dialogue!

Anyway, good luck with your writing analysis!

How far down does granite go into the earth?

 It can be said that Granite is the most common rock in the Earth's crust, being present in tectonic or sedimentary areas .

Granite is an igneous rock solid, with coarse grain (with crystal size of several millimeters), formed at large depths, containing mainly quartz, feldspar and dark minerals as mica.

Characteristic for granite, also called platoon, are great depths where it is formed, the rocks that are formed at shallower depths then 2 km, are known as volcanic or "gangue rocks", (sterile) in mining.

As the magma cooling process occurs at relatively large depths, magma cooling occurs slowly, minerals' crystallizing  happening according to their melting point, so dark minerals with high melting point, which typically have a bigger density,  solidify at the top, followed by feldspar and quartz.

In the room or nest of granite,it will be found minerals with smaller density,  like feldspar, and, closer to the surface, quartz .

By tectonic movements,  subsequent to granite formation, or by processes of erosion and transport of water, wind, granite covering layers are removed, this one appearing on the surface and being put to turn weather and sunlight, which leads to a change in its color in a yellowish hue, softer minerals being eroded.The appearance of granite, is different in it's mass  can be seen the  crystals of  minerals of several millimeters size, granite  color varying from open gray to blue, red, yellow.

What does "stated directly toward" Jeanette Walls in The Glass Castle mean?I don't understand this question for a dialectical journal that is a...

In a dialectical journal, you are to write quotes from the text as you read, and personally respond to those quotes.  Keep in mind that "dialogue" (as in, characters speaking) is not what is meant by "quote."  *My students are often confused by this.  Rather, a quote is any line from the text that you write down and respond to.  The quote can be dialogue, but does not have to be.

I assume from your question that this project was given with a specific set of instructions which dictate different types of quotes on which to respond.  My best guess (as a teacher) is that quotes which are "stated directly toward" Jeanette Walls, means things which were, in fact, said to her (in this case, dialogue) as a child.  The book is written in first person, which means all of the dialogue comes from the author's memory.  Likely, your teacher wants you to look for some of the key things one of her parents said to her as a child that stuck with her (as evidenced by the fact that she includes them in her book).

As you read, if you find yourself cringing at some of the things her mother and father say to her, you might jot them down and write a personal reaction.  This should satisfy the "directly stated toward" requirement.

Discuss the idea of dramatic monologue in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and how it fits with Modernism.

Modernism is a style of writing that showcases characters who are alienated and have difficulty communicating with one another, experimental writing styles, a theme of how industrialization leads to unhappiness and isolation, and using symbolism and setting to represent mood and meaning.  All of these features can be found in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which in essence, is a dramatic monologue.  The style of a dramatic monologue works well with modernism, because it allows Eliot to showcase "stream-of-consciousness" writing, which is writing that jumps from one topic to the next in seemingly random orders.  Because we are getting Prufrock's thought in a monologue, it mimics the way that every person's brain works; when we think, it isn't in any logical sequence, it is random, it jumps from subject to subject, coming back to a main issue that is concerning us. Throughout the poem, Prufrock's monologue centers on his desire to speak his heart to the woman that he knows, but like all thoughts do, his mind wanders away and back to that subject throughout the entire poem.  We see his mind through is dramatic monologue, and his mind is one big stream-of-consciousness trip through the many facets that tie everything together in his head.

So, the dramatic monologue style lends itself well to the stream-of-consciousness style of writing, which is a feature of the experimental mode of Modernism.  The dramatic monologue also allows us to see how alienated and alone that Prufrock feels; he feels like a "crab," and old man, he feels ostracized and mocked, and we know all of this because Eliot shows his insecure thoughts through the monologue.  That alienation and loneliness is another trait of modernism; without the dramatic monologue, we might not know that was how Prufrock was feeling.

Those are just a couple ways in which the dramatic monologue and Modernism fit together--through the theme of isolation, and through the style of experimental stream-of-consciousness writing that Eliot uses.  I hope that helps a bit; good luck!

What can teens do to fight censorship and protect free speech?I need some serious help, please!!

First, I think knowledge is power. So, what you would need to do is do some research and free speech and the issues that are involved. Second, along the same lines, look for examples of censorship and see how it comes about and what can be done to stop it. Third, in order to be practical, ask some teachers to help. Make it into a project and if you can get some school credit for it, even better since you would be killing two birds with one stone. Finally, I would also examine the areas that are ambiguous. In other words, study areas were some type of censorship might be necessary, such as hate crimes and hate speech.

What are the 10 most important events that happen in Hatchet?Can you please give a list?

As the first poster touched upon, the importance of a particular event in the overall plot is subjective, and up to an individual's point of view.  This would be influenced by your cultural and personal background, as well as other reading you have done.  But here are my top ten!

1--Brian thinks he knows the reason behind his parents' recent divorce, but he has seen what he wasn't supposed to see -- his mother and a strange man kissing. This is a great burden on him.

2--Brian goes to visit his father in northern Canada. Just before he leaves in a small plane, Brian gets a present from his mother - a hatchet with a leather holder. He takes it from her and she makes him wear it in his belt.  He does not know that this hatchet will be so important later.

3--  Over the Canadian wilderness, the pilot has a heart attack and dies. Brian takes over and pilots the plane for as long as possible.

4-- The plane runs out of gas and Brian slowly realizes he is stranded in the Canadian wilderness, where he will be for the next 54 days.

5--Brian decides to think positive and calmly takes stock of what he has.  He builds a shelter and finds berries to eat, but they make him sick. Then he finds better berries.  He is now somewhat acclimated to life in the wild.

6--The porcupine attack hurts Brian badly, but he learns by accident that the hatchet will make sparks and a fire.  He makes his first fire.  He spends a lot of time gathering wood and working to better his situation.

7--Brian catches his first fish and misses the search and rescue plane.  He knows that he might be out there for a long time, but also that he can survive longer because he will have fish to eat.

8--Brian learns to spear birds and has his First Meat, but the moose and tornado destroy some of his hard work and he has to rebuild.  It is like he takes one step forward and two steps back.

9--Brian gets the survival bag out of the sunken plane.  This takes a lot of courage (the dead pilot is down there still) and craftsmanship (it is hard to get out there and Brian has to construct a raft from trees).

10--Brian is found just after he discovers the contents of the survival bag, and he returns to civilization.  He has a new perspective on his parents' divorce and vows to keep the knowledge of his mother and the other man a secret.

How do you think the Community got to be the way it is?

I guess I think the community got to be this way by trying too hard to take chance and uncertainty out of human life.

To me, this is sort of trade off that we face as human beings.  If we want to have total security, we have to give up danger.  If we want to have job security, for example, we have to give up being able to take a chance and go out and find a new and more interestint job.

If we want to have guaranteed freedom from sadness, we also have to give up our ability to have joy (because we have to be emotionally open to experience joy and that can be turned to sorrow).

So I think the people in previous times must have tried to figure out how they could keep from being vulnerable in any way.  But then they went to far and took all the possibilities out of life too.

Which character in “In another country” can be considered the Hemingway hero, and why?

While the narrator is the protagonist in the story, it is the Italian major who is the hero. He has the qualities typical of a Hemingway hero: he is an accomplished sportsman (champion fencer) and is a decorated soldier. But what really makes him the hero in this story is his role as the narrator's mentor. The narrator doesn't know until the end of the story that the major is teaching him a lesson. And, maybe the major doesn't realize this either.

One day, during rehab with the machines in the hospital, the narrator recognizes the major's stoic lack of confidence in the machines and his lack of hope for a full recovery. In a subsequent hospital visit, the major asks the narrator if he is married. He replies 'no,' but he intends to. The major becomes irate, calls him a fool, and after a tirade, storms out. He comes back, calm and collected, and apologizes, saying he just learned of his wife's death. The story ends with the major ignoring the pictures of the rehabilitated hands, and instead, staring out the window. What he teaches the narrator (inadvertently or purposefully) is that, in spite of the possibility of losing something - a loved one or a limb - you must keep going. When the major stares out the window, ignoring those supposedly encouraging pictures of healed hands, he is sort of staring into the void (or the window to the battlefield) and embracing life even with its potential for loss. This is bravery. This is what the narrator needed to learn.

This theme reminds me (somewhat) of Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus," where he implores the reader to imagine Sisyphus as happy. After being destined to push a rock up a hill only to have it fall each time, for eternity, Camus says that since Sisyphus perseveres despite being aware of the futility, he is superior for it. The difference here is this: Camus' hero is admirable because he finds meaning in an absurd situation. Hemingway's hero is admirable because he finds courage in a situation (life and the war) where there is meaning and happiness, but also where loss is possible and in some cases, (like death) inevitable.

In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, what contradictions did Scout experience when Miss Gates explained the difference between America and Germany?

In Chapter 26 of the Harper Lee novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout discovers that her teacher, Miss Gates, still has a lot to learn when it comes to racism and hypocrisy. During a lesson on present day Germany, Miss Gates declares that

"There are no better group of people in the world than the Jews, and why Hitler doesn't think so is a mystery to me."

She goes on to say that the Jews have been persecuted for centuries, and that "persecution comes from people that are prejudiced."

But Scout has not forgotten a conversation that she overheard between Miss Gates and Miss Stephanie Crawford after the Tom Robinson trial.

I heard her say it's time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themselves, an' the next thing they think they can do is marry us.

Scout sees the hypocrisy that Miss Gates' exhibits by hating Hitler for his persecution of the Jews while she persecutes the Negroes living in her own hometown because they want to live as other Maycomb citizens do.

What is the message the author is sending in the story "The Sniper"?

The ending of O'Flaherty's short story certainly presents a message which focuses on the cruelty and familial divisiveness of civil wars.  When the sniper discovers that he has killed his own brother, the author clearly shows how Ireland's war with itself pitted brother against brother (much like the American Civil War).  Most critics consider this to be the primary message of the story.

However, the beginning and middle parts of the story also allow the author to illustrate the mind and nature of a warrior. His almost mechanical description of the sniper demonstrate the effects of war and combat on an individual.

In what specific way did the Industrial Revolution change the U.S. economy? How is the Information Revolution changing the economy once again?

The biggest change in the economy during the Industrial Revolution was the transformation from it being agriculturally based to manufacturing based.  "Cottage Industries" existed long before industrialization, where small groups of individuals would fabricate something; mostly these activities had to do with some kind of textiles.  However, textile factories could produce textiles of better quality more cheaply, and could pay higher wages for the work.  In fact, it paid better than farming could, so people naturally gravitated to where they could make the most money.

Our current Information Revolution has similarly altered the economy by creating efficiencies within businesses that didn't and couldn't exist before; online ordering and Ebay come to mind.  In terms of an individuals work, no longer must one commute to a central office; the decentralization of the workforce will create more efficiencies (imagine not having to commute back and forth to work) since more time can be spent working.  To be able to find, interpret, and implement information will be the new standard of labor, requiring an extensive skill set, much more so than being a factory worker handling a textile machine or a farmer cultivating a piece of land as in past times.

Why is the name of the hero in "Holes" a palindrome?

To answer this question, it'll help if you first understand the meaning of a palindrome. Essentially, what a palindrome is a word that has the exact same meaning if it is read left to right, and from right to left. The above answer provides an example with "racecar" as a palindrome. That is a great answer because if you read it either right to left (as normally you would read), or left to right, both ways will read the same way with the exact same meaning. Another good example would be "radar," for either way you read it, it has the same spelling and the exact same meaning. It's just word play!

Holes took advantage of palindromes, and thus made the main character, the protagonist, named Stanley Yelnats. Although the meaning in the names are probably different, Yelnats is simply Stanley spelled backwards. It's very clever wordplay by the author Louis Sachar. She even mentions in the book how Stanley's last name is his name spelled backwards. It's really quite interesting and innovative the wat Sachar includes this Palindrome into the book Holes.

For more information on this and other various Holes stuff, check the link below. Should give you what you need if you ever need assistance!

What makes Jacobs' style of writing unique in "The Monkey's Paw"? See the following paragraph."…and a horrible fear that his wish would bring his...

In general throughout "The Monkey's Paw," Jacobs relies on foreshadowing, irony, and sensory imagery to tell his story and make it effective.  In the passage above, Jacob's use of words such as "mangled," "seized," "groped," and "unwholesome" present an extremely oppressive atmosphere.  The father cannot control himself because he is overcome by fear and grief.

Similarly, by describing the paw, which was once a talisman of good fortune to the older couple, as an "unwholesome thing" Jacobs implies that readers need to consider more closely what they wish for.

How does the title relate to the story in "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe?

The title of the Edgar Allan Poe short story, "The Cask of Amontillado," is a highly appropriate one since it serves as the lure that Montressor uses to draw Fortunato into his final resting place. Montressor knows that Fortunato has one weakness that cannot be resisted:

He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseur-ship in wine.

So, Montressor used the non-existent rare bottle of Amontillado--a Spanish sherry--as bait to attract Fortunato into the recesses of the catacombs, which also served as his family's wine cellars. It was one temptation that Fortunato could not resist.

Do you consider William Wordsworth to be more a romantic poet than a poet of nature?refer to three poems to support the answer

William Wordsworth is more a poet of nature than a romantics poet . In his Tin tern Abbey he admits that he is a worshiper of nature .Nature to him is a kind mother ,-the nurse ,guide , and guardian of his moral being .He believes that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her .All these are the poet's declaration to his attitude to Nature .

Again , foggy weather , murmuring -stream ,dancing daffodils ,prime-rose path ,lofty mountain ,beauteous evening ,lake ,sea ,birds, etc vivify the poet's love for nature .

The poet's imagination does not belong to the category of secondary imagination , which is the prime virtue of a romantic-poet .In this sense Coleridge and Shelley , are romantic poets , Wordsworth is not .

What type of literary devices does the author use?

The literary device of the flashback is the most used in The Face on the Milk Carton. These flashbacks show the reader what happened in her past. It is a sort of look into her memory. The incident of the milk carton makes her remember about the little girl's dress.

"She remembered that dress . . . how the collar itched . . . remembered the fabric; it was summer fabric; the wind blew through it . . . remembered how those braids swung like red silk against her cheeks."

The flashbacks typed in italics are triggered by event in her daily life. She is with Reeve and they are starting to eat ice cream sundaes. Suddenly, she remembers when she was kidnapped inthe mall because of a woman who has "long straight cascading hair" who allures her with an ice cream sundae. Janie calls her flashbacks "daymares". She discovers her traumatic past through the flashbacks. This is a literary device where the author lets the reader know about the character's past.

What are three ways that the language from "The Scarlet Ibis" is different after the narrator finishes the first two paragraphs?

1. The first two paragraphs possess more complex diction (word choice) than the following paragraphs.  The narrator begins by using words and phrases such as "untenanted" and "the clove of seasons."  The more elevated word choice of the initial paragraphs demonstrates that the narrator is a mature individual nostagically thinking back to childhood days.  If the reader simply looks at the first two sentences of the third paragraph, the difference between the word choice and sentence structure is apparent.  The narrator--at this point now narrating in childlike language--uses words and phrasing that a young boy/girl might use.  He writes,

"Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy ever had. Of course, he wasn't a crazy crazy like Miss Leedie . . ."

In the third paragraph, the repetition of the word "crazy," the use of hyperbole in the first sentence, and the rambling nature of the second sentence all connect to a child's way of narrating.

2. The author uses a different tone in the first two paragraphs.  Hurst's use of negatively connotative words and phrases demonstrates the narrator's grief over and longing regarding the incident that he is about to relay.  Brother, the narrator, mentions a "bleeding tree," an empty nest which resembles a deserted cradle, and "graveyard flowers" which softly speak "the names of [his family's] dead."  In contrast, the third paragraph's tone shifts dramatically to a lighter, frank attitude.  Even though the narrator is telling about Doodle's difficult birth and infancy, he bluntly discusses those incidents by describing Doodle as "red and shriveled like an old man" and describes himself as "pretty smart at many things."

3. Finally, the language in Paragraphs 1 and 2 are heavily symbolic, while the following paragraphs are quite literal.  The narrator initially makes many bird/tree references which will play a part later in the story, but then shifts to a simple narration with childlike interruptions for the other paragraphs. The author employs this mix of figurative and literal language to connect to the story's symbolic moral ending.

How has Keats foregrounded "happy" in the third stanza of his "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Explain "Heard melodies are sweet,but those unheard are...

The word "happy" is foregrounded in the third stanza of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by being repeated six times. However, the word 'happy' has been used to convey the following different meanings:

1.    Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;

In this context, 'happy' means 'fortunate.' Unlike in real life when the trees shed their leaves in autumn, the branches of the trees on the marble urn enjoy a blessed and fortunate  state because they will be unaffected by the changes in the seasons. It is perpetually spring in the world of art.

2.        And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

In this context, 'happy' means both fortunate and 'pleasurable.' In real life a musician will at some point or the other during his musical concert become tired and exhausted. He cannot play on and on forever. He has to stop playing at some point or the other.  However, the musician on the marble urn can play on forever and forever without becoming tired because he is fortunate in being frozen in art and time on the sides of the marble urn. Hence, he can enjoy forever the music that he produces and simultaneously stimulate the imagination of the people in the real world who see him on the side of the marble urn to imagine for themselves the music that he is playing. When we listen to music in the real world we have to pay attention to only that musical score and melody which is being played by the musician; but in the realm of art the contrary is true. We can see the picture of the musician on the side of the marble urn and we can imagine for ourselves to our own liking and taste the music and the melody which the musician on the marble urn is playing.

The possibilities of aesthetic pleasure which the marble urn offers are infinite  unlike in the real world where pleasure is finite and has to come to an end sooner or later. There is no limit to the human imagination. That is why Keats asserts,

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

3.          More happy love! more happy, happy      love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

In this context when he describes the picture of the pair of lovers frozen forever on the sides of the marble urn, he repeats 'happy' thrice to emphasize the vast difference between love in the real world and love in the world of art. In the real world there is always the possibility of love coming to an abrupt end due to various reasons like death, infidelity,sickness, boredom etc. but not so in the case of the lovers on the marble urn who have been frozen in time forever. The word 'happy' in this context refers not merely to being fortunate, or giving pleasure but also 'apt' and 'appropriate.'

Keats means to assert that because love in the world of art can never be consummated and thus reach its end, it only is the real and true love and earthly love is not love at all because once it is consummated it is over.

Explain the sentence structure, especially in the last three paragraphs in A Separate Peace and how it adds to our understanding of the novel.John...

Gene enlists in the navy, but he feels no patiotism, feeling that war is the result of "something ignorant in the human heart."  This belief causes Gene to be introspective, as the structure of the last three paragraphs evidence.

I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy.  Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.

The use of independent clauses simply joined by semicolons lines the three statements evenly.  Gene lays his confession out tersely with no apologies; it is very effective in its candidness. He condemns himself point-by-point.  While his hat was a confusion of love and hatred, Gene finally achieves order in his confession.

Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone.  Other people experienced this fearful shock somehwere, this sigting of the enemy and so began an obsessive labor of defense, began to parry the menace they saw facing them by developing a particular frame of mind.  "You see," their behavior toward everything and everyone proclaimed, "I am a humble ant, I am nothing, I am not worthy of this menace," or else....

Gene's second paragraph is more a stream of consciousness as he confesses his and others' unworthiness.  The fear of Gene and the others made them less that Phineas.  They could not face their inadequancies.  Gene's search has been for exact and individual standards.

All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines aainst this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way--if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.

Again affirming the superiority of Phineas, Gene reflects that he and the others tried to protect themselves from their envy and fear by creating a psychological wall between themselves and their "enemy."The parallelism of this long sentence is the final realization of Gene in a single thought.  "if he was indeed the enemy" tells that Gene knows the enemy is oneself who has that "something ignorant in his heart."

Who invented the Electric Motor in 1873?

In today's world, electric motors are everywhere.  You can see them in hybrid cars and you can see them in can openers.

Electric motors were not invented in 1873.  The first electric motor -- one that used electric current to produce mechanical motion, was invented by an American physicist named Joseph Henry in 1831.

However, as with a lot of inventions, the first inventor was not the one who made the device practical.

In 1873, Zenobe Gramme, a Belgian inventor, invented the first commercially practical (one which could be made reliably and cheaply enough to sell commercially) electric motor.

In "The Black Cat" where is the narrator as he writes this story?

To answer this question, it helps to look really closely at the text, and especially at the very beginning and ending of the story.

Let's take a look at the ending of the story first, to get an idea of what probably happened to him after the story's events occurred.  At the end, the police had torn down the wall and discovered the remains of his murdered wife; at this, we have to conclude that the man was arrested and taken to jail.  Now, look at the beginning paragraph--in it lie confirmations of that assumption.  The narrator states in that opening paragraph that he is going to tell us a story, that he really wants us to believe.  Why is he so motivated to tell the tale?  He states,

"Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul."

He states that he is going to die tomorrow, and hence wants to unburden his soul from the weight of his awful act.  He wants the entire world to know the true story, the awful details of the event, even if they do sound strange.  He wants the truth out before he leaves this world.  So, why would he be dying?  Most likely, he is in prison, and received a sentence of death, and he is condemned to die the next day.  That is the logical conclusion that one can draw from the hints given.  So, the narrator is telling his story from the walls of his prison, on the day before his execution.

I hope that those thoughts helped to clear things up!  Good luck!

What are the marxist elements in the poem 'Two scavengers in a truck, Two beautiful people in a mercedes'?

The simplest explanation would lie in the juxtaposition of the two "couples" - each defined in contrast to the other.  The "grungy" workers symbolize a Marxist proletariat, while the beautiful young people riding in the open Mercedes clearly represent the bourgeoisie.

An interesting "flip" on the theme comes when Ferlinghetti compares the older of the two scavengers with "grey iron hair" to the blondness of the younger one as if the latter were not of the working class long enough to have been "hunched" by his constant working on behalf of the Mercedes people.

Later, when the scavengers look across the gulf while killing time at the red light, it's as if the hope to which Ferlinghetti refers is somehow greater for the younger garbage man as he appears more like his counterparts in the roadster than the older one does.

In the end, however, the hope for either scavenger is an illusion.  Equality in a capitalist democracy is non-existent.  Just as on the farm, some pigs are more equal than others.

In a character analysis what would be a good first sentence?

In writing a character analysis, there are many ways to open an analysis.  One way of an opening sentence would be to discuss how the character plays a large impact in the work.  Since the character analysis is going to center on the central figure and their dimensions throughout the work, opening your analysis with something that states this might be a good start.  Another starting sentence could be to explain how important the particular character is in the work.  This might lend itself to plot summarizing as well as might hold the potential to guide you off course, if not careful, but this might be a good start in that the analysis establishes the importance of the character in the work and provides the justification behind the character analysis.

Thomas More's general conception of an ideal state is unmistakably drawn from Plato. Elucidate.

Thomas More's Utopia, first published in Latin in 1516, was perhaps the greatest humanist reform tract of the Renaissance. The work presented a 'perfect society', authoritarian and fictional in its religious, social and political aspects. Indeed, the idea of an ideal state is what Plato's Republic and More's Utopia share, both the works taking a similar stance in their economic systems with regard to the distribution of good and acquisition of wealth.

Both Plato and More were guided by the notion of collective / social good, looking for a state rather abstract and fictional. More's tract with its more pronounced communist / socialist connotations--absence of private ownership and suppression of individuals by the society--looks forward to Karl Marx as it looks back to plato in its general design of a commonwealth.

"A Worn Path" is an exquisitely controlled story of unconcious heriosm. Explain

A story completely free of authorial commentary and intrusion, "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty is thus a controlled narrative open for different interpretations, one of which is that Phoenix is a character of heroism.  Like her name, the old woman has a courage that allows her to rise above the obstacles in her path as she sets forth in her quest to obtain medicine for her sick grandson.

The heroism of Phoenix is unconscious because her actions are generated simply by her maternal instinct. Substantiating this instinctiveness of the old woman, Welty writes in the opening paragraph that Phoenix's walk is like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, suggesting the unconscious constancy and determination of the old woman.

Reinforcing the image of the Phoenix that rises from the ashes, the old woman rises from each adverse condition that she encounters as she traverses the worn path. Stoically, she tells the thorny bush that is simply "doing your appointed work," and she is undeterred by a buzzard wathcing her:  "Who you watching?"  When her poor eyesight mistakes something "tall, black, and skinny" for a man and then a ghost, she does not falter; instead, she puts out her hand, realizing it is just a scarecrow.  She jests with herself about her poor sense of sight, saying she should be "shut up for good" and dances with the scarecrow. There is no self-pity in this woman.

When Phoenix is confronted by a hunter's dog, she is faced with a fearful situation.  Bravely, she strikes at the dog with her cane only to fall backward into a ditch. After the hunter asks her what she is doing, she humorously replies that she is lying on her back "like a June-bug waiting to be turned over."  With growling dogs and the threat of a rifle in the hands of a white man, Phoenix displays no trepidation.  While he chases the dog away, Phoenix surreptitiously picks up a nickel that he has dropped.  Faced with his gun, she straightens and faces the hunter, telling him she is not afraid, for she has "seen plenty go off closer by, in my day, and for less than what I done."

Having finally reached Natchez and the hospital, she is treated as a "charity" case.  Nevertheless, the old woman heroically focuses upon her "quest" for which she lives.  In an allusion to the heroic tradition, Welty even writes,

With her hands on her knees, the old woman waited, silent, erect and motionless, just as if she were in armor.

The old woman's holy grail, of course, is her little grandson:

'We is the only two left in the world.  He suffer and it don't seem to put him back at all.  He got a sweet look.  He going to last.  He wear a little patch quilt and peep out holding his mouth open like a little bird....I not going to forget him again, no, the whole enduring time.  I could tell him from all the others in creation.'

Endurance, fortitude, determination characterize Phoenix.  These are the ingredients of unconscious heroism.

What is an open social system and it elements?

An open social system is one which is aware of, and involved with, its environment. A closed social system has rigid boundaries, views the external world as static, and relatively unchanging. The closed system functions within and for itself. (A watch is an example - check the link. A watch is closed. It does not need input from the outside world. However, it is not completely closed. It relied on a watch maker and for its function to have any merit, it must have someone using it for it to reach its potential or to have any meaning outside of its own ticking.)

Theoretically, a completely closed system would cease to exist, while a completely open system would be so open and integrated that it would cease to be distinguishable from its environment - like a substance dissolving completely and colorlessly in water. In practical reality of social systems, there probably is no completely closed or completely open system.

There can be systems externally open and internally closed and vice-versa. Depending on the environment and historical context, one may be more beneficial (for growth and evolution) than the other.

Typical examples of open social systems are schools. The more open (integrative and interdependent with) the external world (factors such as culture, economy, public and political policy), the more likely the schools are to be progressive and evolve. This is the generally accepted theory and it makes sense. A school as a closed system might be said to be looking out only for itself, its students and teachers, but as soon as it closes its doors to the outside world, it will fail. Ignoring social class, economics, political policies, and shifting ideas in all disciplines, the school would simply fall behind. A closed system defined laconically as "you do your thing, I'll do mine" could function in a perfect, non-changing world (if it was perfect, why would it change). But since this is not a perfect world (hence the need for continuous change, evolution, and progress), a system more open than closed is preferable. The reality is that the world is becoming more integrative and open systems recognize this increasing interdependence.

Discuss the importance of dreams in Death of a SalesmanI don't get what the 'importance' entails, like what I should be talking about in terms of...

If you are writing this for a paper or for a class assignment, focusing on the role dreams play in Miller's work could be a good starting point.  This could begin in how Wily sees his own reality.  What role do his dreams play in how reality is versus what he sees it to be?  Maybe even a more elemental question can be analyzed:  Is Wily able to accomplish his dreams?  If not, how does this impact him? Miller is writing the play in response to the driving spirit of accomplishing "The American Dream" in the 1950s post War America.  He deliberately constructs a reality that was not discussed at the time:  What happens when someone fails to accomplish the elusive dream?  Part of the repression of the time period was that the nation did not effectively address what happens when individuals fail in the accomplishment of a dream which is material- based, which always guarantees some level of inherent disenchantment.  He is confident that writing the character of Wily is reflective of many in America who saw their own lives play out:

[The audience members] were weeping because the central matrix of this play is ... what most people are up against in their lives.... they were seeing themselves, not because Willy is a salesman, but the situation in which he stood and to which he was reacting, and which was reacting against him, was probably the central situation of contemporary civilization. It is that we are struggling with forces that are far greater than we can handle, with no equipment to make anything mean anything.

The role of dreams helps to play a major part in the theme of appearance versus reality.  In analyzing the role of dreams, this might be where the "importance" lies.  I think that progression in this task lies in being able to discuss how dreams are presented in the play, how characters respond to them, and what overall effect dreams hold on these individuals.  In doing this, you would be clearly establishing a case for the "importance of dreams."

I was asked to predict the formula for ammonium phosphate. The explanation has to be based on the theory concerning ionic compounds.

When the formula for an ionic compound has to be written, the theory says that the positive ion has to be listed first.

If 2 or more polyatomic ions occure, the polyatomic ion has to be put in paranthesis.

Phosphate is one of the most common polyatomic ions,   (PO4)^3-,having -3 negative charges and ammonium, NH4^+, is a member of the first group of ions (alkali metals) and it has one positive charge, +1.

The predicted formula for ammonium phosphate is:

(NH4)3 PO4

What were some of the interesting theories around the cause of the bubonic plague?

Bubonic plague has been a major epidemic in the world since ancient times. There is a record of plague epidemic in Athens in 430 B.C. In a plague epidemic in Rome in 262 A.D. nearly 5,000 people died daily.

I am not aware about different theories that may have circulated in the past about cause of bubonic plague. However, in 1907 it was well proven that rat fleas carry this disease, and since then it has been possible to control it with campaigns to control rats.

Bubonic and other forms of plague is caused by  germs called yersenina pesis which is transmitted to human beings chiefly by rat fleas from infected rats. The rats used to spread plague from place to place in ships and trains. Once human beings are infected with plague, they can infect other people also.

Explain to what extent the four management functions are related and similar.

The total work of management is often divided in four broad functions. These are:

1. Planning and/or decision making


2. Organizing, including staffing


3. Motivating/leading


4. Controlling

These four functions are very distinct but closely interrelated. These functions are generally carried out in the sequence of steps presented above. At the same time these are iterative steps. That is, after a manager has completed one step and moved to another, he or she may revisit an earlier step in response to the developments occurring in subsequent steps. Also management is an ongoing process, and therefore these steps are performed in a repetitive cycle in a spiralling pattern.

In the planning and decision making step they determine the objectives they need to pursue in managing the work under their jurisdiction, and how this work needs to be performed to achieve this objectives.

The objectives and plans worked out in step one have direct bearing on the next step,that is organizing. In this the managers decide on the organization structure of people who will carry out the plans worked out in step. Obviously this organization structure including the total sizes and nature of duties performed by individuals will depend very much on the nature of work to be performed as dictated by planning. The staffing of people including their selection and training must take into account the nature of the duties to be performed by them Thus the organizing is closely related to planning.

Organizing function, in turn is closely related to both planning and organizing. The motivation and leading of the people aims to achieve at the objective set, and implement plans prepared in step one. Also the exact nature of motivating and leading actions is heavily dependent on type of people working in the organization and their relationships with others in the organization.

The controlling function which includes monitoring the actual performance, comparing it with plans, and taking corrective action, ties down all the three previous steps. The performance is monitored in terms of objectives and plans set in step one also it is compared with these to determine if any corrective action is required. The most effective way of monitoring and control takes into account the responsibilities of individual employees as per the organization structure. Further, the control action including the reward and punishment meted out to individuals in response to assessment of their performance is a very important ingredient of motivating and leading function. Also the the monitoring and comparison of actual performance against plans and objectives, itself is an important tool for motivation. Finally, the controlling function forms the starting point for the subsequent cycles of the four management functions.

Who was William deMille and what is his short story, "Ruthless"?

William C. deMille  (1878-1955) was a versatile American writer and film director. He was the older brother of the famed film producer and director, Cecil B. DeMille (who changed the spelling of his last name when he went to Hollywood). William deMille would become one of the most respected directors of the silent film era. He hosted the first Academy Awards show and was a founder of the University of Southern California film school. His short story, "Ruthless" tells the story of a man who leaves a bottle of poisoned whiskey for the unknown person(s) who has been entering his house while he is away.

How are William Shakespeare's sonnets representative of the social change in England at the time?

Published in 1609, the first folio of the sonnets was published during his lifetime, around the time of his retirement from the theatre.  They pre-date the publication of his plays (1623), which were published seven years after his death.  Ironically, many of the poems are about the immortality of art, and yet Shakespeare seems to have written them without much of a push to get them published.  The monarchs Elizabeth I and James I established a haven for art and artists (even non courtiers) to publish works openly, so the spirit of the Renaissance encouraged Shakespeare immensely.

The subjects of the sonnets can be categorized thusly: 1) pure love; 2) tainted love; 3) love betrayed but redeemed by sacrifice.  (See www.shakespeares-sonnets.com for clarification).

Many are addressed to men and women.  This is important because it reflected an openness to sexuality (even possible homosexuality), which was unprecedented.  Also, none of the poems are about God, religion, or the church.  As you know, this was a time of great religious upheaval, and to write such secular poetry sets Shakespeare apart from his contemporaries.  Not since the Greeks and Romans had there been such secular poetry.  It also paves the way for the Romantics, Wordsworth in particular, to wrest poetry from the bourgeoisie and re-define poetry for the common man.

T.S. Eliot has written the definitive essay on the sonnets.  Here's an abstract which deals with why the sonnets are important of social change:

In his famous essay on Hamlet, T. S. Eliot referred to Shakespeare's Sonnets as 'full of some stuff that the writer could not drag to light, contemplate, or manipulate into art.' In his ranking of the Sonnets with Hamlet ('Hamlet, like the Sonnets'), he seems to have a critical view on the artistic perfection of the Sonnets, though, probably, not so critical as to label them as 'artistic failure.' What does this rather obscure comment on the Sonnets imply? His comment involves his attitude about the problem of personal expression in poetry, and is related to his early poetic, and his later dramatic, method. The implications of his comment on the Sonnets can be seen on several levels. First, the level of the poetic style in which Shakespeare was gradually reaching for the complex expression of his mature plays but had not yet completely mastered it. Second, the circumstances in which the Sonnets were written, circulated among 'his private friends' and published. That that they are not necessarily in 'the right order' and do not make a 'sequence', that they are different in style and quality, suggests an attachment of the author with the material, a lack of artistic ordering and perfection in which the poet's personal emotion and poetry should be separated. Third, the peculiar quality of the Elizabethan sonnet sequence as an artistic medium, in which 'the man who suffers' and 'the mind which creates' are not completely separated, in which the convention is not perfected as in Dante's Vita Nuova. This point relates to the themes treated in the Sonnets, and also in the Problem Plays, in which the themes are displayed as problems unsolved rather than given artistic resolution. Eliot was deeply concerned with these themes, but he sought for their expression in his own self-conscious way, beginning with the use of personae in his early poetry, and later expressing them through the characters of his dramatic works. His comment on the Sonnets may be considered as a by-product of his quest for the proper medium to express these themes

In Chapter 1 of All Quiet on the Western Front, which character represents ideas of patriotism and the glory of self sacrifice in war?

Kantorek, the German schoolmaster, represents the ideas of patiorism and the glory of self-sacrifice in war.  A diminutive man, Kantorek would give long lectures about duty and courage, until the whole of Paul's class, twenty youths of only about eighteen years of age, succumbed to the pressure and went to the District Commandant to enlist.  Paul notes bitterly that "there were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best - in a way that cost them nothing".  Completely sincere in their patriotic beliefs, they destroyed the lives of a whole generation of "Iron Youth". 

Men like Kantorek belonged to a group whose time had passed.  Too old to participate on the front lines of battle, they were nonetheless the authority, and they were trusted by the young, who associated their years with "greater insight and a more humane wisdom".  The old men taught "that duty to one's country is the greatest thing", and sent a whole generation of young men onto the battlefield, youths who had not "the vaguest idea what (they) were in for".  While the men of Kantorek's generation "continued to write and talk", the young were forced to do the dirty work, fighting and dying in the trenches.  The young soldiers persuaded to do their duty to their country quickly found that there is no glory on the battlefield; although in truth they "loved (their) country as much as (the old men), (and) went courageously into every action, (they) also...distinguished the false from true".  Paul expresses the sense of betrayal and abandonment his generation felt at the hands of men like Kantorek.  Having looked to them for guidance, the boys found themselves in a hell beyond imagining from which there was no escape.  Hopeless and jaded, their young lives in ruins, they looked back for help to the men who put them in their situation, only to find that "there was nothing of their world left", and that the youth "were all at once terribly alone, and alone...must see it through" (Chapter 1).

What are the literary devices in Red, Red, Rose by Robert Burns?I am writing an explication of the poem and I cant find any literary devices

For such a short poem, Burns certainly packs a lot of literary devices.  First, Burns uses a simile to compare his love to a flower--"Oh, my Luve's LIKE a red, red rose..." Secondly, his love is symbolized by that rose, and by repeating the color "red", he is how beautiful, how pure his love is.  He uses another simile in the third line to once again compare his love to something beautiful; this time, he compares his love to a beautiful song--"My Luve's like a melodie..."  Burns wrote in a lyric style, meaning this poem often reads like a song would--hence, the repetition of some key phrases.  There is also obvious alliteration with the "r" sounds--"...a red, red rose..."  The use of alliteration also furthers the sing-song musicality of the poem. 

When was the first history of slaves?

I tend to believe that slavery is as old as mankind itself. In all kinds of animals living in groups, the practice of the dominant member of the group imposing restriction on freedom on other members of the groups. In some, the practice of actual slavery exist, where insect of one species invade and enslave all members of a group of similar, but slightly different, species. Knowing the selfish nature of humans and existence of practice of slavery even in other living beings with much lower level of development, it is not difficult to believe that slavery among humans is as old as the mankind.

Definite indications and proofs of slavery since ancient times are available through several sources. The first well known case of slavery practiced by civilized people is provided by Sumerians in Mesopotamia. In this civilization, the slaves formed the lowest class of society about 3500 B.C.

Please answer the following questions regarding the poem "Bright Star" by John Keats:1. what are the qualities of the star that he would not want...

In addition to not wanting to be alone like the star, the speaker of John Keats's "Bright Star," while wishing for the eternity of the star, does not desire the star's task of watching the earth

with eternal lids apart/Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite

The static quality of the star is expressed in the speaker's oxymoron: 

a sweet unrest,/Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath/And so live ever--....

The tension of this poem is similar to that of Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn" in that the speaker admires the eternity of beauty as he does the eternity of the star, but he does not desire the static quality which allows no further action just as he realizes that the lovers painted upon the urn cannot consummate their love. In short, while the speaker wishes to transcend human life and its finiteness, he still does not want to lose his humanity.

Given is (1 - sin x) * tan x = sin x find all values for x between 0 and 2π

First of all, we'll substitute tan x= sin x/cos x.

(1 - sin x) * sin x/cos x = sin x

We'll open the paranthesis:

sin x - (sin x)^2=cos x*sin x

We'll write (sin x)^2=1- (cosx)^2

sin x - [1- (cosx)^2]=cos x*sin x

sin x - 1 + (cosx)^2 - cos x*sin x=0

We'll group the terms in this way: the first with the last  together, having sin x as common factor. We'll group the middle terms 1- (cos x)^2, seeing the group formed as a difference of squares, type a^2-b^2;

a^2-b^2=(a-b)(a+b)

sin x(1-cosx)-[1-(cosx)^2]=0

sin x(1-cosx)-(1-cosx)(1+cosx)=0

(1-cos x)(sinx-1-cosx)=0

A product of 2 factors is 0, when eather one or the other of the 2 factors is 0.

(1-cos x)=0

cos x=1, elementary equation

x=+/- arccos 1 + 2*k*pi

x=2*pi, when K=1

x=0, when k=0

The second factor, sinx-1-cosx=0

sinx-cosx=1, linear equation

This type of equation, due to the fact that the ratio between the coefficient of sin x and cos x is equal to the value 1, which it could be expressed as tan (pi/4)=1, could be solved with the help of the known angle. So the equation could be written in this way:

1*sinx-(1*cosx)=1

sin x - tan(pi/4)*cos x=1, but tan (pi/4)=sin(pi/4)/cos (pi/4)

sin x - sin(pi/4)/cos (pi/4)*cos x=1,

We'll have the same denominator all over, by multiplying  where necessary with the value cos(pi/4).

sin x*cos (pi/4) - sin(pi/4)*cos x=1*cos (pi/4)

sin [x-(pi/4)]=(sqrt 2)/2, instead of cos(pi/4)=(sqrt 2)/2

x-(pi/4)=(-1)^k*arcsin[(sqrt 2)/2]+k*pi

x=(-1)^k*(pi/4)+(pi/4)+k*pi

When k=0

x=(pi/4)+(pi/4)

x=2*(pi/4)

x=pi/2

When k=1

x=-(pi/4)+(pi/4)+pi

x=pi

What would have happened if the Confederate States of America had won?

In my opinion, the impacts of such an outcome on world history would have been tremendous.

Most people would think of the continuation of slavery as the major impact.  I don't think so.  I think that slavery would have died relatively soon (perhaps, like Brazil's, in the 1880s) because of economic pressures.

What would have been really important, I think, is that the US would never have become a superpower.  This is because the US would not have been this monolithic country, pretty much impervious to invasion.

Imagine, instead, the CSA siding with England in WWI while the USA sided with Germany.  It seems likely that the two countries would have taken different sides in that and any other war.

It's hard to imagine what the ultimate outcome would have been.  Maybe Britain would have remained as the major superpower without the US to challenge it.

At any rate, I don't see how the US (or the CSA) could have become a superpower in such a situation because each would have been too vulnerable to attack from the other.

What 4 atoms do protein molecules always contain? What other atoms might they contain?

Protein molecules always contain Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Nitrogen. Occasionally, they will contain Sulphur - such as Cysteine, Methionine, and Cystine. A Phosphate (Phosphurus) is also used in other derivations and biosyntheses: Glutamate-5-Phosphate is produced when Proline is synthesized from Glutamate. A Carbamoyl-Phosphate is used in the Urea Cycle: a process which converts toxic Ammonia into urea or uric acid so the organism can more easily process and utilize Nitrogen (N) without the build up of Ammonia (NH3) during protein digestion.

How does the theme of wisdom apply to "A Separate Peace"?John Knowles's "A Separate Peace"

The theme of wisdom is very relevant to "A Separate Peace." As the older Gene returns to Devon School and reviews his life there, he recalls his early belief that Finny wishes to keep him from doing well at Devon because of jealousy for his intelligence. Gene's misinterpretation of Finny's nature leads him to shake the limb that causes Finny to fall and break his leg.  But, still Gene is "stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth," and Gene cannot accept the fact that he has understands at the end of Chapter 4: Finney

had never been jealous of me for a second.  Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us. I was not of the same quality as he.

That he is not of the "same quality" as Finney bothers Gene.  Still, he follows Finney's instructions that he play sports for him; Gene, then, says that he

lost part of [himself] to him then and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first:  to become a part of Phineas.

With this new life, substituting for Phineas, Gene

welcomed each new day as though it were a new life, where all past failures and problems were erased, and all future possibilities and joys open and available, to be achieved probably before night fell again. 

However, Gene realizes that he can not take Finny's role without Finny's losing:

Now in this winter of snow and crutches with Phineas, I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of the night before, that sleep suspened all but changed nothing, that you couldn't make yourself over between dawn and dusk.  Phineas, however, did not believe this.

After the accident, Phineas now needs Gene. After Brinker holds his trial, and Finny rushes out, rebreaking his leg, Gene has that moment of truth, an "ephiphany," as he lies on the ground staring up at the night sky:

The old trees surrounding it all were intensely meaningful...and all the other building and all the people there were intensely real, wildly alive and totally meaningful, and I alone was a dream, a figment which had never really touched anything.  I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.

Clearly, there is an insight into life that Gene gradually arrives at:  "Phineas in the Infirmary, and [him]self responsible. Later in this Chapter 12, Gene apologizes to Finny, explaining why he jounced the limb,

it was just some ignorance inside me, some crazy thing inside me, something blind, that's all it was.

Gene realizes, too, that not just private wars, but world wars

were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the heart.

In his increasing wisdom aided by time, Gene realizes that "only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone."  Confronted with Phineas's ingenuous nature, Gene could not imagine that anyone would not be competitive and jealous.  It takes his engagement in World War II "where he never killed anybody" for Gene to see in hindsight that, in comparison with his participation in the war, he "was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there."

Comment on: The Gardiners act as surrogate parents to Jane and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.

Generally speaking, it's a hard case to make to cast Edward and Mrs. Gardiner as surrogate parents in Pride and Prejudice, primarily because the concept as we think of it is a modern construction. The concept of the surrogate parent is defined as individuals who stand in for a child's biological parents and have full rights, duties and responsibilities. In earlier centuries, children might be sent to aunts or uncles for help with rearing them; they might be sent at a young age to apprenticeships or away to school; they might be adopted by well-wishers or even family members but there was no system in place for legally substituting for parents in a contemporary surrogate fashion.

The Gardiners did like Jane and Elizabeth the best of the five girls because they were the most reasonable and rational and, moreover, the least silly and pretentious. Mrs. Gardiner did fill the role of confidant to Jane and Elizabeth and in that role give advice and counsel and also help them, especially Elizabeth, see things in a right light.

Having said this, it is possible to read Pride and Prejudice in such a way that the Gardiners appear to be surrogate parents for Jane and Elizabeth; however the caution must be given that the Gardiners did nothing that was out of place or unusual for aunts and uncles and family friends to do in earlier eras. Some examples of surrogate-like behavior on the part of the Gardiners would be taking a heartbroken Jane to London with them; advising Elizabeth to keep her heart from the "danger" of falling in love with Wickham; taking Elizabeth on a tour of the Lake District (which they never get to).

Larger incidents involve cleaning up the aftermath of Mr. Bennett's failure to safeguard Lydia, who throws herself on Wickham and runs off with him, and in revealing to Elizabeth the secret of Mr. Darcy's involvement in said aftermath. Mr. Bennett turns to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner for help after Lydia's running a muck, which may support the idea that the Gardiners stand in as surrogate parents who are interested in comforting Elizabeth and Jane and safeguarding their futures, which could be devastated by such a family calamity. Additionally, when Elizabeth discovers that Mr. Darcy was involved in rescuing Lydia, she turns immediately to Mrs. Gardiner for information. On the other hand, Elizabeth and Jane can never seek guidance or advice or comfort from Mrs. Bennett because they must be giving her these things when her "nerves" act up.

What is the equation of a line that passes through the point (3,-4) and has a slope of 2?

The other methods given here all yield correct equations, however the name of the form used in some of these solutions is not.

The Slope-Intercept Form of a linear equation is:

y=mx+b,

where m is the slope of the line, and b is the y-intercept of the line.  x and y are the coordinates of any point on the line, (x,y).

You could plug the slope (2) in for m, and the x (3) and y (-4) values for the given point in for x and y, then solve for the missing value, b (our y-intercept).

-4 = 2(3)+b

-4 = 6+b        then subtract 6 on each side to get...

-10 = b           There fore we have a y-intercept of -10 and a given slope of 2 giving us an equation in Slope-Intercept form of

y=2x-10

The other form given in the other solutions, (y-y1)=m(x-x1) is actually called the Point-Slope form of a line and is derived from the slope-intercept form.  Using this form, we can plug in the same coordinates given for x1 (3) and y1 (-4), and the slope for m (2).

(y--4)=2(x-3)

y+4=2x-6           subtract 4 from each side...

y=2x-10...the same solution as above.

What is the magnitude of the total force on the ball?5 boys are pushing on a snowball, and each is pushing with a force of 10.0N. however, each boy...

Let A ,B C ,D and E be the persons who push the ball north , north east, east, south east and sothern directions. Resolving the force of each in  North and eastern directions , we get:

A;  10 cos 0 = 10N   towards north  and   10 sin0 =0N east

B:10 cos 45=10/sqrt2Nnorth and     10 sin 45 =10/sqrt2N east

C: 10 cos90 =0N north  and  10 sin90  = 10N east

D: 10 cos (-135)= -10/sqrt2 N   and  10 sin135 = 10/sqrt2

E: 10 cos 180 = -10 N  north  and 10 sin 180 =0 east

Therefore: thesum of north components=(10+10/srt2+0-10/sqrt2-10)= 0 and the total of east components =2(10/sqrt2)+10 = 10(2/sqrt2 +10=10(sqrt2+1) N = 24.1421N approximately. Therefore the resultant of 0 north and 24.1421 N towards east is 24.1421 N and in eastern direction.

When does Hamlet decide to seek revenge for his father's murder? Support your response with reference to the play."Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

While Hamlet initially feels that he will revenge his father's death in Act I, he does not act impulsively.  Realizing that regicide is a serious offense--"And shall I couple hell?" (I,v,92)--Hamlet begins to hesitate:

This time is out of joint.   O cursed spite/That ever I was born to set it right! (I,v,187-188).

This hesitation continues through several soliloquies in the play as given to abstraction, "a dream itself is but a shadow" (II,ii,249), 

Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.  To me it [Denmark] is a prison. (II,ii, 241-242)

and philosophical debates with himself "What a piece of work is man...." and "To be or not to be....").  From this long self-examination and debate upon existential questions, Hamlet finally emerges from his self-reproach in Act IV, Scene 4 when, after considering his own delay in contrast to the willingness of Fortinbras and the Polish armies to fight for little more than honor:

....Rightly to be great/Is not to stir without great argument,/But greatly to find quarrel in a straw/When honor's at the stake.  How stand I then,/That have a father killed, a mother stained....O, from this time forth,? My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!(IV,iv, 53-66)

The change in Hamlet's character occurs in Act V, Scene 1 when he asserts himself as "Hamlet the Dane" (V,i,227). Rather than in the final scene, it is in the graveyard scene in which a new Hamlet emerges, one ready for action:  "the cat will mew, and dog will have his day"(V,i,264).

A deep and complex character given to much melancholic brooding and self-debate, Hamlet is all the more intriguing because he does not so quickly act upon his promise to his father's ghost because Denmark "is rotten" and the corruption in the court must be eradicated.

How many types of regional climates are found in Asia?

All over Asia there are 11 types of regional climates, plus mountain type.Equatorial climate , with heavy rainfall throughout the year, includes Indonesian archipelago, part of the Philippines and Malay Peninsula, ie Asia SE. Wet tropical climate ,  type, has a short dry season (winter). Is specific for Indochina and India.

Semi-arid tropical climate with a long season without rain (8-9 months per year),is met over some strips of India (Thar), and especially in  Indian Plateau (Deccan Plateau).Arid tropical climates (desert) is specific to Saudi, West Pakistan and Afghanistan (where summer rainy  monsoons stick to the NE and do not affect the mainland lying to the west of India).

Subtropical climate with rainy summers includes China and southern Japan, where  summer monsoons without bring rain from the Pacific Ocean. Mediterranean climate, with arid summer, is specific to the Mediterranean coast, southern Black Sea, advancing to the sheltered valleys to the south, under the Zagros Mountains to the Persian Gulf. It occurs relatively at the same latitude the climate before, but west facade of the continent.
Temperate climate with harsh winters, the damp type, has a very large expansion, from the Urals to the Pacific, including the part of northern China, especially in Japan.Winter is especially harsh, as we go eastwards. Here, for the northern light of day, is cold pole-Oimiakon , with - 71 degrees Celsius.

Temperate continental climate with harsh winters, but dry (steppe) is located above the southern climate (Central Asia, Tibet, part from Gobi, etc.). 
Temperate continental arid climate  (desert) occupies the center of the continent, east of the Caspian, north of the range of Himalaya.

Continental climate of the tundra (or subpolar) has very cold  winters. Occupies the strip of northern Taiga. Here is another pole of cold-Verhoiansk (-60 degrees Celsius). Annual rainfalls are below 250 mm
The polar climate is considered that one the glaciers, the Arctic islands specifically. It is a "white" desert,where wildlife are developed only along the coasts.

Describe "Candida" by George Bernard Shaw as a problem play..

A problem play is a play in the tradition of realism dealing with a problem--social, moral, political, philosophical and so on. The Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen pioneered this kind of drama in Europe, and Bernard Shaw in England followed suit.

'Candida' is a typical Shavian problem play that handles the problem of love and marriage, and of man-woman relationship. The arrival of the young poet, Eugene Marchbanks, at the house of the socialist clergyman, James Mavor Morell, and his long-married wife, Candida, catapults their happy married life, as the middle-aged Candida discovers herself strangely caught in between her dependent husband and her independent lover. Morell feels increasingly scared of being dispossessed of his wife's loving support without which he just cannot survive as a preacher and a social reformist. He gets apprehensive of a 'calf-love' between his wife and the young poet. Marchbanks, on the other hand, tells Candida of love-romance-imagination beyond the limits of domesticity and expediency. The triangular love-situation, an age-old motif in literature, however reaches its culmination in the 'auction scene' where Candida puts herself to auction, and chooses 'the weaker of the two', i.e. her husband Morell. Marchbanks leaves to dissolve into the darkness of the night, carrying the 'mystery' in his poet's heart.

Shaw chooses an apparently stereotypical love-triangle, in which a married woman falls in an extra-marital affair. But he charateristically turns the table as the woman is neither driven out by her husband, nor does she elope with her unlawful lover. Candida stays back with Morell because he is weaker than Marchbanks, and Morell desperately needs her. Morell is no longer the strong and self-important husband. It is rather Candida who is in full command of the emotional as well as social-economic situation.

Who are all the characters in Dear Mr. Henshaw?

The main character in Dear Mr. Henshaw is Leigh Botts, an inquisitive, troubled boy who writes letters to a children's author, Boyd Henshaw. Mr. Henshaw is a character in the story, but he never actually comes on the scene. All we know about him is what Leigh tells us and the letters he writes. 

Leigh's parents are also important characters. Bonnie is Leigh's mom, and she struggles to raise Leigh as a single mom. Bill is Leigh's dad, who left the family, and who Leigh doesn't get to see very often. 

At school, his teacher is Miss Martinez, but the person who encourages Leigh the most is the custodian. The librarian is Miss Neely, who notices Leigh's talent for writing. Angela Badger is another character who is a children's author who Leigh gets to meet. Angela Badger calls Leigh an "author" and gives him a sense of worth as a writer. 

In "The Black Cat" what earlier mention of violence foreshadows what the narrator does to his wife?

I am assuming that you are referring Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat."  The narrator explains that before his drinking problem, he had been a very nice man, amiable, with a fond love for animals.  However, his drinking effected a pretty drastic change upon him; he became irritable and violent, lashing out at his pets, and even beating his wife.  Any one of those acts might be a foreshadowing to the brutal murder that he later commits. One particular incident is when his black cat, Pluto, bites him as he grabs him violently.  The narrator becomes incensed with rage, and without thinking,

"I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!"

Fortunately, the cat recovers from this incident, but the narrator showed his tendency to inflict severe harm in fits of rage.  This foreshadows the later, much more dramatic fit of rage that later ends with his wife murdered.  He laters hangs the cat, but this incident was done calmly, with "tears streaming" from his eyes, and not in a violent fit of anger, like with the original brutality--the original harm to the cat mimics more closely his state of mind when he kills his wife.  Later, he takes an axe to the other cat that had followed him home one day--this raising of the axe could foreshadow what happened next:

"Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished."

Instead of killing the cat, however, as his wife tries to stop him, he turns on her and kills her instead.  On the whole, given the narrator's tendency to have violent fits of anger and rage, and to beat his wife and torture his animals, the end result should not be as surprising as it could have been.  I hope that helped; good luck!

Can anyone tell me if this is a good thesis statement, and if not, what I can do to improve it?"Known as a metaphysical poet, John Donne’s love...

That is an interesting thesis statement.  I would just change a word or two so that it read like this: "Known as a metaphysical poet, John Donne’s love poems convey both his true life experiences as well as humanity's struggles in everyday life." That is, unless you are trying to say that the "struggles in everyday life" that you are talking about are those specific to Donne.  If that is the case, I would consider wording it like this: "Known as a metaphysical poet, John Donne’s love poems convey his true life experiences, including his struggles during everyday life." Personally, I prefer the first version.

I am not sure that the first bit matches the last, though.  "Metaphysical" usually has something to do with trying to explain the nature of reality or discussing something that is beyond the physical laws of reality.  What your thesis seems to be saying is that "because Donne is known as a metaphysical poet his love poems have his true experiences and the struggles of people's everyday lives inside them."  To me, they just don't match.  It might be more apt to say "Even though Donne is known as a metaphysical poet, his love poems contain images that come from both his own experiences and the observations he makes regarding the struggles of other people."  This better explains, from my standpoint, why a poet known for thinking "metaphysically" would use such concrete examples.

That's just my thinking on it, though.

I like your outline, but I am not sure about the A,B, and C part.  They just don't seem to match your thesis, but I suppose without seeing them written out it is hard to tell.  Everything in your introduction should support your thesis statement, which says nothing about the conventions of poetry named in points A,B,C.  Does that make sense?

As for your "love poem vs. Sonnet" conundrum, well, that would depend, but I don't think it matters a whole lot. A sonnet is a poem, but a poem is not always a sonnet.  You'd have more of a problem if you called them "sonnets" (which implies the structure of a sonnet) and they weren't.  So that's the question...are all the poems you are talking about written in sonnet structure?

Anyway, hope this helped.  Good luck to you.

How can "threshold questions" such as standing be crucial to the outcome of a constitutional case?

While I agree with the previous responder that courts sometimes use standing to avoid deciding cases, standing has been an important part of American jurisprudence for many years. 

Part of the basis for standing is Constitutional. Court may only adjudicate "cases or controversies," meaning they cannot make a decision without a legitimate grievance and cannot make a decision on a hypothetical situation.  That means that the party who comes to the court seeking a solution must be the party who was harmed.  Otherwise, there is no case or controversy.  Another aspect of the doctrine of standing is more practical.  Courts could not function efficiently if anyone could go before the court to assert a general claim on behalf of other people.  Finally, the doctrine of standing has a common sense basis because when the court presents a solution for others who are not before the court, the outcome affects people who have not asked for an adjudication. I cannot go to court and ask the court to make a decision that would affect the life of another person or entity because only that person or entity should be able to do so.   

So, while standing can give a court some wiggle room, it is based upon sound Constitutional principles and inherently practical, sensible ideas.  Parties who do not have a case or controversy and who have no harm or right to assert before the court simply should not be in court.