What other books are similar to Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl?

Can you be more specific when you ask if there are other books similar to, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl? Do you want to know of more biographical or autobiographical works about young adults or would you like to know of more works written about the historical period of the Jewish Holocaust (1933-1945)?

Some works I can suggest about the Jewish Holocaust period are: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Night by Elie Wiesel, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal, and The Short Life of Sophie Scholl by Hermann Vinke. These are some of the books I read in the various Holocaust- related courses I took in college. The last book is from the Jewish Virtual Library website. The works are about the life of an individual that lived during the Jewish Holocaust period of history. The works also serve as a reflection on the feelings the individual had at the time and/or after the events transpired.

How are Shakespeare's plays categorized?

In general, Shakespeare's plays fall into four categories.  These categories can vary, and the plays within them can vary, but for the most part these are the subcategories of his Renaissance plays:

1.  Tragedies: These plays, of course, represent the downfall of a tragic hero with all the common elements of a tragedy.  Examples include Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Macbeth.

2. Comedies: Unlike the tragedies, Shakespeare's comedies end happily, almost always with a marriage. Examples include The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing, and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

3. Histories: While these plays normally fall within the bounds of a tragedy because of the hero's tragic downfall, flaw, and realization, they also focus on real-life figures, such as Shakespeare's Henry V, Richard III, etc.

4. Romances: The rarest of Shakespeare's plays, the romance blends tragic elements with a happier ending.  A Winter's Tale is the best example of this, and some literary critics would place The Merchant of Venice in this category because while it ends happily for the couples; it is tragic for Shylock, and Antonio--another main character--retains his melancholy outlook at the play's conclusion.

What is the significance (importance) of the title "The Merchant of Venice"?

Here is some insight for you:

There are two merchants in the play which immediately creates "confusion" or ambiguity.  There is Antonio, a merchant and friend of a man named Bassanio, and Shylock, a Jewish merchant. Either Antonio or Shylock might be the title character of the play, so from the start we don’t get a real sense of who the main character is. But what we do know is that ambiguity will be a central point of this play. Who does Shakespeare side with?  Does he take a side?  Who is his protagonist?

How does methylmercury affect the human body and how did it end up in the food chain?

The amount of mercury in the body is directly associated with risk of heart disease, shows an international study  published in prestigious journal "The New England Journal of Medicine".

The study, which included several hundred people from nine countries showed that current levels of mercury in some fish species undo the beneficial effects of certain fatty acids (such as the type of Omega3 fatty) and may increase the risk of an heart attack.American experts from FDA recommend consumers to continue to eat especially fish and seafood in which mercury level is not so high: sardines, salmon and shrimp. Although fish is recommended as a healthy food, these species assimilating amounts of mercury in their bodies that can cause birth defects in fetuses. Researchers believe that a pregnant woman can eat  fish but only to vary the species from menu as much they can,  from molluscs to small oceanic fish  . 

Mercury normally present in rocks, lakes, streams and oceans, and also the one added by human activity, changes under the action of bacteria in an organic form, much more toxic, called methylmercury.This one, is much easier to fix in tissues and accumulates in fish meat, thus achieving very high levels. Acceptable limit of the concentration of methylmercury in fish meat sold is 0.5 parts per million (ppm). Following measurements revealed that, in general, meat shark, swordfish or tuna (fresh or frozen) has a concentration ranging between 0.5 and 1.5 ppm.

It is not the case with preserved tuna, whose concentration is limited to 0.5 ppm revealed by the tests made at the time of processing, but that usually for canned fish which are smaller, younger, so they do not have time to accumulate methylmercury toxic doses  in their tissues. It isrecommended that these types of fish to be consumed not more than once a week, and in pregnant women and small children, not more than once a month. 

 
 

How does the theme of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot relate to the Freudian Theory of Psychoanalysis?

T.S. Eliot was under the strain of a troubled marriage and had been in psychotherapy when he wrote The Waste Land, a poem the language of which displays disintegration and irrationality.

According to Freudian psychology-based psychoanalytic criticism, the meaning of the text of The Waste Land encompasses the psyche of the author, T.S. Eliot. Marwa Makram Attiya, in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, According to Psychoanalytic Criticism, translates the Epigraph at the head of The Wasteland as stating that the Sibyl from mythology was hanging in a cage and when asked what she wanted, retorted, "I want to die." According to Freudian theory as expounded in psychoanalytical criticism, this adheres to the Freudian principle of a death drive, also known as a death wish.

This death theme is carried out from the beginning of The Waste Land and incorporates themes of cold burial and void. Eliot's Freudian alter ego (the textual representation of a creative author's self), the narrator, speaks of burying memories under cold blankets of snow, which symbolizes the cold sod of earth that covers memories in death. The void of death is symbolized as the empty sea. This symbolism is enhanced when Madam Sosostris presages his death by water: The present and future burying of memorable life in a void. Psychoanalytically, this reflects Eliot's state of mind regarding a life of memories he seeks to bury and the void he feels his life to be, which correlates with the Freudian death drive.

The Waste Land then transitions into a scene in London where the foregoing themes and symbols are enhanced further by the narrator's conversation with Stetson. The end result of the conversation is the pronunciation that everything, symbolized by Stetson's crop, is dead and that dead things can never grow and bloom. The narrator's conclusion, as expressed in his final remarks, underscores the Freudian death drive evident all through The Wasteland. Eliot's Freudian alter ego narrator states that all who believe that life can thrive and bloom are hypocrites because all is dead, and death, a void, cannot live or bloom.

Harry Trosman in After The Waste Land: Psychological Factors in the Religious Conversion of T. S. Eliot states:

The Waste Land was...the product of a period of severe psychological distress in the life of [T.S. Eliot]. The poem was mostly written in 1921...During the previous two or three years, Eliot had been exhausted, depressed, anxious, hypochondriacal and he dreaded a psychotic disintegration. [He] was unable to continue to work. He obtained a three-month leave of absence...to enter psychiatric treatment...The events leading up to his illness, the psychological reactions which ensued, the psychopathology, the nature of the psychotherapy and the probable effects of these factors on the composition of The Waste Land have been described in a recent publication (Trosman, 1974).

[Also see T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, According to Psychoanalytic Criticism, by Marwa Makram Attiya, which was a source for my remarks.]

What does this quote by Thoreau mean: "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us?"

This quote comes from "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau.  In it, he is arguing that we have come to be too materialistic (which is, of course, a large part of why he went to live by Walden Pond in the first place).

What he is pointing out in this quote is that we make things, like railroads, and we think that we are using them to our advantage.  But in reality, he says, we are slaves to them once we have them.  Instead of living life, we are always trying to acquire more things.

You might think about who is using whom in the context of cell phones today.  They started out as a convenience, but now they make it so a lot of people can never relax because they're always available for people to call them.

Gilgamesh was two-thirds god and one-third man. What conflict may derive from such a combination?

This tension drives the story, and defines Gilgamesh's character. At the beginning of the poem, he is described as the greatest king, yet he is a tyrant, sending men off to war & taking women against their will. The divine in his personality creates a belief that he is above all other people, able to do what he wants with no regard for the consequences. It is because of this tension between his mortal and supernatural natures that Enkidu is created.

Enkidu is intended to be the equal of Gilgamesh, but his opposite as well. Enkidu has the wild nature, rather than the divine. It is this friendship that intends to tame them both, but leads to tragedy. Because of Gilgamesh's desire to be remembered, they seek the monster of the forest. In defeating him, Enkidu is sentenced to death by the gods. It is this death that awakens Gilgamesh to his own mortality. Although he is part-god, he is not immortal. Thus, he begins his journey to seek eternal life.