In The Handmaid's Tale, Offred makes a point of saying that she is not writing this down. Why is that important?

The narrator of this novel is what is known as
"unreliable" although not for the usual reasons one uses this term. Normally an
unreliable narrator cannot be trusted to give the whole story because they may be
dishonest, or ignorant of the truth, or intentionally trying to deceive their audience.
They may also be sociopathic or insane. In Offred's case, it is possible, given the
extreme controlling nature of the society she lives in, that her every communication and
movement is watched by the government. And so maybe her entire story is being coerced.
Also, we learn at the book's end in a strange epilogue that her story was a "found"
record of some kind, and its provenance is portrayed as dubious, even as the
circumstances she portrays have apparently become even more pronounced in the future
society discussing her manuscript.

In Fahrenheit 451, what is Montag's plan to escape?

Montag has committed murder by killing Captain Beatty with
his flamethrower.  His wife had already turned him in and left him.  He knows there is
no way to survive in the city, his name and face are all over the television, and the
mechanical hounds will soon be turned loose to hunt him down, so he has to leave the
city altogether.

He stops at Faber's house first, almost
foolishly, and gets some advice as to who to look for.  He manages to throw off the
hounds enough to make it to the river and out of town just before the war starts and the
city is destroyed.  There he finds other refugee intellectuals in the same boat as
he.

What similarities does Death and the King's Horseman share with Greek tragedy?

The distinguishing feature of Greek tragedy that relates
it to Soyinka's play Death and the King's Horseman is that the hero
suffers death (or some other horrific consequence like blinding and exile) as a result
of a tragic flaw in his character that leads to a fatal mistake or decision resulting in
vastly horrible consequences, including the hero's own tragic end. In Soyinka's play,
this scenario plays out exactly as in Greek
theatre.

Elesin's tragic flaw is his womanizing
vanity:

readability="6">

ELESIN: Come then. this market is my roost. When
I come among the women I am a chicken with a hundred mothers. I become a monarch whose
palace is built with tenderness and
beauty.

This flaw, his vain
enjoyment of his prowess with women and his thirst for
them,

ELESIN:
... the smell of their flesh, their sweat, the smell of indigo on their cloth, this is
the last air I wish to breathe
...

is what causes him to
make his fatal mistake: He becomes distracted from his purpose in the love embrace of a
woman whom he has never seen before on the night of his ritual sacrifice for the king's
death.

The horrible consequences of his fatal mistake are
that he fails to enact his ritual soon enough; he is arrested so that Pilking, a British
civil representative in Nigeria, is not compromised before the visiting Prince of
England; his eldest son, who is disgusted with his father's failure, ritualistically
offers his own life for the dead king so the balance of the universe may be maintained
according to custom.

The final consequences of Elesin's
fatal mistake is that, even though chained and in prison, he manages to perform his
ritual sacrifice after Iyaloja and his new bride, pregnant with Elesin's child, bring
his son's body to show him the fatal consequence of his failure.

How many grams of solute are contained in 95.0 ml of a 1.80% "weight by weight" solution?

A "weight by weight" solution is a mixture in which the
concentration is measured as the ratio of the mass of the solute in grams divided by the
volume of the solution measured in milliliters expressed as a percent, assuming that the
solvent is water (density of 1g/mL).

The formula is (%W/W)
= grams solute/volume of solution.

To determine the mass of
the solute you must do a step of algebra and isolate the variable for
mass:

grams of solute = (%W/W)x volume of
solution

Before we can do the calculation we must also
convert the percent to a decimal.

grams of solute = 0.0180
X 95.0 = 1.71 grams.

How can the prologue of The Remains of the Day be contextualised from a historical or cultural point of view?I know that it starts July 1956, the...

The context of the prologue is indeed important because,
as you suggest, it marked the end of the Brtish Empire with the Suez Crisis. In Stevens'
mind, however, the glory days of the Empire are for him the best days of his own life
and he talks with affection about 'tradition' and times when 'the greatest ladies and
gentlemen of the land gathered'. It is not until later in the novel that we realise that
some of these gentlemen were in fact Nazi sympathisers and actually the period Stevens
thinks of so fondly was a period in which shameful things
occurred.

You are right to point to Stevens' self-restraint
and reluctance to talk to his new master which contrasts sharply with his
master's more casual ways such as his love of 'bantering'. Stevens even plans to wear
his old master's suits for his journey to see Miss Kenton, a clear statement of his
longing for the past.

The fact that the novel is written in
first person is also clear from the Prologue and we get a clear insight into Stevens'
mind although we do begin to question what really happened as we read on. He does not
seem to feel he has a voice even though he has been in charge of a large household.
Clearly Mr Farraday represents the new 'American' way of doing things and is not always
familiar with what is 'commonly done'. Stevens is signalling the beginnings of the
influence of American culture on Britain which will continue with the advent of rock and
roll, and so on.

Describe a situation that illustrates why a restaurant needs to follow truth in menu guideliness?

I can think of many reasons for restaurants to tell the
truth regarding the items on their menus.

Food allergies
are one obvious concern. People who have immediate and severe reactions when they eat
certain foods need to be aware of the presence of those ingredients in the foods they
are ordering. For some individuals, they may not even be able to be in the same room as
foods that trigger reactions.

Some religions include
dietary guidelines that believers must follow. When someone with such beliefs is
traveling in a foreign culture, knowing the ingredients in unfamiliar dishes is the only
way they have to remain within the requirements of their
faith.

Health considerations are another reason for
restaurants to provide truthful information about their products. Persons trying to
limit cholesterol or sodium need to be aware of the amount of such items in the foods
they eat. Persons who are working to limit or increase intake of certain nutrients
appreciate guidelines to selection of foods that fulfill their
needs.

What is an example of a metaphor in Brave New World?

One example of a metaphor in Brave New
World can be found towards the end of Chapter 2.  There, the Director has
been showing the students the rooms in which babies are being conditioned through
hypnopaediea.  He explains to them how the process works.  He then says (and here the
narrator of the book paraphrases) that the repeated phrases the children hear in their
sleep are

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drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere,
incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one
scarlet blob.

There are two
metaphors here.  The hypnopaedia lessons are compared to drops of liquid wax while the
children’s brains and selves are compared to a rock.  As the wax drops on to the rock,
bit by bit, the rock disappears beneath all of the wax.  All that is left, it would
appear, is the wax.  This helps us to understand how the process of hypnopaedia works to
cover over the children’s minds so that all that is left is what the society wants them
to believe.  They have become, to all outward appearances, not themselves (not the rock)
but the sum of what they have been taught (the wax covering).

What is the conflict in Dickens' Great Expectations?

There are two predominant conflicts in Great
Expectations. The first is in the conflict category of Human against Human
while the second is Human against Self. From the beginning Pip is set-up in a position
of double conflict with Estella (Human against Human). Miss Havisham wants to (1) use
Pip to punish mankind for her betrayal at the alter. Her clever scheme is to (2) cause
Pip to fall in love with Estella who has been taught to scorn males with a cold, proud
vanity that is unyielding. This conflict is resolved at the end of the story when
Estella confess that she continued in "remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was
quite ignorant of its worth" and Pip reciprocates with "in all the broad expanse of
tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from
her."

As his tutelage under Miss Havisham continues, and he
attributes his fortune to her, Pip comes to be in conflict with himself (Human against
Self) as he learns to adopt as he own the proud and arrogant ways that Miss Havisham and
Estella epitomize. Pip comes to scorn anything and anyone who does not stand up to their
measure, including good but rough Joe who has only Pip's best interests at heart. When
Pip promises Magwitch that he will always stay by his side, he offers tangible proof
that he has overcome this conflict and has shed the domination of Estella's and Miss
Havisham's hatred and pride.

readability="9">

"I will never stir from your side," said I, "when
I am suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to
me!"

What is the point of intersection of lines -2x+y-1 and x+y-5?

These are not equations of lines because there are no
equal signs in the equations.

Assuming the equations
are...

-2x + y = 1

x + y =
5

Set both equations to equal
y.

-2x + y = 1               y = 1 +
2x

x + y = 5                  y = 5 -
x

Since both equations equal y, then they equal each
other.

1 + 2x = 5 - x

Solve
for x.

1 + 3x = 5

3x =
4

x = 4/3

Now substitute 4/3
in for x in one of the equations and solve for y.

y = 5 -
x

y = 5 - 4/3

y =
11/3

You can check this by substituting 4/3 for x and 11/3
for y in the other equation.

y =  1 +
2x

11/3 = 1 + 2 * 4/3

11/3 = 1
+ 8/3

11/3 = 11/3    
check!

Point of Intersection:  (4/3 ,
11/3)

This question can also be solved
graphically.  Rewrite both equations in slope-intercept
form.

y = -1x + 5

y = 2x +
1

Graph both equations and find the point of
intersection.

src="/jax/includes/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/asciisvg/js/d.svg"
sscr="-1,3,-1,5,1,1,1,1,1,300,200,func,-1x+5,null,0,0,,,black,1,none,func,2x+1,null,0,0,,,black,1,none"/>

Notice
that the point of intersection is (4/3, 11/3) or ( class="AM">`~~` 1.3, `~~`
3.7).

Why did John's mother have to leave the dinner table in The Pigman?It's in chapters 7-9.

The answer to this question can be found in Chapter Seven
of this great novel. John describes the way that he was able to leave his house easily
in order to meet Lorraine and go to Mr. Pignati's house. The poor relationship he has
with his father gives him ample reason to be able to leave home and walk off in anger,
and this is what happens when his father, nicknamed "the Bore" by his son, starts
getting at John over the dinner table. His mother's normal reaction to such events is to
leave, as is shown when John explains her actions:

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"I have to get the dessert," the Old Lady said,
violently polishing a teaspoon and dashing out to the kitchen. She always gets terrified
if it looks like my father and I are going to have any type of
discussion.

Thus, ostensibly,
John's mother leaves the table to fetch dessert, but really, we know that she cannot
handle any overt conflict between her husband and son, and as a result leaves the table
to avoid witnessing yet another fight between them.

How does the type of rhyme (rising or falling) in the last stanza affect the tone and impact of the poem "Desert Places"?

In "Desert Places," by Robert Frost, there is a
significant change in the rhyming words used in the last stanza of the poem.  Even
though the same pattern is kept with the first, second, and fourth lines rhyming, the
type of rhyme varies.

If I understand your question
correctly, the first three stanzas use masculine rhymes--all one-syllable rhymes.  The
final syllable of each line is accented.  Note the words "fast," "past," and "last," for
instance in the first stanza.  Here Frost uses an iambic rhythm, or a rising
rhythm.

The last stanza, however, consists of feminine
rhymes--more than one syllable rhymes and the final syllable is not accented. Note the
words, "spaces," "race is," and "places." This type of rhyme results in a falling
rhythm.  The effect of such a change is subtle.  With the feminine rhymes, there is a
lack of finality, a sense of continuing action--almost as if the speaker is drifting
off--overwhelmed and engulfed by his own emptiness, giving the last stanza a more
haunting tone as if there is no relief for the feelings that are evoked by the
snow-covered field.

In the poem "Daffodils," how does nature affect the author's state of mind?

Nature positively affects the author's state of mind in a
variety of ways.

First, the author experiences much of
nature starting with the sky by imagining himself a cloud. This point of view gives him
the opportunity to see how vast the beautiful and happy flowers are. It seems to him
that at a glance his eye can capture tens of thousands of them. Also, he considers the
daffodils in comparison to the sparkling waves of the ocean. He seems to say that the
daffodils are happier than the waves.

Second, the author
uses word choice to express how the daffodils make him feel: pleasure, jocund,
glee, and gay.

Third, he
gives the daffodils action, the ability to dance. This could also be considered
personification. Dancing is an act that occurs out of celebration, not
depression.

Finally, the author reflects later upon this
image and he can re-create the image in his head, especially when he's in an empty mood.
This image is one he wishes to remember and upon remembering it, his mood is
brightened:

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For oft, when on my couch I lie
In
vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is
the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And
dances with the
daffodils.

P.S. I
noticed that you had several questions in your opportunity to provide further detail to
explain your original question. As editors, we are only to answer one question at a
time, so you can repost those in separate questions if you like.

Identify Sydney Carton's role in the novel, physical description, and adjectives to describe his traits.

John Gross quote 'Sydney Carton a far more, striking
figure'. Carton plays the decisive role in the novel. Its Sydney who saved Darnay's life
from the laws of death and gives immense relief to the affected family. As a man he was
brilliant, he was talented, he was highly intellegent, he was noble, yet he was lonely
man. In his school dayshe voluntarilt worked out the class exercises for other students,
but had not mind. Then he took to drinking, but nobody ever saw him drunk. Even after
taking large quantities of wines, his brain was sharp, and Stryver picked his brains to
build up his own reputation and win the cases and to swell his bank balance. Carton's
genius isolates him from the crowd. He had no ambition. He had no illusion about life.
Never does he wear mask. Perhaps he exaggerates his faults and follies, when he told
Lucy that he "Like one who died young". He told her that he is a wastrel, a profligate,
a drunkard. Though he was addicted to wine but his moral sense was never daedened.
Sydney as a man of action became a Christ like figure, sacrificing his life for the
misguided humanity and dreaming of a better and nobler world. He expiates for the sins
of the revolutionaries. Before facinf the guillotine, he inspires a poor seamstress,
clinging to him for moral support. He calls her his sister and inspired her to face the
death to have life enternal. and when his turn came, he quietly says, "It is a far, far
better thing that i do, than i have ever done; it is far far better rest that i go than
i have ever known".It was a voluntary self sacrifice, and hence there was dignity, there
was humanity in his death, but no tragic pathos. Thus, Carton plyed an importat role in
the novel, without him the novel would be flat. He helps to progress the novel. The
novel supplies very gloomy and dark side dut it is Sidney who ends the novel with bright
dreams ana positive hopes for the future.

In the book Night, what are the results of the struggle of faith in Akiba Drumer?

When Eliezer says that he will never be able to forget
that first night in Auschwitz because it "murdered" his faith in God, I think that Akiba
Drumer's predicament speaks loudest to such a condition.  When Akiba loses his faith, it
is a moment that there is little redemption in the Holocaust.  The source of so much in
way of spirituality, Akiba continues to encourage those around him that all they endure
is simply a test.  Akiba's boundless faith is a faint hope that there can be spiritual
redemption and that the Nazis have not succeeded in murdering God.  Yet, when he loses
faith, and ends up wandering in a daze, caused by a lack of direction and an abdication
of spiritual self, it is another confirmation that God is absent for those who suffer in
the Holocaust.  The "murder" of God is something that is seen with the loss of Akiba's
faith.  It helps to be reinforce the idea that the horror of the Holocaust is something
whose true terror resided in the level of psychological or emotional cruelty that the
perpetrators were able to inflict on the victims.  The physical violations were on the
same level as the internal ones, as demonstrated through the character of Akiba
Drumer.

Discuss the idea of conformity versus individuality as presened in fahrenheit 451.

The story of the novel is Montag's move from a conformist
to an individual.  In the opening pages the reader sees Montag as the ultimate example
of a conforming member of society and "fireman."  He doesn't question what he is doing
and actually revels in his duty of burning books.  He may not be particularly happy in
his marriage, but he doesn't question it or his wife (and her friends)
behavior.

When Montag meets Clarisse, he begins to question
his previous conformity.  Slowly he sees the value in books and the life they open up
for him.  By questioning and confronting his duty, his marriage, and indeed the whole
society, Montag chooses to pursue another path.  He eventually refuses to conform and
leaves the city in order to live outside the oppressive culture.  On the road, holding
bits and pieces of books in his head, he expresses his individuality.  The reader comes
to understand that conformity is dull and dangerous.

Why were the children ashamed when they heard Atticus was helping a black man in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Not all of the children in To Kill a
Mockingbird were ashamed that Atticus had taken on the responsibility of
defending the black man, Tom Robinson, of the rape accusation against him. Scout and Jem
certainly supported their father, and Dill fell in line with his friends. All three of
them were affected by both the testimony and the eventual verdict, since they had all
come to the conclusion that Tom was innocent of the
charges.

Other children in the story were not so
enlightened. Scout's cousin, Francis, mocked her for Atticus' decision, and Francis
called Atticus a "nigger-lover." Of course, Francis' own opinion was shaped by other
members of his family who thought Atticus was wrong to defend the black man. Cecil
Jacobs was another of Scout's schoolmates who taunted her for the same reason. We can
assume that Cecil's parents also believed that Atticus was betraying his race for taking
the case. Racism was strong in Maycomb and in Alabama, so it was not surprising that
many people believed Atticus had made a foolish choice in taking this particular
client.

Where and when is Romeo and Juliet set?

Romeo and Juliet takes place in the cities of Verona
(where the families of the Montegues and Capultes live) and Mantua (where the sword
fight takes place), Italy over the course of four days.

It
is set in the "olden days" which generally is accepted as during the Renassaince era of
the 14th or 15th centuries. However, since the setting is purposely vague, it is a
classic tale of starcrossed lovers that has been redone in many eras including the 50's
in West Side Story, and even the modern tale of High School
Musical.

In Fahrenheit 451, what did the railroad tracks mean to Montag?

In the most simplistic of ways, the railroad tracks mean
that Montag is to change into his new form. The tracks lead to the group of wanderers
known as "the book covers."  As he follows them, Montag knows that he has shed his
identity from the city as a fireman, once and for all.  He knows that such a
consciousness is dead and that there can be no going back.  It is why he thinks of
Clarisse as Montag walks along the tracks.  Once the tracks lead to Granger and the new
group, Montag is able to embrace his new identity and his new conception of self.  The
change that was initiated by Clarisse's interaction and the question of "Are you happy?"
has now led to this new form of being a "book cover."  The railroad tracks represents
this new conception of self and Montag recognizes this.  He understands that his new
identity lies as he follows these tracks away from the city and towards a new sense of
self.  In the end, this is what the tracks mean and what they represent to Montag.  In a
condition where Montag needed guidance and understanding in his reconception of self,
the railroad tracks provided a physical path to follow in order to achieve a sense of
internal change.

Is The Lovely Bones based on a true story?

The Lovely Bones movie was
ambitiously directed by Peter Jackson, who brought us The Lord Of The
Rings and Hobbit trilogies. In the movie, the pedophile
character, George Harvey, rapes, murders, and dismembers 14 year old Susie Salmon; Susie
is lured into an underground den when she takes a shortcut home from school one day. The
story is set in the year 1973. While George Harvey is a fictional pedophile, his profile
is a composite of many of the nation's most heinous child predators. His victims,
including Susie Salmon, are mostly young girls and female teenagers (again, all the
victims are fictional composites of actual serial killer
victims).

The author, Alice Sebold, was herself a victim of
rape. While returning to her college dormitory room one evening, she was brutally
assaulted and raped in a tunnel to an amphitheater. She was later to find out that a
young woman had been murdered and dismembered in that same tunnel. Later, Sebold took
the stand at her rape trial, and the rapist was given the maximum sentence for rape and
sodomy. So, you could say that, for Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
was personally cathartic. The novel started out as Monsters,
and was briefly named This Wide Heaven before it
became The Lovely Bones. Writing provided an avenue for Sebold to
deal with her own pain and anguish. At the same time that she acknowledges that her
novel is a work of fiction, Sebold allows for the fact that her readers will be tempted
to explore the link between the novel and her own rape. She realizes that it is only
natural that her readers would want to make sense of the
connection.

What is the summary of "The Solitary Reaper"?

Wordsworth's poem "Solitary Reaper" is the speaker's
thoughts regarding his happening upon a young "Highland lass" who is reaping (cutting or
gathering- as with crops) and singing to herself. The speaker is so enamoured with the
young woman that he begins to compare her voice to those of the birds with whom he is
very familiar.

The speaker states that the young woman's
voice is like no other he has heard. It cannot be replicated by the nightingale, and it
breaks the silence like not even the cuckoo bird can.

In
the third stanza, the speaker ponders the meaning of the young woman's song. He is not
familiar with the song and seems so intrigued by it that he believes that knowing the
meaning will make the song mean even more to him.

In the
final stanza, the speaker decides that the meaning of the song is unimportant. Instead,
he seems to realize that the song, regardless of influence of meaning, changed
him:

The music
in my heart I bore, /Long after it was heard no
more.

In the end, the poem is
simply about the life-changing outcome of a perchance happening upon a woman
harvesting.

What European ideology was Tojo, Japanese leader WWII, part of (fascisim, communism, reactionism or conservatism)?

I would argue that Tojo was the Japanese embodiment of the
fascism that swept through Europe.  Tojo held some key similarities with fascist
ideology that was so prevalent in Europe.  On one hand, Tojo believed that the key to a
nation's progress resided in military enhancement.  Tojo had no problem advocating the
military as the primary means in which Japanese political identity would be advanced. 
This is similar to the military aggressiveness of nations like Italy and Germany and the
fascist governments that pursued such an agenda in these nations.  Additionally, similar
to the fascist governments of Europe, Tojo became an embodiment of his nation.  As of
October 1941, Tojo was the Japanese government, taking over "the job of prime minister,
while remaining head of the departments of war, education, commerce, and industry." 
This is very similar to Mussolini and Hitler, fascist leaders who strongly forged the
link between themselves and the totality of government and nation.  Finally, in his
acceptance of the tripartite alliance between Germany and Italy in order to secure
Japanese world power, Tojo probably made his strongest statement of fascist
ideology.

What does the word "geopolitics" mean ?

This is one of those terms that has a different meaning in
academia than it does in common usage.

In common usage,
people tend to use this word interchangeably with "international politics."  It is a
word that refers to political issues that have to do with large areas of the globe all
at once.

In academia, the word has a much more specific
meaning.  It refers to a school of thought in international relations that is very much
concerned with geography (therefore the "geo" in "geopolitics").  Perhaps the most
famous example of this was the theory propounded by Sir Halford Mackinder about 100
years ago.  He postulated that whoever controlled Eastern Europe would control the world
because of the geographical location of that region and its size relative to the rest of
the world.

Throughout Guns, Germs, and Steel, how does Diamond address the issues he discusses in the last few pages of his final chapter?

In the last few pages of the book, Diamond proposes that
historians should treat their subject like a science.  He says that many sciences, like
geology and climate science, rely on "natural experiments" where scientists have to try
to compare things that have already happened with one another and infer rules from the
differences in what happened.  Scientists have to do that because they cannot simply
change some factor in the earth's atmosphere, for example, and see what happens. 
Diamond says historians should do the same with human
history.

In the rest of the book, Diamond tries to do
this.  He does it most clearly in Chapter 2.  There, he looks at Polynesian societies. 
He asks why various Polynesian societies turned out so differently.  He comes to the
conclusion that their differences were caused by the environments in which they arose. 
Another example of how Diamond does this is found in Chapter 15.  There, Diamond looks
at the differences between Aboriginal Australian societies and European societies in
Australia.  From the way they turned out, he concludes that Aborigines were not
culturally inclined to reject farming and technology.  Instead, he says that geography
was behind the changes.

In ways like these, Diamond
conducts "natural experiments" throughout his book.

What are some quotes that describe Ponyboy's traits from The Outsiders?

Oh I MUST add a very important quote by both Ponyboy and
Robert Frost here!  In my opinion, Ponyboy reciting "Nothing Gold Can Stay" to Johnny
and, of course, discussing the poem with Cherry Valence, shows Ponyboy to also be a
sensitive, thoughtful, intelligent, and introspective young
man.

Let's look at the poem Ponyboy recites and how it
shows the above qualities:

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Nature's first green is gold
Her
hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an
hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to
grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can
stay.

Probably one of Robert
Frost's most famous (and most memorized poems), Ponyboy recites this to Johnny as they
share their thoughts while running from the law.  Sunset and sunrise are such brief
times of day.  Brief, but beautiful.  Ponyboy proves himself THOUGHTFUL as he reflects
on this brief beauty in nature.  The fact that this exact beauty and thought remain with
him for a lifetime (and that he would share them with a special girl) prove him
SENSITIVE.  The fact that Ponyboy can simply memorize this poem and recite it again and
again, with emphasis (and analysis!), proves him INTELLIGENT.  And, finally, the fact
that he can compare the gold of a sunrise or sunset to his own life, and even the lives
of his buddies such as Johnny and Dally, prove him to be
INTROSPECTIVE. 

As Johnny is dying, these are the reasons
why he tells Ponyboy to "stay gold."  It is a beautiful sentiment from one friend to
another unifying them in character, especially in regards to the traits mentioned
above.

How does the author structure the characterization of the narrator in "The Scarlett Ibis"?

In "The Scarlet Ibis," the narrator shares his memory of
his childhood. He shares the events that made up his life as the older brother to
Doodle, a handicapped child. The narrator is not named. Doodle calls him Brother. This
story is composed of various literary techniques, along with a plot that is driven
through characterization of the narrator:

readability="11">

Its value to students of literature lies in its
rich use of such devices as foreshadowing and symbolism, its sensitive use of setting to
comment on the action, and its compassionate treatment of universal human values and
limitations, as well as its compelling, character-driven
plot.

Brother tells the
story. We learn about Brother and other characters through the descriptions of the
narrator. The story is told in first person point of view. It is based on the narrator's
reminiscence of childhood:

readability="8">

The story is told as a first-person reminiscence
by Brother, who looks back from some time in his maturity to events that took place in
his childhood. Thus he is able to imbue the raw events with his reflections on the
lessons he learned from
them.

Brother shares how he
was ashamed of his handicapped brother. We learn how vulnerable Doodle is. We learn of
his amazing triumphs in the midst of his frailness. The narrator reveals his own
prejudices and the shame that follows his moments of meanness to his little
brother:

The
narrative technique of reminiscence also enables Brother to foreshadow events before
they are described in the
narrative,

Brother tells of
the scarlet ibis. He uses the bird's death to foreshadow Doodle's death. The story is
told through brother's eyes:

readability="8">

That readers only observe the other characters
through Brother's eyes might suggest that their sympathies lie with him. However, many
readers will sympathize more with Doodle because of the emotional honesty of the adult
Brother.

Brother is candid.
He is brutally honest. He holds nothing back. He tells of his shameful behavior at
pushing Doodle to do more than he could comfortably or realistically do. He leaves
Doodle trailing in a rain storm. Doodle collapses and dies from overexertion. Brother
runs back to him and falls on Doodle's limp body. As brother is weeping, his heart
breaks in two. We see the narrator's anguish through his candid
reminiscing.

readability="10">

The adult Brother, however, does not gloss over
his negative feelings for Doodle, and this candor increases readers' sympathy for the
younger boy, the target of those
feelings.

The author develops
the characterization of Brother through the narrator's memory. Brother tells the whole
story. He leaves nothing out. His narrative is so open and truthful. The reader can both
understand the narrator's sentiments while realizing that the narrator's shame as an
adult is still real. The reader has sympathy for Brother and
Doodle.

What does Granger mean by his quote in Fahrenheit 451, “You're not important. You're not anything”?

Granger is talking about how insignificant every human
actually is. Not a single one of us will live but more than a glimpse in the long scheme
of time. What we do with that little moment is important, but even those who are
well-recognized in their time, and even after, rarely last forever in the memories of
those who follow. Granger followed the words you quoted with
these:

But even when we had the books
on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on
insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who
died before us.

His point is that we
don't do much with what we have while we have it. So before we get conceited and think
we have life and everything around us all figured out, it is important to recognize how
small we are in the large scheme of things. On his own, Montag isn't much. But the power
of the group could be tremendous if each one did their part.

In Stephen Dunn's poem "Hawk," how is the hawk significant, how can a reader justify considering it as a symbol, and what does it symbolize?

Stephen Dunn’s poem titled “Hawk” clearly seems to treat the bird
mentioned in its title as a symbol.  The mere fact that Dunn spends so much time,
effort, and space describing the bird suggests that he is doing more than writing about
one particular hawk. Like many lyric poets, Dunn seems to be focusing on this particular
bird as a symbol of something (or some things) other than itself. Now the question is
“what might the hawk symbolize”? The poem provides various clues.
·        
The hawk may partially symbolize the unpredictable and dangerous nature of life, as its
crash into the speaker’s window suggests (4-7).
·         The hawk may
partially symbolize the resilience of living things and their natural yearning for
freedom and independence, since the hawk,

. . . 
not dead, got up
 
dazed, and in minutes was gone.
(8-9)

 
·         The hawk may
partially symbolize the distinctions between humans and nature, since the speaker
proclaims of the hawk that “this is its sky, this is its woods”
(11).
·         The hawk may partially symbolize the fact that creatures which
seem, in some senses, beautiful and admirable nevertheless obey natural instincts, such
as the instinct to kill and eat smaller creatures, as when the speaker mentions “The
tasty small birds it [that is, the hawk] loves” (12).
·         The hawk and
its relation to the small birds may partially symbolize humans and their relations to
God or to the powers that massively affect their lives, as when the speaker says that
the small birds

have seen their God and
know
the suddenness of such love
as we know lightning or flash
flood. (13-15)

 
In short, the hawk
may plausibly symbolize many different meanings, and lines such as the ones just quoted
seem to justify regarding the hawk as symbolic.  In these lines, after all, the speaker
himself invites us to regard the hawk in symbolic terms, and the same can be said of the
poem as a whole.

What are some quotations and literary devices used in To Kill a Mockingbird?

FAMOUS QUOTATIONS FROM
TO KILL A
MOCKINGBIRD.

• Probably
  the most famous is the quote used in the title of the novel. After the children have
  received air rifles for Christmas, Atticus tells Jem that it's okay to shoot all the
  blue jays he wants, since they are a pesky bird that harm human crops and such. But he
  warns him that "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird," since they are harmless and only make
  music for people to enjoy.


• Atticus' best advice comes as
  a warning to Scout: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from
  his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." Scout takes the
  advice to heart, especially at the end of the story when she steps in Boo's shoes and
  sees her neighborhood through his eyes for the first
  time.


• "I wish Bob Ewell wouldn't chew tobacco." This is
  Atticus' humorous response after Bob spit in his
  face.


• "In the name of God, do your duty... In the name of
  God, believe him." These are Atticus' final remarks to the jury in his summation during
  the Tom Robinson trial.

There are far too many
literary devices used by author Harper Lee to mention. There is a great deal of
symbolism--from the mockingbird (human and winged) to the injured arms of Tom and Jem to
the "morphodite" snowman created by Jem and Scout (with a black center and white
outside). I also enjoy many of the allusions made by Lee: Civil War, sports, political,
educational, geographical, cinematic and literary are just a few of the types of
references that can be found throughout the book. 

Why does Darry want Pony to have a better life than him in The Outsiders?

Darry was well on his way to earning a college football
scholarship when his parents were killed. The only way he was able to keep his younger
brothers from being separated was to take on the responsibility of becoming the adult
head of the household. So, Darry gave up his college future, working two jobs to keep
the family together. In Sodapop, who quit school and pumps gas, Darry already realizes
that his middle brother will never make it out of their neighborhood. But Darry sees
that Ponyboy has a chance to leave the greaser lifestyle behind him if he can stay on
the straight and narrow. Pony is intelligent, makes good grades, loves to read and
write, and runs track. Sensitive and introspective, Pony--like Darry--is not a greaser
at heart. Pony's friends all realize that he is out of place with the others, and
they--like Darry--have high hopes that he will graduate from high school and become the
first of their group to head to college. Darry doesn't like working long hours, and he
wants Pony to enjoy a better life than he is forced to endure.

Why do writers write about dystopian societies?

The term dystopia, Greek in origin, refers to a "bad
place". The term is antithetical to Utopia, which means an ideal place/state.The kind of
society as presented in dystopian literature is the society in a repressive and
controlled state, may be under the facade of being utopian as is found in books like
Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Writers of dystopian literature and makers of dystopian films
expose societies with different kinds of repressive control systems, various forms of
active and passive coercion. Dystopian societies are often imagined as police states
with unlimited power over the citizens. Kafka's Metamorphosis,
Koestler's Darkness at Noon, Golding's Lord of the Flies
are some of the distinguished examples of 20th century fiction having
pictures of dystopian societies, societies mechanically and rigorously controlled,
politically suppressed, severely dominated by hegemonistic rule. Fahrenheit
451, based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, is one of the many
dystopian films of serious reckoning. All dystopian literature/ films are intended as
critiques of utopia, an ideal state/place/society as imagined from time to time ever
since Plato's Republic, and its Renaissance counterpart, Thomas
More's Utopia.

Account for the unrivaled success of market capitalism

There are a number of reasons why market capitalism has
been more successful than any other economic system.  I would argue that the two most
important of these are:

• Capitalism fulfills (to
  the greatest extent possible) people's material desires.  We all know that people are
  materialistic; they want things.  In capitalism, if we want something and can afford it,
  we can have it.  There is no government or traditional authority telling us we can't
  have it.


• Capitalism fulfills people's emotional desires
  as well.  People want to get the benefit of their hard work.  If they are talented and
  they work hard, they want to be rewarded.  Capitalism rewards these things by (in
  general) giving us a higher standard of living in exchange for our hard
  work.