How are the themes of disguise and appearance vs. reality explored in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night?

One of Shakespeare's central
points in Twelfth Night is to show that things
really are not always what they seem to be, plus to show the consequences
of deception. Hence, nearly every character at some points conceals
reality behind some type of disguise, leading to various
consequences.

One of the most obvious examples is of course
Viola disguising herself as a boy servant. Viola made the
decision to disguise herself out of self-preservation. She arrived in Illyria as an
orphan after surviving a shipwreck. Her father died when she was thirteen, and now she
believes her brother, her one remaining guardian, did not survive the shipwreck, leaving
her all alone. More importantly, she is also a wealthy noble woman. Hence, she knows
that her wealthy, orphaned status puts her in a very vulnerable position. She first
expresses her desire to hide her true identity in order to protect herself in her
lines:

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O that I served that lady
[Olivia]
And might not be delivered to the world,
Till I had made
mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is!
(I.ii.43-46)

But
when the sea captain advises that Olivia would not admit her into her household due to
her state of mourning, Viola instead devices her plan to disguise herself as a eunuch
and go to work for Duke Orsino.

Naturally Viola's choice leads to a
couple of unanticipated consequences. For one thing, she
falls in love with Orsino and cannot proclaim her love for
him because, for one thing, she is pretending to be a boy, and for another thing, she is
pretending to be his servant, and servants of course cannot marry nobility. The second
unanticipated consequence is that Olivia falls in love with
her as a boy, which means that just as Olivia is breaking Orsino's heart,
Viola is now put in the position of breaking Olivia's
heart, a position that she certainly does not really want. Hence we see,
just as Viola herself later exclaims, "Deception, I see, thou art a wickedness," just
how much damage disguise and deception can cause
(II.iii.26).

What is a quote that has to do with Alienation from the "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka?

Fairly early in the story, Gregor manages to get himself
out of bed after the attorney comes from his office to inquire after him. Up to this
point in the story, Gregor has repeatedly railed against the injustice of his work
situation and reflected on his distaste for travel, for his boss and for his
co-workers. 

When the attorney arrives and accuses Gregor
of a poor performance at work, Gregor gets out of bed and makes an attempt to open the
bedroom door.

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"He really wanted to let himself be seen by and
to speak with the attorney. He was eager to see what the others, who were making such
demands of him, would say once they caught a glimpse of
him."

This episode points to
Gregor's wish to be seen and to be seen for who he is - in all of his pathos - as a
person who is suffering but willing to work through the suffering (according to his own
take on his character).

Unseen and under-appreciated,
Gregor is alienated from his family and his work associates. Despite his efforts to be
seen and to clarify his position, Gregor is unable to open the door. The attorney does
not understand Gregor's speech. 

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"All right, people did not understand his words
any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than
before..."

Alone in
comprehending himself, Gregor is alienated from those around him even before they see
his transformation. In this episode, everyone still believes that Gregor is merely ill
(or, equally likely, merely lazy). His physical appearance is not yet responsible for
his alienation or his treatment by others. 

As the story
moves on, Gregor's isolation increases. He is distanced from his sister, the one person
who made a real effort to connect with Gregor and to understand him. But we can see from
these early passages that Gregor's alienation is present at the story's
outset.

in the novel the old man and the sea what does the fish symbolize?

Readers may attribute various meanings to the great fish
Santiago catches and then looses in The Old Man and the
Sea.

The fish could be considered a symbol of
eternal optimism, the human spirit triumphing over age and declining abilities. Even
after a long stretch of bad fishing, Santiago was still hopeful when he departed. He was
confident of his skill as a fisherman and didn't hesitate to sail far from land and the
usual fishing areas to seek a change in his luck.

The fish
could also symbolize the challenges and hardships in life. The marathon struggle between
fish and fisherman and the loosing battle to protect the captured fish from the sharks
called into play every bit of Santiago's experience and skill and knowledge of the sea
and its ways. But even when he gave his all, Santiago did not succeed in bringing the
large fish to shore.

In another sense, the fish symbolizes
everything Santiago values in the world. He considers the fish to be both friend and
foe, something to be caught and a separate and very special being to be loved and
respected.

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Then he was sorry for the great fish that had
nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him.
How many people will he feed, he thought. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course
not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behaviour and his great
dignity.

In the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, what are some benefits the Games might provide for the districts?

The answer to this question can be found in the first
chapter of this gripping dystopian novel. As part of the general background that Katniss
gives her about District Twelve and the kind of lives of hardship and poverty that she
and so many others lead, she also tells us about the creation of the Hunger Games and
how they are designed to maintain control over the Districts and ensure that no other
rebellion occurs. The ever-present memory of the complete destruction of District
Thirteen thus acts as a powerful reminder of the price to pay for any who dissent. Note
what Katniss tells us about the benefits that Districts can gain if one of their
children wins the games:

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To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the
Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting
every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back
home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All
year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even
delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle
starvation.

Thus we can see
that having a representative from your District winning the Hunger Games yields immense
rewards to the District, and they gain extra food rations and even luxury items such as
sugar as a result.

Who had the right to vote in ancient Rome? Were all votes equal?

In the city of Rome, all citizens were able to vote on the
issues of the day in a referrendum-type process, as well as for elected officials.
Citizens would gather in a large assembly, hear arguments from passionate orators, and
cast lots or raise their hands to indicate their ballot. However, only a small
percentage of the inhabitants of Rome were citizens. Only wealthy, aristocratic males of
certain familes enjoyed citizenship. Women, servants, the poor and many other social
outcasts were denied citizenship and thus could not vote on issue affecting their daily
lives. As the city of Rome spread into an empire, the mark of citizenship became even
more scare. Inhabitants of occupied lands did not enjoy the privileges of citizenship,
even though there were subject to Roman law and even taxation.

When is Homer's Iliad thought to have been composed?

The question of when Homer's Iliad
was composed is a difficult one. The story may have been passed down orally
for several hundred years before it was finally written
down.

Also complicating the issue is the problem of when
the Trojan War took place (if it took place at all; some scholars believe the war Homer
describes was not an actual historical event). The time period Homer's work appears to
describe is Bronze Age Greece. Archaeologists who have worked at Troy have concluded
that the level of Troy most likely to have been destroyed by war is dated to around 1200
BCE. However, the type of writing known to have existed at that time is certainly not
the sort of Greek that has been passed down to us. Additionally, after 1200 BCE,
numerous Greek sites were either destroyed or abandoned, indicating that the Greeks
themselves were under some sort of duress. Furthermore, after this time, the ability to
write seems to have been lost for some time.

Finally,
though, by the 800s, Greece had emerged from its "Dark Age" and writing begins to
reappear. We can get some idea of when the Iliad
was written down because other Greek authors start referring to the poem.
Also, we start to see Greek artists depicting scenes from the Homeric epics, especially
in vase painting. The combination of literary references to the poems, artistic
representations of scenes from the poems, as well as other elements found in the poems
themselves have led scholars to date the writing of the Iliad to
between 775 and 725 BCE. Some scholars, though, have argued that the poems did not
achieve their final form until the following century.

What are John's feelings about death in The Pigman?

The answer to this question can be found in Chapter Seven,
which explains John's penchant for visiting the nearest cemetery. As he sits there and
wonders about if there is anybody in heaven and then anybody down below who wants to
communicate to him, John suddenly realises that he is not really concerned about those
above or benath him, but actually he is filled with a desperate uncertainty about what
will happen to him after he dies:

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Then I got very sad because I knew I wasn't
really wondering about the guy underneath me, whoever he was. I was just interested in
what was going to happen to me. I think that's probably the real reason I go to the
graveyard. I'm not afraid of seeing ghosts. I think I'm really looking for ghosts. I
want to see them. I'm looking for anything to prove that when I drop dead there's a
chance I'll be doing something a little more exciting than
decaying.

John then is filled
with a kind of desperate uncertainty when he thinks about death. He hopes to find any
form of tangible proof that after he dies he will have some kind of existence that is
more meaningful than "decaying." Clearly, the thought of having his identity and his
character obliterated by death is something that makes John very
afraid.