Please describe the speaker in "Tulips."

The poem’s speaker is convalescing in a hospital room.
Although she is attended by nurses and doctors, basically she is alone, and she has just
received a dozen red tulips, obviously from her husband or a friend, as a get-well gift.
In her mental condition, she perceives the tulips not as a joy but rather as a threat.
Even before she unwraps the flowers, she thinks of them as a danger to her solitude. She
also sees them as competing with her for her very breath, and therefore as depriving her
of life (line 37). Still in the wrapping paper, which she compares to “white swaddlings,
like an awful baby” (line 38; see Luke 2:7), the tulips seem not to cheer her, but
rather they resemble “A dozen red lead sinkers” dragging her down into a drowning
despair. It would appear that there is nothing the speaker might receive that she would
not construe as threats to her continued existence.

What are the various dimensions of product quality or service quality? Please give examples.

In business and marketing products marketed by a company
may be classified broadly as goods and services. The quality of goods is generally
defined in terms of the physical characteristics of the product or the goods marketed.
However, it is not possible to define quality of services in terms of physical
characteristics alone. Quality of service is judged by the customers on many different
dimensions in addition to the physical characteristics associated with the service.
There are five aspects or dimensions of service which are found to be very important in
determining customer perception of service quality. These
are:

Reliability: The extent to which the service performed
matches implicit or explicit promises made by the service provider regarding the nature
of service. For example, the basic quality of room decor, food, and facilities provided
in a hotel.

Responsiveness: The willingness to help the
customer promptly in case of special and unforeseen requirements. For example helping a
customer who fall sick when staying in the
hotel.

Assurance: The extent to which the service provider
and the staff is able to inspire trust and confidence. For example the customer dining
in a restaurant may not be able to directly judge the level of hygiene maintained by the
restaurants. Here it is not only important to actually provide hygienic food but also to
inspire confidence that the food is hygienic. The assurance is regarding giving the
customer peace of mind that everything will be taken care of as required, rather than
just actually taking care when the need arises. For example a doctor with MD degree may
inspire more assurance than a doctor with just an MBBS degree, although the basic
treatment provided by them may be of same quality.

Empathy:
This is being able to understand the needs of the customer as an individual and meet the
special requirements of the customer. This is more about customizing the service and the
general service provider behavior for each customer, rather than providing a uniform
high quality treatment to all. Many companies try to create this sense of empathy by
employing tactics like addressing each customer by name. However, true empathy means
understanding the special characterises and needs of individual customer, and modifying
service to them accordingly.

Tangibles: This is the
parallel of physical characteristics of quality of goods. This refers to the physical
characteristics of facilities, equipments, consumable goods and personnel used in or
associated with the service provided. However here also the quality is judged not by
some uniform specifications in terms of physical characteristic, but by the impact these
physical characteristics have on customer assessment of the service
quality.

Why were the Assyrians so strong?

Assyria was located on the upper Tigris River and its
empire reached its height about 681 B.C. The Assyrian Empire was very powerful and was
strong for several reasons.  First was the way the Assyrians organized their army.  They
were one of the first to organize their army into regular units of uniform numbers—tens,
hundreds, thousands—with standard equipment and commanders that could be promoted or
demoted for performance.  Another reason for their strength was the technology used by
the Assyrians.  Assyrians built large, powerful chariots pulled by as many as four
horses.  Though the Hittites were the ones to develop a method of working iron, the
Assyrians borrowed this knowledge and exploited it by creating weapons out of iron,
which were superior to earlier bronze weapons.  Military engineering also played an
important role in the strength of the Assyrian Empire.  The Assyrians built roads wide
enough for their wheeled vehicles allowing them to move their armies quickly to where
they were needed.  Military engineers also created battering rams to knock down the
walls of fortified cities and developed methods to dig tunnels under these walls. They
also built ladders to scale these walls.  Finally, the Assyrians used terror to
conquer.  They were cruel warriors, often burning buildings and torturing and beheading
prisoners, as well as enslaving women and children.  This reputation for brutality
allowed the Assyrians to conquer people without a fight.

What (if anything) is Hamlet's fatal flaw?

Concerning Shakespeare's Hamlet, I'll
put my vote in for Hamlet's tragic flaw being hubris.  Hamlet has an opportunity to get
his revenge and kill Claudius, but hubris keeps him from doing
so.

Claudius's reaction to the murder scene in the
play-within-the-play convinces Hamlet that the Ghost is telling the truth and that
Claudius is, indeed, guilty of killing King Hamlet.  Once he's sure of Claudius's guilt,
Hamlet seems ready to kill the king.  He has a perfect opportunity to do so while
Claudius is praying, but decides not to because he doesn't want to send Claudius
straight to heaven.  Hamlet thinks Claudius is confessing his sins, and killing him when
his slate or soul or whatever is clean, Hamlet believes, would send Claudius to heaven. 
Hamlet won't do that. 

When Hamlet makes the decision not
to kill Claudius for the reason he gives, he is stepping beyond his station in life:  he
is guilty of hubris.  Human salvation is not Hamlet's business--it's God's business.  If
Hamlet kills Claudius in Act 3, numerous innocent lives are saved, including his own. 
His hubris leads to the blood bath at the conclusion of the
play. 

Ironically, Claudius is not confessing his sins.  He
is unwilling to give up the spoils of his sin, and won't repent.  Thus, Hamlet could
have killed Claudius in Act 3, gained his revenge, and not sent Claudius to heaven. 
Unfortunately, he gives up the chance to do so.  This, I believe, is the climax of the
play and reveals Hamlet's tragic flaw.

Explain the purpose of the hydra's bud?

Hydra is a tiny animal from belonging to the phylum
Cnidaria and the class Hydrozoa, that lives in ponds and lakes. Animals like jellyfish,
sea anemones, and corals also belong to the same class of
animals.

The hydra, which has one of the simplest
structures among all the many-celled animals, is shaped like a thin cylinder about as
thick as heavy thread and is 6 to 13 millimetres long. One end of its body attaches to
sticks, stones, and water plants.  The other end contains the mouth, which is surrounded
by five to seven tentacles that act like tiny arms. The hydra usually stays attached in
one place for some time.  But it can move about by slowly along the bottom of the pond
or lake, or by drifting beneath the water's surface
film.

Buds in hydras are small, knob like growths that
appear on their body and enable hydras to reproduce. These buds develop from time to
time, and as they develop grow tentacles.  When the buds are fully developed, they break
off and live as independent hydras.

Are there any examples of situational, dramatic, or verbal irony in the story, and if so, what function does the irony serve?

Dramatic irony is seen when Arnold Friend comes to
Connie's house.  Up until this point, she has made it clear by her secretive actions and
attitudes that she is beyond having to be worried about, and that she is adult enough to
handle herself in the world of older people, like the boys she sees at the restaurant
across the highway.  The irony, of course, is that when she is confronted with an older
guy, she is totally out of her league.  Arnold Friend is much older, though he eerily
acts much younger to "seduce" his prey.  When he shows up at Connie's house, she plays
word games with him, telling him he must leave, but he knows she is alone, and quickly
wears down her resistance.  The most frightening thing about the situation is that even
as he erodes her resistance and she realizes the danger she is in, she doesn't have a
strong enough sense of self to even resist: she quietly accepts what she knows will be
her fate.

Can you please help me with the analysis of The Man of Destiny by George Bernard Shaw?

Analyzing a play is not different from analyzing a novel
or a poem. Structure must be considered and theme,
literary devices, plot, conflict, symbolism and imagery,
setting and time (a distinct part of setting). There are
some href="http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/tlc/tipsheets/reading-and-analyzing/analyze-play%2836%29.pdf">features
particular to plays that must be included in an analysis
(Vonier College). One of these is whether the action is
mental or physical action. One might say Death of a Salesman is a
play with mental action as is Faust Part II whereas King
Lear and Faust Part I might be said to have physical
action. Another of these particular features is whether there are
soliloquies and/or monologues.
Another is characters since characters have a singularly
significant function in plays. The final feature particular to analysis of plays is
key lines.

To apply some of
these points to Shaw's The Man of Destiny, it is a
one act play with four
characters, two of whom are the primary characters. It is based on an
historic incident at the early stage of Napoleon
Bonaparte's military career following upon his advancement to General. As such,
Bonaparte is the lead character and an unnamed
Lady is the second principle character. They meet at an inn
and the inn keeper, Giuseppe, is instrumental in helping to
reveal information about them to each other and to the audience. The fourth character,
the Lieutenant, is instrumental in setting up the conflict,
which is introduced at the very beginning of the play and pursued hotly from the start.
The action is mental; nothing physical rally takes place
except for the innkeeper's comings and goings. There are no
soliloquies in this play, but Shaw does give Bonaparte a
monologue (i.e., long speech by one character that
interrupts conversation) that reveals his philosophy and point of view when he, a
Frenchman, elaborates his theory of the national character of the English and of the
English moral conscience (this is in a sense ironic since Shaw is himself an
Englishman).

The plot is a
simple one: a Lady has stolen Bonaparte's letters from his Lieutenant on the highway in
order to remove a personal one written by Josephine to Director Barras and maliciously
sent to Bonaparte. He has encountered her and attempts to retrieve his mail while she
attempts to keep him from reading the contents of Josephine's personal letter. The
conflict of the mental action then is the battle between
them for possession of the physical letters and then the contents of the one letter. The
theme is that of how destiny turns on single events and
remarks. Two key lines are spoken by the Lady because her
brief comments, in the face of sure defeat, turn events in favor of her achieving her
end by raising the right questions and motives in Bonaparte's mind. The lines
are:

LADY.
Nothing— (He interrupts her with an exclamation of satisfaction. She proceeds quietly)
except that you will cut a very foolish figure in the eyes of
France.

and

readability="8">

LADY (springing up with a bright flush in her
cheeks). Oh, you are too bad. Keep your letters. Read the story of your own dishonor in
them; and much good may they do you. Good-bye. (She goes indignantly towards the inner
door.)

The other elements for
analyzing The Man of Destiny you can easily discover through your
own reading of the play while watching for symbolism, imagery, setting,
time, and other literary devices such as
techniques of irony or metonymy
and structural elements like climax
and resolution.

What does Socrates mean by this statement?"When my sons grow up, visit them with punishment, my friends, and vex them in the same way that I have...

What Socrates is saying in this line is that people should
care about virtue more than anything else.  He is expressing this by telling the
audience that he would want them to really come down on his sons if they seemed to think
that it was more important to be rich than to be
good.

Socrates's whole purpose was to try to teach people
what virtue and wisdom were.  He went around teaching in ways that upset people because
he seemed to be questioning their values.  When Socrates speaks the line you are asking
about, he is about to be executed for doing this.  He is saying one last time that he
really thinks that virtue is the most important thing and that he hopes people will do
for his kids the same thing (pushing them to be virtuous) that he was trying to do for
the people of Athens.

What is the essential moral issue in MacBeth?

The essential moral issue in Macbeth
seems to be conscience versus personal gain.  Would you commit an immoral act
if that action meant that you and your family would be financially sound for the rest of
your life?  I ask this question to my students, and I am often appalled by the answers. 
Many answer yes, even if that immoral act involved murder. But it is a moral dilemma
presented often in literature:  Would  you sell your soul to the devil? 
 

It is this issue that Macbeth grapples with. In his
soliloquy at the end of Act 1, he lists all the moral reasons NOT to kill Duncan: 
Duncan is his king, he is his kinsman, he is his guest.  Duncan has also been a good
king.  There will be public outcry against his death.  There will be consequences,
especially in the afterlife.  Yet, Macbeth's "vaulting ambition," his desire for
personal gain, outranks his moral scruples. 

Lady Macbeth
has no such scruples.  She only sees the available opportunity of killing Duncan while
he is a guest at the Macbeth castle.  She knows such an opportunity will not present
itself again.  She does not debate the right or wrong of such an action as does
Macbeth. 

Yet, Shakespeare explores the effects of such an
action on their psyches and on their relationship.  The guilt that Macbeth feels is
overwhelming and plunges his deeper into crime.  "Blood will have blood."  Once he
crosses the line and loses his soul, he becomes a paranoid tyrant committing more and
more murders.  And Lady Macbeth is filled with regret. 

What are some examples of verbal irony from Act III, scene vi of Macbeth?What is the point of it, and the understanding that is achieved by using...

The most obvious sort of irony in this scene is sarcasm,
used by Lennox to emphasize his distaste for Macbeth.  This is the first scene in which
Lennox appears after the ill-fated banquet scene in which Lennox observed Macbeth's
behaviour upon seeing Banquo's ghost.  Lennox and the others did not see the ghost, but
he got a pretty good idea of Macbeth's role in both Banquo's murder and the murder of
Duncan from this event.

Here are some of the ironic and
sarcastic comments that he makes:

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...The gracious
Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth.  Marry he was
dead.

And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too
late;

Whom you may say, if 't please you, Fleance
killed,

For Fleance fled.  Men must not walk too
late.

Who cannot want the thought how
monstrous

It was for Malcolm and
Donalbain

To kill their gracious father?  Damned
fact!

How it did grieve
Macbeth!

He goes on in ironic
sarcasm to explain how "nobly" Macbeth has behaved and that he has "borne all things
well."  Shakespeare is using this ironic sarcasm to highlight Lennox's anger and disgust
at the two-faced murderer, Macbeth.

What is the climax, declining action and resolution in The Red Badge of Courage?

CLIMAX

In Stephen Crane's
The Red Badge of Courage, the climax is reached in Chapter XX as
the main character, Henry Fleming, overcomes his fear and with Wilson leads the 304th
Regiment of the Northern Army to a most unlikely victory over the Southern "rebels." 
Henry, no longer narcissitic and concerned only about himself, perceives himself as part
of the regiment; he and the others seize the rebel flag along with their position. After
this victory, the men's spirits are charged and they have regained their confidence and
enthusiasm.  When some of the men tell Henry and Wilson that the colonel has praised
their valor, they are encouraged and proud; their enthusiasm for battle is reinforced. 
In fact, this praise strengthens Henry for the next
battle.

FALLING ACTION

In the
ensuing battle, however, there is great loss of life; Henry finds himself lost to the
vision of this carnage:

readability="12">

He stood, erect and tranquil, watching the
attack begin agaist a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an
adjacent hill....Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a measure of
warning....The youth's ears were filled cups.  They were incapable of hearing
more....The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness. He was
deeply absorbed as a
spectator.

Finally, in
Chapter XXIII, Henry is moved to action after his impressionistic observation of the
battle. Henry becomes involved in the battle in which the men suffer losses, but are the
victors, having captured four prisoners.  Henry and his
friend

nestled
in [the grass] and rested....They sat side by side and congratulated each
other.

DENOUEMENT

In
the resolution of Crane's novel, Henry Fleming and his regiment receive orders to march
toward the river.  As the men march along, Henry reflects upon his experiences,
reproaching himself his early behavior, especially his abandoning of the tattered man. 
Pondering the recent happenings, Henry is able to "criticize with some correctness" his
deeds, and is able to pull himself away from his initial
guilt:

Yet
gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance.  And al last his eyes seemed
to open to some new ways....He felt a quiet manhood. nonassertive but of sturdy and
strong blood.  He knew that he would no more quail before his guides wherever they
should point.  He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after
all, it was but the great death.  He was a
man.

Henry has
rid himself "of the red sickness of battle.  The sultry nightmare was in the past."  His
inner vision makes him perceive the universe as beautiful although it is indifferent in
Crane's naturalistic
world.

 

In Chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter, what is Hawthorne foreshadowing with the prediction that the father's name will eventually be disclosed?

“A wise
sentence,” remarked the stranger, gravely bowing his head. “Thus she will be a living
sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks
me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the
scaffold by her side. But he will be known!—he will be known!—he will be
known!”

Hawthorne
foreshadows, by the above quote from Chapter 3 of The Scarlet
Letter two things. The first is that Chillingworth, who as yet in Chapter 3
remains unnamed, will pursue an investigation of his own and his own sort to discover
the identity of the father of Hester's baby, which is precisely what he unrelentingly
does in later chapters of the story.

The second
foreshadowed occurrence is that ultimately, all the readers' questions about who the
father truly is will be answered, no matter how dismaying and shocking. This is in fact
precisely what occurs as the novel progresses with the horrible confirmations of the
truth as they come up later in the story.

If two triangles are similar, does that mean they are congruent too?

  Two triangles are similar  and two triangles are
congruent do not mean the same thing.

Two photos of the
same object may look similar though their sizes are
different.

Two photos of the same object are congruent if
their sizees are same .

If two triables are similar if
their for each angle of the one there is an equal angle in the other triangle. This
reltion holds incase of cogruency also.

If two triangles
are similar, then the correspoding sides (corresponding side implies side opposite to
the equal angles in two triangles)  has the same ratio.

Or
if ABC and A'B'C' are two similar triangles, then  angles, A=A', B = B' and C = C' .The
ratio of corresponding sides, AB/A'B' = BC/B'C' =
CA/C'A'.

If  the two triangles are congruent AB/B'C' =
BC/B'C' = CA/C'A' = 1. In other words, AB = A'B' , BC = B'C' and CA = C'A'.But in case
of sim'lar triangles , this side equality ratio is not
necessary.

All congruent triangles are similar. Allsimilar
triangles are not congruent.

Congruent triangles are a
special subset class of triangle.

Which recorded blues piece helped usher in the "jazz age"? A."Crazy Blues" B."St.Louis Blues" C."Midnight special" D."I Got Rhythim" E."Cotton...

The correct answer is (a)"A Crazy
Blues."

"A Crazy Blues" is the first recording of blues
music by an African American.  Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds recorded this song in
1920.  It was composed by Perry Bradford.  Bradford wanted to market Jazz and Blues
music performed by African Americans, but he had a difficult time convincing the record
companies in New York that the albums would sell despite his design of the songs being
intended to appeal to white audiences.  The record ended up being a smash hit and sold
over a million copies.

Duke Ellington's "Cotton Tail" from
1940 had no lead in like traditional jazz songs, and it follows a different form,
breaking from the usual thirty-two bar form.  After a run-through of the main
theme, Ellington introduced a new four-bar theme.   This form changed the direction of
jazz.

Are proteins destroyed when heated?

As I recall from my biology classes, proteins are
denatured, not destroyed, through heating. When food's consistency is transformed
through cooking, for example -- meat and fish can became firmer or, if overcooked, even
plastic-like or rubbery -- denaturation is at work. (See the wikipedia link
below.)

Denatured protein is a current fitness fad. Because
it's a fad, I'm inclined to listen to the claims but also to be very skeptical. (See the
fitday.com link below.)

In general terms, cooking actually
makes it easier for enzymes to digest proteins, not harder, and denatures the proteins
in harmful bacteria to the point of destroying that bacteria's ability to survive. (See
the elmhurst.edu link.)

Is the fictional character Tim O'Brien actually the narrator? How is this realized?I understand he receives his draft notice and tries to run but...

Your confusion as to whether O'Brien is actually the
author is one shared by a large number of people.

O'Brien's
work was first published in Esquire in August, 1986.  A year later
he was published in a literary collected entitled, The Best American Short
Stories 1987. ''The Things They Carried'' is the name of a short story he
wrote, which ultimately became not only the first story, but the title of his collection
of stories in Viking Penguin's 1990 publication.

Tim
O'Brien has established himself as a strong literary voice and a leading author in
Vietnam literature, but neither critics nor readers have been able to ascertain with
certainty whether the events in the book are true or the result of O'Brien's
imagination.

O'Brien stated (paradoxically) in interviews
that the truth in literature has nothing to do with actual events, but studies comparing
his experiences in the Vietnam War with his stories show obvious
similarities.

The story “The Things They Carried” is told
in the third person about Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, a member of the infantry. In the
story, the narrator lists the items the soldiers "carry with them." Among the things
Cross literally carries with him, he also carries "the
responsibility for the lives of his men.''

With this in
mind, I cannot help but believe that O'Brien uses the stories of his comrades in battle
to tell their stories, and that in doing so, he fulfills the need of Cross's character
to do that which O'Brien is compelled to do: to assume the responsibility for the lives
of his men, even if only telling their stories, to make their who they were “real,” and
their sacrifices meaningful.

However, as O'Brien has not
come out and clarified where he fits into the stories he has written, I do not know if
anyone can be completely certain as to whether the stories are autobiographical.  From
his point of view, however, I would guess that this doesn't concern him as much as
telling the stories of these men.

How many persons in the story were affected (or infected) with materialism?

"The Rocking Horse Winner" is certainly a story in which
most, if not all, of the characters are consumed with things and/or money.  This
materialism, of course, causes at least one death, and it seems to be the root of
unhappiness for the others. 

Mother is clearly the most
infected with materialism.  She wants more and is not content when she gets more. 
Despite the fact that she obviously has a lot of material goods, she wants more. 
Clearly she can never be satisfied by the money and things she so
covets. 

Father, though we certainly don't see or hear much
of him, is equally concerned with money.  He spends his time making it and spending
it--so much so that we rarely see him in this story.

Paul
is not infected by it, but he is certainly
affected--particularly by his mother's persistent hunger for more
money.  He gives his life in the pursuit of her happiness, and it's still probably not
enough.

Paul's sister doesn't suffer in nearly the same way
as Paul, but she, too, feels the tension in the house as it cries out for more
money.

Paul's uncle is not consumed by materialism, but he
certainly enjoys winning at the races.  He is a voice of wisdom, at least to a degree,
but he does want to keep making mnoney from his nephew's apparent gift for picking
winning horses.

The stable boy, not surprisingly, wants
more money.  It doesn't appear to drive his every move as it does Paul's mother, but
money is definitely a goal for him.

Even the house suffers
from materialism, as it consistently cries out for more
money.

Only the nanny seems immune from the curse of
materialism.

These are the key characters which are
affected by materialism in this story; in fact, they're the only
characters in this story.

Equiano's Travels is a diary of tears and lamentation in african literature, discussExperience of lamentation in Equiano's Travels

In my mind, the lamentation that is detected in Equiano's
autobiography strikes at the heart of why slavery exists.  I think that African
literature, and probably most literature from the nations that experienced what it meant
to be colonized, speaks to the condition of "why us?"  Along those lines, there is a
dominant strain of questioning what conditions allowed these particular nations to be
dominated at the hands of the West.  Indeed, I think that this is part of Equiano's
lamentation in that there is a notable abhorrence of slavery as an institution.  When
Gates argues that Equiano's work served as a model for Frederick Douglass, one can see
how the African predicament is quite similar to the African- American one in dealing
with the reality of slavery, subjugation, as well as political and personal cruelty.  In
this light, the concept of lamentation can be seen as a worldwide one questioning the
structure of colonialism and its impact on "the other."

Has the modern man really died spiritually? Is it a bad sign?with the development of technology and science, we are being driven away from God and...

Technology is in no way an object of reductionism. If we
apply well the benefits of change and we discipline ourselves to understand that life
will continuously bring improvements to our way of lives, there will be no way of
blaming any social change on a lack of spirituality.

If
anything, the modern man has continuously looked for ways to proof that there is
something higher than us, because there is always a need for emotional support in
uncertain times. To say that technology and advancements have left us void of our
ethereal selves is, again, a reductionist thought and I would have to
disagree.

Calculate the definite integral of f(x)=e^2x from x=0 to x=2.

The definite integral is the area which has to be found,
that is located between the given curve y = e^2x and the lines x = 0 and x = 2, also the
x axis.

To calculate the area, we'll use the
formula:

S = Integral (f(x) - ox)dx = Int f(x)dx = Int
e^(2x) dx

Int e^(2x) dx = e^(2x)/2 +
C

Now, we'll calculate the value of the area, using
Leibnitz Newton formula::

S = F(2) - F(0),
where

F(2) = e^(2*2)/2 =
e^4/2

F(0) = e^(2*0)/2 = e^0/2 =
1/2

S = e^4/2 - 1/2

S = (e^4 -
1)/2

We have a difference of squares, at
numerator:

S =
(e^2-1)(e^2+1)/2

S =
(e-1)(e+1)(e^2+1)/2

Who are the "toadies and humbugs" in Chapter 11 of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens?

 Like so many relatives of wealthy people, Camilla, Cousin
Raymond, and Sarah Pocket appear on Miss Havisham's birthday under the guise of wishing
her well.  Miss Havisham has Pip support her as she walks with her cane around a great
table with a decaying wedding cake upon it.  The "toadies" and "humbugs" tell Miss
Havisham that she "looks well."  After Miss Pocket is rebuffed by Miss Havisham's "I do
not," Camilla complacently smiles, indicating her enjoyment of Miss Havisham's negative
treatment of Sarah.  For, this may mean that Camilla might stand in better stead and
inherit more when Miss Havisham dies.

That they are
flatterers because they hope that Miss Havisham will bequeath money and property to them
is the reason these "toadies" even come each year.  To Miss Havisham their words ring as
insincere.  When Camilla says that Matthew is remiss for never coming, her desired
reaction from Miss Havisham is thrawted:

readability="10">

Matthew will come and see me at last," said Miss
Havisham sternly, "when I am laid on that table.  That will be his place--there,"...at
my head!  And yours will be there!  And your husband's there!  And Sarah Pocket's
there!  And Georgiana's
there!

 Once they all know
where they will stand and sit, Miss Havisham tells them to go.  Then, she reveals that
not only is this day her birthday, but it was also her wedding day.  Matthew Pocket,
father of Herbert, the pale young gentleman, does not come because he is the only one
who is not hypocritical. In fact, he has accused the others of "feasting on their
relations."  He disapproved of her marrying Arthur, who jilted her, telling her he was a
swindler, but Miss Havisham rejected the honest Matthew.

What is Claudius reaction when he hears Polonius' explanation of Hamlet's madness in Hamlet?

In Act II of Shakespeare's Hamlet, 
Ophelia relates Hamlet's strange behavior, Claudius, who fears for his life and has
already hired Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to question Hamlet, agrees to hide with
Polonius and spy on the contrived meeting of Ophelia and Hamlet.  When Hamlet meets with
Ophelia, she feigns attendance upon maidenly matters.  But, Hamlet is in a misogynistic
mood and tells her he did not love her and she should go to a nunnery rather than "make
monsters" of men.

Of interest are Hamlet's words about
marriage which Claudius and Polonius overhear.  Hamlet predicts that everyone who is
presently married shall live except for one, and the rest shall stay as they are; that
is, unwed:

readability="16">

God hath given you one face, and you make
yourselves another.  You jig and amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures, and
make your wantonness your ignorance.  go to, I'll no more on't, it hath made me mad.  I
say we will have no more marriage.  Those that are married already, all but one, shall
live.  The rest shall keep as they are.  To a nunnery, go.
(3.1.151-157)

After hearing
these words, the fearful Claudius announces his plan to send Hamlet to England,
ostensibly for Hamlet's safety, but in reality to distance him from Claudius. This scene
is just another of those that illustrate the theme of Appearances vs.
Reality

What is wrong with this survey?Seventy-two percent of American squeeze their toothpaste tube from the top. This and other not-serious findings are...

The actual type of poll you are referring to in this
hypothetical is called a "straw poll", and in polling organizations it is generally
believed to be the least reliable kind of survey there is.  We see these kinds of polls
online and in magazines all of the time.

On a sports
website, for example, they may have a poll to see who you think is going to win the
Superbowl this year.  The results, just like in the survey you mention, cannot
accurately measure the population in any meaningful way.  It is based only on those who
happen to see or read the questionnaire or poll, those who choose to fill it out, and
then those who actually choose to mail it in.  This is not going to be a representative
group of people.  Even if it were, as pohnpei points out, you wouldn't know who or what
they represent, because no other information about the respondents was gathered.  Was it
72% of all who responded?  Of women? Senior citizens?  The details of such demographics
matter when determining how accurate a poll can be.

What are metalloids in the Periodic Table?

Metalloids are the class of
elements in the Periodic Table of the Elements that
separate metals from non-metals. The elements on either side of the metalloids are
either metallic or non-metallic, while the metalloids contain properties of both. This
allows interesting chemical reactions as well as chemical combinations that are not seen
in true metals and true non-metals. For example, silicon is
a semi-conductor, which means that it does not fully conduct electricity like
copper, but can conduct electricity if the conditions are
correct; silicon is therefore useful in computers and other technology where a varying
conduction rate is important. Aluminium, which people
commonly think of as a metal because of its use in beverage cans, is actually a disputed
element; it is thought of as an "Other Metal" because of its non-metallic
properties.

Why is what happens to Syme important? (chapter 5, book 2)

At the start of Book 2, Chapter 5, Syme basically just
disappears.  Winston notices that it is almost as if Syme had never existed.  To find
why this is important, I think you need to look at Book 1, Chapter 5 where Winston
thinks about Syme a lot.

Basically, Winston knows back then
that Syme is going to get killed.  He says that this is because Syme thinks too much. 
He is a really good Party member -- believes all the right things.  But he is too much
of a thinker.   Here is a quote showing this:

readability="14">

Yet a faint air of disreputability always clung
to him. He said things that would have been better unsaid, he had read too many books,
he frequented the Chestnut Tree Café, haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law,
not even an unwritten law, against frequenting the Chestnut Tree Café, yet the place was
somehow ill-omened.

Syme's
death, then, is important because it shows that you don't really have to do anything
wrong for the Party to see you as a threat.  If you just seem like you have any
independent thoughts or any desire to think, you are a danger.

What is the setting in "Greasy Lake" and why is it so important?

The primary setting of "Greasy Lake" is Greasy Lake, a
lake in the worst sort of ecological condition full of refuse and other filth. The first
section of the story is set in the streets of a town and is the gateway for the
characters excursion to Greasy Lake. The setting of the lake is important because it is
a place in an adult world of order and rules where teens can gather in an environment
where anarchy and primal lusts and impulses can reign with relative impunity and
freedom. The friends of the story, who aspire to be "bad" characters, go to the lake to
enjoy some of the primal anarchy and find more than they bargain for. In the midst of a
horrific fight with Bobby and another group of bigger and meaner youths--really "bad"
characters--the friends undergo a rite of passage, a ritual entrance into adulthood, by
getting themselves beaten and their car beaten.

he narrator
has an even deeper rite of passage than his friends because he dives into the filthy
lake water in an effort to avoid more violence upon his person. There, he has the horror
of encountering a floating bloated body, the owner of an abandoned motorcycle on the
other side of the lake. Thus the narrator not only has a ritual initiation rite, he also
has a baptism into an altered life: He has washed in the waters (dirty waters, not holy)
and come up a new man. In this baptism though, he is not a new man because of the
holiness of the water but because of the foulness of the water: He has met death and
death is what awaits him as a "bad" character. Through his baptism, he rejects that life
and his "bad" aspirations, having thus gained a realistic view of life. These are the
reasons that the setting is so important to the story, it offers: a primal place of
anarchy; a place where battle provides a rite of passage; a place of water baptism into
a higher spiritual and moral plane.

What is the main argument in this quote? I have no clue what it even means."The senate is truly a chamber of sober second though. To perform that...

This quote is a description of the role of the Senate, of
course; its purpose is clearly to distinguish the role of the Senate fromthe role of the
House.  A quick review of Congress may be helpful to fully understand the
quote.

Congress is made up of two bodies, the House of
Representatives and the Senate.  Each state is divided into districts, and
Representatives to the House are selected by the voters in these districts in each
state.  They are elected to two-year terms, and there are various numbers of
Representatives per state based upon population. This is supposed to be the legislative
body which is closest to the people, as they have to answer directly to their
constituents more often than Senators do. (And in today's world where elections start
nearly two years in advance, it's almost time to start running for re-election as soon
as they're elected.) because of that, though, they are highly motivated by the politics
of decision-making.  The House can create laws and weigh in on many issues, but it's
referred to as the "lower house" because it just doesn't have as much legislative
authority or power.

The Senate, on the other hand, is known
as the "upper house."  Each state only gets two Senators, thus the representation is
more equitable.  A Senator serves for six years, giving more stability to this
legislative body.  The Senate alone has the power to determine punishment for
Presidential wrongdoings--including removal from office--to ratify treaties, and to
approve Presidential appointments.  Clearly this is the more powerful of the two
houses.

Given that, I think the quote makes perfect sense. 
The Senate is to be the more reflective and serious body; and, because they serve a
longer term, they should not be as concerned with the politics (or partisanship) of
their decisions as Representatives are.  They are to be the calm deliberators, weighing
any bills which they are given from the House as well as the most significant
decision-making tasks which I listed above.  I'm not sure this is always true in
practice, but this quote is true in the ideal.

With examples, describe the differences in meaning between the use of SIMPLE PAST and PAST PERFECT structures in English?answer in detail

Simple past is one of the two basic tenses in English
grammar, and it is very common.  Its normal purpose is to refer to an action which was
completed before Now: I ate my sandwich.  I
walked the dog.  The Spanish Armada was
defeated in 1588.   We use it to tell others what we did, we
use it to narrate stories, we use it to transcribe the passage of history, and so
forth.  It is a simple statement of a finished action.

The
past perfect verb form, on the other hand, is used to express a past
action which predates another past action:  When I
had eaten my sandwich, I
walked the dog.  The key is that there must be
two past events occurring at different times which are being related, though they
needn't be in the same sentence.  Simple past need describe only one past
event.

Past perfect is a much less frequently used verb
form.  Though it has a safe refuge in formal writing, it is being replaced by simple
past in many less formal situations where other structures can do its job.  It is not
used so often these days, because language users have found that the order of past
events can just as easily be assigned by using prepositions, for instance
(After I ate my
sandwich, I walked the dog).  With 'after', the sequence of events is clear
enough: first the eating, and then the walking.

Some
grammarians will still insist on using past perfect in sentences like the above, but it
too often appears overly formal in contemporary
writing.

Today, the 'mandatory' uses of the present perfect
are in cases of (1) potential confusion about event order (?
When I ate my sandwich, I walked the
dog-- is the eating and the walking simultaneous or consecutive?) and (2) a
desired emphasis on the precedence of the first event (After
I had already eaten my sandwich, Mother told
me that she was going to order a pizza!-- here the speaker wishes to
emphasize that the sandwich was gone and the stomach was satisfied before the wonderful
vision of the pizza arose).

I have included a link to a
simple exposition of the past perfect verb form below.

Which is the equation of the line that is perpendicular to 4x-5y-1=0 and it passes through the point (2,1) ?

We'll put the equation of the line into the standard
form:

y=mx+n, where m is the slope of the line and n is the
y intercept.

We'll put the equation in the standard form so
we could use the property which says that the product between the slopes of 2
perpendicular lines is :-1

Let's suppose that the 2 slopes
are m1 and m2.

m1*m2=-1

We'll
determine m1 from the given equation of the line, that is perpendicular to the one with
the unknown equation.

The equation is
4x-5y-1=0.

We'll isolate -5y to the left side. For this
reason, we'll subtract 4x-1 both sides:

-5y = -4x +
1

We'll multiply by -1:

5y =
4x - 1

We'll divide by 5:

y =
4x/5 - 1/5

The slope m1 =
4/5.

(4/5)*m2=-1

m2=-5/4

We
also know that the line passes through the point (2,1), so the equation of a line which
passes throuh a given point and it has a well known slope
is:

(y-y1)=m(x-x1)

(y-1)=(-5/4)*(x-2)

We'll
remove the brackets:

y - 1 + 5x/4 - 5/2 =
0

y + 5x/4 - 7/2 =
0

Do you believe that a computer can out-do, out-wit, out-smart man's brain?

The current standard in establishing actual artificial
intelligence for computers is called the Turing Test, and was introduced by Alan Turing
in 1950 as a way of measuring if a computer could think.  At this point (2012) there is
no computer that passes the Turing Test, although many computers are attempting to
simulate the passing of limited portions of the Turing
Test.

A computer is a device that performs many operations
very quickly (billions of times per second!), and yet it does not think or interpret any
of the data that it manipulates.  With the invention of faster computers, it seems as
though they are out-thinking humans.  For example, computers regularly beat humans at
playing chess, and yet, they have no actual knowledge or understanding of the game.
 There is no feeling or thought involved, just billions of
calculations.

Despite all of the advances with computer
science in the last 70 years, these devices have no ability to reason or think or out-do
humans, and that does not look like a possibility any time
soon.

On the other hand, you may say that eventually
computers can do so many things better than humans.  This is true, but in the same way,
a car goes faster than people, and yet we do not feel threatened by
cars!

What is a quote that would explain Ann Putnam's grudge against Rebecca Nurse?

In addition to the reasons mentioned by my esteemed
colleagues above, there is also the vindictive nature and greed of the Putnams which one
should consider. Anne Putnam is obviously greatly troubled and aggrieved by the failure
of her babies to survive beyond their birth, but she has other resentments as well. One
should also consider that since it was so easy for her husband, Thomas, to use his
daughter, Ruth, as a tool during the trials, he could not have found a more willing
partner to his pernicious scheme than his wife.

Arthur
Miller, in his notes, refers to the vindictive nature of the Putnams, specifically as it
is directed towards the Nurses:

readability="23">

Another suggestion to explain the systematic
campaign against Rebecca, and inferentially against Francis, is the land war he fought
with his neighbors, one of whom was a Putnam...

... As we
have seen, Thomas Putnamn's man for the Salem min-istry was Bayley. The Nurse clan had
been in the faction that prevented Bayley's taking office. In addition, certain families
allied to the Nurses by blood or friendship, and whose farms were contiguous with the
Nurse farm or close to it, combined to break away from the Salem town authority and set
up Topsfield, a new and independent entity whose existence was resented by old
Salemites. That the guiding hand behind the outcry was Putnam's is indicated by the fact
that, as soon as it began, this Topsfield-Nurse-faction absented themselves from church
in protest and disbelief. It was Edward and Jonathan Putnam who signed the
first complaint against Rebecca; and Thomas Putnam's little daughter was the one who
fell into a fit at the hearing and pointed to Rebecca as her attacker. To
top it all, Mrs. Putnam - who is now staring at the bewitched child on the bed - soon
accused Rebecca's spirit of tempting her to iniquity, a charge that had more truth in it
than Mrs. Putnam could
know.

It is clear, therefore,
that Anne Putnam's resentment was borne not only out of her jealousy with regard to
Rebecca's success in raising babies, but also that the Nurses were seen as enemies.
Also, with them out of the picture, Thomas could purchase their land at auction once it
has been declared forfeit to the state. The Putnams would have killed two birds with one
stone.

Miller's ironic concluding note in the above extract
asserts that it is Anne Putnam who turned to evil, contrary to her resolute attempts to
prove that it was the other way round.

Why have the Democratic and Republican parties been so durable so as to maintain exsistence since the Civil War?

There can be many ways to go about answering this.  I
would take the economic materialist point of view.  For the most part, both parties have
not represented a true departure from the capitalist practices that have helped to
define America in the last 150 years.  I think that this is part of the reason why they
have endured.  In the end, while America strives for different expressions of the
political notion of the good, industrialization and commerce have helped to make its
economic articulation a capitalist and free enterprise one.  The Democratic and
Republican parties have, for the most part, represented an embrace of these ends.  There
have been moments where this has not been as true, but for the most part, one can say
that both parties have done their part to support free enterprise and capitalism as the
primary means of economic exploration of the good in the nation.  This has been
certainly the case over the last two decades, and has helped to explain why the
Democratic and Republican parties, despite political differences, end up sitting at the
same economic table of profit and wealth.

What is the significance of Ho Chi Mihn's references to Tehran and San Francisco?Declaration of Independence for the Democratic Republic of...

In the end, much of what Ho Chi Minh attempts to do in the
declaration is to ensure that the wave of freedom that began to surge in colonies and
throughout the world with the fall of the Axis powers spilled over into Vietnam, as
well.  His fundamental argument is that if the West coalesced into defeat of the forces
that sought to limit human freedom, then the same can be made for European powers that
controlled colonies in other parts of the world.  Citing specific locations where the
world was made safe for freedom is a part of this larger design, just as sourcing French
and American historical documents that speak and articulate the need for freedom in a
country's citizens.  In using the Western documents of freedom against them, Ho Chi Minh
is essentially forcing a type of standoff.  Either the Western powers are going to live
and abide by their words and historical traditions of freedom or they have to concede
that these nations are motivated by something else other than personal and human freedom
(Economics, world control, power.)  In bringing this issue to the forefront with the
Western powers, Ho Chi Minh is forcing the issue of independence, proving that for
Western nations, obtaining and securing freedom can be seen as two different elements.
 From a domestic standpoint, he is also seeking to broaden support for his agenda of
 Vietnamese freedom.  In the same way of the French and the Colonial Americans, Ho Chi
Minh is seeking to make the political concept of freedom as something more of a human
rights issue that can be easily accepted by his own citizens as well as challenging the
power of the West.

What's the theme of "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery"from Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World by David Walker?

One of the most dominant themes of Walker's work is to
bring out the idea that enslavement is not something that happens only in America to
Black people.  Rather, it is a worldwide condition of those who are oppressed.  Walker
is wise enough to universalize the condition of enslavement to bring more people into
the struggle and allow them to fully grasp that there is a larger struggle for freedom
present.  Walker likens it to the Biblical condition of the Hebrews with Pharaoh.  This
helps to bring out the idea that the struggle that Black Americans are enduring with
slavery is one that all people who are oppressed have endured and do endure.  In this
light, bringing out the universality of "wretchedness" helps to bring out how
enslavement is a condition that can foster solidarity among those
oppressed.

To what extent is Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, defined by his religion and profession?

Actors have from the earliest times represented Shylock as
a bad character "with red hair and a monstrous nose clamoring
 for the blood of Antonio with a fiendish
delight"
.

Shakespeare has presented the
Jew in his play. Shakespeare , the Elizabethan , addicted to the thought, reason,
sentiments and prejudices of his contemporaries, also felt like them a bitter hatred of
the Jews, which was typical of the popular conception of what the Jew could be both in
the Elizabethan age, and medieval times . Thus, while Shakespeare ,the Elizabethan ,
created, Shylock, the villain, insisting on his pound of flesh, Shakespeare, the artist,
painted Shylock, the hero –“the depository of the vengeance of his race” – through his
unconscious dramatic instinct.

He was, of course, an
usurer, charging interest for the money because it gave him the only source of
protection among the violently hostile Christen. As a Jew he nursed a real grievances
against the Christen zealots who prosecuted his race while as a money-lender he hated
Antonio not only for interfering with his professional activities by lending money
gratis but also for insulting and abusing him personality, in privet and in public. His
love of his ‘sacred nation’ may be offensive to the Christens. But it should be
remembered that love of their race and preservation of racial peculiarities was to the
Jews what love of country was to the other people, because the Jews had been exiled from
their homeland for centuries together. “He has a soft place in his heart” are
undercurrent of affection and love for his kith and kin though crushed over with malice
and misanthropy begotten of injustice and ill-treatment. The constant apprehension of
being  burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled and trampled upon might be supposed to
sour the most for bearing nature. The desire of  revenge  is almost inseparable  from
the sense of wrong. To crown all , his own daughter has eloped with a Christian and has
stolen “his jewels and a lot of money.”

Shylock might be a
bad man but do not the circumstances in which he is placed, conspire to draw out some of
the worst traits of his character – his malignity, vindictiveness and revenge. He is
after all, human. He loves his daughter and his affection for her is none-the-less
genuine in spite of her treachery and desertion rendered possible by the help and
connivance of Christian. Even in the trial-scene he fondly cherishes the memory of his
wife. He has a good word for Launcelot, his servant. He even wanted to be a friend of
Antonio but received only insults for him.

It is no wonder
, then that in the Trial-scene he appears like the very embodiment of vengeance, his
miserliness even becoming subordinate to it. It is only then that Shylock becomes
morally less and sympathetic to us, because he is making a deliberate attempt at taking
the life of a Christian, though we are touched and thrilled by the pathos of his parting
words :

“I pray
 you , give me leave to go from
hence

I
am not  well .”

And, last of all
, when the grand of old Jew leaves the stage crushed, broken , cheated and despoiled of
all the things dear to his heart, we are almost persuaded to think that the poor man is
more sinned against than sinning.

1. Simplify x(3x+2) - (2x-4) 2. f(x)= (x+2) (2x-1) Evaluate f(5.5)3. (a) 4872 correct to 1 significant figure is.....? (b) 4872 correct to...

We'll simplify by removing the
brackets:

x(3x+2) - (2x-4) = x*3x + 2*x - 2x +
4

We'll eliminate like
terms:

3x^2 + 4

The simplified
expresion is:

x(3x+2) - (2x-4) = 3x^2 +
4

We'll evaluate
f(5.5):

f(5.5) = 3(5.5)^2 +
4

f(5.5) = 3*30.25 + 4

f(5.5)
= 90.75 + 4

f(5.5) =
94.75

4. Let's note the price
of the painting as x.

The profit she made is
calculated as a difference between the price she sold the painting and the price she
bought it.

800 - x 

But the
profit is 25% on the price she bought the painting.

800-x =
25*x/100

800 - x =
0.25*x

We'll add x both
sides:

800 = 1.25*x

We'll
divide by 1.25 both sides:

x =
800/1.25

Price of aquisition = x = 640 monetary
units

So, the pinting was sold at the price
of 800 monetary units and the aquisition price was 640 monetary
units.

5. We'll solve the
system of equations:

3x= 7y
(1)

12y= 5x-1 (2)

We'll solve
the system using the substitution method.

We'll divide the
first equation by 3:

x = 7y/3
(3)

We'll substitute (3) in
(2):

12y= 5x-1

12y= 5*7*y/3 -
1

12y = 35y/3 - 1

We'll
multiply -1 by 3:

12y = (35y -
3)/3

We'll cross multiply:

36y
= 35y - 3

We'll subtract 35y both
isdes:

y =
-3

We'll substitute y in (3), to find out
the value of x:

x = 7y/3

x =
7*(-3)/3

We'll reduce like
terms:

x =
7*(-1)

x =
-7

The solution of the system
of equations is {(-7 , -3)}.

y= x^5+ 2x^3+ 6. If dy/dx=0 , find x.

To calculate the roots of the equation dy/dx=0, we'll have
to differentiate the given relation both sides.

y= x^5+
2x^3+ 6

dy= (x^5+ 2x^3+
6)'dx

To differentiate the given expression x^5+ 2x^3+ 6,
we'll differentiate each term of this expression, with respect to
x.

(x^5+ 2x^3+ 6)' = (x^5)'+ (2x^3)'+
(6)'

To calculate the derivative of the power
function;

f(x) = x^n

f'(x) =
(x^n)'

But (x^n) = x*x*x*......*x, n
times

(x^n)' = (x*x*x*......*x)' = x'*x*...*x +
x*x'*x*...*x + ...+x*x*...*x' = n*x^(n-1)

If n = 5
=> (x^5)' = 5x^4

For n = 3 => (2x^3)' =
6x^2

(6)' = 0

(x^5+ 2x^3+ 6)'
= 5x^4 + 6x^2

Now, we'll calculate dy/dx = 0
<=> 5x^4 + 6x^2 = 0

We'll factorize by x^2
and we'll get:

x^2(5x^2 + 6)=
0

x^2 = 0

x1=x2 =
0

5x^2 + 6 = 0

We'll subtract
6 both sides:

5x^2 = -6
impossible!

x^2>0, for any value of
x

5x^2>0 also, so it's imposible for 5x^2 to have
negative values, for any x.

The
real solutions of dy/dx = 0 are x1=x2 = 0.

What is 4,567,083.2937 rounded to the nearest tenth?

The given number is
 4567083.2937.

To round this to the nearest
10th.

So we have th decide which is the tenths around
456083.2937.

 Obviously the  upper  tenth is 4567083.3 and
the lower tenth is

4567083.2. Which tenth is
near?

If we choose  4567083.3, then the distance  of this
number from the actual number on the number line is |4567083.3 - 4567083.2937| =
0.0063......(1)

If we choose the number 4567083.2, then the
distance of this number between the actual number on the number is  |4567083.2 -
4567083.2937| =0.0937.......(2)

So from (1) and (2) between
the two numbers , it is proved that 4567083.3 is nearer on the number
line.

If we chose any other number , the distance will
increase further. So we have to choose  the number 456083.3 as the nearest
tenth.

Why do dictators in totalitarian societies enforce the living arrangement where children live apart from their families?

Of course, kids do not have to live apart from their
families in totalitarian societies.  The Nazis, for example, did not generally take kids
from their families.  Neither did the Communist Party in the USSR.  However, it makes
sense that dictatorial leaders such as the ones in this book would make kids live away
from their parents.

In Anthem, the
government does not want people to have individuality.  They have numbers rather than
names, for example.  They are also expected to treat everyone equally and not to have
special friends.  In this context, you can see why they would want to raise kids apart
from their parents.

If you grow up with your parents, you
form a family.  It is your "in group."  You identify most with your family and other
people are not as important to you.  When you do this, you form the idea that you are
different from everyone else.  In this book, the leaders want everyone to be the same so
that they will not try to rebel against the society.  The leaders want everyone to think
the same so that there will be complete social
stability.

This is why they raise kids away from parents. 
They want the kids to feel like they are just pieces in the large society -- not
individuals who are tied to certain families and friends.

I need a quote or something that I could use to compare to Romeo as a way to begin my seminar for Romeo and Juliet.I am doing a unit seminar on how...

You could definitely use a quote from the Chorus at the
beginning of Act II, to show how impulsive Romeo is.  He
says:

Now old
desire doth in his deathbed lie

And young affection gapes
to be his heir;

That fair for which love groan'd for and
would die,

With tender Juliet match'd is now not
fair.

The Chorus is making
fun of Romeo a bit here, calling his love for Rosaline "old desire" (when it really
wasn't very old in terms of years at all) and his feelings for Juliet new and "gaping"
like a baby.  You could have fun, in your presentation, with the difference between love
for Rosaline like an old tired person versus love for Juliet, which is like a little
baby.  The Chorus is a good character to use for a presentation such as yours, since he
stands outside the action commenting on it, which is what it appears you will be
doing.

By the way, the image you describe in your question
refers to "blinkers" or "blinders" that a horse wears to keep his focus on the track in
front of him when he races.

Good luck with your
presentation.

Why must The Great Gatsby end with Gatsby's death and Nick's return to the Mid West?

The short answer is that it ends this way because that's
how Fitzgerald wrote it.  I wouldn't say it necessarily had to end that way, that the
Author is infallible or that "destiny" played a role in writing the book or that
"destiny" is the inherent theme in the book, because "destiny" is not the theme. 
Individual choices are. 

The actions, themes and context
do, in fact, lead to an inevitable conclusion; or at least, a 'not so happy' ending. 
Although Gatsby was charming and only in search of love, his 'ends justify the means'
eventually backfires; being involved with Wolfsheim, pursuing a married woman, etc.  Tom
was equally guilty, if not more so.  These characters, sans Nick and Mr. Wilson, are a
yuppy, rich class, living carelessly and in excess, the overindulgence of the 'American
Dream.'  For Gatsby, his dream is relatively innocent and naïve but he justified it
living through this careless world to get there.  Gatsby died because of all these
colliding careless actions in that 'end(American Dream) justifies the means' world. 
This behavior calls to mind an insular reality show contestant who does whatever he/she
can to win because, as they selfishly say 'that's how you play the game, this is a
competition, etc.' 

Nick went back to the Midwest to get
away from that world.  And it is poetic or fitting since that is where Gatsby came
from.  And remember, back then, Gatsby (Gatz) was like Nick; honest, uncorrupted.  This
is all about the illusive American Dream, and the justifications people may make in
order to pursue it. The 'move West' also recalls the early explorers, Pilgrims, etc. in
search of a New World (Am. Dream).  But, it also recalls manifest destiny, which may be
more fitting for this novel's end.  

How did Atticus react when Bob Ewell confronted him in chapter 23?

Miss Stephanie reports it better when she
says:

Atticus
didn’t bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and
let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to
repeat.

Isn't that amazing!
What character! I love how in this moment Atticus has absolutely no problem turning the
other cheek. He allowed Ewell to do this because he understood that he had hurt Ewell's
reputation (as if he had one worth protecting in the first place) during the
trial.

The two also exchanged words. Because Atticus didn't
make any effort to physically defend himself Ewell asked if he was too proud. Atticus
merely responds, "No, too old." The children struggled with this response and hoped
Atticus would consider carrying a gun since they think it could happen
again.

Describe the ceremony before and during the final bullfight in The Sun Also Rises.

Sword-handlers and bull-ring servants came down into the
bull-ring carrying wicker baskets of fighting capes and muletas. The sword handlers
opened the sword cases and propped them up against the fence. They unfolded the muletas
and attached them to batons. The names of the bull fighters are stencilled on all of the
capes and muletas. Then the music started and the bull fighters all walked into the
ring. There was a great procession of bull fighters, picadors, mules, and bull-ring
servants. The matadors bowed before the President's box and tipped their hats. Romer
took off his cape and gave it to his sword-handler, and the sword-handler gave the cape
to Brett. Romero was dedicating the bull to her, which is part of the tradition. Then
Romero poured water on his cape to weight it down so it would be easy to handle in the
wind. There were three bull fighters, and the first one, Belmonte (a has-been) fights
the first bull.

Belmonte is past his prime, and the people
are not happy with his performance because it is good, but not great. The third bull
fighter is Marcial, but he is not as good as either Belmonte or Romero. Romero is the
last one to do, and his performance is brilliant. There is a very long description of
how he artistically fights the bull and wins.

What kind of tortous tasks does the terrible Trivium give Milo, Tock, and the Humbug? Why do you think trivil tasks are so terrible? What kind of...

The Terrible Trivium's job was to so occupy people's time
that they no longer had time to do anything important. One character had to dig a hole
in a cliff using a needle. Another had to move each grain of sand from a beach. Lastly,
the other had to empty a well using an eyedropper. While busy with these tasks, the
characters forgot about rescuing the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason and restoring order
to the kingdom. Therefore, the chaos in the kingdoms of numbers and words would
continue. War would break out over what was more important, words or numbers while the
Demons of Darkness took over the world.

Are practical criticism and new criticism the same? If not, then what is the difference between the two ?

Practical Criticism was devised by a professor named I. A.
Richards at Cambridge University in the 1920s. The term “New Criticism” was used in the
United States to refer to essentially the same thing.

In
this type of criticism, literary works, especially poetry, are read an analyzed without
any information about the author, the date of the writing, the circumstances under which
the work was written, etc. The work is supposed to be a considered as a standalone piece
of literature. Students are suppossed to appreciate it for its art – its use of literary
devices, its beauty, its impact, etc.

In the United States,
Practical Criticism became New Criticism due to the use of this term by poet, professor
and literary scholar and critic John Crowe Ransom. He wrote a book entitled
New Criticism in which he adopted the ideas of the Practical
Critics in England. This type of criticism was in vogue throughout the 1960s and even
into the 1970s in the United States. As with the Practical Critics, the New Critics
believed that works should be read closely but in
isolation.

Today, these methods are not adhered to
religiously, but are incorporated into other methods of
criticism.

What is dehydration, and what are the first signs of dehydration?

Dehydration is total body fluid loss. This can come about
from intense exercise and sweating or commonly arises from intractable nausea and
vomiting or diarrhea. If the dehydration is from exercise, first signs and symptoms
could include copious amounts of sweat, intense thirst, intense body heat. Later signs
and symptoms could be fatigue, muscle cramps and disorientation. Heat stroke can also
occur if the person is exercising or if they are outside in the hot
sun.

If the dehydration is caused by repeated episodes of
vomiting or diarrhea, the first signs and symptoms could be intense fatigue and muscle
weakness. Hypotension can also be present.

When someone is
dehydrated, an area of concern is the loss of electrolytes such as sodium, potassium,
chloride, calcium, and others. Loss of these ions is what causes the fatigue, muscle
weakness, and disorientation.

In "The Pit and the Pendulum," which is the more striking death, the pit or the pendulum?

Well, it is clear that neither are to be recommended if
you had a choice! Obviously, the response to this question is going to be very
subjective, as both are clearly presented in terms that demonstrate their terror and
horror, but for me, the pendulum is a far worse method of death than the pit. The pit,
of course, was a hidden danger - it was only by accident that the narrator tripped and
discovered it. Yet the pendulum is a torture-device beyond compare because the victim is
aware of its every movement as it descends bit by bit with the aim of slicing its victim
into two. Consider how the narrator describes the terror he feels when he has worked out
the situation that he is in:

readability="10">

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of
horror more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the steel!
Inch by inch - line by line - with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed
ages - down and still down it came! Days passed - it might have been that many days
passed - ere it swept so closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odour
of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed - I wearied heaven with my
prayer for its more speedy
descent.

Clearly, this method
of death is so much more horrendous than the pit because of the madness that it causes
in its victim as they are forced to watch the blade descend ever lower, every moment
thinking that they are closer to being cut in twain.

Ronald Reagan, Speech to the House of Commons (1982)How did Reagan combine peace with military strength?

Ronald Reagan was especially good at this technique of
brinkmanship - taking us to the edge of war, and pulling back to make favorable peace
deals.  He sent medium range Pershing nuclear missiles into Europe to face off against
the Warsaw Pact, and built a whole new class of MX nuclear ICBM, then used the
threatening buildup of power to successfully negotiate the START treaties - the world's
first actually reducing the number of atomic weapons held by each
side.

He did not hesitate to demonstrate America's
willingness to use force in countries like Libya and Grenada, but almost always did so
on his own terms, against countries that could offer little resistance.  He ordered a
massive, trillion dollar military buildup from 1980 - 1988, and during that time we were
not in any major war.

Some say his military spending
bankrupted the Soviet Union and helped to "win" the Cold War - I think that's a kind of
a stretch.

What ideas about equality and inequality are brought out in the story "The Lesson"?

In Bambara's "The Lesson," Miss Moore attempts to teach
the children about the savage inequalities that exist in socioeconomic status.  Miss
Moore takes the children to F. A. O. Schwartz where they see toys that are outrageously
expensive.  The children cannot believe that people can actually afford to buy such
expensive toys, but there at the shop, purchases are being made.  Outside the store, the
children see people who would never be able to buy things from a place like F. A. O.
Schwartz.  Miss Moore explains that there are real differences between social classes,
but she also explains that the children do not have to be bound by their present
existence. 

Who helps Beowulf kill the dragon?

Wiglaf helps Beowulf slay the dragon.  During the battle
with the dragon, all of Beowulf's men, except for Wiglaf, run away. Wiglaf sees that
Beowulf is being overcome by the dragon, and though Beowulf had stabbed at the dragon
with his ancestral sword, Nagling, the sword had broken.  The dragon is able to bite
Beowulf's neck with its poisonous fangs.  Wiglaf realizes that stabbing the dragon in
the head, as Beowulf has tried, would not work, so he struck lower down, in the dragon's
belly.  He had to plunge his sword all the way into the dragon, burning his own hand,
but he managed to kill the dragon.  Since Wiglaf was the only soldier who did not break
comitatus and run from the battle and because he'd always been loyal to Beowulf, Wiglaf
was rewarded.  Beowul told Wiglaf that he should be the next king since Beowulf knew
that his own time was quickly drawing to a close.

Why did Ring Lardner choose the town barber as the narrator, and is he reliable?

The most obvious reason for choosing a town barber as a
narrator is a stylistic one: a barber can tell a long tale without interruption to an
uninvolved listener. Another reason is that in small towns in the 1920s, the town barber
shop was very often the gathering place for the local men. This puts the barber in a
position of advantage because he knows everyone very well and knows all the town gossip
and all the latest news and the hottest stories of exploits. In other words, the town
barber is the best source of information on the male population of the
town.

The question as to whether Whitey the barber is relaible or not
is a complicated one. In a very real way, he is not reliable as he identifies Jim
Kendall and Hod Meyers as pranksters who are full of "mischief" and fun and who have the
whole laughing more than any other small town:

readability="6">

[Jim] and Hod Meyers used to keep this town in an
uproar. I bet they was more laughin' done here than any town its size in
America.

Even after Jim
assaults Julie then humiliates her, when Doc Stair enters the barbershop to look for
Paul Dickson, the barber still insists that Jim is basically a good
man:

I said it
had been a kind of a raw thing, but Jim just couldn't resist no kind of a joke, no
matter how raw. I said I thought he was all right at heart, but just bubblin' over with
mischief.

On the other hand,
he does have an accurate perception of the other characters and he does express sympathy
for the ones who take the greatest brunt of Jim's brutal "all kinds of sport": Milton,
with the Adam's apple; Paul Dickson, with the fall on his head in babyhood; Julie Gregg,
who rejects Jim continually.

In conclusion, Whitey's
reliability is mixed: he has no right sense for the immorality of brutality, yet he has
an accurate perception of decent people. This, of course, plays into Lardner's theme,
which protests against condoning vicious behavior, such as Jim's and Hod's, as good old
mischief and laughs: brutality is brutality no matter if cowardly people and "the rough
bunch" laugh at it.

To what extent can the story "The Black Cat" be seen as a study in human psychology? Explain

The Black Cat may very well be seen as a study in human
psychology because the main character is clearly a psychopath. At first you can see how
the man is kind, always given to service to others, a good family man, and he is
especially loving to his black cat, Pluto.

The moment when
he begins to change his attitude it seems as if all the goodness that he had in the
beginning of the story had been all part of his psychopath behavior, since he did a
complete turn and placed all his anger towards the cat until he killed
him.

Then came the psychosis and paranoia of him thinking
that the cat was chasing him, until the man, himself died under mysterious circumstances
which suggest that the cat did get back at him after
all.

However, it is the slow decay of his kindness, and his
turn for the worst what makes one wonder about his actual mental state and makes one
suppose that he was indeed totally psycho.

What is the significance of the title of The Chosen by Chaim Potok?

The title of this novel alludes to the way in which the
Jews were a chosen people by God. This of course relates to the political backdrop of
the novel as the creation of Israel--the homeland for the Jews that was the "Promised
Land" God gave to them in the Bible--is decided during the course of the novel. However,
the title also relates much more personally to the character of Danny Saunders and his
own destiny. As he makes clear to Reuven early on in the novel, just as the Jews are a
chosen people of God, so too is he a chosen person in terms of his destiny and his
expected future. Note what he says to Reuven:

readability="9">

"I have no choice," he said again. "It's like a
dynasty. If the son doesn't take the father's place, the dynasty falls apart. The people
expect me to become their rabbi. My family has been their rabbi for six generations
now... I'm--I'm a little
trapped."

Danny Saunders is
chosen by his father to be his replacement and to inherit the position of leader of his
people, and it is this issue of being chosen that results in the massive conflict that
lies at the heart of this novel as Danny has to battle between his father's expectations
of him and his own desire to do something different.

Can someone please help me? I have this part figured out.$15660x2/3x1/2=5220.($15660-5220)x2/3=6960. ...

It appears that you are confused because the way various
expressions are represented, these can be interpreted in different ways. You can
represent the expression more clearly as:

Instead
of:

I.

15660x2/3x1/2=5220.

15660
x (2/3) x (1/2) = 5220

This can be simplified
as:

==> 15660 x (2x1)/(3x2) =
5220

==> 15660 x (1/3) =
5220

==> 15660/3) =
5220

In this case:

($15660 -
answer) x (2/3) = answer, becomes

($15660 - 5220) x (2/3) =
5220

II.

Similarly Instead
of:

(15660-5220)x2/3=6960.

(15660
- 5220) x (2/3) = 6960

This can be simplified
as:

==> (10440) x (2/3) =
6960

==> (10440 x 2)/3 =
6960

==> 20880/3 =
6960

In this case:

($15660 -
answer) - $600 = answer, becomes,

($15660 - 6960) - $600 =
6960

Please note that this equation is not correct. There
appears to be some error in question posted. The correct value of ($15660 - 6960) -
$600  is 8100

This equation can be balanced with value of
answer as 7530. Then the equation becomes:

($15660 - 7530)
- $600 = 7530

Identify and describe one major geographical feature of ancient Egyptian civilization.World History

The most obvious and dominant geographic feature of
ancient Egyptian civilization (as well as today in Egypt) to me would be the Nile
River.  It's the world's longest river, stretching 2700 miles from headwaters in Sudan
to the delta in Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea.

In ancient
Egypt, it was mythical and spiritual, gave them life in the form of irrigation for crops
and drinking water, and references to it in hieroglyphics number in the hundreds. 
Animals were drawn to it as a water source, which made for plentiful and easy hunting on
its banks.  Egyptian cities grew up along the river's banks and allowed its population
to grow rapidly, making it the dominant civilization of its
time.

There was even an Egyptian god, Hapy, that was
dedicated to the Nile and the annual flooding that brought them fertile
soil.

What is the importance of Clerval in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?Need quotes to support answer.

Henry Clerval is a foil to
Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's classic, Frankenstein. Henry
is a true Romantic, not a scientist like Victor; he encourages Victor to study nature,
he enjoys reading romances about knights and damsels in distress rather than such works
as those by Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, and he studies
languages in hopes of traveling to exotic locations.  Henry is humbly honest and
forthright whereas Victor, in his arrogance, refuses to confess that it is his creation
which has murdered his own brother.

In Chapter 2, Victor
describes Henry Clerval as a boy of "singular talent and fancy"
who

loved
enterprise, hardship, and even danger, for its own sake.  He was deeply read in books of
chivalry and romance.  He composed heroic songs, and began to write many a tale of
enchantment and knightly adventure....I might have become sullen in my study, rough
through the ardour of my nature, but that [Elizabeth] was there to subdue me...Ad
Clerval--could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval?--yet he might not have
been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity--so full of kindness and
tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous
exploit....

In the absence of
the humane Henry Clerval, Victor Frankenstein goes awry in his scientific pursuits and
loses his moral judgment. Thus, Henry Clerval is the character who best expresses Mary
Shelley's Romantic concepts, concepts of knowledge through intuition and
communication with nature rather than by scientific determinations, concepts that she
believed were superior to those of Darwin and those involved with
science.

What is the most important element of fiction in "A Rose for Emily"?

Widely considered one of the greatest of American authors,
William Faulkner is superb in his employment of all elements of fiction.  In his "A Rose
for Emily" Faulkner's unique use of several narrators, the significantly Gothic tone
with the influence of the Southern milieu, the characterization of Emily, and the plot
itself are all skillfully rendered.

Most skillful is
the author's use of time (part of setting) in the plot of
his short story.  For, it is the shifts of time with the narrator's flashbacks that
prevent readers from "putting all the pieces together" and that help to create the
Gothic horror of the discovery at the end.  "A Rose for Emily" is divided into five
sections, with the first and last dealing with the present, the now
of the narrative, while the three middle sections detail the past. The story, thus,
begins and ends with the death of Miss Emily Grierson; the three middle sections cover
the time from soon after her father's death and shortly after her "beau," Homer Barron,
has deserted her, to the time of her death. 

In the fourth
section, Faulkner writes of Emily,

readability="10">

Thus she passed from generation to
generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and
perverse.

These adjectives
describe each section of "A Rose for Emily." Critics argue that these descriptions
of the times of each section are a metaphorical characterization of the differing states
of mind that the townspeople pass through in their evaluation of Emily. For instance, in
his essay, "'A Rose for Emily':  Another View of Faulkner's Narrator," William V. Davis
correlates the two present sections with the adjectives that fall to them, giving Miss
Emily to the reader as the paradox she has become in death: "dear" and "perverse," while
before her death, she was inescapable, impervious, and tranquil."  Thus, during her
life, the woman who has been a mystery and an inscrutable and impenetrable is finally
clarified by the shifts of time.  Another look at the first death section reveals the
foreshadowing of Emily's final portrait:  Her house is an "eyesore among eyesores" in
"coquettish decay," there is a "tarnished gilded easel," and Miss Emily looks "bloated,
like a body submerged.

Skillfully arranged, the shifts in
time of William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" serve to develop the Gothic horror and
explicate the narrative; as part of the plot they are key to the understanding
Faulkner's magnificent story.