Explain what Father Gonzaga does in order to prove that the Old Man is not an angel. How is this a criticism of organized religion?

Father
Gonzaga first speaks to the Old Man in Latin and determines that since he (Old Man) does not
understand the language of God (Latin), he must be an impostor. Father Gonzaga also uses the
slippery logic that since wings are not useful in determining the difference between a hawk and
an airplane, they are hardly useful in determining a definitive angel. Gonzaga stubbornly
resorts to core church doctrine and does not suppose that he might learn something new about
angels. But to be sure, Father Gonzaga writes to a Bishop who will write to another intermediary
who will then write to the Pope to get a final answer.

Those at the Vatican
wonder if the alleged angel has a navel, if his language is similar to Aramaic, or how many
times he could fit on the end of a pin. Some mythologies describe angels as...

What are the characteristics of good political leadership?

In spite
of the length of the Reflections and its somewhat rambling style (which
caused Burke's main , Thomas Paine, to write that "Mr Burke's book is all
miscellany") Burke's "formula" for proper political leadership can be
reduced to a few simple principles. Foremost is that government should be based on tradition, on
long-standing values and practices. He cites the declaration of Parliament during William and
Mary's reign that they, the English people, bound themselves and their posterity to the monarchy
and its posterity "forever."

Burke's implication, ridiculed of
course by Paine and others, was that the British had deliberately given up the right to choose
their leaders or system of government. Burke did not literally mean this, but his point was that
the only valid kind of political leadership was that based on tradition, on the established
manner in...

What are the similarities between "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Revelation"?

These
two Flannery OConnor stories share several features. Most notably, each has an unpleasant
femalewho has a rigid view of social status that includes a highly flawed self-image. Each is
placed in a situation through which she might gain insight, but she fails to do so and retains a
narrow view of her own supposedly-elevated place in the world. In one case, this failure results
only in a nightmare, but in the other, it causes several death.

The
grandmother in seems obsessed with goodness, which she equates with blood, a concept that
includes ancestry and socialization. Because she characterizes the Misfit as a good man, she
cannot understand why his behavior will not match her preconception. He is not interested in her
narrow worldview, and her expressions of condescending superiority probably just fuel his
homicidal urges.

Ruby Turpin in obsessively categorizes people according to
their appearance and...

Her Voice Is Full Of Money

 

It iswho first comments on 's voice and what he says is 'she's got an indiscreet
voice'. Money and indiscretion are both present in her voice and are therefore linked. Her
indiscretion is a factor of her money. Nick himself is thought to be careful by , so it is not
something he is likely to approve of.

By the end Daisy andand by extension
rich people like them are seen by Nick as not just indiscreet but irresponsible, their wealth
literally allowing them to get away with murder, to escape any responsibility for 's death. Nick
comments 'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and
then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness'. Here money and carelessness
are synonymous and Nick is sickened by the sort of behaviour that wealth allows; Daisy and her
voice was an earlier image of this.

Is the government of Oceania an oligarchical collectivism? oligarchy = rule of a few; collectivism = everything is owned by the collective community...

As far as we
know, the government and society of Oceania does conform to these definitions pretty
well.

The government is probably an oligarchy.  We do know that the Inner
Party controls the major decisions made by the government (although we are not really clear as
to what role Big Brother plays, if he exists).  It maybe, however, a bit iffy to call 6 million
people an oligarchy.

As far as collectivism goes, it is not completely clear
to me.  This is mainly because pretty much no one has anything that they can own -- there's not
much wealth.  However, we do know that the government runs pretty much everything, so there is
probably little serious private property.

How is the nature vs. nurture conflict presented in Frankenstein?

creates is
initially full of love and kindness. He wants nothing more than the acceptance and love of other
human beings, such as his creator, . But Victor rejects him in horror, fleeing him. When the
creature tries to approach people in a friendly way, they react with terror at his looks,
thinking he is a monster. Even the kind De Lacey family rejects him, and after the creature
saves a child from drowning, the child's caretaker shoots him in the arm for his
pains.

Although nature has produced a creature with a good heart, nurture
turns him to evil. The creature, constantly rejected and treated as horrible, even when he tries
to do good, turns to evil out of loneliness, anger, and despair. He murdersto hurt Frankenstein
the way he himself has been hurt. He continues to lash out in anger against Victor's friends and
family because of how he has been treated.

Shelley posits that humans are
born good, even humans as aberrant as the creature Victor creates. It is nurturetreating people
cruelly and with rejectionthat turns them to evil. As the creature says:

I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make
peace with all.

What 5 words from the novel Fever 1793 help define this genre?

This novel is
of the genre called historical . Although the main characters and their dialogue is
fictional,the story is based on real happenings in history.

1. historical-
The city of Philadelphia in 1793 was decimated by a yellow fever epidemic. Real, important
people are mentioned by name and worked into the plot.

2.realistic- The
symptoms of the disease and the mention of the heat and mosquitoes are true. The fleeing of the
residents was also true, as was the mention of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The
clothes the characters wore and the food they ate was accurate.

3. dramatic-
The story was of a serious nature. It was a drama in real life.

4. tragic-
The numbers of people who died and the conditions they were living under was sad, especially the
references to the children who were left behind when their parents died of the fever.

5. personal- The reader could relate to the heroine at this age and understand much of
what she was feeling. Adding personal details of loves and hates, bullies and allies, fashion,
and chores makes history come alive. Reading a factual textbook leaves out the personal touch of
what people living then experienced.

Is Euripides' Medea a play of ideas?

In ancient
times,was known as the philosopher of the stage and so, yes, I would certainly say that any of
his plays are filled with "ideas."

Modern readers of Euripides'
need to keep in mind that this play was first staged in 431 BCE in front
of an Athenian audience. At that time, Athens was on the brink of war with Sparta and its
allies.

Thus, to my way of thinking, one of the most interesting moments in
the play occurs when Aegeus, King of Athens, appears in Corinth and makes a deal with Medea to
grant her asylum in Athens in exchange for her help in providing a remedy for his own
childlessness.

Although many readers of the play have considered Aegeus'
appearance in the play as strange and incongruous with the play's plot, the fact that an
Athenian king enters into this agreement with a barbarian woman who will soon kill her own
children strikes me as extremely thought provoking. On the brink of war with Sparta, Euripides'
fellow Athenians were preparing to send many of their own children to die in battle.

What would Euripides' Athenian audience have thought about their mythical Athenian king
making such a deal with this child-killer? 

Euripides' audience may also have
recalled that, according to tradition, Medea marries Aegeus when she comes to Athens and has a
child (Medus) with him. Euripides' audience surely would have remembered that, according to
their myths, before Aegeus had a child by Medea, he would have a child (Theseus) by Aethra, the
daughter of Pittheus, whom Aegeus is on his way to visit in the Medea.
Mythology also tells us that when Theseus grew up and returned to Athens, Medea tried to kill
Theseus in order to preserve her own son's position as heir to the Athenian throne.

Thus, I ask again, what would Euripides' Athenian audience have thought about their
mythical Athenian king making such a deal with this child-killer? Euripides has theof Corinthian
women ask the same question:

      How will this city of sacred
streams,
      this land of strolling lovers,
      welcome youa
killer,
      who slaughtered her own children,
      an unholy womanamong its
people?  (Ian Johnston translation)

In "The Black Cat" why did the narrator initially restrain himself from maltreating the cat while maltreating the other animals?

It is
strange that he begins maltreating any of the animals at all, because in the beginning of the
story he goest to great lengths to explain that he was "especially fond of animals...With
these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them." 
However, later, he says that he develops a fondness for alcohol, and it altered his behavior for
the worse.  He states that he starts behaving badly towards his wife, even using "personal
violence" against her.  Then, he starts abusing the animals.  Initially, Pluto, his cat, is
spared this abuse.  The narrator states, "For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient
regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the
monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way."  So
what keeps the narrator from maltreating the cat-at first-was that he cared for the cat too
much; he still had "sufficient regard" for him.  In the end however, even that
affection was not enough to keep the cat from being the victim of the narrator's awful abuse.

What were the major accomplishments of Julius Caesar?

I cannot
agree with the above post that Caesar was assassinated because of his rejection of kingship; in
fact he was assassinated because it was feared that he would proclaim himself King.

Caesar's greatest accomplishment was not so much his conquest of Gaul, which of course
was significant; but his ability to secure rule of the entire Roman Republic for himself and to
transform it into the Roman Empire. During the last days of the Republic, when Rome was racked
by civil war, Julius Caesar raised his own private army using his own funds. In addition, he
spent a great deal of money providing entertainment with the common folk, primarily gladiatorial
fights and fights with wild animals. This made him immensely popular with the common people, and
earned him membership in the First Triumvirate together with Pompey and Marcus Crassus. Caesar
was to remain on the far side of the Rubicon River and leave Rome to Pompey (Crassus was killed
during a slave revolt.) However, he was considered dangerous because of his popularity, and an
attempt was made to remove him from power. In response, he marched on Rome with his army and
took control. Pompey fled to Egypt.

Caesar is said to have muttered
Jacta alia est ("the die is cast" when he crossed the Rubicon.  Since that
time, one is said to have "crossed the Rubicon" when one has reached the point of no
return.

Caesar ruled under a provision of the Roman Constitution which
provided for the creation of the office of Dictator during national emergencies. He married
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and set up colonies in Gaul, North Africa and Spain which he
populated with veterans and poor folk so that they might have a new beginning. His popularity,
however, made many fear that he would have himself crowned king--something the Romans never
had--and he was accordingly assassinated.

href="http://www.historydoctor.net/Advanced%20Placement%20World%20History/10.%20Roman%20Society.htm">http://www.historydoctor.net/Advanced%20Placement%20World...

What makes the dialogue of the two characters in the story seem trivial or empty? How does their style of talking echo their lifestyles? What makes...

Yes, I agree with #2 and
#3 - the dialogue is what makes this a difficult story to work out. So much of what is really
going on between Jig and her partner is completely unsaid and it is necessary to infer
everything from their strained and empty dialogue. Jig in particular is desperately trying to
put a "happy face" on to the situation, but becomes overwhelmed easily and ends up
getting more and more depressed until she accepts the inevitable.

What message is Austen sending through the final sentence in Emma: "the perfect happiness of the union"? How can one relate this to the theme of...

s ends with two
weddings in quick succession, both performed, perhaps without any particular enthusiasm, by Mr.
Elton. The first unites Harriet with Robert Martin; the second, Emma with Mr. Knightley. It is
this latter wedding which is described in the final paragraph:

The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for
finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all
extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a
most pitiful business!Selina would stare when she heard of it.But, in spite of these
deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true
friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the
union.

Thehere is that Mrs. Elton is a thoroughly vulgar
woman who has not the taste to appreciate a sophisticated ceremony and probably thinks every
bride ought to look like a meringue. Even if it were pitiful to have very
little white satin, the important matter, as Austen points out in the final sentence, is the
marriage, not the wedding. Emma has learned a great deal about herself during the novel and is
finally fitted to enjoy married life with the man she has always loved without realizing
it.

If there is anto be drawn with Cinderella, then Emma has spent the better
part of the novel trying to be the Fairy Godmother, with no success whatsoever. Harriet would be
Cinderella, though she eventually marries a good man on her own level of society, rather than
one of Emmas unsuitable princes. No one goes from rags to riches, which is the principal theme
of Cinderella, but Emma does learn the importance of kindness, a secondary
theme in the fairy tale.

What does OBrien say about reality in 1984?

bluntly
tellsthat reality is whatever the Party says it is. In this totalitarian state, the ruling Party
has created a parallel universe in which "War is Peace," "Freedom is
Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength." If the Party says that two plus two equals
five, then it does, and woe betide anyone who dares to contradict the Party line.

For O'Brien reality doesn't exist out there in the world, but rather inside the mind.
That being the case, the Party knows that if it can control people's minds it can create its own
reality, one that serves its own interests. Winston stubbornly disagrees, at least until after
he's been brutally tortured. He rightly thinks that there's a real objective world that exists
outside of human consciousness. And this world, two plus two will always equal four whatever
anyone thinks. Indeed everyone in the whole world could deny the truth of this sum and it still
wouldn't make any difference. Two plus two equals four. Period.

That's not
what O'Brien wants to hear, of course. He demands Winston's complete, unswerving loyalty to the
Party and its dictates. As Winston soon discovers, in Oceania reality is inextricably linked to
power, and the Party uses its monopoly of power to impose its own alternative reality on
society, like a boot stamping on a human face forever.

Are there any there language techniques (humour, parody, direct speech, puns, languages other than English, or old fashioned vocabulary) in the...

There are a number of language techniques that Wright
employs in "Smalltown Dance." One is indirect speech.
This is seen in the second stanzas in which the sheets, the "corridors of white," are
given voice and speech through. The sheets speak to the little girl that the narrator once was,
as she describes herself and her childhood game of "Out of Sight," in the first and
second stanzas. The sheets tell her that spiritually, she is as clean and fresh as they are
after their Monday morning scrubbing. They also tell her that if she runs quickly, before she is
seen running, she can escape the yard and play...

What is the intention behind Vera lying to Nuttel?

In 's
celebrated short story "," Mrs. Sappleton's niece, Vera, is introduced to the neurotic
Framton Nuttel, who arrives at Mrs. Sappleton's country home in hopes of resting his nerves.
After Vera asks several probing questions and learns that Framton is not familiar with her aunt
or the region, she proceeds to tell Mr. Nuttel an unsettling fabricated story about why her aunt
keeps her large French window open. Vera tells Mr. Nuttel that three years ago, Mrs. Sappleton's
husband and two brothers went out shooting in the forest and tragically drowned in a treacherous
bog. According to Vera, her aunt never got over their deaths and, since then, has always kept
the French window open, hoping that one day they will return.

Framton
believes the story, as Vera anticipates the arrival of her uncles. When Vera's uncles begin
walking toward the French window, Framton is overcome with fear and thinks that ghosts are
approaching the home, which is exactly how Vera wanted Framton to react. He sprints out of the
home. When Mrs. Sappleton inquires about Framton's erratic behavior, Vera tells another
fabricated story to explain his reaction. Saki's final line explains Vera's intention behind
lying to Framton. Saki writes,

Romance at short notice was
her [Vera's] speciality.

Essentially, Vera has an
affinity for making up stories and causing mischief as a way to entertain herself. Vera simply
found Framton an easy target and took pleasure in making up a tale that would hopefully frighten
the neurotic stranger. She saw an opportunity to exercise her impressive storytelling skills and
desired to entertain herself, which is why she lied to Framton Nuttel.

href="">
href="">
href="">

What does Fezziwig symbolize in A Christmas Carol?

Fezziwig
symbolizes all the good that a human can possess, particularly a human who is a business owner. 
When Scrooge revisits his past, he is reminded of what a boss can and should be.  He treats both
Ebenezer Scrooge and Dick Wilkins wonderfully, telling them "No more work to-night,"
in direct contrast with Scrooge's constant effort to work every last second out of his own
employee, Bob Cratchit.  He throws a wonderful party, and is himself the epicenter of the joy
and energy of it.  During the dances, Old Fezziwig and his wife are more than a match for all
the other, younger dancers.  Dickens writes

A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves.  They shone in every part of
the dance like moons.  You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of them
next.

Dickens as already established a strong
correlation between goodness and light, but here he gives us a human character who
seemingly...

Wasn't the relationship between Candide and Cunegonde incest?

No,and
Cunegonde's relationship would not have been considered incestuous at the time. For one thing,
sexual relations between cousins were considered perfectly acceptable in those days. Also, one
should bear in mind that Cunegonde is an aristocrat, a baron's daughter no less, and for the
upper classes marrying one's relations was not just permitted, but actively encouraged, as it
ensured the continuance of the family line.

The aristocratic gene pool was,
by its very nature, rather shallow, and so it was often virtually impossible to avoid marrying
someone to whom you were related. In a later generation, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert,
her first cousin, by whom she sired no fewer than nine children.

, like the
good philosophe he is, appears to be criticizing the unthinking
subscription to tradition, a common refrain of Enlightenment thinkers. There's certainly no
other explanation as to why Candide would want to marry someone as vacuous, boring, and shallow
as Cunegonde.

Explain the allegory Hawthorne uses in Young Goodman Brown.

This story is
anrepresenting the path of a Christian on his way to salvation or damnation. Goodman Brown
represents this "every Christian" sort of character; his surnameBrownis a very common
one for this reason.

While this text seems to support the idea that every
person is capable of sin, it also appears to confirm the idea that life is comprised of a series
of choices where we must consciously and continually strive to avoid temptation and choose a
righteous and faithful path. Goodman Brown could choose not to go into the forest, as his wife
asks, but he goes anyway. He has many opportunities to turn back, but he never does. He
consistently chooses temptation. 

Brown's wife, Faith, stands in for
Christian faith, the faith which Brown abandons when he leaves her at home to go into the
forest. He doesn't intend to abandon his faith (or his wife, Faith) forever, just for one night,
and then he plans to "'cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven.'" In other words,
he doesn't want to do the hard work of living a righteous life, constantly turning away from
sin. Instead, he wants to embrace sin for a time and then resume his faith, as though this is
something a good Christian can do. The story shows that either a person has faith or does not;
we cannot pick and choose when we want to exercise faith and when we want to conveniently leave
it behind in order to satisfy some sinful desire. By consciously abandoning his faith, Brown
alienates himself from God, showing that when any Christian behaves in such a way, his or her
spiritual life will be likewise ruined. Even when Brown tries to go back, he cannot; the
remainder of his life is miserable. He can no longer find joy because he turned his back on
God.

why does napoleon behave the way he does

is
described as a "fierce-looking" boar "with a reputation for getting his own
way" and is motivated by a lust for complete authority to usurp power and rule the farm as
a merciless dictator. Initially, Napoleon exercises patience by waiting for the Rebellion before
he begins to assert his authority. Unlike the other animals, Napoleon does not believe in 's
principles and views the Rebellion as the perfect opportunity to gain political influence and
attain power. Napoleon begins by stealing milk and apples while the other animals engage in
arduous labor. Napoleon then raises and indoctrinates nine ferocious dogs, which he uses to
chaseoff the farm and strike fear into the hearts of every animal.

Once
Snowball leaves the farm, Napoleon proceeds to eliminate Sunday meetings and makes every
significant policy decision on his own. Napoleon's lust for power motivates him to oppress the
other animals by dismissing their individual rights, silencing their voices, and manipulating
their thoughts and opinions. Unlike Mr. Jones, whose alcoholism and unfortunate financial
situation can be blamed for his treatment of the animals, Napoleon's desire for absolute
authority affects his selfish, unethical decision making. As the leader of , Napoleon creates a
cult of personality, cultivates a hystericalthroughout the farm, and brutally murderers
dissidents to discourage rebellion. He also transforms into an enigmatic figure, who begins to
dress and act like a human. Napoleons oppressive laws and use of propaganda secure his authority
and cement his legacy. Essentially, Napoleon benefits from oppressing the animals, controlling
their lives, and limiting their personal freedoms. Overall, one could argue that Napoleons
hostile, domineering reign is directly related to his selfish, vain personality and extreme lust
for power.

href="">
href="">

What is an example of imagery in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne?

href="http://www.roanestate.edu/owl/ElementsLit.html"
title="imagery">Imagery is when an author uses words to paint a mental
"image" in the mind of the reader. It is defined fully as...

...the forming of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things.
It is also the use of language to represent actions, persons, objects, and ideas
descriptively.

In 's , an example
ofcan be found in Chapter Ten, "The Leech and His Patient," asand her daughtermove
through the grave yard. Pearl comes to the attention ofand Mr. :

So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking fantastically, among
hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried
generation, nor owned herself akin to it.

This is a much
more "colorful" way to describe a young child running through the cemetery,
unconcernedly, with no thought to the graves she is passing over...even unaware that she is a
mortal being as are those buried beneath her feet.

How do the Beasts help Meg?

When Meg,
her father and Calvin escape from Camazotz, they land on a planet where Meg discovers she is
both paralyzed and in pain. Here, the three humans encounter what they call the
"beasts," tall, furry creatures with tentacles. The beasts at first frighten the
humans, but these aliens are, in fact, loving, kind creatures. They realize that Meg is in need
of healing from her encounter with the "coldness" of the Black Thing (evil). The Black
Thing has made Meg dangerously ill.

One of the beasts says, "The Black
Thing burns unless it is counteracted properly."

The beasts counteract
the Dark Thing by enveloping Meg in an all-encompassing love that gives her a sense of warmth
and security. They care for her physically and emotionally, treating her as an infant, which
allows her to relax, rest, and heal from her encounter with evil. She loses her paralysis. She
also realizes that it is the beasts who have saved her life, not her father, and so begins a
journey of maturation: she learns to recognize and accept that her father is not all-powerful,
but, all the same, a human being worthy of love. 

What rhetorical strategies are used by Jonathan Edwards to convince his audience to join the Great Awakening movement? Please use quotes.

Rhetorical
strategies are persuasive devices. They differ from literary devices, which can be persuasive,
but primarily add extra value to words beyond the literal.

Edwards's chief
rhetorical strategy is fear. He wants his listeners (his congregation) to repent and turn back
to Christ, and he believes that building up their fear of eternal damnation is the best way to
achieve this goal.

He therefore uses the literary device of --describing with
the five senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell--to maximize his congregation's horror
at the idea of going to hell. He does this by making hell seem very near to us. It is not
"out there" as a place we might encounter in a distant time, but a present
danger.

Edwards, for example, uses the image of a rickety, broken bridge and
says this is what our life is, right now. We are walking across this bridge unseeing, with
broken slats beneath our feet, and at any time could plunge into the flames of hell below us.
This might not happen...

In In Cold Blood, who is the dynamic character?

The most
dynamic character is Dick. He is the one with ideas; he is the one who makes things happen.
Arguably the central event of the Clutter murders is really down to him, even if its Perry who
instigates the actual killing. But the whole plan of robbing the Clutters is Dicks, after the
idea is put into his head by his former cellmate Floyd Wells. Then, when they dont get the money
that they expected from the Clutters, he goes on concocting various schemes to make money,
selling gear, passing bad cheques, travelling about the country. Even their final capture comes
about when Dick takes the huge risk of returning to Kansas.

Although Perry
also has ideas €“ mainly impractical schemes of diving for buried gold off the Mexican coast €“
it is Dick who has the drive and energy to actually do things. Perry generally just goes along
with him, as he says subsequently:

The mood I was in, I
just let myself be carried along.

Perry thus appears
somewhat passive, but in allowing himself to be swept along by Dick, he helps create the
circumstances for the brutal murder. Although Dick sets the whole thing up, it seems he would
never actually have had the nerve to go through with murder, but Perry does. Perry, on his side,
would probably never have planned such an undertaking by himself. Together, however, the two men
make for a lethal combination. 

In The Scarlet Letter, what is the 'black flower'?

There are
two striking instances of the use of the phrase, 'black flower' in this novel. The first is in ,
when the narrator refers to the prison wherehas been incarcerated, as 'the black flower of
civilised society'. Later, in , whenand Hester meet each other alone by chance, and she pleads
with him to abandon his harrassment of , he refuses to do so, saying 'Let the black flower
blossom as it may'.

In both cases, the black flower's most obvious function
is as a symbol of retributive punishment - both that which is inflicted publicly by society and
privately by individuals. In either example, this symbol appears in a wholly negative light. The
prison is a blot upon society, and appears wholly bleak and depressing. Chillingworth, in his
hounding of Dimmesdale, often becomes the veryof vengeance  and it renders him a dark, bitter,
twisted figure, with virtually no redeeming qualities. 

It should be noted
however, that in his private meeting with Hester in Chapter 14, although he still appears
overwhelmingly grim, Chillingworth also expresses recognition that Hester is in herself not
necessarily evil, although her actions have been.

Ye that
have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion; neither am I fiend-like, who
have snatched a fiend's office from his hands. It is our fate. 

Chillingworth, then, does not condemn Hester outright here, but he is unable to see
past her sin, the consequences of which, in his view, can never be eradicated.  In a fatalistic
way, he succumbs to wholly negative emotions. He cannot allow himself to deviate from the role
of vengeance that he has set himself, and this is hisas it makes him so bitter and unloving and
ultimately consumes him, as well as inflicting misery on others.

Explain the symbolism in the poem, "Roller Skate Man" by Raymond Souster.

"Roller Skate Man" by Raymond
Souster is about a physically disabled man who uses a board mounted on roller skate wheels to
navigate through the streets of the city.

The author describes the
"roller skate man" as someone who has a disproportionately large head, compared to the
rest of his body, which is shriveled, with short "stumps" for legs. The device that
this man has engineered symbolizes the man's independence: his ability to move freely through
the streets of a society with others very different than himself. He wears gloves because he
uses his hands to propel himself on Queen Street: the gloves protect his hands because the
pavement is very rough.

The crowd that he "travels with" is made up
of the successful and wealthy, symbolized by "silk stockinged legs" and
"extravagant pleats," the fancy clothing he moves past. We don't receive any other
descriptions because as the "roller skate man" moves, these are the only things his
height allows him to see. Surely he is out of place socially with these people: especially as he
travels in a world that does not see trees and beautiful store windows and fancy cars along his
route. The symbols of his confined and lowly existence as he moves along are found in
"spit, old [cigarette] butts [and] chewed gum."

The definition of
" title="flotsam">flotsam" is "useless or
unimportant items; odds and ends" or "the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo
found floating on the water." " href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/jetsam"
title="jetsam">Jetsam" refers to cargo that his
thrown overboard to lighten a ship when it is in distress. When the author has described the
man's method of transportation, and the kinds of people he passes and what he finds on the
sidewalk, I get the impression that he is comparing the man to the well-to-do that he passes. It
seems that the author is stating that because of his disability, people may see him as something
"useless." The "roller skate man" may be the "wreckage" of a man.
However, those he passes are seen by the author as what was intentionally
discarded to ease the weight of a ship in distress. Perhaps he is saying that the "roller
skate man" has elevated himself by adapting his physical limitations to the world so that
he can get around, and most of the people on that street are just floating along as if they have
been abandoned: both the roller skate man and those around him (the jetsam) are in the
water: symbolically, neither group is in a good place.

Why has Oedipus Rex been called one of the most perfect dramatic plots ever devised?

The
plot of perfectly executes APT: action, place, and time.

The play's action centers entirely on one central issue: Oedipus's life. As the play
unfolds, we learn the full story of Oedipusfrom his birth to the deeds he's done to his fate as
foretold by the gods. Every action that occurs in the play directly relates to Oedipus's story,
creating unwavering unity in focus.

The unity of place is created by setting
the scenes geographically close to each other so that the audience can realistically believe
that all of these events unfold as quickly as they do (tying into the unity of time I'll discuss
next). The play is set in front of and within the palace; with the exception of Iocaste's
suicide and Oedipus's gouging out his eyes, we see everything that occurs.

The unity of time is perfectly executedas the entire play occurs within the timeframe
of a single day. In order for us to learn Oedipus's entire life story within this compressed
time span,places us as witnesses...

Research how the Dalai Lama has had his reputation as a leader established in Tibet, China and the West.

The
Dalai Lamas reputation in his native Tibet is a product of the stature that accompanies that
designation.  Born Lhamo Dondrub on July 6, 1935, he was officially recognized on November 17,
1950 as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, making him His Holiness, the 14th
Dalai Lama of Tibet.  The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of a deeply religious
Buddhist country and, as such, he commands a great deal of respect and admiration by virtue of
his position.  As importantly with regard to his reputation inside Tibet, he serves as the
nations most visible and highly-respected advocate for Tibetan independence from Chinese rule. 
So, as both spiritual leader and global representative for his nation, the Dalai Lama is the
most widely-respected individual in his country.

In the West, the Dalai
Lamas importance is derived in no small part from the legitimacy he enjoys as his nations
spiritual leader, and as Tibets voice for independence.  The problem in much of the...

href="https://www.beyondintractability.org/casestudy/stokes-tibet">https://www.beyondintractability.org/casestudy/stokes-tibet
href="https://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.htm">https://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.htm

Provide a short critical analysis to the play "Pygmalion."

The play
, byis, like the previous post accurately stated, primarily a socialthat
belongs to the genre of Romanticism, and most specifically, to the form of Comedy of Manners.
Within this genre, society is often mocked particularly by the way that the upper classes act
and think.

One most keep into consideration that GB Shaw is an Irish
playwright who produces pieces for a very complex British Victorian audience. Victorian society
is notorious for its classicist nature, for its hypocritical values, and for its 'holier than
thou' attitudes. When we take this into consideration, we can safely argue that Shaw literally
laughed at the English Victorian audience right in its face by pointing out the shallow nature
of their judgement of other people.

You see this creature
with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days.
Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden
party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better
English. That's the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I
do genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.

The central theme of the play revolves around making a peasant girl
look portrayDuchess in an upcoming fashionable event. In the process of transforming Eliza, Shaw
irreverently points at the coarse and terrible image that the lower classes have of the upper
classes by making jokes at the way Eliza should pronounce words and use specific mannerisms.
These words are exaggerated and made to look ridiculous. The mannerisms are meant to mock the
aristocrats. The language used by Eliza and her peers throughout the transformation process just
adds salt to the wound: It brings the upper classes spiraling down from their self-made
pedestals.

Therefore, far from portraying the English as tolerant, kind, and
intelligent people, Shaw shows us how easily to deceive they can be if only you make someone
look and sound the way an aristocrat is meant to look and sound. Because of this clear attack to
a society that accepts no criticism, Shaw obtained mixed reviews about the play. It is not so
much because of its form, but because of its central message: Shaw seems to have been quite
interested in pointing out social flaws, and this is obviously something that, in a shallow
society, will not transform into a vote of approval.

Does our society have enough public order or too little of it?

The question does not consider the possibility of too much public order, for the very
good reason that there can never be too little crime and violence in a society. Therefore, it
would appear that, while there is any crime at all in a society, that society could always be
improved by an increase in public order.

The essential questions, therefore,
are what the society has to sacrifice in order to increase public order and whether the
sacrifice is worth making. The obvious answer to the first question is that a very strong public
order policy generally requires a sacrifice of freedom. Up to a point, public order increases
freedom, since it is difficult to exercise freedom in the midst of anarchy. Beyond that point,
freedom diminishes as public order increases, leading to an increasingly authoritarian society.
The precise point at which this occurs is impossible to locate, not lease because it differs for
different individuals within society.

Freedom has traditionally been of
paramount...

href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html">https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html

How does the community respond to John Holbrook leaving to fight in a group of Native Americans?

A
reader should look to the end of chapter sixteen for information regarding this question. The
initial reaction is shock and dismay. Kit, and others, can not believe that John Holbrook would
leave to go fight as a soldier. Kit even states that John is the last person she figured to turn
soldier. The other people then clarify that John did not leave to be a combat soldier. He left
to be a combat medic and put to use the knowledge he has gained in the last year. This
information does not satisfy Kit. She can't believe that John would abandon his current studies
like this. Rachel then suggests that perhaps leaving for the fight is John's way of breaking
with Dr. Bulkeley, and Rachel even goes so far as to suggest it is a good thing. Judith
vehemently disagrees and states that John is being stubborn. It becomes clear that Judith is
upset because she feels that John has abandoned her. Mercy eventually enters the conversation,
and she sort of comes to John's defense. Mercy believes that John did not
want to leave. Rather he felt that he had to leave.
The chapter then ends, and readers do not get much more additional information regarding his
sudden departure because five days after he leaves, Judith gets sick.

Would Laurie's mother punish him? Why or why not?

From your question and the reference to
Laurie as "him", I assume you are asking this with regard to the story "" by
. In this story, Laurie is a precocious kindergarten student with a classmate named Charles. As
it turns out at the end of the story, the author leaves the reader to assume that  Charles is a
character Laurie made up to take the blame for his misbehavior at school.

One
would assume then that Laurie's mother would punish him for the acts Charles supposedly
committed, and which Laurie told his parents about, once she realizes that it was Laurie and not
Charles that committed them. However, throughout the story the author paints Laurie's father and
mother as weak characters who do not pay much attention to their son's behaviors. Though she
states he is rude and admits he misbehaves, she takes no action to help him correct these
behaviors. Therefore, either for these minor day to day infractions or for the more serious ones
that Laurie accused Charles of committing at school, it does not seem likely that Laurie's
mother would punish him.

What is the meaning of the territorial trap and its geographical assumptions?

The
territorial trap is geographical fallacy that misinterprets the idea of nations and their
development. The main issue with it is that it takes a far too simplistic viewpoint of how
nations develop and are defined.

One of the main assumptions is that national
borders and boundaries are physical and defined. Of course, looking at maps and nations in
modern times lends an individual to that belief, because most nations are very rigidly defined.
However, historically, nations could lay claim to land "as far as the eye could see"
or put fluid stipulations on it such as "a day's journey on horseback in each
direction." The borders or nations have only recently been rigid and
well-defined.

Another assumption is that multiple nations cannot exist in the
same space, which is certainly far from the truth. Many nations currently fight over the same
land and are battling for dominancethough each individually is still a separate
nation.

Finally, the fallacy assumes that borders do not change...

In "Araby," who is the protagonist? What is he striving to achieve and why?

The narrator is now,
evidently, a grown man reflecting back on his experiences as a young boy, as he tells the story
in past tense and with more emotional maturity than such a young boy would have. His younger
self is theof this story, as it is his experiences we follow and must grapple with.

This unnamed narrator was in love with his friend Mangan's sister. He frequently
describes her as being "defined by the light" while he was often in shadow. He would
spy on her in the morning to see when she was leaving for school so that he could follow her,
and when he saw...

What is the role of setting in "The Open Window"?

There are
a few different aspects to the setting in this story. The first point to note is that the
residence that the , Framton, arrives at, is described as a "rural retreat" and a
"restful country spot." This seemingly idyllic setting lures the reader, and Framton,
into a false sense of security. Accordingly, the macabre story that the niece relates seems all
the more sinister because it seems so out of place.

Within the niece's story,
we also have the settings of the moor and the marshes. Moors and marshes are settings often used
in ghost stories (The Woman in Black, Wuthering
Heights) and evoke a sense of isolation and eerie, untamed wildness.

Finally, the time of day at which Framton sees the three ghost-like figures walking
towards the open window is also significant.sets this moment in "the deepening
twilight." Twilight in literature is often used to evoke an ominous , because it is the
time of the day when light is fading and darkness is taking over. Therefore, twilight is the
perfect time (from a writer's perspective) to have the three ghostly figures return. It suggests
that they are figures of the night, and of the darkness.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, what are three quotes that display that Jem and Scout show courage through out the story?

In 's
novel, , there are several instances whenand('s children) show courage,
shown in the following quotes.

Chapter One - Jem answers Dill's dare to touch
the Radley house.

[Dill said...], "I won't sa you ran
out on a dare an' I'll swap you The Gray Ghost if you just go up and touch
the house."

...Then I sneered at him.

Jem threw open
the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past
us...

Chapter Four - Jem wickedly propels Scout, tucked
inside the tire, into the Radley's yard.

I got to my feet,
trembling as I thawed.

'Get the tire!' Jem hollered. 'Bring it with you!
Ain't you got any sense at all?'

When I was able to navigate, I ran back to
them as fast as my shaking knees would carry me.

'Why didn't you bring it?'
Jem yelled

'Why don't you get it' I screamed.

Jem was silent.

'Go on, it ain't far inside the gate. Why, you even
touched the house once, remember?'

Jem looked at me furiously, could not
decline, ran down the sidewark, treaded water at the gate, then dashed in and retrieved the
tire.

'See there?' Jem was scowling triumphantly. 'Nothing to it.'

Chapter Nine - Scout isn't afraid to take on her cousin Francis
when he insults Atticus.

Francis said he reckoned I got
told, for me to just sit there and leave him alone.

'I ain't bother' you,' I
said.

Francis looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently
subdued, and crooned softly...This time, I split my knuckle to the bone on his front teeth. My
left impaired, I sailed in with my right...'

Chapter
Fifteen - Scout takes on the lynch mob when one of the men gets rough with Jem.

'Son, I said go home.'

Jem shook his
head.

'I'll send him home,' a burly man said, and grabbed Jem roughly by the
collar. He yanked Jem nearly off his feet.

'Don't you touch him!' I kicked
the man swiftly. Barefooted, I was surprised to see him fall back in real pain. I intended to
kick his shin, but aimed too high.

In each of the
examples above, Jem and Scout prove their courage, sometimes in the face of real fear, and other
times when they act before they have the chance to be afraid.

What is Scrooge's attitude towards Bob Cratchit, Fred, the carolers and the two philanthropists in A Christmas Carol?

Scrooge is dismissive and
disparaging of everyone who tries to get him to celebrate
Christmas.

When the
story opens, it is Christmas Eve. Scrooge is grumpy, as always. He is a little grumpier than
usual because everyone keeps trying to get him to celebrate Christmas. Scrooge does not approve
of Christmas, or any holiday for that matter. He only cares about making money. 

Scrooges nephew Fred, his only family member, asks him over for Christmas dinner.
Scrooge is annoyed, and berates Fred for celebrating Christmas and for getting married. Fred
remains good-natured, telling Scrooge that even if Christmas never made him any money he still
feels it has done him good. His speech irritates Scrooge. 

Dont be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.

Scrooge said
that he would see himyes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said
that he would see him in that extremity first. (Stave 1) 

Fred is not the only one who wants something from Scrooge. Two philanthropists come
asking Scrooge to give to the poor. They tell him that at Christmastime it is more important
than ever to help the poor. Scrooge is not happy.  He refuses to give them any money and asks if
poorhouses and debtors prisons are still operating. 

"Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I dont make merry
myself at Christmas and I cant afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the
establishments I have mentionedthey cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.
(Stave 1) 

In response to the comment that many of the
poor would rather die than go to the poorhouses or debtors prisons, Scrooge says that they
should die, in order to decrease the surplus population. He tells the men to mind their own
business, and they leave. Scrooge keeps his word about refusing the poor. When children come
caroling, he goes after them with a ruler.

Scrooge complains to Bob Cratchit,
his clerk, when he asks for the day off for Christmas. He says it is the same as picking a
mans pocket every twenty-fifth of December! Scrooge treats his clerk horribly, not even allowing
him sufficient coal to keep himself warm. Cratchit obviously needs the job, though, because he
is polite to Scrooge.

Scrooge's attitude of contempt toward those around him
is clearly not limited to Christmas. He wants to be alone, and prefers to be miserable. Since at
Christmastime people make an extra effort to reach out, he finds it a very difficult time of
year.

Name the 5 parts of the Renaissance Mass (ordinary) and please quote the texts (English translation) for each part. I am doing this for my Music...

While the
Ordinary consists of six sections, Renaissance composers only set the first five to music in
their compositions.

1) The Ordinary begins with the Kyrie. The text
translates to "Lord have Mercy, / Christ have Mercy, / Lord have Mercy." In this
section, congregants, mindful of their sin, beg for mercy from two aspects of the trinity, the
Father and the Son.

2) The Ordinary then continues with the Gloria, an
adoration of God's glory. One translation of the text is as follows:

Glory in the heights to God

And on Earth peace to
men of good will.

We praise You. We bless You.

We adore
You. We glorify You.

We give You thanks for Your great Glory.

Lord God, heavenly king, God the Father almighty.

Lord the
only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the
Father.

3) This is followed by the Credo: "We
believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and
unseen," a succinct summary of theological belief.

4) Forth is the
Sanctus: "Holy, holy, holy / Lord, God of hosts! / Heaven and Earth are full of your glory.
/ Hosanna in the highest!"

5) Finally is the Agnus Dei: "O Lamb of
God, that takest away the sins of the world, / Grant them rest. / O Lamb of God, that takest
away the sins of the world, / Grant them eternal rest."

Thus the
sections have something of a symmetry to them. A cry for mercy, adoration, a declaration of
faith, adoration, and a cry for mercy.

How would Newton's second law apply to walking a dog?

Newton's
second law deals with the relationship between the force, mass, and acceleration of an object. 
When using Newton's second law you look at all the forces acting on an object, add them up, and
based on that determine the net force.  The net force, combined with the mass of the object will
determine the rate of acceleration.

When you are finding the net force there
are two possible conditions: first, the sum of all the forces could equal zero.  This means that
the forces are in balance. In the case of walking a dog, if you are walking at a constant speed,
that means that the force you are applying to the leash and the force the dog is applying to the
leash are equal and opposite.  So you...

Explore how Shakespeare presents Juliet as loyal in act 3, scene 2.

For her entire life, 's greatest loyalty has
been to her family. She first appears in act 1, scene 3, as a dutiful daughter, so anxious to
obey her parents' wishes that she will not only marry the man of their choice but will take
their advice on how much she should love him. She has always been particularly devoted to her
cousin , and when the nurse tells her in act 3, scene 2, thathas killed him, she immediately
curses Romeo bitterly:

O serpent heart, hid with a
flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend
angelical!
Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!

However, when the nurse criticizes Romeo far more mildly than this, Juliet turns on her
and instantly regrets her former anger, saying,

O, what a
beast was I to chide at him!

In reply to the nurse's
protestations, Juliet asks who will defend Romeo when she, his wife, pours imprecations upon
him. Then she shows how truly conflicted she is:

But,
wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill'd my
husband:
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring...
My husband lives,
that Tybalt would have slain;
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my
husband...

Juliet finally decides that Romeo deserves her
loyalty more than Tybalt and that his banishment is a more serious matter for her than Tybalt's
death. However, her first reaction shows that her family loyalties are not so easily overcome.
They are only surmounted by a greater loyalty, which the marriage service explicitly states is
intended to be stronger than family relationships. Seeing this struggle, therefore, increases
our appreciation of the loyalty that is a vital element in Juliet's
character.

How does the Party gain control over the people in 1984?

The
Party controls the population of Oceania by creating a constant state of hysteria, spreading
false propaganda, manipulating language, continually spying on the citizens, violently punishing
dissidents, and suppressing economic growth.

The government of Oceania
engages in constant war with Eurasia or Eastasia and generates hysteria throughout society by
depicting images of enemy armies attacking the country. They use Emmanuel Goldstein as a
scapegoat and show images of him to the Party members during the Two Minutes Hate period.
Rockets and bombs continually go off throughout the city, andeven witnesses a home explode in
the prole section of town. The citizens' hate is then channeled and directed towards an outside
enemy and provides the citizens an opportunity to release their suppressed emotions.

Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, which is concerned with creating false
propaganda. The Party manipulates the population into believing that Big Brother is never wrong
and...

Who is Calvin O'Keefe?

Calvin
O'Keefe is a character featured in a number of books by . We first encounter Calvin in the
book, , when he is a poor student. He is a charming and friendly young man,
but he feels misunderstood and out of place with his family. Calvin is deeply impacted by the
struggles he has faced growing up in a neglectful family and is very empathetic, always seeking
to be respectful to others. He works hard to provide for himself to compensate for what his
parents have not provided him.

Throughout the stories by L'Engle, Calvin
grows up to become a marine biologist and marries the , Meg. Calvin and Meg share a telepathic
bond called kything and understand each other better than anyone else. Though
Calvin's presence as an active character throughout the Time series is a
little spotty, he is mentioned regularly with regards to his work on marine
life.

How does Ophelia describe Hamlet?

The
relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia in William Shakespeare's Hamlet is
complex, and, at times, not altogether clearly defined. There are times when Hamlet and Ophelia
themselves don't seem to know what their relationship is.

Ophelia doesn't
give a physical description of Hamlet in the play, except to describe his clothing and his
demeanor in act 2, scene 1, when Ophelia is telling her father, Polonius, how Hamlet frightened
her.

OPHELIA. My lord, as I was sewing in my
closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,
No hat upon his head, his
stockings fouled,
Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt,
his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he
had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors, he comes before me.
(2.1.87-94)

The audience is told very little about Hamlet
and Ophelia's relationship prior to the events of the play other than at some time in the past,
Hamlet sent a series of love letters to Ophelia, and perhaps he said, or strongly implied, that
he loves her. He denies both of those things in act 3, scene 1.

OPHELIA. My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to
redeliver.
I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET. No, not
I!
I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA. My honour'd lord, you know right
well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the
things more rich. (3.1.101-108)

HAMLET. ...I did love you once.

OPHELIA: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET. You should
not have believed me; ... I
loved you not. (3.1.123-128)

Later in the same scene, after Hamlet abandons her, Ophelia gives a description of
Hamlet that seems idealized, but her description is tempered with the reality of the moment, and
she's dismayed about his transformation. Ophelia much prefers who Hamlet used to be, not who
he's become.

HAMLET. O, what a noble mind is here
o'erthrown!
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,
The
expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of
form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most
deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that
noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and
harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. O,
woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! (3.1.160-170)

Throughout the play, Ophelia describes Hamlet indirectly, through
his behavior.

OPHELIA. He hath, my lord, of late made many
tenders
Of his affection to me.

... My lord, he hath importuned me
with love
In honourable fashion.

...And hath given countenance to
his speech, mylord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven. (1.3.105-106, 116-117,
120-121)

In act 3, scene 2, Ophelia and Hamlet sit with
each other and have a somewhat sexually suggestive exchange of words prior to and during the
"play-within-a-play," but they have no other interactions.

At the
end of the "play-within-a-play, Ophelia leaves the stage with everyone else, leaving Hamlet
behind, and Ophelia and Hamlet don't see each other or speak to each other for the rest of the
play.

Hamlet doesn't witness Ophelia's descent into madness, and Ophelia
doesn't hear Hamlet proclaim his love for her when he leaps into her grave.

HAMLET. I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not,
with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. (5.1.270-272)

What is the role that the tragic flaw (hamartia) plays in the demise of the tragic hero in Oedipus Rex? .

In
classical Greek drama, plays that were classified as tragedies featured a tragic hero as the .
Part of what made this individual, and the situation in which they were involved, tragic was the
idea that a flaw caused their downfall. Although this flaw was innate, the way the person lived
and the exact circumstances into which the flaw figured could vary widely. One of the most
difficult flaws to work around, because it colored the persons entire worldview, was pride. It
is , excessive pride, that brings about s downfall in s
.

and Laius, Oedipuss parents, showed hubris when they
took drastic steps to try to prevent the realization of...

How is Orthodox Judaism distinguishable from Reform Judaism?

Orthodox
Judaism can be seen as a more traditional form of Judaism while Reform Judaism, on the other
hand, is most definitely an updated and modernized form of Judaism.

Orthodox
Judaism keeps a very firm emphasis on upholding the...

For each of the following reactions, calculate the grams of indicated product when 23.5 g of the first reactant and 42.0 g of the second reactant is...

For
all of these parts, the same procedure will help you attain the correct answer. I will solve the
first part, and if you follow the procedure, you should be able to solve the remaining
parts.

2SO‚‚ (g) + O‚‚ (g) †’ 2SO‚ƒ (g)

Given: 23.5 g of first reactant (SO‚‚) and 42.0 g of second
reactant (oxygen).

The first step is to determine the moles of each reactant,
as per the given mass.

The molecular mass of SO‚‚ is 64 g/mole, and that of
O‚‚ is 32 g/mole.

The moles of SO‚‚ in 23.5 g are 23.5/64 = 0.37
moles.

Similarly, the moles of O‚‚ in 42 g are 42/32 = 1.31 moles.

Step two is to check the stoichiometric equivalency from the given chemical
reaction.

Here, 2 moles of SO reacts with 1 mole of O‚‚ to generate 2 moles
of SO‚ƒ.

Step 3 is to check if we have adequate moles of each
reactant.

Here, we have 0.37 moles of SO‚‚. Since 2 moles of SO‚‚ react with
1 mole of O‚‚, each mole of SO‚‚ will need only 1/2 or 0.5 moles of O‚‚.

And,
in the given case, 0.37 moles of SO‚‚ will react with only 0.37/2 = 0.185 moles of
O‚‚.

Step 4 is to determine the product quantity as per stoichiometry and the
limiting reactant.

In this case, SO‚‚ is the limiting reactant and will
govern how much SO‚ƒ will be produced.

For 2 moles of SO‚‚, 2 moles of SO‚ƒ
are produced. This means that for each mole of SO‚‚, 1 mole of SO‚ƒ will be produced. For 0.37
moles of SO‚‚, 0.37 moles of SO‚ƒ will be produced.

The final step is to
calculate the grams of the product using its molecular mass.

The molecular
mass of SO‚ƒ is 80 g/moles. Since only 0.37 moles are generated, the produced mass is 0.37*80 =
29.6 g SO‚ƒ.

Using this same method, you can
solve the rest of the problem.

Hope this helps.

What new things do we learn about the Ewell family in To Kill a Mockingbird?

has
already revealed some information about the Ewells before the start of the trial. We know
thatconsiders the family "the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations," and that
they live in a decrepit house by the dump. Young Burris is a filthy child who shows up on the
first day of school ridden with lice and then curses the teacher before walking out of the
classroom. But in the courtroom, she gains a new perspective about Bob and Mayella. When Bob
tells the packed courtroom that Tom was "that...

Describe four major events between the period 1850 and 1861 that contributed to Southern secession from the Union.

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT  (1854).  This decision allowed the
two new territories to decide for themselves whether to accept slavery or not. Unpopular by both
the North and the South, it repealed the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850; caused
the dissolution of several political parties; and further divided the nation.

DRED SCOTT DECISION  (1857) . This Supreme Court decision
declared that slaves (and their descendants) were not...

Describe the impact of the technology revolution of the 1990s on the lives of average Americans.

This is a
great question. It is important to start with a few technological developments that started in
the 90s. The Human Genome project started in 1990. The Hubble Space Telescope was also launched
in the same year. GPS also became operational in the 90s. On the computer front, HTML and the
Web came into its own, which means things like email became more popular. 

Just a cursory glance at this list will show how much technology has impacted our
lives. 

On the medical front, there have been amazing breakthroughs, which
promise even more. For example, the Human Genome project holds the promise of increasing the
quality of life by mapping out diseases and other ailments. 

On a social
front, think how much email has impact the lives of all people. It is arguably the most used
format for communication. When we add the world wide web, the impact is nothing short of
stunning. The Web in many ways has democratized knowledge. The average American is better off
now than before on account of these developments.

In "Young Goodman Brown" what are Browns values at the end of the story?

If we examine the end of
this excellent story, we can see that Goodman Brown's values and ideas about life have undergone
a massive shift. Gone is the carefree and loving young man who was entranced by his wife.
Instead, his experiences in the woods and what he saw, suggesting truth of universal sin
corrupting even the most saintly of individuals, has made him distrustful of life in general.
Consider the following description we are given of how he changes:

A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he
become from the night of that fearful dream.

Note the
complete change suggested by the list of negative adjectives that is used to suggest what a dark
character he becomes. His values are clearly indicated by his inability to listen to the
minister preach and also the way that he even shrinks "from the bosom of Faith," his
wife, who of course acts allegorically in this tale. He has become far more pessimistic and
distrusting.

Why would someone want to join the Junior Anti-Sex league in 1984?

In
Oceania, the totalitarian regime controls every aspect of society, and Big Brother requires
complete observance from all Party members. The threatening, intimidating nature of the Party is
a significant incentive to behave completely orthodox and stay on Big Brother's good side. Young
women likewho have joined the Anti-Sex League...

After viewing the video of Professor Brene Brown's presentation on "The Power of Vulnerability," ...

Brene
Browns presentation on The Power of Vulnerability is a reiteration of earlier theories of
human association that emphasize the importance of openness to the formation of strong personal
relationships.  Brown stresses the importance of human connections to our own physical and
mental well-being, and the importance of allowing ones vulnerabilities to be visible as the key
element in developing those connections.  No man, she is arguing, is an island unto himself.  We
all need human contact, and the quality of that contact can be as high as we need it to be only
when we are willing to expose our most personal sense of inadequacy €“ in short, to be open
about that which we feel embarrassed or ashamed, whether it is a visible physical
characteristic, or a deeply-hidden feeling of shame regarding a hidden physical or emotional
characteristic or about past actions or thoughts that, exposed to the light of day, might
diminish our stature in the eyes of others.  Again, Brown is not breaking new ground when she
suggests that personal relationships born of hidden feelings of jealously, embarrassment, or
resentment would provide a very fragile foundation upon which to build human connections.  
While her underlying thesis is hardly novel €“ books like Brad Blantons Radical
Honesty have tread the same territory €“ the impact of her presentation does not
suffer from its lack of originality.  Only through openness and honesty can meaningful
relationships be constructed and sustained.

How one answers questions
regarding lessons learned from Dr. Browns presentation is dependent upon the individual
student.  Everybodys experiences are different, and everybodys upbringing is unique to each
individual.  Obviously, answering these questions requires the very willingness to expose ones
vulnerabilities that are at the core of the presentation.  Unless one has led the perfect
existence €“ and such perfection in the realm of human development is nonexistent €“ then each
student should be capable of relating personally to the points Dr. Brown makes, particularly
with regard to feelings of inadequacy or shame the concealment of which has influenced
relationships.  Feelings of intellectual inferiority or physical inadequacy can influence an
individuals entire life, from personal and professional ambitions unrecognized to relationships
undermined by the emotional burden of concealing feelings.  The sense of ones value as a human
being directly impacts the course ones life takes.  

The real world, of
course, does not always allow for the prescriptions for happiness set forth in the
presentation.  It is unrealistic to assume that one can walk into a job interview, especially in
management, and expect success through a complete purging of ones soul.  Similarly, many
professions, law and medicine to name two, do not allow for the kind of intimacy among
colleagues that The Power of Vulnerability suggests.  Displays of weakness are not
considered an attribute in much of the professional world.  Ones high school football coach
probably doesnt want to hear about a prospective players emotional wounds; he is more likely to
remain focused solely on the students ability to read a zone blitz.  That is the unfortunate
reality in which most of us live.  Such experiences, though, are not the stuff from which the
relationships that will last well-beyond the high school years are
forged. 

How has the author succeed in writing Kindred so that the reader could feel history as well as learn about the facts of it?

Part of the brilliance
of this novel is the way in which we see history through the eyes of the modern day Dana. The
author develops the description of the former world to such an extent that it is right to say we
can "feel" the history and the reality of such a different life and such a different
world. Often the first person narration helps us to see the absolute bewilderment of Dana as she
faces the reality of the past and struggles to come to terms with the very different reality.
Consider, for example, the following quote:

There was a
stocky middle-aged woman stirring a kettle that hung over the fire in the fireplace. The
fireplace itself filled one whole wall. It was made of brick and abote it was a huge plank from
which hung a few utensils. There were more utensils off to one side hanging from hooks on the
wall. I stared at them and realised that i didn't know the proper names of any of them. Even
things as commonplace as that. I was in a different world.

It is often the expression of Dana's ignorance that helps us feel the historical period
that she has so abruptly entered. Dana's lack of ability to identify and understand what she
sees only serves to reinforce this feeling as often she has to have other characters explain
what is going on to her. Just a little after this quote, for example, whilst Dana is trying to
swallow some corn mush, Luke tells her that they get better food later on after the whites have
finished eating. Dana then comments: "Table scraps, I thought bitterly. Someone else's
leftovers." However, what helps us to feel the historical period is her comment that she
would eat them and be glad of them in spite of her bitterness. Being faced with the reality of
slavery and having your 21st century values and principles are shown to be two very different
things.

In Things Fall Apart, how is Okonkwo's life determined by his past and his traditional beliefs?

's life
is a direct result of his past experience as a child and adolescent. When Okonkwo was young, he
feared becoming like his inept father, , who was effeminate and title-less. Okonkwo desperately
tried to distance himself from his father by behaving hostile, callous, and resolute. While
Okonkwo's fear of being viewed as weak like Unoka led to early success, his rigid, intolerant
personality contributed to his demise. Okonkwo ends up disturbing the Week of Peace by beating
his wife, plays a significant role in 's death, and accidentally kills a young man during a
warrior's funeral. Okonkwo is exiled for seven years after the accidental murder, and he loses
his titles.

When Okonkwo returns to his homeland of Umuofia, he cannot accept
the new culture, which has transformed as a result of European influence. Christianity, trading
outposts, and schools have significantly transformed Umuofia and Okonkwo feels that his tribe is
losing their traditional ways of life. Okonkwo's intolerance and hostility motivate him to
decapitate a court messenger. Rather than be arrested and embarrassed by the white men, Okonkwo
decides to hang himself from a tree on his compound.

Overall, Okonkwo's
callous, aggressive personality is directly related to his past experiences with Unoka and his
rigid, intolerant beliefs influence his hostile reaction to Umuofia's changing
culture.

In The Scarlet Letter, how does the Beadle personify Puritan values?

The town
beadle is the living embodiment of Puritan society and its values. A stern, unbending character,
he rigidly maintains public order, ensuring that the foundations of society are protected from
the corrosive effects of sin. It's important to remember that, for the Puritans, the law and the
Word of God are synonymous. So in carrying out his responsibilities, the beadle isn't simply
upholding the law; he's doing the Lord's work too.

When people believe that
they have God on other side, they're capable of doing pretty much anything. Although the beadle
doesn't do anything outrageously wicked, there's still something decidedly unpleasant about his
locking up a pregnant woman in prison for committing adultery, not to mention his forcingto take
to the scaffold and stand humiliated in front of the whole town. But the beadle doesn't care
about any of this. As far as he's concerned, he's only obeying God's orders.

What are the similarities and contradictions between Winston and Julia in 1984 and Romeo and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet?

There are
a lot of similarities between these two ill-fated couples, the first being that they are in fact
ill-fated.  That means that both of their romances end badly, either in the death of their
bodies or souls.

A second similarity is that their loves were forms of
rebellion, forbidden in their society at the time.  They had to meet in secret, love in secret,
and fear discovery at the hands of those who forbade their relationships.

A
third similarity is that their initial attraction was mostly physical; Romeo is struck with
Juliet's beauty and thinks he is in...

What is the mood of the short story "The Necklace"?

I believe
that the mood ofis a cautionary tale, warning the reader against materialism.  Madame Loisel has
lived a superficial life up until she attends the party, then her life is dominated by hardship
because of her belief in the superiority of material possessions and that they make people
superior to others. 

The lesson learned dominates the mood of this
story. 

For a time, Gregor is ashamed of his condition and tries to hide from everyone. In what way might this be called a step forward for him?

One of the
reasons Kafkas is such a classic is that it defies any singular reading.
It is practically a . The tale of Gregor Samsa can be applied to myriad situations and feelings.
Kafka creates such a universalby centering it around awho is, in many ways, a blank slate. What
the reader does know about Samsa is that he is a traveling salesman who is both diligenthe says,
Other traveling salesmen live like harem women. For instance, whenever I return to the hotel
during the morning to write up my orders, those men are still having breakfastand despises his
job:

Well, I havent abandoned all hope; once Ive saved
enough to pay off my parents debt ... Ill make a big, clean break!

Samsa, like most Kafka protagonists, is a man stuck in a system. He lives his life in
debt, a cog of the professional wheel and a slave to train schedules and the tick of the clock.
Even on the morning of his metamorphosis, he does not display the extreme fear or confusion one
might expect, but instead is worried about arriving to work late:

Already seven oclock, he said to himself when the alarm clock struck again ... I
absolutely must be out of bed completely before the clock strikes seven-fifteen.

He is a man so far gone down the corporate track, so weighed upon
by the expectations of the modern world, that he does not even pause to consider that being
transformed should have any impact on his life. One could argue, therefore, that Samsa begins
the novel as a man who has already had the humanity wiped out of him.

If the
reader believes that Samsa is already less than human, then his shame might be a step forward:
after all, it is a deeply human quality. The man who feels shame is a far cry from the resigned
salesman, destitute of spirit, whose response to being turned into a humongous bug is the
comment, what a strenuous profession Ive picked! The ability to feel shame means that Samsa
sees himself as his own being, rather than as part of a systemor even part of a family. He takes
ownership of his place in the world. Theof Gregor Samsa might be that he was never able to take
ownership of his unhappiness while he still could have done something about
it.

In 1984, what crime does the main character commit, how does he do it, and what is the punishment?

Because of his position in the Outer Party, his government expects absolute compliance
in everything Winston says, does, and believes in. That means embracing the Party
slogan:

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is
strength.

Because of his job as a records editor at the
Ministry of Truth, Winston is acutely aware that the truth the Party hands its citizens day
after day has been heavily altered, sometimes to the point that neither he nor anyone else can
even remember what the original and accurate history is. One day, he grabs a journal and writes
"DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER," and he realizes that his fate for such thoughtcrime
(holding thoughts that do not support the tenets Big Brother has set forth) is
sealed. After he meets, the two engage in increasingly risky behavior, such as meeting for sex
outside of a Party-approved marriage for the purposes of procreation. Winston increasingly
begins to consider the actual history of his country and wants to find a way to overthrow
Big...

How is loneliness presented in this novel Of Mice and Men? What is John Steinbeck trying to say about the theme of loneliness?

Steinbeck explores the theme of loneliness through his portrayal of characters like
Crooks, Candy, and Curley's wife, who live in isolation and suffer from extreme loneliness. In
the novella, loneliness also corresponds to the setting and time period of the story. The ranch
is located in a town named Soledad, which literally means "solitude" or
"alone," and the story takes place during the Depression. During the Depression,
hundreds of thousands of migrant workers left their families to find work and provide for
themselves.

The overwhelming majority of migrant workers travel alone
andandare the exceptions. The workers on the ranch lack a stable home and supportive families to
help them survive the economic crisis. The hostile, lonely environment on the ranch is a
microcosm of the western United States during the Depression, where only the strong
survive.

In addition to the setting, characters like Crooks, Candy, and
Curley's wife highlight the theme of loneliness. Crooks...

href="">
href="">
href="">

Apply Socratess specific understanding of wisdom to analyze and explain Oedipuss hubris and eventual downfall.

Socrates (c.€‰470€“399 BCE) left no written record of his philosophy or his teachings.
Everything we know about Socrates and his understanding of the qualities of wisdom come to us
secondhand, primarily from the writings of his follower Plato (c. 428€“347 BCE) and his student
Xenophon (c.€‰431€“354 BCE).

In Platos Apologia Socrates
(Apology of Socrates), which recounts Socrates's defense of himself at his
trial in 399 BC, Plato quotes Socrates as saying that an unexamined life is not worth living.
In other words, it's vitally important to "know thyself," and it's equally important
for a person to know what they don't know.

To "know
thyself" and to discern the limits of one's knowledge, Socrates employed a
question-and-answer method of elenchus (examination) attributed to him and
called the "Socratic method." Socrates believed that self-knowledge occurs only in the
context of a question-and-answer dialogue with others.

By this method,
Socrates believed, a person does not...

How do these fearless and brave deeds reflect on Ulysses character? this is about the poem "Ulysses"

WHICH fearless
and brave deeds? For a good discussion of this poem by Tennyson, see the link below. Perhaps you
will find the answer to your question in the analysis, because you...

In Gulliver's Travels, what is Swift's message for humanity?

Swift's
message for humanity is that people will flourish when they exercise strong compassion toward
other humans and common sense.

Swift does this by creating a naive, gullible
character (Gulliver) who doesn't know enough to lie. He therefore baldly reports what he sees.
By speaking honestly about European society, Gulliver reveals its barbarism. But, because he
also honestly records the behavior of the people he travels among, Gulliver also show the flaws
in human behavior as a whole. Often, these have to do with putting personal pride and ego needs
ahead of seeing the bigger picture: the Lilliputians, for instance, want to execute Gulliver for
putting out a palace fire with his pee, saying it was disrespectful, but they miss the bigger
picture by reacting quickly, Gulliver probably saved lives.

Likewise, the
scientists at the academy at Lagado, a spoof on the British Royal Academy, put their own
ambitions ahead of the well-being of their experimental subjects and cause
suffering...

What is the official view of race in Pena's time in Tent of Miracles by Jorge Amado?

Pena is
the poet with a B.A. in Social Sciences who was recruited by Levenson to collect the research
for the Introduction to Levenson's upcoming book about Archanjo. The best...

href="https://books.google.com/books?id=R6A3VdAT4pcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Tent+of+Miracles+by+Jorge+Amado&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tycbUsL3Jq7pigLRyYDQCQ">https://books.google.com/books?id=R6A3VdAT4pcC&printsec=f...

In "The Crucible, can you give me some quotes in the scene where Mary Warren accuses John Proctor?

Mary Warren
initially went to the court to confess that she and the girls had been pretending.  However,
just as she had predicted at the end of Act  Two ("They'll turn on me!  I cannot!"),
Abby and the girls did in fact turn on her.  They cried out, insisting that Mary's familiar
spirt came into the courtroom in the form of a yellow bird that was going to claw Abby's face. 
Judge Danforth immediately picks up on the cue, and asks Mary if she is a witch, and asks John
if he is somehow forcing Mary to turn on the girls.

When Danforth suggests
Mary will hang for being a witch, Mary finally caves, and turns on John, calling him a
"Devil's man" (look at the very, very end of Act Three for the quotes you need) who
had come to her with his black book to sign, and forced her to come to the courts to overthrow
them.  This is truly sad, as she was the last thread of hope that Proctor had for saving his
wife and friends.

How did the Treaty of Versailles punish Germany after World War I?

The Treaty
of Versailles stripped Germany of a considerable amount of territory, slashed the size of the
German armed forces, and imposed massive reparations payments on the postwar German government.
All of this was based on a so-called "war guilt" clause in the Treaty in which the
Germans accepted full responsibility for starting the war. The terms, which were imposed upon
the new Weimar Republic that governed Germany after the war, were humiliating for the Germans,
and contributed to a toxic politicalin postwar Germany that facilitated the rise of political
extremists like the Nazis. Moreover, the reparations payments were ruinous to the German economy
in the short term. The German government struggled to make the payments, and France actually
occupied the Saar Valley in order to enforce them. Runaway inflation set in that brought the
economy and the Weimar government to the brink of collapse in the mid-1920s. Above all, the fact
that the Treaty was signed by the Weimar government (the Kaiser having abdicated at the end of
the war) made it very unpopular across the political spectrum. 

href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/treaty-of-versailles">https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/treaty-...

What is a good thesis statement about To Kill a Mockingbird with the theme of protecting the innocent?

When students are struggling to find a thesis
statement for an argumentative or position paper, they are likely also struggling to envision
what the body paragraphs will contain. Therefore, I often instruct such students to try to craft
a thesis statement that provides the key points they plan to make in 3 body paragraphs, lending
the outline for the paper.

A possible thesis statement following the
parameters you've provided could be this:

In various plot
developments, , Tom Robinson, and Arthur "Boo" Radley show that innocence is a worthy
value and one worth protecting.

In three paragraphs that
follow, you could take each character individually and demonstrate how this is established
through each character's conflicts.

Scout innocently tried to explain the
world of Maycomb to her young and inexperienced teacher--and received a reprimand because of
it.smooths things over and promises that they can keep reading together as long as she doesn't
mention it to her teacher. At Calpurnia's church, the children are confronted about their
presence at an all-black church, and this division is something that has never crossed Scout's
mind. In fact, she begins to question Calpurnia's "double life" in working with the
Finch household and attending church and notes how she even speaks differently. At the trial,
people try to shield Scout from the details of the alleged rape.

Tom Robinson
is innocent of the rape and assault he's accused of, yet he is convicted, anyway. His physical
limitations make it impossible that he could have done the things Mayella claims, and Atticus
works tirelessly and without the support of almost everyone in town to try and protect his
innocence. Although Tom is convicted, there is evidence (such as the racist Mr. Underwood's
editorial after Tom dies) that Atticus has begun to shift the public's racist sentiments in his
town.

is a recluse who rarely emerges from his home, and this makes him the
subject of great childhood speculation for years. Atticus instructs his children to leave the
man alone as what he does inside his own house is his own business. Boo Radley is a defender of
the innocent himself, and it's clear that he keeps a watchful eye on the children as evidenced
by his knowledge that they are in danger from Bob Ewell's schemes of angry retaliation. When Bob
attempts to kill them after the play, it is Boo who rescues them and risks his own life to save
theirs. The ability of one innocent to rescue another is a powerful message within the story.

I hope this provides you with some ideas that you can work with as you craft
a thesis that really speaks to you. You might also choose any one of theseand show how it is
impossible to completely shield innocence forever as all threedo face the negative outcomes of
various conflicts. Scout emerges with a more mature understanding of the world around her. Tom
dies for crimes he never committed. Boo must face evil in order to save an innocent child. So
while it is noble to protect the innocent, maintaining complete innocence in a world that also
contains evil is an impossible feat.

How might Winston Smith be portrayed as a coward throughout 1984?

acts
cowardly in his relationship with. If not for Julia's approaching Winston, he most likely would
have never talked to her. Similarly, Winston is a coward when it comes to standing...

How does the film of "Hills Like White Elephants" highlight new understandings of the story?

The best
thing about the short film adaptation of Hemingway's "" written by Joan Dideon and
John Gregory Dunn was the cinematography. The twin railroad tracks with the little bar room
looked exactly as I pictured them when reading the story. The bleak landscape seemed exactly the
same as Hemingway described it, although I didn't notice any hills that looked like white
elephants. The authors stretched out the story by adding a lot of their own dialogue--which I
found offensive since they can't write dialogue as good as Hemingway's and since it seems like a
desecration to plaster their own mediocre dialogue on top of the existing dialogue. In fact, it
amazed me that anybody would even think of doing such a thing--but apparently they felt that the
film would have had too short a running time if they didn't do something to stretch it out. They
didn't improve on it or make it any more understandable. The photographer and the director did
succeed in making the setting easier to visualize. The two main characters--the man and the
woman--didn't look anything like the people I imagined while reading the story. They really
don't have much to talk about, since it is the same thing over and over: "I want you to do
it" ... "I don't want to do it." I noticed in the credits that the character
played by the actress was called Hadley, which was the name of Hemingway's first wife. She
actually did have a baby at around the same time that Hemingway published the story--so the
screenwriters must have believed, as I do, that the American and the "girl" in
Hemingway's story were married and that he was writing about his own personal
experience.

What is an example of symbolism in Romeo and Juliet act 2, scene 2?

The
symbol of poison introduced byin act 2, scene 2, has great significance in
. As the good Friar introduces us to his little bag of potions, he comments
somewhat ominously on how poisons aren't intrinsically evil, but only made so by the uses to
which they are put.

As well...

How does Eliot explore how he finds meaning in life through religion in "The Journey of the Magi"?

In the
"Journey of the Magi," Eliot's narrator imagines what the journey was like for the
three magi who visited the infant Jesus soon after his birth in the New Testament book of
Matthew 2: 1-12.

The story recounted in Eliot's poem is told in the first
person voice of one of the magi. He first tells of how cold and miserable the journey was. The
three magi often regretted having embarked on it, and wished they had stayed in their
comfortable homes. They were charged high prices to stay in dirty villages, and they wondered if
it had been mistake to venture forth.

Finally they do come to a
"temperate" valley, where the weather is warmer. They find it
"satisfactory."

The religious message emerges primarily in the
third stanza. In the first two stanzas, the speaker uses the first person plural form,
"we," speaking for the feelings of all three of the magi. In the third stanza, he
sometimes moves to "I," suggesting that a religious conversion experience has
components that are highly personal and also components that are communal.

The speaker says in stanza three that he saw a birth but that it was also a death: the
death of his old way of living and thinking. He had thought birth and death were different, but
in witnessing this birththe birth of Jesushe and the other magi experienced the death of their
old outlooks on life. This was not so much a joyous event as a very difficult one. It was
painful for all three of the magi, he says:

Hard and
bitter agony for us

It was an agony like
"death" to witness Jesus and all that he represented to the world because it meant
they would no longer be the same people.

The magi return to their old
kingdoms but they have been transformed. This causes them to be "no longer at ease" in
their own cultures. They now feel alien in their homelands.

This speaks to a
common experience of people who have had genuine religious conversions. Suddenly, they
experience the whole world differently. What they had thought was most important suddenly comes
to seem insignificant. What had once seemed trivial now seems all important. Religious
conversion, Eliot is saying, is a painful process of death and rebirth, reached through
suffering and sacrifice, as symbolized by the cold, wearying journey of the magi. It not simply
an experience of joy, but an experience that demands a change so profound it feels like the
death.