The
Freedmen's Bureau was established by the United States government near the end of the Civil War.
As the war was drawing to a close, the U.S. government realized that they would need to provide
assistance to recently freed slaves as they began to adjust to free life. The Freedmen's Bureau
attempted to provide care and greater opportunity for newly freed African Americans. Some of the
efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau included providing medical care for former slaves, as well as
providing education for former slaves. As slaves, many African Americans did not receive proper
medical care and education was forbidden. The Freedmen's Bureau undertook the task of helping to
feed recently freed African Americans who were in need of food. The Freedmen's Bureau also
attempted to help former slaves acquire land on which they could use their
agricultural...
Thursday, 28 November 2013
What did the Freedmen's Bureau do for former slaves?
What are some similarities between April and Melanie in The Egypt Game?
Starting with simple similarities, both
characters are young women that live in the same neighborhood; however, there is a lot more that
is similar between these two characters. Both girls are incredibly intelligent and very
imaginative. This is one reason why they are able to work so well together in creating the
entire Egypt Game. Melanie might be the girl that introduces the concept of imaginary games to
April through the paper dolls, but April is incredibly receptive to the idea and helps enhance
it through her own imaginative powers. For example, it is April that immediately knows what to
do with the abandoned lot.
Both Melanie and April are also both incredibly
loving, caring, and patient with younger kids. The best evidence for this can be found in how
both girls treat Marshall. Marshall is a four year old kid, and that is not an easy age to
incorporate into a lot of things, but Melanie is an excellent big sister. She never tells him to
get lost. In fact, she actively looks for ways to include Marshall in her life's
activities.
April is also incredibly tolerant of Marshall. While April can be
aloof, she is not this way with Marshall. April and Melanie both take Marshall for walks while
Mrs. Ross is gone, and they help make him feel welcome in all of their imaginative
games.
Analyze the theme of power and leadership in Chapter 1 of George Orwell's Animal Farm.
The entirety of
the novel explores theof leadership and power as we watchcorrupted by and disobeying the very
principles he and the other pigs instituted to rid themselves of a ruler (like the one Napoleon
eventually becomes).
Chapter one demonstrates the beginning of the fall of
one leader or the power of one as he (Mr. Jones) stumbles through his duties because of his
drunkenness. This demonstrates that a leader can easily become unaware, which is indeed what
happened when the last ruling Romanov was in power.
Asshares his vision, he
does so with the idea that he won't be around long and that his idea is not necessarily for
himself, but for a future. A good leader is a persuasive one. He had planted this idea, the
animals almost subliminally took hold of it and before they know it (...) rebellion has
begun.
Old Major may have been looking out for his own, but the problem of
leadership comes when one who seeks power just for the sake of having power doesn't think about
all possible consequences.
Reading some of Thomas Jefferson's writings will
show consideration that went into the idea of power to the people and the corruption of mankind.
Could an evil leader rise in America? Is it possible? Very.
positioned this
speech of Old Major's in the beginning to cause readers to consider the power of leadership.
Should you follow someone blindly just because there is promise in their words, or should you
check their motives, history and background before positioning them with such
power?
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
What is a fond memory Mattie has of winter?
In
chapter six of , while Mattie is washing clothes in heat of the
oppressively hot and humid Philadelphia summer, she fondly remembers her favorite winter
experience. For Mattie, this fond winter memory is of ice skating around the frozen ships in the
Philadelphia harbor. Particularly, Mattie fondly remembers ice skating with her beloved,
Nathaniel Benson. One could infer that Mattie's longing for winter is less for the actual season
and more related to sharing this special experience with Nathaniel Benson. Mattie is being
increasingly pressured to marry her parents' idea of a suitable husband (notably, not Nathaniel
Benson), and Mattie's longing for the winter of old can be seen as longing for a time of
innocence, freedom, and joy.
In The Great Gatsby, how does Gatsby's attitude toward money affect how Nick perceives him?
's attitude
toward money contributes strongly to 's perception of him as a romantic personality, a man who
lives only to achieve a "colossal" romantic dream. When Gatsby was a boy living in
poverty as Jimmy Gatz of North Dakota, money for him was a means of escape. An entry in his
childhood journal read, "Study needed inventions," suggesting that he was looking for
a way to succeed in business and reap the financial rewards. When he reinvents himself and
becomes enormously wealthy through his association with criminal Meyer Wolfshiem, however,
Gatsby's attitude toward money has changed; it has become only the means to an end--to bringback
into his life and keep her forever.
Nick becomes aware of this when Gatsby
confides in him, explaining naively that he will repeat the past with Daisy, an idea Nick
recognizes as a romantic impossibility. As Nick watches Gatsby show off his gorgeous mansion and
many fine possessions to Daisy, to impress her with his great wealth, Nick realizes that
Gatsby's intention is to convince Daisy that he is a man of substance who can take care of her.
Nick also realizes that Gatsby had traveled very far, literally and figuratively, to buy his
mansion across the bay from Daisy with the sole purpose of achieving his dream of her; he had
thrown his elaborate parties only to draw her to him.
Nick realizes that
Gatsby's attitude toward money is far different from that of the Buchanans. Unlikeand Daisy,
Gatsby does not enjoy wealth for its own sake or for the lifestyle it affords him. For example,
he swims in his own pool only once, the day he dies, and he generally does not attend his own
lavish parties. Unlike the Buchanans, he does not feel or exhibit a sense of superiority because
he is wealthy. Gatsby himself is unaffected by wealth, and the purity of his romantic vision
affects Nick deeply, so deeply that Gatsby's eventual destruction sends Nick back home to the
Midwest. He despises Tom and Daisy's moral corruption, the result of their own relationship with
money. For Nick, however, "Gatsby turned out all right at the end," saved by his
"romantic readiness" and "gift for hope."
What dual purpose does Big Brother symbolize in the novel, and was he real or just a symbol?
First of
all, Big Brother is not a real person. Although he frequently appears on television and his
picture stares out from huge posters that shout, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, nobody sees Big
Brother in person.He is a symbol of the authority of The Party.
According to
cited scholars,probably had several things in mind when he created Big Brother. He was most
likely thinking predominantly of...
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
Why does Chapter III of The Strangerend with "the blood pounding" in Meursault's ears and "the dog whimper[ing] softly"? Different translations may use...
The
answer to this question is a complex one partly because of Camus' innovative psychological style
and partly because of symbolism and . Firstly, Camus believed that the psychological aspects of
a psychological novel were revealed in action, which ran contrary to the popular psychological
literary convention of his day that built psychological development through first-person
introspection and monologues of self-examination. What this means is that in order to show
Meursault's psychology and psychological development, Camus develops actions, which includes
dialogue and first-person descriptions of passing moments--but not passing thoughts.
Secondly, at least one recurring symbolic motif is present in the passage you ask
about:
The whole building was as quiet as the grave, a
dank, dark smell rising from the well hole of the stairs. I could hear nothing but the blood
throbbing in my ears, and for a while I stood still, listening to it. Then the dog began to moan
in old Salamanos room, and through the sleep-bound house the little plaintive sound rose slowly,
like a flower growing out of the silence and the
darkness.
The symbolic motif I'm thinking of
is flower. There are at least four places in
which Camus likens something to a flower, including Marie's face: "her sun-tanned face was
like a velvety brown flower." The first use of
flower is when Meursault sits in vigil at his
mother's coffin:
through the open door came scents of
flowers and breaths of cool night air. I think I dozed off for a
while.
I was wakened by an odd rustling in my ears.
The flower symbolizes the existential
absurdity in life, the flower appearing as it does in a completely random and valueless fashion
(1) at the side of death, (2) in a poorly lit and ill-smelling stairwell and (3) in a beautiful
woman's face. When, as in the first two uses (vigil, stairwell),
flower appears with the symbolic motif of
sound rushing in Meursault's ears ("odd rustling in my ears";
blood throbbing in my ears"), existential
absurdity is linked directly to Meursault's life, which leads to the next consideration, that of
foreshadowing.
Thirdly, the scene set by Camus in the ill-lit
stairwell--
"quiet as the grave, a dank, dark smell
... blood throbbing in my ears ... dog began to moan ... through the sleep-bound house the
little plaintive sound rose, like a flower growing out of the
silence and the darkness"
reflects back on the
earlier scene of the vigil at the coffin echoing the funereal motif of death and decay, with the
dog moaning as mourners may do and as Meursault perhaps ought to have done at the vigil. This
foreshadows what will eventually happen to Meursault largely as a result of the overwhelming
influence of his behavior (or lack of behavior) at the funeral vigil.
So why
does Chapter III of end with the "blood throbbing" and the
"dog moaning"? It ends thusly to express Camus' existential views; to tie random
meaninglessness with Meursault's life; and to prepare the reader for--to foreshadow--the events
that will ultimately follow; and to prepare for the great and significant influence the funeral
vigil has on Meursault's ultimate end.