What relationship does the traditional past have to the modern present in A Rose for Emily?I'm really stuck here. I have no idea how to write a...

The traditional past, the Old South, has defined Miss Emily's life for her and even though in the present, her father is passed away, it is as if he is still alive and controlling her life.  She was fated by her father's decisions to be alone, based on his interpretation of the old traditional past which suggested to him that he and his family were superior to everyone else. He found all his daughter's suitors to be beneath her and he rejected them as potential husbands.

Miss Emily grew old and alone waiting for her father to approve of a suitable man to marry her.  Now her father is dead, the south has lost the war and the plantation society that remains hidden in their homes in her town still looks out their windows to observe and judge her behavior.

A perfect example of how the tradition of the old south haunts poor Emily is when she begins taking carriage rides with the Yankee worker, Homer Barron. Her neighbors, the old guard, watch a rose of the South court a northern traitor. They not only wag their tongues at her scandalous behavior  they contact her family who lives out of town to come and stop her arrogant and ill-advised behavior. 

I believe that Miss Emily has been driven slightly insane by the stiffling traditions of the old south that refused to allow her to be loved and have a family of her own.  In the only action that she has left, in order to not be alone, when she realizes that Homer Barron would never marry her, she kills him and sleeps next to his corpse until her death.

It is a sad testament for Miss Emily that the only roses she probably ever got from a man were on top of her casket.

What are the places that Odysseus went during his travels?

Odysseus visits a great many places -- most of them not by choice, after he leaves Troy.  We first encounter Odysseus on the island of Ogygia, which belongs to the nymph Calypso.  He leaves this island on a raft, which Poseidon destroys.  Odysseus swims ashore on the island of Scheria, which belongs to the kingdom of the Phaiakans.  He goes from Scheria to Phaiakia, where he is welcomed and tells of the many adventures he had before staying with Kalypso.

To the Kikonians drove me the wind that from Ilion bore me,
Ismaros, where I ravaged the city and ruined the people.
...Farther along we sailed from the place; in our hearts we lamented --
glad to flee death as we were -- the destruction of our dear comrades. 
Nor would I let my tractable ships go forward before some
crewman had called three times on each of the wretched companions
who died there in the plain, brought down by Kikonian spearmen. 
Then at the ships cloud-gathering Zeus set Boreas' stormwinds
raging in furious tempest; (9. 39-40, 62-68)

From the land of the Kikonians, Odysseus' ships are blown for eleven days and nights to the "Lotus-eaters' country" (83-4), where many of his crew wish to stay.  Odysseus refuses, and the galleys go on to the land of the Cyclops.  There they have the adventure of the Cyclops Polyphemus' cave, in which some of Odysseus' men die.  They finally escape, and land on the isle of Aiolia, where they have the adventure of the bag of winds (given them by the king of that country, to speed their return home.)  Odysseus' men misunderstand, and open the bag, and they are blown around unmercifully.  They return to Aiolia, but the king so disgusted with their irresponsibility he orders them off the island without further assistance. 

Six full days we were sailing, alike in the nigt and the daytime;
then on the seventh we came to the high built city of Lamos  (10. 80-1)

There, among the Laistrygonians, many of Odysseus' men and ships are lost.  Odysseus, in the only ship left, flees to the isle of Aiaia, which belongs to the goddess Circe.  There they have many adventures, and they stay there a whole year.   From Circe's island Odysseus then goes to the underworld of Hades, where Odysseus sees his mother and the prophet Teiresias, among others.  Returning to Circe's island, Odysseus then re-embarks to go home.  He passes the obstacles of Scylla and Carybdis, the Sirens, and the cattle of Helios.  On the island of Helios, Odysseus' men commit a sacrilege, and Zeus destroys this last remaining ship.  Odysseus somehow survives, and he is then washed up on Ogygia, and goes from thence (as described above) to the land of the Phaiakans (where he is now telling his tale.)  The kindly Phaiakians then convey Odysseus to his homeland of Ithaka.

I need help writing an essay connecting "The Yellow Wallpaper" with "Daisy Miller" as a woman's perspective on their society.how could I start off...

At a first glance the texts seem really different, especially when you consider the overarching theme of madness in The Yellow Wallpaper. However, I think there are a number of ways you can do this. Both essays address female sexuality in a pre- Freudian era. The protagonists are both in search of what it means to be a woman, a wife, and in Daisy's case, a lady ( James' major preoccupation in his writings). Society dictates certain norms regarding male-female interaction which both stories relate to the reader through a series of impressions and notions of the unspoken. For instance, it is never fully explained why it is inappropriate for Daisy go on outings unchaperoned with men; it just is an unspoken code of behavior that she is expected to abide by. We can assume that it has to do with sexual chastitiy, but not so much with whether she might actually engage in inappropriate behavior, but rather giving the appearance that she doesn't care about behaving inapproriately. In order to preserve her status as a potential bride under the dictates of heterosexual patriachy, she has to keep up appearances. Her failure to do so is her doom. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper also rejects her role as a woman and wife. This narrative has more sexually overt overtones than Daisy Miller. More Recently, Queer Theorists have begun to argue that the homoerotic undertones in the story ( Jenny wanting to sleep in her bed at night, the fact that it is a woman in the wallpaper, and also the strange physical intimacy that the narrator has with her upon a closer reading of the text) lend themselves to an interpretation that suggest that that the narrator rejects not just her husband per se, but the notion of heterosexual sex which is the foundation of patriachy in itself. The text holds her moral agency spotless by making her mad ( actually a hysteric, the female form of madness that one contracts by simply having a uterus. See Gilman's biography for more on this). She sort of just "checks out" by going crazy, and yet is able to narrate a reasonable story to the reader.

Within the framework of nineteenth century literature, the texts address the typical themes of the boundaries and transgressions of class and gender. In particular, the  narratives are psychological investigations of female propriety and the constraints and forces society puts in place to keep women in their prescribed roles, and finally, what happens if they break out of those roles. 

What is the point of view in "A Jury of Her Peers"?

Susan Glaspell uses the third person limited omniscient point of view in "A Jury of Her Peers." This means that an outside narrator tells the story but only allows the reader inside the head of one of the characters. In this story, readers understand and observe the action through Mrs. Hale, the neighbor of the woman suspected of killing her husband. 

All the action of the story takes place within Mrs. Hale's view. The story opens in Mrs. Hale's home, continues with a buggy ride to the Wright farm, and concludes in the main floor of the Wright farm house. The men in the story go out of the house and upstairs, but since Mrs. Hale stays on the main floor, the reader is only aware of what she sees there.

The reader knows what Mrs. Hale is thinking. She worries about whether her son is dressed warmly enough for the weather; she hopes her husband, Lewis, doesn't say inappropriate things to the sheriff; and she chides herself for not having been a better friend to Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Peters, on the other hand, is only described objectively. Her actions and words are related, but not her feelings. For example, in this sentence: "'Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale,' agreed the sheriff's wife, as if she too were glad to come into the atmosphere of a simple kindness," Mrs. Peter's gladness is assumed rather than stated because Mrs. Hale can see the other woman acting "as if" she were glad but cannot know that she was glad.

The third person limited point of view helps the reader feel Mrs. Hale's feelings deeply. Part of the drama of the story is that Mrs. Hale does not know whether she can trust Mrs. Peters to react toward the situation the same way Mrs. Hale does. In the climax of the story when both women look at each other and reach the same conclusion, suspense builds through the use of the third person limited omniscient point of view, making it a very powerful scene.

Comment on the symbolic significance of seeds in Death of a Salesman.

If we think about seeds for one moment, they clearly represent growth and potential. Therefore, it is particularly relevant that Willy spends so much of his spare time working with seeds. Through such activity, we can see that he uses them to try and show the value of his work as both a family man and in professional terms. The way that he tries to cultivate vegetables at night clearly represents the embarrassment he feels and not being able to feed his family and not being able to provide for them, both in the present and the future. Above all, we can see that Willy feels leaving a similar legacy of lack of provision for his children as his own father left for him.

However, the occurrence of seeds in the play also point towards another metaphorical use of seeds to point towards child rearing. Willy's unshakeable belief in the American Dream has led him to follow its doctrines in raising Biff. However, clearly, the adult Biff is not the kind of person that Willy expected him to be having raised him to seize every opportunity for success. This is most strongly shown when Willy discovers that Bernard, Biff's weedy and weak childhood friend, has achieved the massive success he had desired for his own son. Willy is forced to realise that his hopes of raising a football hero have resulted in nothing more than creating a male who is unable to succeed in life in the way that his father had hoped.

Seeds therefore symbolically seem to taunt Willy with the various phantoms of failure that continue to haunt him in spite of his every deluded effort to ignore the evidence pointing against him.

In Act 1, Scene 7, how does Lady Macbeth respond to Macbeth's decision and how does she manipulate him?Macbeth's decision is to not murder Duncan.

Macbeth, as you rightly point out, has decided not to go ahead with the murder: he will, he says "go no further" in the business. Lady Macbeth is clearly frightened by this refusal to do the murder. And she immediately, without hesitation, attacks him as a coward:

Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire?

Is he scared ("afeard"), she asks, to act and to do the things he desires to do? For a professional soldier, famed for his bravery, it must be a difficult thing to hear. But it doesn't work. She tries again:

When you durst do it, then you were a man,
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.

Macbeth is no longer a man, she says. And then, trying to tempt him, she says that to be king ("more than what you were") would be to be much more of a man. But that doesn't work either. So she resorts to her big tactic:

I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

Macduff later tells us that Macbeth has no children. Yet Lady M has known what it's like to love your baby. But, she says, rather than break her promise, she'd have killed her own baby. And that changes Macbeth's mind. "If we should fail?" he says, back on board. Why? Why is this dead baby so emotional? Shakespeare never says. But it does the trick.

Explain the way in which the natives buried Teofilo’s body in The Man to Send Rainclouds, including your feelings on why they did so.

I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it, unless you're looking at the point of view of the priest in the story.  Catholic missionaries had established missions in the area, and were attempting to train the natives in their way of thinking and believing.  When the natives wished to bury Teofilo without a proper Catholic funeral mass, it made the priest very upset.

However, the natives were following their own culture.  In their system of belief, should a deceased member of the tribe enter the next world with holy water, they could send much needed rain.  For this reason, the natives wished to have the priest give them holy water for their own, cultural rite.  It makes sense when considering their way of life and their unique system of beliefs. 

What sort of diction and imagery occur in Pride and Prejudice?

Jane Austen most assuredly uses high diction in Pride and Prejudice, although Kitty and Mary are not above using middle diction that is sprinkled with colloquialisms. Diction differs from vocabulary in that vocabulary indicates the individual word choices whereas diction refers to the whole collection of word choices. In other words, high diction might contain some of the vocabulary words in low diction, such as cat, street, love, honor, while the recognizable diction differences would remain in tact.

There are several kinds of diction categorizations. These may be high diction, middle diction, low diction, concrete diction and abstract diction, poetic diction. High diction uses an elaborate vocabulary with polysyllabic words and finely constructed grammar and syntax free of errors. Middle diction is the language of educated people and includes correct grammar and syntax but is less particular and elevated. Low/informal diction is the language of casual (sometimes careless)everyday talk and includes idioms, slang, contractions, elisions, with grammatical and syntactical errors.

In Pride and Prejudice, Austen's diction is always superlative, of the highest form, and even Kitty and Lydia make no errors in vocabulary choices or grammar or syntax when they incorporate colloquial expressions into their talk. As to imagery, Austen's imagery is usually of the abstract sort (employing abstract diction). One is "elegant" and feels "esteem" and experiences "disapprobation," which are all abstract concepts.

What was the importance of King Leonidas of Sparta?

King Leonidas of Sparta is one of the most important figures  of Spartan history and is an important figure in Greek history as well.  Leonidas and his hand picked 300 held off the Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae.  In 480 BCE, Xerxes I of Persia sent an army of 150,000 troops with ships to supply them against the Greeks.  The Greeks were greatly outnumbered and out supplied.  Leonidas was leading the combined Greek land forces. He realized that the best spot to defend Greece was the narrow pass of Thermopylae.  He sent the majority of the Greeks off to the back part of the mountains and he and 300 Spartans prepared to hold the pass against the Persians. They were successful at holding off the Persians for two full days, killing thousands upon thousands of Persian soldiers.  The delay allowed the Athenians to flee Athens and hide, so that when the Persians finally took Athens, they took an empty city. Leonidas' brave stance inspired the Greeks and enabled them to stand against Persia. This paved the way for the development of Greek culture and government which in turn paved the way for the development of European culture. Thus King Leonidas remains a significant figure in Greek and, truly, in world history.

In "Beowulf," why did the Danes bury the treasure that Beowulf and Wiglaf recovered from the dragon?

The Danes bury the treasure because this was one of Beowulf's last commands before dying after fighting the dragon. The treasure is to be buried rather than shared by Beowulf's warriors, as would be the usual dispensation of the spoils of battle, because Beowulf's warriors had behaved in a disloyal and cowardly way. Except for Wiglaf, all of Beowulf's men abandoned him by running away, refusing to help him slay the dragon when it became clear that the dragon was winning his battle against the King. Beowulf's warriors, except for Wiglaf, betrayed their responsibilities and therefore their very reason for existing in their culture. Such cowardice and treason would not be rewarded. The treasure is walled up in the tower built by the sea, at Beowulf's direction, along with his ashes.

Please explain the importance of the structure in The Caretaker by Pinter.

There are three acts in the play just like the three characters. The first is Aston and Davies's, the second, Mick and Davies's, the third, a complex interaction among the three. The time structure from the first to the second is almost continuous while there is a temporal rupture between the second and the third. This time-scheme is  precisely the same as in Osborne's Look Back in Anger.

There is very little action; all of it occurs on the verbal level. The climactic structure is something that realists tend to make a lot of, but someone like Pinter who is well equipped with the tropes of magic-real, absurdist and sur-realist theatre would create and he does, a rather inconsistent, up and down and uneven structure of reality. In the first act, I think, the climax is still made a little physical and evental. The scuffle between Mick and Davies is a climax indeed. Mick's final line--"What's the game" is a perfect closing line as we look forward to the second act for answers. In the second act, the climax happens with Aston's long speech, which in itself has a whole Freytag triangle with all the stages from exposition to resolution in it. The speech is a climax in its content. It is a very rare back-story that we get in Pinter, sans all the particulars, however. The trope of madness is crucial to the dynamics of the play. The third and final act of the play has a sort of an anti-climactic point when after all the promises, Davies is stripped of his prospective role of being the caretaker by both the brothers with rather inexplicable and unfair arguments. Davies's return is like a resolution where the action is raised to another potential climax which closely falls down with Davies's pathetic little speech at the end.

How has car safety developed over time?New laws have required car designs that minimise injury to pedestrians involved in collisions with vehicles.

In direct response to the question regarding the safety of pedestrians in car crashes it has to be said that in recent years crash engineers have begun to use design principles that have proved successful in protecting car occupants to develop vehicle design concepts that reduce the likelihood of injuries to pedestrians.

Most pedestrian deaths occur due to the head injury resulting from the hard impact of the head against the stiff hood or windshield. In addition, although usually non-fatal, injuries to the lower limb (usually to the knee joint and long bones) are the most common cause of disability due to pedestrian crashes. A Frontal protection System (FPS) is a device fitted to the front end of a vehicle to protect both pedestrians and cyclists who are involved in a front end collision with a vehicle. Car design has been shown to have a large impact on the scope and severity of pedestrian injury in car accidents.

The hood of most vehicles is usually fabricated from sheet metal, which is a compliant energy absorbing structure and thus poses a comparatively small threat. Most serious head injuries occur when there is insufficient clearance between the hood and the stiff underlying engine components. A gap of approximately 10 cm is usually enough to allow the pedestrian’s head to have a controlled deceleration and a significantly reduced risk of death.

Furthermore, BMW is conducting research with a system that would equipp pedestrians and others with transponders that alert passing cars to their presence - even if they can't be seen by the human eye. The technology is called AMULETT - the German acronym for “Active mobile accident avoidance and mitigation of accident effects through cooperative data acquisition and tracking technology”.

The system works on similar principles to an RFID tag, exchanging data with an on-board computer on the AMULETT-equipped car. Because the non-car end of the system is so light and robust, it could in theory be incorporated into any number of existing daily carry items, such as school bags, cellular phones or brief cases. Such ubiquity could mean a huge decrease in pedestrian traffic accidents.

According to the 2006 figures from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office, 48 percent of accident victims between the age of six and 14 ran onto the road without looking out for traffic. 25 percent of accidents involving children happened when they suddenly appeared from behind a visual barrier.

The system that BMW is developing would alert the driver that a child or an adult is likely to step on the road in front of their car so that they can adjust their speed and be more alert.

Also, you are right, the car companies are doing their best to advance their pedestrian protection systems, in part because the law will require tham to do so.

It's likely that the future design changes we see on vehicles in the U.S. will be driven by safety standards overseas. Both Japan and Europe recently instituted more pedestrian safety standards.

What is the narrative mode of Heart of Darkness?

Something I noticed is that the first 'I' in the book, as in someone telling the story in the first person, comes from one of Marlow's shipmates in the very beginning, telling us about how Marlow's telling them this story. This character warns the reader to be perceptive of the ebb and flow of Marlow's narrative.

The narrator then shifts to Marlow, as he recounts his experiences. His way of telling the story is through a mix of emotions, events, thoughts, and reactions. Also notice all the paragraphs of his story are in quotations, as if he is speaking to the sailors who are listening to him.

That's all I got, hope it helps :)

In Frankenstein, what is the effect of Victor's return to the present?this is from the book frankenstein by mary shelley

Walton hopes that he can convince Victor to return to the real world, give up his hunt for the monster, and try to enjoy living again. Unfortunately, Victor is unable to live for anything but revenge. He has not learned any lesson from his terrible ordeal. When Walton's men want to break through the ice and return home, Victor encourages Walton to complete his journey,even though it might mean the death of every man on the ship. Walton, learning from Victor's experience, decides to return home. Victor tries to leave the ship so he can continue the hunt for the monster. However, Victor is too weak and finally succumbs to death. Walton, then meets the monster, but decides not to follow him and to continue to return home. He has learned from Victor how harmful being obsessed with science and exploration can be.

How does Portia prove her strength to Brutus?

Here's Portia, answering your question:

I grant I am a woman, but withal
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife.
I grant I am a woman, but withal
A woman well reputed, Cato's daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd and so husbanded?
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose em.
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound
Here in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience
And not my husband's secrets?

Portia argues with Brutus, saying that she is a woman of a good reputation, with a famous, noble father, and a famous, noble husband. She, she says, is easily noble enough to be able to be trusted with Brutus' secrets.

Moreover, she has given herself a "voluntary wound" in the thigh - she has wounded herself, and, she says, if she can bear the wound with patience, surely she can bear her husband's secrets. Very odd, but - to the Romans - it would have been a real sign of her constancy and trustiworthiness.

Why is it that prisons are necessary in society according to this book?The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Much of Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing is both symbolic and allegorical; and, The Scarlet Letter is no exception.  In the first chapter of his novel, Hawthorne chooses the setting of the prison and its iron door to represent the terrible restrictiveness of Puritanism that forbade sin, a natural foible of human nature.  Since sin is part of the weakness of mankind, and it was forbidden in Puritanism, it was necessary to have the prison.  Here lies the irony in Hawthorne's line that whatever Utopia is built, people must yet build a prison and a cemetery. (There is no real Utopia.)

It is especially ironic that a religious sect such as that of the Puritans, who sought the freedom to practice their religion in coming to America, should then, themselves, build a prison before all other buildings.  And, this rust and decay and ugliness of the prison forshadow the gloom of  the novel.  For, as in the works of Charles Dickens, the society in which the characters live, is virtually a prison.  Hester is labeled as an adulteress and is ostracized; Dimmesdale is tortured by his guilt about his secret sin, and Chillingworth is destroyed by his malicious acts of revenge against the minister--all are imprisoned in their own way in the restrictive Puritan society.

Holden's primary ambition is to become the catcher in the rye. Is this goal realistic?

Holden's notion of "catching" children playing in a field of rye before they fall off a cliff is not realistic in the least. The entire idea is completely imaginary, based on the song he hears the little boy singing. Holden's need, however, to protect those he perceives as innocent and vulnerable, such as the ducks and Phoebe, stems from his feeling of helplessness because he was unable to save Allie. He could not prevent a young child's death. As a result, Holden wants to protect all children from the dangers of the world in any way he can. For instance, he seeks to eliminate the obscene language he finds at Phoebe's school.

Eventually, though, Holden realizes that his goal is unrealistic. While he watches Phoebe on the carousel when she reaches for the gold ring and worries that she may fall, he understands that he has to let her experience her own failures. If she falls, she falls; he has to let her. Holden cannot protect her forever, and he finally accepts that fact. He sees his desire to be the catcher in the rye as unreachable and unrealistic.

In Othello, what is Iago’s view of human nature? In his fondness for likening men to animals, what does he tell us about himself?

Good question. Iago doesn't really get as far as a philosophy of human nature: there is no "what a piece of work is man", speech, or even a "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow". It's partly why Coleridge dubbed his attitude a "motiveless malignity": the play doesn't really reveal what he really thinks.

You have to read between the lines. And I think you're right about his penchant for human-bestial comparisons. Yet I'd go one further: the animal imagery shows how obsessed he is with sex, and all things sexual:

an old black ram is tupping your white ewe...

you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to you...

It is impossible you should see this
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
As ignorance made drunk.

It's a little like that song "Bad Touch" from a few years ago: Iago loves to imagine Desdemona and Othello having sex like animals do, "like they do on the Discovery channel"! It's part of his weird, psychopathic, obsessive manner, which is reflected in the way he clinically dismembers Othello's faith, piece by piece.

So his view of human nature? Perhaps, in one sense, he just sees us all as primal, sexual, instinctive animals.

What are the literary devices for stanza 9 and ten ?

mwestwood
|

College Teacher

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(Level 3) Distinguished Educator

Posted on March 5, 2009 at 2:31 PM

What enhances the humor of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?

The humor of the story is enhanced by the contrast between the narrator and Simon Wheeler, the descriptions of Jim Smiley's betting and the satire of human foibles that Twain is able to communicate. The first bit of humor comes in the form of the obvious distaste the narrator, an Easterner, has for the uneducated Westerner, Simon Wheeler. The narrator says that Wheeler backed him into a corner and "reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph." But the narrative is hardly monotonous. It is full of wonderful descriptions of a con artist who gets conned. The narrator's description of Simley's obsession with gambling is full of funny details, like when he would he would" foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road." Wheeler even bets on the death of the minister's wife. When the ministers says his wife is getting better, Smily thoughlessly says, “Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway.”

In addition, the descriptions of the "15 minute nag" and the bull dog who died of embarrassment are as funny as they are unbelievable. When training his frog to jump, the Smiley is especially funny. But the real entertainment value is the irony at the end of the story when Smiley is outfoxed by a stranger who puts quail shot in his frog. Finally, the narrator has had it with Wheeler's story and says so, but the reader has certainly had a good laugh.

Is racial politics a major thematic element in Light in August?

Certainly racism is major theme in Light in August. We see light-skinned Joe Christmas, who passes as white, become the prime suspect in the murder of Joanna Burden when Joe Brown tells the sheriff that Christmas is black.  Brown, of course, is trying to save his own skin since his own alibi does not clear him.  As he says, "Accuse the white man and the nigger go free."  Once this is said, Christmas is guilty in the eyes of the white Jefferson community, and Brown, a white man, is no longer a suspect.

Racism plays a role in Christmas' upbringing as well. Christmas rebels accepting his white foster parents' food, religion, and name.  When he finally defends himself against the violent McEachern, Bobbie, the prostitute Christmas had hoped to run off with and marry, becomes angry at Christmas for making a scene and begins to call him "nigger" and other racial slurs.  She is angry because his attack on McEachern was done in a public place, and her illicit business operations might be exposed.  In her anger, she plays the race card even though his earlier confession to her that he might be part black did not bother her at all.

This use of the race card against him becomes a pattern in Christmas's life, and each time it is used, it has devastating consequences for Christmas.

Faulkner shows us all kinds of racists: from Christmas's fanatical grandfather who allows his own daughter to die in childbirth because he believes she slept with a black man to Joanna Burden whose family believed that blacks were the white man's curse.  I don't think he is advocating specific political changes.  Faulkner firmly believed that the South would have to change on its own accord. Perhaps his writing was his way of provoking that change.  It is clear that he wants us to understand the damage that racism does to our fellow man.  Many of Joe Christmas's flaws can be attributed to the sicknesses in the society in which he lived.

As Hightower says, "Poor man, poor mankind." By negative example, Faulkner makes a strong argument for compassion, tolerance, and understanding.

Why did Jethro equate the battle of Antietam with the former Battle of Shiloh in Across Five Aprils?

Jethro equates the Battle of Antietam with the former Battle of Shiloh because both seem to him to have been empty victories.

In 1861, before the actual battlefield confrontations of the American Civil War had actually begun, warfare had been thought of as something glamorous.  To Jethro and a large portion of the untried population,

"War meant loud brass music and shining horses ridden by men wearing uniforms finer than any suit in the stores...when the batle thundered and exploded on all sides - well, some men were killed, of course...(but) it would be shadowy men from distant parts who would die for the pages of future history books" (Chapter 1).

A year later, after the battles of Shiloh, Antietam, and many others, the casualties have become personal and the reality of war has begun to settle into the public consciousness.  Jethro's brother Tom has been killed at Shiloh, and a letter full of anguish and disillusionment has just arrived from Shadrach, who has been initiated into battle at Antietam.  As the death toll rises with no resolution in sight, Jethro realizes what the population has begun to realize as well - that

"Antietam seem(s) much like Shiloh - a Federal victory in which one (is) hard put to find a step toward final triumph and peace" (Chapter 8). 

Aside from loyalty, bravery, and persistence, what heroic qualities do Sir Gawain and Beowulf have in common?

Both Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight meditate on the qualities most sought after in warriors. Though Beowulf depicts a period approximately eight hundred years earlier than that depicted in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the ideal warrior in each culture share similar characteristics. Most obvious of these characteristics is loyalty, bravery/courage, and persistence, but the similarities between the title characters of the two poems do not end with these.

Aside from loyalty, bravery, and persistence, Beowulf and Sir Gawain are both honorable and just characters. Each of them feels bound to the oaths they make, so much so that each of them is willing to risk their lives to uphold them. Sir Gawain takes up the Green Knight’s challenge, and, even after he finds he has been tricked, stands by the oath he makes. He travels to meet the Green Knight at the Green Chapel, a journey that promises only Sir Gawain’s demise. Beowulf comes to Heorot to rid the land of Grendel, a monster with the strength of many men. While he mortally wounds Grendel without too much difficulty, he upholds the larger meaning of his oath; he gives an oath to defend Heorot, and he continues to do so until the threat is no more.

When Beowulf and his men seize the gold-hoard, he makes a concerted effort to dispense the content of the hoard among his men, knowing it to be the right thing to do. He acknowledges the role that his men played in his success. Showing this kind of generosity and being a just and fair commander ensured the loyalty of his men, and Beowulf realizes that his men are largely responsible for the renown that he himself enjoys. When the Green Knight rides into Camelot and challenges the knights to his game, King Arthur chooses to accept the challenge, but Sir Gawain takes up the game in his place. Recognized as the most valiant knight among Arthur’s court, Sir Gawain puts the honor of Camelot before his own. This kind of selflessness is reminiscent of Beowulf’s agreeing to come to Heorot and fight Grendel. While Beowulf’s honor certainly increases from his battles with Grendel and Grendel’s mother, it shows a sense of selflessness on his part to come to the defense of another.

What are some similarities (and differences) between Young Goodman Brown and The Birthmark?What are you some other intertwined themes between the...

The main similarity between the two stories is the idealistic protagonists in each.  In The Birthmark, Aylmer arrogantly believes that he has the skill to perfect in his wife what nature had left imperfect.  His idealistic dreams lead to a tragic end, however, when the potion he gives his wife removes her one earthly imperfection, making it impossible for her to remain on earth any longer.

In Young Goodman Brown, the protagonist has an idealistic view of his religious faith and those who have instructed him in that faith.  He arrogantly meets with the devil in the woods at night, thinking that he is strong enough to toy with evil and walk away unharmed.  When he sees distinguished members of his church congregation heading toward the evil assembly, his faith is shattered.  Like Aylmer, his idealistic pride led to a tragic end.

The most significant difference between the two stories is one emphasizes science and the other religion (or faith).  The Birthmark deals with science as it was understood during Hawthorne's time period.  Young Goodman Brown is set during the Puritan time period and focuses on their strict religious faith.

Justification of the title "The Diamond Necklace".

The story's title "The Necklace," is justified, because I see the necklace as the antagonist in the story, with Madame Loisel as the protagonist.  It is the necklace that creates all the conflict for her.  Even though, at the heart of the story is Madame Loisel's shallow love of material possessions, it is the diamond necklace that creates the tragic circumstances that lead to Madame Loisel's life of toil and struggle.

The necklace, after it is lost, becomes the central focus of the Loisels life.  They must work extra hard for ten years in order to pay off the debts they incurred to pay for a new necklace for Madame Forestier.  The irony is that after so many years of hard labor and sacrifice, during which, Madame Loisel grows haggard with the physical demands of hard work, her hair grows coarse, her hand calloused and tough, her beauty traded for the money they earned to pay back their loans.

The necklace was not real, Madame Forestier's necklace was fake.  The Loisels replaced a fake necklace with a real diamond necklace.  Madame Forestier does not even know that the necklace she got back was real diamonds.

The necklace has fooled everyone!