What is the main function of the fool in "King Lear"? What is the secondly function?

The fool as a character is confusing, but part of this is the difference between the 1600s and today, as well as the difference in place. If somebody made a joke about your local sports team, would people several hundred years from now get it?

Shakespeare also wrote his plays for his group of actors, and the original actor portraying fool was a comedian of sorts, that was the type of character he played. So it can be really hard to understand the fool. 

He does serve as a counter to Lear, especially in the Storm scene, a kind of reasonable-ish counterpart to the absolutely insane Lear. The fool's position also gives him the ability to say things that no body else can say, even if they believe them. He is the ultimate character allowed to "speak truth to power."

What is elasticity of demand?

The price elasticity of demand, sometimes simply called price elasticity, measures how much the quantity demanded of a good changes when its price changes. The precise definition of price elasticity is:

The percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price.

ED = (percentage change in quantity demanded) / (percentage change in price)

Economic factors determine the size of price elasticities of individual goods. Elasticities tend to be higher when the goods are luxuries, when substitutes are available, and when consumers have more time to adjust their behavior.

When ED > 1, the good has price-elastic demand. In this case a price decrease increases total revenue.

When ED < 1, the good has price-inelastic demand. In this case a price decrease decreases total revenue.

When ED = 1, the good has unit-inelastic demand. Under this condition total revenue stays the same even when the price changes.

When ED = 0, the demand is completely inelastic.

When ED is infinite the demand is completely elastic. Even the tiniest change in price causes a huge change in quantity demanded, so huge that, for all intents and purposes, we can call the response infinite. When demand is perfectly elastic, then no matter how much people are buying, the demand curve will be a horizontal line. The demand for a single brand of salt may fall into this category.

In The Outsiders, what differences can be seen between Ponyboy and Johnny? I just found about school, and aboutt theirs family's background. What...

Other than their backgrounds, there are a few differences between the two characters.  Ponyboy is definitely a stronger character in terms of the mental anguish that he is able to deal with.  Pony is constantly fighting with his brother; however, it does not affect him the way that Johnny’s relationship with his parents affects him.  This could have to do with the difference in the two relationships but it is a character difference as well – the end of the novel does a great job of showing Ponyboy’s strength.  Johnny is also always nervous while Ponyboy seems to be able to handle situations with ease most of the time.  Finally, Johnny makes rash and impetuous decisions while Ponyboy always seems to think things through before he acts on anything.  

How does Laura Esquivel use literary devices to build the mood in "Like Water for Chocolate"?

Esquivel uses several literary devices, including foreshadowing, metaphors, symbolism, imagery, and hyperbole, in order to create different moods in her novel, "Like Water for Chocolate." For example, passion is apparent when foreshadowing is introduced. John tells Tita about his grandmother's theory of love and life. She said that "each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves." We need the breath of the person we love to light them and thus nourish our souls. She warns, however, that lighting the matches all at once would be fatal. This process occurs at the end of the novel when Pedro's suppressed passion for Tita is finally "lit," and the intense flame is too much for him to bear. It is then that he dies of a heart attack and she is consumed by a literal and metaphoric/symbolic flame.

Imagery and hyperbole are also helpful in constructing mood in the novel. Through the vivid descriptions of Tita's magical cooking, the reader can imagine the smells, tastes, and feelings that the food evokes. Also, magic realism is evident when these feelings of love, sadness, lust, and resentment are exaggerated through the characters as they cause orgasms, sobs, and even death.

What is the relationship between me and the daughter of my mother's sister? Actually, my mother is not directly related to her mother.

Many riddles or "messy" problems begin with an apparent conundrum and they intentionally mislead the reader by the way they are phrased. Solving a riddle routinely requires original thought and resourcefulness although the answers are often almost ridiculously simple with hindsight. This question poses a simplistic riddle. Problem-solving techniques help to solve riddles as analytical skills are needed. The reader or problem-solver must look beyond any unnecessary detail by analyzing information in order to solve the problem. The idea is to search for key information and to break questions into smaller parts. In problem-solving, the difficulty lies in trying to find the overall answer without taking time to consider each step. Each step has to be considered on its own merit and as part of the whole.

To consider the relationship described in the question requires breaking the question down into elements. First find the potential answers to the each part. 

1. My mother's sister would be my aunt.

2. The daughter of my mother's sister would be my mother's niece. 

3. This would make me and the daughter of my mother's sister cousins.

4. My gender, male or female has no bearing on the question.

However, the question has another element. If my mother is not "directly" relater to her mother and yet they are sisters, the reader has to decide if this is relevant to the question and if it will in fact change the answer at all or if the information, upon analysis is unnecessary for the purposes of finding the answer.

There is a need therefore to understand "directly."

1. It could mean that the are not biologically-related. The reader can deduce that this will not change the answer as the statement has been made that they are nonetheless sisters. 

2. It could mean that they are step-sisters and so have no biological connection. Again, the answer remains the same. Interestingly, this answer could change if there were any marriages within step-families.  

3. It could be that the term sister is used for sister-in-law. This means that either the "sister" is my father's sister  (and so my mother's sister-in-law) so the answer remains the same because the daughter is my father's niece in this case anyway. It could be my mother's brother's wife which makes her my uncle's wife which means the answer still remains the same.  

The answer to this riddle is, as aforesaid, that we are cousins. 

Explain Claudius' comments to Hamlet regarding his father's death. What advice is given?

In Act 1, Scene 2. Claudius is trying to lift Hamlet out of his depression. He thinks the depression is caused by the death of Hamlet's father. So, he says to Hamlet that Hamlet's father lost his father, and his father lost his father, etc. Thus, death of a father is a natural thing and Hamlet ought to snap out of it. Then he says, "think of us[Claudius] as your father. This is probably one of the worst condolences Claudius could choose. What he doesn't realize is that one of the reasons Hamlet is so depressed is that such a short time has passed since his father's death and his mother has just married his uncle. During Elizabethan times, when the play was written, this act would have been considered incest---not to mention tasteless and unthinking. But Claudius is so wrapped up in his new power, that he can't imagine why Hamlet would be upset.

What is the summary for Chapter 1 of Into the Wild?

Jim Gallien, a union electrician, picks up a hitchhiker about four miles out of Fairbanks on Tuesday, April 28, 1992.  The hitchhiker introduces himself only as "Alex", and asks for a ride to the edge of Denali National Park, from which point he will walk "deep into the bush and 'live off the land for a few months'".  Alex, a congenial young man who looks to be only eighteen or nineteen, shows Gallien a map of the Stampede Trail, a seldom-traveled road which winds "for forty miles or so before petering out...(in a) trackless wilderness north of Mt. McKinley".  This is where Alex intends to go.

Gallien is concerned because Alex seems woefully underprepared for such an undertaking.  He carries only a small rifle and a backpack weighing just "twenty-five or thirty pounds", and admits that he is afraid of water and that the only food he has is a ten-pound bag of rice.  Gallien tries to dissuade Alex from what appears to be a foolhardy endeavor, but says, "There was just no talking the guy out of it".  He offers to drive Alex back to Anchorage to buy him "some decent gear", but the young man declines.  Gallien finally convinces Alex to take "an old pair of rubber work boots" he has in the truck, and the lunch his wife had packed for him earlier in the day.  Gallien drops Alex off at the trailhead, and watches as the young man "disappear(s) down the snow-covered track" (Chapter 1).

What does Carl Rogers mean by "organism?" I know he is referring to people, but I don't understand why. How does the person centered approach...

Rogers believed that all living things are organisms.. including humans and that just as plants need certains conditions in order to promote their growth, so do humans.

The conditions that Rogers thought the human organisms need in order to promote their growth are the core condition of his 'person centered' model. (Rogers is referring to emotional rather than physical growth.)The conditions are

Empathy

Congrence (genuineness - from others and ourselves)

Unconditional positive regard (to feel that we are loved or approved of unconditionally by someone)

Hope this helps.

What are some of the literary elements found in To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men? Please mention foreshadowing, contrast, climax, simile,...

There are numerous examples of these literary techniques in the two works. Here are a few.

Foreshadowing: Bob Ewell threatens to "get" Atticus no matter how long it takes. His threat foreshadows his subsequent attack on Jem and Scout. Lennie's accidentally killing the mouse foreshadows his accidentally killing Curley's wife

Contrast: Atticus' understanding and acceptance of others and his refusal to judge them based on their race or social class contrast Aunt Alexandra's prejudice and snobbishness. Slim's kindness and gentleness contrasts Curley's viciousness. 

Climax: Scout finally meets Boo Radley. George shoots Lennie.

Simile: During the fire when Miss Maudie's house burns, Scout describes the smoke as "rolling off our house . . . like fog off a riverbank." Steinbeck writes, ". . . the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones."

Metaphor: Boo Radley is "a malevolent phantom." George and Lennie want to live off  "the fat of the land," a metaphor for the abundant crops the Earth produces for us.

Parallels: Tom Robinson parallels the mockingbirds Atticus says must not be shot; like them, Tom is innocent, gentle, and harmless. Slim's shooting his dog parallels George's shooting Lennie; both are very pain-filled acts of kindness

Archetypes: Atticus can be seen as the archetype of courage and integrity. George and Lennie are archetypes of those who live on the fringes of society, never experiencing the good things life has to offer.

What is another term for an unreactive element? The letters scrambled up are: ngora. I am doing a word scramble for chemistry class.

Argon

It is called an unreactive element because it has a stable electronic configuration and does not share its electrons with other atoms.

Argon, discovered in 1894, makes up 0.93% of the earth's atmosphere, which makes it the third most abundant gas. It is a byproduct of the production of oxygen and nitrogen.

Argon is used to fill incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs to prevent oxygen from corroding the hot filament. It is also used in arc welding, growing semiconductor crystals, and "processes that require shielding from other atmospheric gases."

Visit the links below for more information, especially the site scienceonline.org, from which most of my info cam.

Why was "A Midsummer Night's Dream" written?Why was the play written, how did Elizabethans veiw magic and fairies, how would this affect...

I'm afraid this one really gets the standard Shakespeare answer: we just don't know. Shakespeare didn't leave us any solid information about why he wrote certain plays or what occasions they were written for!

What makes talking about "A Midsummer Night's Dream" particularly difficult is is that, while most of Shakespeare's other plays borrow their plot from a key source, although the "Dream" does have several sources, it is mainly Shakespeare's own invention.

One popular theory is that, because of the play's emphasis on fertility, children, and - at the end, particularly - weddings, marriages, and weddings nights, the play was written for some sort of wedding. Some critics think that Elizabeth I is explicitly mentioned in these lines of Oberon's from Act 2, Scene 1:

And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

David Wiles, the scholar, in particular believes that the play was composed for the wedding of Elizabeth Cary and Thomas Berkeley in February 1596. Was the "imperial votaress", Elizabeth I, present at the wedding feast that the "Dream" might have been played at? Perhaps. Is there any real evidence? No. We just don't know.

I'd caution you against generalising about what the Elizabethans believed about fairies - just like today, there were probably a wide spectrum of varying beliefs. But I've linked to a great website below with info about Elizabethans and fairies.

What is the main idea of O.Henry's story, ''The Ransom of Red Chief''?

In short, the answer is "be careful what you ask for."  In O. Henry's story, the narrator and his friend, Bill Driscoll, have decided to kidnap the son of a prominent local citizen in hopes that his father will fork over money the pair need "to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois."

However, when they manage to get the boy, (who calls himself "Red Chief") they get much more than they bargained for. The child fancies himself the subject of one of his favorite games, cowboys and Indians.  He fights them "like a welter-weight cinnamon bear." 

Despite their disparity in sizes, the boy manages to best the men at every turn:

"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Bill, "and the mashed it with his foot"

Later, the narrator is awoken by horrific screams from his companion: 

I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill's chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing, bacon.

The men know they have made a terrible mistake and want to get "Red Chief" home as quickly as possible.  But the boy doesn't want to go.  He's having too much fun with his friends. 

So, again, be careful what you wish for....As the poet Robert Burns says, "The best laid schemes of mice and men/Often go astray." 

What is Henry David Thoreau's best quote?

I think his best quote is "Simplify, simplify, simplify." Even though Thoreau wrote that over 100 years ago, it's still so applicable today. If Thoreau was telling the people of his time to simplify their lives, can you imagine what he would think of our society today? We, as a society, have become so materialistic, needing, relying on, depending on things like cell phones, internet, iPods, cars, airplanes, ATMs, laptops, coffee shops, Super-Mega-Ultra Wal-Marts, and even things like refrigerators, stove, microwaves, electricity, indoor plumbing. Some of us would be fine without a cell phone, iPod, cable, video game system, but there are few among us who could go even close to as simple as Thoreau got. I have students who would rather I took away an arm or a hand than their cell phone. I wonder if Thoreau would marvel at our advances or be disgusted at how dependent we've become.

In Animal Farm, what is the symbolism of the knacker?the knacker was affiliated with Boxer's death but i dont know what the knacker symbolized.

When Old Major delivered his speech which contained the idea for the animal revolution, one of the things he forecast was that, if human rule continued, Boxer would be sold to the knacker “the very day that those great muscles ... lose their power.” The irony is that the pigs, who were supposed to be better and kinder leaders of the animals had now done the same thing Old Major predicted the humans would do. This exemplifies the idea that the pigs have now become just as brutal and uncaring as the humans whom the pig replaced. The pigs now symbolize repression and greed just as the human had once symbolized the same characteristics.

How were the soldiers treated after returning from the Vietnam War in The Things They Carried?

In general, they were treated as outcasts and demonized by many whom they encountered back here in "the world."

Specifically, many had difficulty adjusting without those whom they had grown so close to over in Vietnam.  Their families expected them to be the same, and they wanted to be the same, but are unable to do so.  Norman Bowker is a good example.  He writes Tim and tells him that he can't keep a job; he's restless; no one understands him or seems to care about understanding him.

Unfortunately, Tim O'Brien's portrayal of Americans' treatment of Vietnam Veterans is spot-on. They never received a hero's welcome, and for many of them it is too late for us to try to make up for that.

In Act II of "The Crucible", how do you interpret Mary's visions and accusations?This is your interpretation, you may include what clues Miller...

The visions and accusations that Mary Warren mentions in Act II are due to the mass hysteria that she is being exposed to. I believe that she is "caught up in the moment" and is following what the other girls are doing at first. Once she begins to do this on a daily basis, she begins to think that she really sees or feels what she is pretending to see or feel. This is evident when we get to Act III, and Mary Warren can not prove to the judges nor can she explain to the judges why she can not faint at this point when, meanwhile, she had been pretending to do it for weeks prior.

In Othello, why did Emilia give the handkerchief to Iago?

In Othello, Iago is manipulative and uncaring. He is self-serving and is happy to cause distress to anyone if it furthers his cause to "serve my turn upon" Othello (I.i.42). Iago, whilst revealing to Roderigo that "I am not what I am" (66) becomes Othello's trusted "ancient" and all that Othello sees or thinks he sees strengthens the "ocular proof" which Othello ironically demands in Act III, scene iii, line 364. Othello will reject all other sensible options and rational reasons why Desdemona may have lost the handkerchief. He won't even listen to her as she tells him that Cassio must have found it. He fails to recognize her innocence because of his trust in "honest Iago" which confirms that one of the main themes is the conflict between appearance and reality.

Emilia is also entrapped by Iago although she does recognize that he is "wayward" (III.iii.296). She admits that he has asked her to steal the handkerchief many times which she would never do, especially as she knows how much it means to Desdemona but as Desdemona has just dropped it, Emilia realizes that she can now please her husband and not feel guilty. Emilia does not know the extent of Iago's deceit and is content to "please his fantasy" (303). She gives him the handkerchief because she knows it holds some significance for him and is prepared to allow him that indulgence. Emilia's conflict becomes apparent when the audience sees her loyalty to Desdemona and her outspokenness when she realizes what Iago has used the handkerchief for. Emilia refers to Iago's "pernicious soul" (V.ii.159) and shouts out that Othello has committed "murder! murder!" (170). 

How does Hemingway indicate tone in "Hills Like White Elephants"?

To a certain degree, tone is subjective. In stories, as in real life conversations, people can misinterpret one another's tone, leading to subtle or overt conflict. In fact, much of the power of this story depends precisely on this sort of dynamic of misreading and misinterpretation between the two main characters.

Much of the tone in the story is created by the awkward silences between the two characters. Another way Hemingway creates this sense of awkwardness or discomfort is by what is sometimes called "non-responsive" dialogue or talking at cross-purposes. In other words, one character will make a comment, and rather than the other character responding directly, the second character will pause and then say something completely irrelevant. This gives the impression that the characters are not communicating, adding to the awkward, uncomfortable tone of the conversation.

Finally, the short, declarative sentences add to the awkward tone and sense of unresolved tension. The spareness of the description also contributes to the intensity of the unspoken emotions, just as a neutral backdrop will make a striking visual image stand out.

What is Scrooge's initial attitude toward the spirit?

When Scrooge first sees the spirit of his partner, Jacob Marley, he cannot believe his eyes.  He mutters that the vision must me caused by "an undigested bit of beef or an old potato".  Because he does not believe that the ghost is real, he acts in an arrogant manner, loudly proclaiming, "You are an old potato!"  It is not until Marley's ghost shrieks and begins to describe events from his life that Scrooge becomes frightened at what he sees.  When Scrooge is carried through the air to witness the poor souls who are caught between the worlds as Marley is, he whimpers and crijes like a child until he is dropped back into his bed.  As soon as the vision disappears, Scrooge begins to doubt that the incident ever took place at all... until the Ghost of Christmas Past appears.

When and where does Frankenstein take place?

The novel Frankenstein begins with the preface that describes Victor as following the monster on an iceberg somewhere close to the North Pole. However, the majority of the story takes place in Europe. Victor Frankenstein is born in Italy in 1770, moved Switzerland in 1777, and then travels to Germany in 1788 where he studies. It's also in Germany where Victor creates the monster in 1792. Once the monster is created, Victor travels back to Switzerland in 1794, where he is followed by the monster. The monster also follows Victor to London in 1795 and Scotland. The author, Mary Shelley, also writes about Holland, Paris, Russia, and a small town on the Mediterranean Sea.

So many different settings helped Shelley promote the themes of escape and pursuit in her novel.