Paine is basically saying that he is not terribly fond of government, and that, when it is working and functioning as intended, it is still something he considers "evil"--a necessary evil--one that we need to have around so that things can function better.
On the other hand, when the government in NOT working and/or functioning as it is intended, it becomes an INTOLERABLE evil, one that will make the constituents miserable and an evil that will make everyone's lives worse.
satire - Irony, wit or sarcasm used to mock vice or folly; a literary genre wriitten to this intent. An example is Johnathan Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal" written in 1729 a century before the potato famine in Ireland:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
foreshadowing - Literary device in which an object or event symbolises a forthcoming negative event, often tragic and irreversible. An example would be the ape-like face appearing in the fireplace before Herbert's death in W.W. Jacob's short story "The Monkey's Paw":
He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh, he felt on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw over it. His hand grasped the monkey's paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his hand on his coat and went up to bed.
White wedding: a white wedding dress in Victorian times the most popular. That year, queen Victoria is wearing a beautiful white wedding dress to marry the person. From then on, the white wedding dress spread all over the world, until now, is still the most favored by girls of wedding dress, because it is a symbol of purity and commitment. http://www.gotopshop.com/Princess-Wedding-Dresses/-1_1_0_35.shtml
In the west of the Catholic tradition, white represents joy.The traditional Chinese wedding when carried out with the bride and groom of the red dress, a symbol of good luck, signaling that the day after marriage thriving. While the western the bride wears a white dress. Since Roman times began, the white symbol is celebrating. Between 1850 and 1900, white is also the symbol of wealth. In the beginning of this century, white represents the pure significance beyond the other. Western think white and the virgin. The bride of ancient Romein a white gown, and find fresh orange veil, symbolizing the flames. In the west of the Catholic tradition, white for joy; Some other areas, white in their weddings and funerals instructions in various pathways ceremony and meaning.
http://www.gotopshop.com/Princess-Wedding-Dresses/-1_1_0_35.shtml
The theme of friendship and loyalty is seen through the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio. Horatio is the only character that Hamlet can truly trust during the play. He was a student at Wittenburg where Hamlet studied and comes all the way from Germany for the funeral of Hamlet's father. His loyalty and friendship to Hamlet are unquestioned. Even at the beginning of the play, the guards recognize this and Horatio is the one who they turn to when they see the ghost. Horatio is the only person Hamlet trusts to reveal his suspicions about Claudius. Before seeing Claudius' reaction to "The Murder of Gonzago", Hamlet praises his friend. He says,
"For thou hast been
As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled(65)
(Act III, scene ii lines 54-65)
He adds:
"Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee."
( Act III, scene ii, Lines 67-69)
Even Claudius trusts Horatio to look after Hamlet after Hamlet's encounter with Laertes at Ophelia's funeral. In the end, Horatio proves to be a very loyal friend when he is willing to die alongside Hamlet. However, Hamlet has a better plan for him. He asks Horatio to tell his story and thus preserve the lessons of his life for posterity. So Horatio agrees and becomes the perfect example of a loyal friend.
In this chapter, entitled "The Pachuco and Other Extremes", the author, Octavio Paz, examines the problem of establishing a Mexican American identity. He uses the pachucos, Latin American youth who sought to express their uniqueness during the 1940s and 1950s through distinctive dress and antisiocial behavior, as an example. The tragedy of the pachucos, according to the author, is that they rebelled against both their Mexican pasts as well as against the American society which would not accept them, leaving them men "who belong(ed) nowhere". Paz describes their declaration of selfhood as "suicidal", affirming or defending nothing except the "exasperated will-not-to-be".
The author depicts Mexican and American attitudes as being fundamentally at odds. According to him, Americans try to avoid seeing reality and horror, while Mexicans contemplate it; Americans "are credulous", while Mexicans "are believers"; Mexicans "(tell) lies because (they) delight in fantasy...or...to rise above the sordid facts of...life", while Americans do not lie, but instead substitute "social truth for the real truth". In the author's experience, Mexicans in America are "truly different...and...truly alone". Like the pachuco, with an intangible sense of self-loathing, they "withdraw into (them)selves...increas(ing) (their) solitude by refusing to seek out (their) compatriots, perhaps because (they) fear (they) will see (them)selves in them" (Chapter 1).
Your question refers to the "epiphany" or revelation that Gabriel undergoes at the end of the story. What is key to focus on is how the rest of the story builds up to this moment of revelation or self truth that Gabriel experiences. The trigger for this epiphany comes with Gretta´s narration of her first - and biggest - love with Michael Furey. From Gretta´s description of Michael, their relationship and his death, it is clear that she had a truer and more real love with him than she ever had with Gabriel. Consider her description of Michael as "very delicate" and then such statements as:
-I can see him so plainly, she said after a moment. Such eyes as he had: big dark eyes! And such an expression in them - an expression!
The repetition and amplification of such details as his eyes and expression clearly shows Gretta´s feelings of admiration and love for him. It is important to focus on the impact of this revelation on Gabriel:
Gabriel felt humilated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy an desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimps of in the mirror.
This revelation therefore ushers in a moment of self-truth for Gabriel, when he realises who he really is and can critically assess his character. He realises that Michael Furey has loved in a way that he has never been able to, and feels immense sadness at this truth. Thinking about his own strictly regimented and controlled life he realises that people like Michael Furey live life more profoundly than he ever has. This causes him to realise that he and all characters are in fact "shadows":
One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in teh full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age... His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling.
From his point of view the boundary line between the dead and the living is evaporating, and he sees that in some ways he is already a shade. The last sentence suggests a unity between the dead and the living through the snow, which freezes them together in paralysis, cementing this relationship:
His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Thus the learning in this story is more focussed on what Gabriel learns about himself and his relationships with others. He realises that he has never truly "lived" compared to Michael Furey, and that because of this he is already becoming a "shade" - that the boundary line between the dead and the living is not as impermeable as he thought.
Amir meets Soraya at the flea market and is infatuated with her. From then on, every night of the week becomes a "Yelda" for him before he could see her once again at the weekly flea market. Metaphorically, "Yelda" was the "starless night tormented lovers kept vigil enduring the endless dark waiting for the sun to rise and bring with it their loved one." Sorya wants to become a teacher and she is majoring in general education at Ohlone Junior College in Fremont. The attraction is mutual and she asks him to read to her one of his stories. Baba who is able to understand that Amir is in love with Soraya tries to dissuade him by reminding him that General Taheri, Soraya's father a Pashtun will not permit his honour and pride to agree to the match. True to Baba's prediction General Taheri chances upon Amir when he gives a story he has written to Soraya and takes it from him and throws it into to the garbage can, remarking casually "They say it will rain this week. Hard to believe, isn't it."
Baba is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He refuses medical tratment and instructs Amir not to tell anyone remarking "I don't want anybody's sympathy." However, when he collapses with a seizure at the flea market everyone comes to know. Soraya and her family visit Baba. Days later, at Amir's insistence Baba arranges Amir’s engagement to Soraya after getting the approval of General Taheri. Soraya, in private,reveals to Amir her past: when she was eighteen and was living in Virginia she ran away with a man and lived with him for a month and her father searched for her and eventually brought her back home. Amir admits to her that he is slightly disturbed by her confession but that he loves her nevertheless. Amir recognises that she is a more courageous person than himself because he is unable to share his secret guilt with her of how he had betrayed Hassan:"I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them."
