What is the summary for Chapter 7 of The Kite Runner?

Hassan tells Amir on the morning of the kite tournament that he had had a dream. In the dream, they are at Ghargha Lake with thousands of other people, but no one is swimming, because it is said that a monster has come to the lake. Amir responds to this fear by jumping into the lake and is followed by Hassan. The two of them go all the way to the middle and then swim back to prove that there is no monster. The people clap wildly for them and then change the name of the lake to Lake of Amir and Hassan, Sultans of Kabul. Neither boy has a clue to what the dream means. 

Initially, Amir is scared and wants to withdraw from the tournament but Amir cheers him up and they send their kite up. Amir wins the annual kite fight after a long and hard fought battle with a blue kite. As soon as he cuts the blue kite he is thrilled to see Baba clapping his hands and hollering and pumping his fists wildly. However Amir has a nagging doubt and he  wonders whether Baba is proud of him or proud of Hassan. Hassan runs after the last kite which Amir cut, which  Amir plans to present  to Baba as a trophy.

Amir looks for Hassan and finds him cornered in an alley by the bully Assef and his friends. They want to take the kite and beat up Hassan. Assef tells Hassan that he is not really Amir’s friend, but only his servant. They start to beat up Hassan as Amir crouches behind a wall, watching because he is too scared  to step in to help Hassan.

Assef then sodomizes Hassan as his friends hold him down. Amir has one last chance to stand up for Hassan before this terrible hurt is inflicted on him. Instead, he runs terrified at what he saw. As he runs, he convinces himself that this is the price he has to pay to win Baba's affection. He later meets Hassan and pretends he doesn’t know what happened. Hassan gives Amir the kite, and Amir wonders if Hassan knows that Amir saw what he saw. Amir gives the kite to Baba, who is proud of Amir. He buries his face into his father’s chest and weeps, and for that moment he can forget what he has done.

Who are the characters mentioned in this book?

The fourteen-year-old protagonist, Mattie, her mother Lucinda is the antagonist.  There are other characters, Nathaniel Benson, Mattie's grandfather, Captain Willliam Farnsworth Cook, Nell, and Eliza.

 "Nathaniel gives Mattie flowers as a way to remember him as the city locks its doors to the fever."

"Mattie's grandfather, Captain William Farnsworth Cook, protects her like a father figure. He teaches her practical lessons."

"She discovers baby Nell cowering in a corner and sucking her thumb, her blonde hair loose and tangled, her feet bare and black with dirt. Nell's mother has died of the fever. Mattie decides to care for Nell."

"She finds Eliza, Lucinda's valued peer, who joined the Free African Society. Thick into the action, Eliza befriends Mattie." 

How does the play-within-the-play reflect the issue bothering Hamlet, and which are the lines Hamlet has inserted?

The play, "The Mousetrap", reflects the rage Hamlet feels toward Gertrude for marrying Cladius. He feels betrayed by her actions.

The Player King tells his Queen that she might find another husband after his death. The Queen responds, "Oh, confound the rest! Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband let me be accursed! None wed the second but who killed the first." The Queen is saying that, remarrying would be treason to her heart. She says that when a woman takes a second husband, it's because she's killed the first.

The Queen continues: " A second time I kill my husband dead when second husband kisses me in bed." The Queen says anytime she kissed her second husband in bed, she'd kill the first one all over again.

Later, the Queen continues: "Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light. Sport and repose lock from me day and night. To desperation turn my trust and hope. An anchor's cheer in prison by my scope. Each opposite that blanks the face of joy meet what I would have well and it destroy. Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife if, once a widow, ever I be a wife!"

The Queen is saying may the earth refuse me food, and the heavens go dark, may I have no rest day and night, may my trust and hope turn to despair, may the gloom of prison overtake me, and may my every joy be turned to sorrow. May I know no peace either in this life or the next one, if I become a wife again, after I am a widow.

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing." How does Old Major prove this in Animal Farm?

Old Major is pointing to the fact that the animals do all of the work on the farm but reap none of its benefits. This was also a key idea of Karl Marx, who wrote helped write Communist Manifesto. Marx's point was that workers should be able to share in the fruits of their labor. Old Major is making a similar point that the animals should be able to share in the profits from the farm. Instead, Jones takes all the profits and makes the animals (his workers), do all the work and doesn't even feed them properly.

What is the setting - time and place - of Bud, Not Buddy?

Bud, Not Buddy is set in and around the city of Flint, Michigan in 1936, at the height of the Great Depression.  Whereas the bulk of Depression literature focuses on the plight of those caught in the Dust Bowl areas of the nation, this story is unique because it brings to light the situations faced by children in the cities.  As parents struggled to keep their families together and to keep their heads above water financially, many women raised their children alone while their men traveled far and wide in search of work.  As in Bud's situation, there was a dearth of orphanages and foster homes to care for those children whose families could no longer bear the burden of keeping them during those desperate times.

By following Bud's journey, the reader is given a sense of the flavor of the times.  Famous and notorious names of the era, including J. Edgar Hoover and the gangsters Al Capone and Pretty Boy Floyd, are mentioned, and Bud passes through Hooverville, one of the many cardboard shanty encampments put up by the myriad homeless individuals and families who could not afford to keep their former residences.  He also runs into the Pinkertons, the infamous security brigade charged with keeping the ranks of the homeless out of sight.  Most important to the story, Bud enters into the world of "small time jazz musicians" led by the likes of Herman E. Calloway, which survives as a testimony to the resilience of the richness of Black culture in the face of discrimination and desperate economic conditions.

What statement does "Constantly Risking Absurdity" make about poetry, truth, and beauty?

The poem makes a few explicit statements on these themes, and some implicit statements. The explicit statements are found in this section of the poem:

For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap

Here the primary explicit statements about truth is that it is linked to a realistic view of existence and that the poet can reach it. Regarding beauty, the poem explicitly states that it is accessible, and that perceiving truth is a necessary step to reaching it.

Moving to the implicit, the ongoing image of the poet as acrobat implies great risk, and that the poet's art elevates him (in the poem) to realms others can't reach. There's great difficulty, and beauty seems to consciously elude the poet, or at least, position her self at a distance.

Did Edith Wharton have any children?

In 1885 Edith Wharton married Edward(Teddy)Wharton and according to most biographies her marriage was very unhappy.  In 1908 Teddy had a nervous breakdown, and then she found out that her husband had taken money from her to support and keep a mistress.  In 1912 Edith divorced her husband.  She had no children and she never got married again.