What are examples of a non-didactic reading of Emma, by Jane Austen, through the lens of a formalist?

A
non-didactic reading of a text is one that discounts actual or
apparent moral teachings that may or may not be present by authorial intention in the
narrative. Formalist critical theory is predicated on the premise
that form is the narrative content.

Formalists attempt
objective, scientific analysis and understanding of a narrative
text through analysis of functions (e.g., hero function) and rhetorical or literary devices
(e.g., motifs, elements of structure, techniques). The aim is to determine a narrative text's
literariness, where literariness is the qualities that exist in literature
but not in other kinds of writing.

What were the political and social issues during Ralph Waldo Emerson's time?

was born
in 1803 and died in 1882. Thus, he lived through a period of major social and political turmoil,
perhaps more than any other time in American history. He witnessed the course of the Market
Revolution, the rapid territorial expansion of the United States, and the rise of industry in
the wake of the Civil War. But by far the most significant social and political turmoil in the
nation during his life was related to slavery, the issue that tore the nation apart and led to
the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

Like most Transcendentalists,
Emerson...

href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/emerson-the-works-of-ralph-waldo-emerson-vol-11-miscellanies">https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/emerson-the-works-of-r...
href="https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/emerson-and-womens-rights/">https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/emerson-...

Describe three instances when Frederick Douglass gains more freedom even though he is not free.

Of course,
Douglass did actually become free, which was not the case for most enslaved people who lived and
died the property of another. But while enslaved, Douglass underwent several experiences that in
many ways made him feel more free.

One such event can be found in Chapter
Six, when Mrs. Auld, the wife of his new owner, begins to teach him to read. Just as the young
Douglass, still a child, is learning his alphabet and a few simple words, Mr. Auld demands that
his wife cease teaching him immediately. When a slave learns to read, Auld said, he is no longer
fit for slavery. To Douglass, these words had the opposite effect that Mr. Auld intended. He
realized that if reading was dangerous to the slave master, it was good for the enslaved man.
"In learning to read," he writes, "I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition
of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress." He describes literacy as a major
stepping stone on his path to freedom.

In fact, Douglass remembers being sold
to the Aulds, who lived in Baltimore, as bringing personal freedoms in itself. He writes that a
"city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation." They were
better fed, better clothed, and, because masters did not want to appear cruel in front of their
neighbors, they did not engage in the kinds of sadistic beatings that characterized life on a
plantation. While in Baltimore, he made friends with neighborhood children, walked the streets
of the town, and even came across books, like the Columbian
Orator, a collection of speeches about freedom that, he remembers,
"roused my soul to eternal wakefulness."

Another incident in which
Douglass asserted his freedom under slavery involved Mr. Covey, and is described in Chapter Ten.
Covey, who leased Douglass from his owner, was a brutal man who "worked" Douglass, for
the first time in his life, as a field hand on a plantation. He suffered many beatings, and was
more miserable than at any other point in his life under slavery. But eventually, after another
bout of severe abuse from Covey, Douglass physically resisted him, grabbing him by the throat
and wrestling him to the ground. After the fight, Covey never again bothered Douglass. The
incident was so important to Douglass that he began his description of it by telling his
readers: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a
man."

None of these events in and of themselves made Douglass a free
man. But each was an example of a young enslaved man asserting his dignity against slavery and
against the people who attempted to rob him of it.

href="http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/dougnarrhp.html">http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/dougnarrhp.html

How does Thoreau express his ideas about slavery in Walden?

Thoreau
speaks explicitly, though briefly, to
the enslavement of African Americans
in 's longest
chapter, "Economy." Thoreau was an abolitionist,

but Walden is a work more concerned with a philosophy of living for
all of
humanity. Thoreau's focus in Walden was that
"what a man thinks of
himself, that it is which determines, or rather
indicates, his fate."

Thoreau acknowledges
in Walden that "it is hard to have a
Southern overseer;
it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the

slave-driver of yourself." Implicit in this statement is the idea that all men,
including
slaves, must re-conceptualize themselves as independent and free
beings in their minds, no
matter their physical circumstances. Thoreau
believed that men must not only have beliefs, they
must act on their beliefs.
This idea was more explicitly stated in Thoreau's 1854 speech
"Slavery in
Massachusetts" when he said, "The law will never make men free; it is
men who
have got to make the law free."...

What are some positive and negative aspects of the role of interest groups in democratic politics?

The
positive aspect of the influence or role of special interest groups in democratic political
systems is the opportunity such groups or organizations provide in influencing governmental
policies when those groups' perspectives might otherwise not be heard. In a country as
geographically expansive and heavily populated as the United States, and as diverse in terms of
ethnicities, political orientations, professions, cultures, and so on, the ability of any one
individual to make a difference at the national or even state or local level would be very
limited. The seat of the federal government, of course, is in Washington, D.C., on the eastern
coast of the United States. Individuals or groups in, say, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, or even
locations much closer to the nation's capital would have a very difficult time being heard in
the halls of Congress or in the Executive Branch if they did not unite and form what are
pejoratively called "special interest groups." In fact, so central is the...

In Death of a Salesman, Charley says: "No man only needs a little salary." To what is he refering?

This
quotation is taken from the requiem at the end of the play. Linda is speaking with Charley at
Willy's grave, and expressing her disbelief that Willy should commit suicide when they were so
close to paying off their debts. As Linda says, they "were just about free and clear."
She tells Charley that Willy "only needed a little salary" now that they were almost
"free and clear."

Charley responds by telling Linda that "No
man only needs a little salary." This response implies that men, or at least men like
Willie, need a big salary not necessarily because they need the money but rather because they
need the pride and the status that comes with the big salary. Willie was a very proud man, and
he struggled to come to terms with the fact that he wasn't, despite his repeated claims to the
contrary, "well liked." Willie needed a bigger salary to compensate for the fact that
he wasn't well liked.

How does the setting of Emma impact the character development of Emma and Harriet?

The setting inis
important to the novel as it represents a microcosm of society at the time. Each social class
from the landed gentry (Mr Knightley) to the poor have their place.

The
relationship between Emma and Harriet begins due to the distance between Emma's home, Hartfield,
and that of her former governess and confidante Mrs Weston, Randalls. As a married woman, Mrs
Weston can no longer visit Emma so frequently, and so Harriet, who is poor and values Emma's
friendship because of this, takes her place.

The setting also links to a
cause of conflict in their relationship and its eventual solution. Mr Robert Martin of Abbey
Mill Farm proposes to Harriet and is rejected, under Emma's influence, as she tells
Harriet:

"The yeomanry are precisely the order of
people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do."

This is Emma's snobbery at work. The link between Mr Martin and Mr Knightley (owner of
Donwell Abbey and the farm) indicates that, when Emma matures and marries Mr Knightley, the
relationship between Harriet and herself can continue.