What was important to Scrooge in the past? What is important now to Scrooge?

At the beginning
of the story, Scrooge was a greedy man who loved money.  His goal in life was to make money and
keep it.  Most beggars would not ask Scrooge for money because they knew he was not a charitable
man.  He paid his clerk, Bob Cratchit, very little.  He gave him a small amount of coal to stay
warm with, while he used a larger amount for himself.  He refused to celebrate Christmas.
 

At the end of the story, Scrooge became a happy, generous man.  He bought a
large turkey for Bob Cratchit and his family.  He greeted people in the street with "Merry
Christmas!"  This was something he never would have done before.  He visited his nephew.
 Then he visited the Cratchit family and gave Bob a raise.  Scrooge also became like a second
father to Tiny Tim.  He became a man who celebrated and loved Christmas.

Explain this quote from "A Wrinkle in Time": "You are given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself." ...What you say is completely up...

It may be
helpful to see all of what Mrs.
Whatsit says about the sonnet:

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A sonnet is a very strict form of poetry is it not? There
are
fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict
rhythm or meter, yes?
And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern.
And if the poet does not do it exactly this
way, it is not a sonnet, is
it?

Then
Charles says, "You
mean your comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom
within
it?" That's when she says the sentence you're asking about.

What
she is really talking about is free will or freedom
of choice. Our lives may be subject to a
higher power (in L'Engle's belief,
God), but our lives are not predetermined. Like the poet
writing a sonnet, we
are subject to rules and forms, but it is up to each one of us to choose
how
we will live. A major theme of  is the battle between good and
evil, so
one of the choices we make with our lives is whether to be good or
evil.

What is Jack Kerouac's vision of individuality?

In
articulating his conception of freedom, Kerouac echoes much of the post World War II boundless
energy in American freedom.  Sal and Dean jump into the car and drive, and drive, and drive. 
There is little in terms of exact destination because freedom and individuality are depicted as
journeys in their own rights, without a need for a defined end.  In so much of the poetry which
emerges in America after World War II, there is this desire to break free from conventions and
the standard depiction of "what is" and transform it into "what should be." 
Thinkers like Kerouac and Ginsburg were instrumental in conceiving of individuality as a tool to
transform the existing social order and perception of self.

What is the function of public art in society?

Public art
is on display for the people to see and appreciate. Public art can be used to celebrate past
events or national heroes. Public art provides more accessible histories to tourists than
anything written inside of a book. While public art cannot provide a full objective view of an
event or a person, it can be a useful a method for giving a quick explanation of one's culture
to outsiders.

Public art can also be used to celebrate artistic styles of a
region. Public concerts can allow people to hear the folk music of a region. Parades in
traditional costume can show people the history of a...

In what chapter does Agnes die in Lyddie?

finds out that Agnes died in
Chapter 12.

When the book starts, Agnes is four years old and
Lyddie thinks of her as a baby.  Their mother decides that she cant stay at the farm any longer
after the bear incident, and takes Rachel and Agnes with her to Lyddies uncles house.  Lyddie
stays behind with Charlie until they finally let out the land and hire out Lyddie and
Charles.

When Lyddie is alone at the factory without the rest of her family,
she is still longing for them all to be together again.  Unfortunately, she gets a letter from
her mother telling her about her youngest sister.

if you
can send muny it will be help to Judah and Clarissa. They fel a grate burdun. Babby Agnes is
gone to God. Rachel is porely. Miny hav died, but Gods will be dun. (Ch. 12)

Despite her mothers difficulty with spelling and capitalization, it
is clear that Lyddies littlest sister has died.  She was just too young and weak.  Rachel is not
in good shape either, according to the letter.

Lyddie barely remembers her
sister Agnes.

She tried to remember Agnes's little face.
She strained, squenching her eyes tight to get a picture of her sister, now gone forever. She
was a baby. She couldn't have been more than four the winter of the bear, but that was now
nearly two years past. (Ch. 12)

Lyddie feels bad for not
sending money to her mother and sisters.  She hardly makes enough to cover her room and board,
but she sends a dollar and tells her mother that she will send more.  Lyddie feels the burden of
the family's debts and well-being.

It is not long after Agnes dies that
Lyddies uncle shows up with Rachel, telling Lyddie that he is putting her mother away in an
insane asylum and selling the farm.  Lyddie does not know what to do.  She has no place to keep
a child, because Rachel is too young and weak to work in the factory and children are not
allowed in her boarding house.  When Charlie comes to take Rachel to his new family, Lyddie
feels like she has lost her family forever.

What did you personally learn about human behavior from the historical aspects of the play Death of a Salesman and does this play's commentary on...

I learned
first that certain ideas imbedded in
the American Dream can become a temptation that lures
people away from their
best selves. For example, Willy Loman becomes fixated on the idea that he
can
earn easy money from becoming a salesman. He has internalized the idea that wealth
and
income are the measure of a man and has bought into the dream that the
successful businessman is
one who can sit in his hotel room in his velvet
slippers while his orders flood in over the
phone.

This
version of the American Dream, based on the idea that America is
a
resource-rich land of milk and honey, is not readily applicable to the sales world of
the
early twentieth century: in fact, it actually ruins Willy's life. Today,
we face similar
temptations to think we can make easy moneybe it through the
stock market or going to a casino,
but most often this proves to be the road
to disaster.

Willy would have been
much happier in some
sort of gardening vocation than in chasing a false dream, so a second take

away from the play is to be true to oneself and to make career choices based on
this.

The consumerism in the play is expressed in Willy's
lament that the goods he buys break
down just as he has the loans for them
paid off. This is very similar to when people are often
deeply in credit card
debt and can't get out from under. While Willy would not have had easy
access
to a credit card then, the idea of supporting one's lifestyle through buying on credit
is
the same. Consumerism today is supposed to be the key to happiness, but as
with Willy, it most
often does not turn out to provide the satisfaction that
is promised.

Comment on Ruskin Bond's plot construction in 'The Night Train at Deoli' Comment on the author's characteristic style and use of imagery.

"The
Night Train at Deoli" is a short told in the reflective first person narrative. A college
student reflects on his annual visits to his home town of Dehra Dun. He takes the overnight
train which stops in the small village of Deoli. On one trip, the student notices a beautiful
girl selling baskets on the street. He fantasizes about meeting her. In subsequent years, he
continues to fantasize about her and even has a brief encounter with her, but he never pursues
her. It's the story of an unspoken yet powerful attraction and of the student's regret for never
having acted on his passion.

 

Bond usesto blur the line
between the girl and her surroundings, contributing to his fantasy-like image of her. The
student notes, for example, "her dark, smoldering eyes," not unlike the darkness of
the night itself in Deoli. When he does have a brief conversation with the basket girl, he notes
that they shared a feeling of familiarity, "almost like a meeting of old friends." She
had become as familiar as the journey itself. She's become more than a peripheral interest of
passing landscape. She is central to his trip and to his identity as a man.

 

Bond uses the literary device of the unnamed narrator to infuse
the story with a mystical sense of universality. Because we know very little of the young man's
family or circumstances, we can see ourselves in him. We all remember moments of fantasy-like
love; feelings of strong attraction toward a person we barely know. We know what it's like to
build someone up in our imagination. We know what it's like to be in that place of imagining, of
hoping, of wanting. Ruskin's narrator never moves beyond that place. He never acts, and he is
filled with remorse because of it. Because Ruskin's narrator is a kind of "every man,"
it's easy for readers to empathize with him.