The main
themes of "Stolen Party" are class discrimination and loss of childhood innocence. At
the beginning of the story, Rosaura gets invited to Luciana's birthday party and believes that
her invitation is a genuine sign of their friendship. However, Rosaura's mother, who is Mrs.
Ines's maid, warns her that the rich family views her as their maid's daughter and not as a
friend. Despite her mother's warning, Rosaura attends the party and helps pass out food to the
other children. Rosaura utterly enjoys herself during the party but realizes that her mother's
instincts were correct when Mrs. Ines pays her instead of giving her a present. Mrs. Ines's
gesture indicates that Rosaura is not accepted as a friend, and her invitation was to work at
the party. Rosaura's background and lower social status prevent her from being accepted by the
wealthy community. Rosaura's motionless, stunned reaction reveals that she has lost her
childhood innocence. Rosaura had naively believed that she would be viewed as an equal, which is
why Mrs. Ines's gesture is so upsetting to her.
Friday, January 31, 2014
What is the main theme in the short story "Stolen Party" by Liliana Heker?
Thursday, January 30, 2014
What are the literary techniques used in the poem "The Soldier"?
Brooke's "The Soldier" is written
in sonnet form, meaning that it utilizes many literary techniques typical of this type of
poetry. The lines are written in iambic pentameter, meaning that each has five feet,
or five emphasized beats. You will understand this better if you read each line
aloud, counting out the places where you would naturally add emphasis when speaking. Brooke also
uses a sonnet rhyme scheme, but, interestingly, he varies this rhyme scheme between the first
eight lines (the ostet) and the second six (the sestet). In the first eight lines of the sonnet,
Brooke uses the Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme, ababcdcd. In the closing
six lines, he uses a Petrarchan rhyme scheme, efgefg.
The key concept in Brooke's poem is theof England, imagined as a mother who "bore,
shaped, [and] made aware" all these young men who are now heading off to die for their
country. Brooke uses repetition to emphasize England as the reason for which the young men
fight: the word "England" is repeated four times, and "English" is repeated
twice.
We can also detect the use of , particularly in the first octet, in
which Brooke alliterates on "th": "think," "this,"
"that," "there," etc.
What does Mrs. Hopewell mean by "good country people" in the story " Good Country People "?
Mrs. Hopewell uses this
term to describe people who are uncomplicated and uneducated. "Good country people"
are characterized also by possessing what Mrs. Hopewell considers good values.
This phrase, for Mrs. Hopewell, is both complimentary and subtly derisive.
...she considers herself more intellectual than all of the good
country people around her...
There is an implication that
"good country people" are thoroughly understandable, understood, and will not surprise
anyone.
This implication is eventually turned on its head and becomes ironic
when the traveling salesman steals Hulga's leg. Hulga, the most skeptical person of the family,
is fooled into believing that she understands the young man more than he understands
her.
This false confidence turns out to be nearly tragic for Hulga. The
person she believed to be inferior, simple-minded and understandable turns out to be complex,
criminal and violent.
What are the similarities between Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-lighted Place" and "Soldiers Home"?
In both short
stories, Hemingway captures the tragic essence of life. In "A Clean Well-Lighted
Place," the older waiter whose sympathies lie with the old man point to the existential
condition of a man whose life has been simplified to "nada"--nothing with meaning--and
he must struggle to find some light in the darkness of nothingness. He does this by finding a
place that is clean and well-lighted where he can be with others. There, too, he can display
good form and conduct. Certainly, the old man with whom the waiter commiserates displays good
conduct as he sits in the cafe and "drinks without spilling."
Similarly, the wounded Harold Krebs, who has returned from World War I to his home in
Oklahoma finds that he no longer can relate to his family. Also, when "[A] distaste for
everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told,"
Krebs wants to leave town. Furthermore, he finds the girls in town "too complicated."
For, they, too, require certain lies and it "wasn't worth it. He did not want any
consequences." Krebs knows that he can no longer talk to the girls because the world in
which they exist is not the same as the world he inhabits.
So, Krebs,
sensing the tragic essence of life, tries to "keep his life from becoming
complicated." So, he packs his things to travel to Kansas City and goes one more time to
watch Helen play indoor baseball. In Kansas City Harold can maintain some sort of honor and
balance in his life by becoming detached.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
How does a space shuttle land on the moon after taking off from the Earth?
Actually, the
recently retired space shuttle line of space vehicles never landed on the moon. The lunar
landings were conducted between 1969 and 1972 with the Apollo missions. The space shuttle
didn't go into service until the early 1980's, so it never actually landed on the moon. The
vehicle used to land on the moon for the Apollo missions was called the lunar module.
The way the astronauts landed on and then left the moon is as follows. The entire
spacecraft was fit into the top of a Saturn V rocket which took off from the Earth's surface.
While climbing into space, the rocket would fall apart in stages until only the spacecraft
remained. The spacecraft basically consisted of the lunar module (LM) attached to the
command/service module (CSM). This spacecraft would reach lunar orbit and the lunar module
would separate from the CSM and begin a controlled descent to the lunar surface. The LM would
control its descent by firing its thrust against the moon's gravity to slow the fall. Upon
making a vertical landing, the LM would power down for the lunar stay. When ready to leave, the
bottom portion of the LM would remain on the surface of the moon and act as a launch pad. The
upper, lighter portion of the LM would fire a new rocket to climb into lunar orbit. In orbit,
the craft would dock with the orbiting CSM, the astronauts would transfer to the CSM, and the LM
would be jettisoned to crash onto the surface of the moon. The astronauts would then ride the
CSM back to Earth where the upper tip of it would re-enter the Earth'sand parachute land in the
ocean to be picked up by the Navy. This is all demonstrated rather nicely in the movie
Apollo 13. Another nice illustration of the entire moon missions is the
HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.
Interestingly, the space shuttle could never land on the surface of the moon because it
depends on winged flight for its controlled descent to the surface of the Earth. Since the moon
has no real atmosphere, the wings would not be able to glide the craft smoothly to the moon's
surface.
What is a critical analysis of the poem "The Capital" by W. H. Auden?
Audens poem begins with the first sights the tourist in the capital is likely to see,
the fashionable center where it seems as though the rich have nothing better to do than lounge
in cafes and wait expensively for miracles. The artificiality of the capital is emphasized
further in the second stanza. It has abolished the seasons and banished the natural rhythm of
life.
The reality of the city, its day to day existence, is in disposable
lives and the constant harshness of life which, in one of the poems most arresting images,
batters people into conformity as the sea batters pebbles into smooth shapes. In the end,
however, it is the illusion, not the harsh reality, which illuminates the sky, drawing in the
farmers children with the promise of a more exciting, brilliant life.
The
poem is unrhymed and written in loose alexandrines, slightly longer and less regular than the
iambic pentameter usually employed forin English. The language is emotive
("malicious,"...
How to make a timeline about the earth's evolution that describes the significance and formation of colonial organisms.
On your
timeline you would place the first colonial organisms at 233 million years BCE. "BCE"
means "before common era", and is how we represent in scientific terms how long ago
something happened. Colonial organisms are a step in the evolution from single-celled to
multi-cellular organisms. A colonial organism is defined as a
collection of genetically identical cells that are permanently associated but in which
little or no integration of cell activities occurs.
In
other words, colonial organisms are made of cells that are formed from the same, individual
cell, and live together permanently, but do not have any...