In The Scarlet Letter, why is the opening scene important, what does it set up, or how does it add to the rest of the novel?

The opening sceneeven
the opening paragraph of the storyhelps to establish the mood and make clear Hawthorne's
feelings regarding the Puritans and their brand of "justice." The narrator
says,

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments,
and gray steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, [. . .] was assembled in front of a wooden
edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron
spikes.

To describe their clothing as
sad-colored gives us a clue as to the general nature of these individuals;
there is little liveliness about themso little, in fact, that even their clothing seems sad.
Furthermore, their hats are compared to the steeples of churches, signaling how incredibly
important religiona very specific set of religious beliefsinforms everything they do.

Women are hardly mentioned, as women were not generally considered to be very
important (at least not in society), and a great deal of focus is placed on the door to the
prison. It is made...

Based upon the movie or novel 1984,- What is the "secret" torture of room 101 and how did this "secret" succeed in reprograming Oceania's dissident...

After being
caught by the Thought Police,is taken to Room 101, the torture room where physical and
psychological torture is employed. It is a white porcelain room that is windowless with a high
ceiling. The room is flooded with light from hidden lamps, and a low, humming sound permeates;
there is a bench and a lavatory and four telescreens in this barren room.enters and begins
Winston's "correction." This involves physical and psychological torture.  O'Brien
answers some of Winston's questions, but will not tell him if Big Brother exists. 

After electric shock is applied to Winston, O'Brien asks Winston, "What country is
Oceania at war with?" Winston replies that he does not remember. He says this because he
knows it is always at war with Eurasia or Eastasia so that it will keep people at
"peace"--War is Peace. Oceania stays at war because doing so
keeps the people united against an enemy. Later, O'Brien asks Winston how many fingers he holds
up and Winston replies correctly. Then, O'Brien only holds up four, but tells Winston there are
five. Winston agrees even though he sees only four; defeated by the torture, Winston resists
more electric shock. Still, Winston remembers the truth as

one remembers a vivid experence at some remote period of one's life when one was in
effect a different person.

At the end of Chapter II of
Book Three, Winston asks O'Brien what is in Room 101. "Everyone knows what is in Room
101," O'Brien replies as a needle goes into Winston's arm. In Chapter III, O'Brien tells
Winston that his "reintegration" is to begin. After his conversion through torture,
Winston wakes one morning and calls out 's name; it is then that he is taken to Room 101 because
his emotional "progress" has not been complete. In Room 101 the enemies of the state
are converted completely because it addresses the enemies' basic fears.

Room
101 is "the worst thing in the world." For each individual, this "worst
thing" is what that person dreads the most. Pain is not enough; it must be "the
unbearable" O'Brien explains.

"There are
occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for
everyone there is something unendurable--something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and
cowardice are not involved.

For Winston, the rats are the
"unbearable." When O'Brien tells Winston that he will release the rats onto Winston's,
face, Winston betrays Julia, screaming that she should be subjected to this torture, not he.
Satisfied that Winston has relinquished his emotional attachment to Julia, he puts away the cage
of rats. 

Why does jem cry at the end of the chapter

In , the
children begin receiving gifts in the knothole of the Radley tree from an anonymous person,
andhas a hunch thatis the gift-giver. However, Jem refrains from verbally expressing his
thoughts and decides to write a thank-you letter, which he plans on leaving in the knothole of
the tree. Unfortunately, Jem cannot deliver the letter, because Nathan Radley fills the knothole
with cement. When Jem asks why Nathan filled the knothole with cement, he tells Jem that the
tree is dying. Jem knows that his father won't lie to him and asksif the tree is dying. Atticus
responds by saying that the tree looks perfectly healthy and heads inside, while Jem remains
alone on the porch.

Jem cries by himself on the porch because he realizes
that he has just lost an opportunity to communicate with Boo Radley. Jem finally realized that
Boo Radley was a benevolent, compassionate neighbor and looked forward to developing a
friendship with him. Jem also cries because he has lost his childhood innocence after being lied
to by Nathan Radley. This is the first time that Jem recognized an adult has lied to him, which
is an emotional, eye-opening experience.

Who is the worst grotesque in Winesburg, Ohio?

What an
interesting question! Of course, to deem any part of a literary work as either the worst or
the best is entirely subjective. Nonetheless, in order to offer up opinions on the subject, it
is first important to discuss just whatmeans by the grotesque in this bizarre collection of
short stories.

In the first book of the collection, The Book of the
Grotesque, Anderson introduces the reader to the writer, an old man who has a dream after
climbing into bed one evening. In this dream, he saw a long procession of figures appear while
on the verge of sleep. He describes these figures as all grotesques (22). However, Anderson
goes on to describe the grotesque figures not as all horrible, but rather a rich mix
of...

What were the most famous works of art by Titian and Tintoretto and why?

TITIAN (1490-1576) was the
famed leader of the 16th
century Venetian school of Italian Renaissance art.
The "Assumption of the Virgin,"
the largest altarpiece in Venice, is
certainly one of his most famous paintings. It unites three
different
scenes--the Apostles looking heavenward at the Virgin Mary with God looking down
from
above--found on the levels of Heaven and Earth. 

   
This...

what were the social consequences of the industrial revolution

The
Industrial Revolution represented a profound social transformation, as European economies
transitioned from agrarian societies (based in agriculture), towards more heavily urbanized
societies with economies based around manufacturing.

When speaking about
pre-industrial economies, one thing you should keep in mind is just how parochial life tended to
be. The vast majority of people lived in rural communities, and would have rarely traveled any
further than the next town or so over. The world was small. With industrialization, however,
technology improved, and this included improvements in internal communications. For example,
railroads tied industrialized nations together in ways that were not available in the
pre-industrial world, allowing for easier movement across long distances. Industrialization, you
might say, resulted in a compression of space.

Additionally,
industrialization resulted in the emergence of the modern class structure as we know it today.
Just consider, for example, the Estates System of Pre-Revolutionary France, divided as it was
between the clergy, nobility, and the rest of the population. Technically, while this was a
system of social stratification, it was not one founded strictly upon income or occupation.
Among the clergy were numbered both bishops and parish priests; among the nobility one might
find magistrates, aristocrats and the officer corps of the army. This was a very different
vision than the class structure as we understand it today. The modern class structure, divided
into upper, middle, and lower (or working) class, ultimately emerged out of the economic
transformations of industrial society.

Industrialization had other far
reaching effects as well. It impacted our modern sense of time (especially the idea of
standardized time). By its very nature, industrialization is regimented. People worked in
shifts, and this required a coordination of labor. In agrarian societies, work was dictated
primarily be seasonal patterns, and their understanding of time was a largely informal one. The
Industrial Revolution introduced a radically different relationship between human beings and
time, one which continues into the present day.

Finally, you can talk about
the rise of industrial cities and the living conditions (and working conditions) of the working
class. Exploitation was built into industrialization, with workers facing long hours in poor
working conditions for poor wages. Living conditions were bleak as well.

To
conclude, there's actually a lot of ground you can cover with this kind of question. The
Industrial Revolution represented a watershed in human history, with repercussions that continue
even into the present day.

What are some key quotes in the short story "Charles" by Shirley Jackson?

's short
story examines the difficulties both children and parents can have in adapting to a new
situation, such as, in this story, the first few weeks of kindergarten.

The
narrator hints at her young son's change in attitude from the first paragraph.

The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy
overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first
morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my
sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long- trousered, swaggering...