What can we learn about slavery from the life of Frederick Douglass?

One of the
points that Douglass makes forcefully about slavery is that it is an institution that harms
all of the participants, not just the slave. He argues that the slaves take
the brunt of the punishment but that, nevertheless, the white slaveowners are also
dehumanized.

A prime example of this dehumanization is Mrs. Auld. When
Douglass is sent to serve her in Baltimore, she is at first kind to him because she has had
little prior contact with slavery. She treats him as a human being, allows him to look her in
the face, and even goes so far as to start to teach him to read. He learns the alphabet and
short words before her husband intervenes.

When Mrs. Auld, however, becomes
more conversant with the system of slavery, her kind heart is hardened, and she begins to treat
slaves harshly and as if they are not truly human.

Douglass also notes the
way the violent beatings perpetrated by some of the slaveowners merely whet their appetite for
more violencea violence they then can indulge....

In Hills Like White Elephants, based on Jig's questions regarding the operation, what does she seem to be most concerned with?

In 's short story
, one of the protagonists of the story, Jig, asks her boyfriend a seemingly
simplistic question. Jig wishes to know what will happen after she has "the
operation." Readers assume that Jig is speaking about an abortion, given her
pregnancy.

Therefore, Jig's only concern about the operation is
how...

Faith's pink ribbons are mentioned three times in the first 6 paragraphs. Why does the author make such a point of this?

The ribbons are
symbols of Faith's purity and youth. They are decorations that a young, pure, faithful wife can
reasonably wear, even in Puritan society, and not be considered vain. Hawthorne mentions them so
many times to enforce the idea of Faith's purity. Asleaves her, he can still see her ribbons
blowing in the wind, and he is reminded, once again of her purity.

Later, he
recognizes Faith in the forest at the witches' coven meeting, and she has her pink ribbons
again, but this time they fall out of her hair, indicating that she has lost her innocence and
purity. This represents the final catastrophe to Young Goodman Brown, who has already seen his
father and several other supposedly upstanding, righteous people consorting with the devil. And
now, he sees his once pure and innocent wife.

Interestingly and mysteriously,
though, when Young Goodman Brown returns home at the end of the story, there is Faith, and she
still has the ribbons! So-- did he imagine everything? Is she still pure and innocent? That is
the intrigue of the story.

What are some themes for The Witch of Blackbird Pond?

Loyalty and
trust would be two important themes in the Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Consider
the reasons Kit is loyal and to whom she is loyal to.  How she does she learn about loyalty? 
Also consider who is loyal to Kit and why.

Trust is another reoccurring theme
- there are people Kit does not trust easily and people she does trust easily.  Consider who she
trusts and why and who proves to ultimately be trustworthy and how they prove
this. 

In Pygmalion, why does Mr. Doolittle consider his new social status a burden?

In
, Mr. Doolittle, the former dustman who thinks he'll end up in the
poorhouse, comes into 3,000 pounds a year from the Pre-digested Cheese Trust. As a result, he
says, "I have to live for others ... that's middle-class morality." His new burdens
include lecturing for the Wannafeller Moral Reform World League up to six times a year, marrying
his common law wife, and tolerating servants doing things for him that he could do for himself.
He discovers, or is discovered by, 50 relatives who need money, whereas when he was poor, his
relatives had no interest in him whatsoever. Doctors and lawyers now take up his time, whereas
in the past, they wouldn't bother with him because he couldn't pay. In a nutshell, coming into
enough money to lead a middle class life means everyone is clamoring for a piece of his money,
leaving him little peace of mind. 

Compare and contrast Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Walter Cunningham and Burris
Ewell are both poor, but the behavior of their families is completely
different.

We are introduced to two poor families whenstarts
school.  Burris Ewell is Bob Ewells son, and Walter Cunningham is Walter Cunninghams son. 
Burris is described as a hulking individual.  He has lice, and no shoes, and is dirty.  He has
parasites from walking around in pigpens with no shoes.  Burris comes to school on the first day
of school and fulfills his obligation, and then does not come back until the next year.  His
family lives behind the dump and his father collects welfare checks and spends them on
alcohol.

Walter, on the other hand, is a poor farmer, but a respectable
one.

If Walter had owned any shoes he would have worn them
the first day of school and then discarded them until mid-winter. He did have on a clean shirt
and neatly mended overalls. (ch 2)

Walter refuses to
accept the quarter the teacher tries to lend him, because a Cunningham does not take anything he
cant pay back.  He is mature, and can talk toabout farming like a grown man.  All in all, he is
a little gentleman and his family is mostly honorable.  Although Walter Cunningham, Sr. does
lead the lynch mob that tries to take Tom Robinson, he stops when Scout tries to talk to him,
proving himself to also be a good man.

Can someone please give me an elementary school definition of an iamb and help complete my assignment? Take a paragraph youve written (at least 250...

An
iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

In your first sentence, "Matthew loved the coffee shop, but he hated coffee."
you have an iamb in the name Matthew.
(Ma=unstressed  thew=stressed). But
since your next word, "loved" is one stressed, you do not have an
iamb.

So, read through your paragraph marking a
u over the unstressed syllables and a /
over the stressed.  Keeping in mind that you must have just one
unstressed followed by a stressed (more force of
your voice) syllable to have iambs, you will have to rewrite some
sentences.

Here is an example of iambic pentameter (5 iambs) that Shakespeare
uses in the