What is the definition of Modernism?

Modernism is a term which codifies the literary and artistic production that emerged after World War I.

The war unleashed an existential crisis in the Western world. The supposedly self-evident truths that had grounded society before the war were now deemed questionable, if not altogether false. Moreover, gender roles were shifting. Ideas about art and aesthetics were changing. Among Black Americans, there emerged a desire to create a uniquely black aesthetic rooted in African-inspired themes and folk traditions. Ideas about everything, including the meaning of life itself, were changing and given new consideration.

Aesthetically, modernism abandoned demands for traditional order, unity, and sequence in favor of abstraction. Whereas the Victorian and Edwardian eras had expected that artists look outward at changes in society for inspiration, Modernists looked inward. Psychoanalysis inspired Modernist writers, such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, to use stream-of-consciousness narration in their novels. This technique allowed authors to narrate the thoughts of each character as they occurred—however strange, incongruous, or obscene those thoughts might have been.

Modernist writers also differed from Victorian-era authors in their preference for one character's point of view in a novel or scene, instead of using a single, authoritative, third-person omniscient voice. In many instances, too, the Modernist's narrator might be an unreliable or marginal person—e.g., mentally unstable, a child, or a social outcast. Moreover, the dialogue now incorporated speech that was more akin to how people really talked. Regional dialects were introduced, as well as slang and profanity.

Visual art also incorporated influences from psychoanalysis. The Surrealists, including Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, were particularly interested in exploring the mind and sexuality in painting. Cubists, such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques, represented the disoriented state of identity in their art, frequently creating distorted figures. Picasso was also very much influenced by African art. Blackness, both in African and African-American contexts, had come into vogue in the 1920s.

The 1920s are generally deemed the peak time for Modernism. It is the decade in which Modernist ideas and aesthetics came into being. However, some contend that we are still in a "modernist" period. What they mean is that we remain interested in all that is new. We are also open to experimentation, and most of us are no longer keen on embracing definitive truths in politics, religion, or the arts. This ideology, which emphasizes all that is current and yet to be discovered, is the foundation of Modernist thought.

What is the main idea for Bud, Not Buddy chapter 7?

I'm a bit unsure of what exactly you mean by main idea. The question might be asking for a general summary or a general theme. I will briefly go over both.  

Chapter seven begins with Bud going to the library. He is attempting to find Miss Hill. Bud searches the entire library, but he can't find her. Bud is forced to ask a different librarian where Miss Hill is. The librarian responds by saying, "Miss Hill? My goodness, hadn't you heard?" Bud immediately informs his readers of rule number 16.

If a Grown-up Ever Starts a Sentence by Saying "Haven't You Heard," Get Ready, 'Cause What's About to Come Out of Their Mouth Is Gonna Drop You Headfirst into a Boiling Tragedy.

It seems like the answer to "Haven't you heard" always has something to do with someone kicking the bucket.

Bud assumes that Miss Hill has died in some gruesome and tragic way. Fortunately that is not the case. Miss Hill is now a Mrs. She got married and moved to Chicago. The librarian helps Bud calculate how long it would take to walk there: too long. Disappointed, Bud leaves the library with no real plan of what to do next.

Thematically, chapter seven is about doors opening and closing. Earlier in the book, Bud told his readers what his mom said about metaphorical doors being closed and opened.

"And Bud, I want you always to remember, no matter how bad things look to you, no matter how dark the night, when one door closes, don't worry, because another door opens."

Miss Hill leaving Flint (and Bud) is a door being closed on Bud. He doesn't know where to go next, and Miss Hill can no longer help him find direction. It should feel like a depressing chapter ending, but it doesn't feel like that. That's because Bud ends the chapter by telling his readers that he knows another door is about to open. He is so confident in that hope that he falls right to sleep with little to no stress.

That library door closing after I walked out was the exact kind of door Momma had told me about. I knew that since it had closed the next one was about to open.

I went back under my tree and before I knew it I was asleep.

The chapter ends in a hopeful way.

What type of government did Germany have in 1914? Who was the leader?

Kaiser Wilhelm II was the emperor of Germany in 1914. Germany was an imperialist monarchy under Wilhelm until the German Revolution (sometimes also called the November Revolution) abolished this system of government and the Weimar Republic was established in 1919. The Weimar Republic, effectively a representative democracy, endured until 1933.

Kaiser Wilhelm, who was King of Prussia as well as the last Emperor of Germany, is known for his role in World War I. Germany's relationships with Britain, France and Russia became increasingly strained under his watch, and he allowed his military advisers to create and administer German policy. Fleeing to the Netherlands, Wilhelm abdicated his position when it became clear that Germany would lose World War I.

Wilhelm was the grandson of Queen Victoria of England.

What caused Atticus to become a potential subject of discussion in the schoolyard, when he hadn't been before?

At the beginning of Chapter 10, Scout laments about her father's inability to play, his old age and uninteresting occupation. She compares Atticus to the fathers of her peers and mentions that Atticus possesses no unique talent or ability that would arouse any admiration from her friends at school. One day, a rabid dog named Tim Johnson staggers down the main street of Maycomb. All of the neighbors lock themselves inside their homes and Sheriff Tate arrives with a rifle. Tate hands the gun to Atticus and Atticus reluctantly takes it. Atticus then proceeds to fire the rifle, successfully killing Tim Johnson instantly in one shot. Scout and Jem are in awe of their father's marksmanship abilities, and Miss Maudie tells them that Atticus' nickname used to be "Ol' One-Shot." Scout comments to Jem that she can't wait to brag that her father's the best shot in Maycomb to her friends in the schoolyard, but Jem tells her not to. He reasons that if Atticus wanted them to know about his talent he would have told them, but Atticus never said a word. Jem looks up to Atticus and wants to remain humble like his father which is why he tells Scout not to brag.

In the first chapter of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, one character tells the narrator that when he hears someone is writing an anti-war...

Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war novel. Vonnegut's protagonist suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Billy Pilgrim's psyche has become so fractured that he "has become unstuck in time." Due to the trauma he has suffered in the war, Billy is unable to live in the present.

Even before he begins to suffer from PTSD, Vonnegut is careful to portray Billy Pilgrim and all of the other soldiers in non-heroic terms. Billy looks more like a "filthy flamingo" than a soldier, and the men who capture Billy are "droolers as toothless as carp."

At one point, Billy, while watching a World War II documentary, imagines that he is seeing the film backward. Rather than dropping bombs, the bombers "flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes." The bombs are then dismantled and buried "so they would never hurt anybody ever again."

Vonnegut ends his novel with the word "Poo-tee-weet?" because "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." In effect, Vonnegut is saying that war makes no sense, and there is nothing intelligent to be said about it.

When does a period of the periodic table end?

The periodic table is the diagram used to organize all of the elements discovered in groups depending on a number of different factors. Elements, or atoms with different numbers of protons and electrons, are arranged in rows referred to as "periods." The first period begins with Hydrogen, the second with Lithium, and so on. 

Each element as the period progresses has one more proton and one more electron than the previous element, and these extra protons and electrons give different electronegetivities, weights, and other properties. A row will start over once these properties repeat themselves, thus the element directly under each element shares similar properties as the one above them. This creates columns of similar elements such as the 2nd column which is made up by the Alkaline Earth Metals (all shiny, silvery-white, full S-electron orbital).

Another way to tell a row is about to start over is when you get to an element that has all of its valence electron orbitals filled. This means there is no more room for an electron to bond to in any orbital and it is considered a Noble Gas (Krypton, Neon, Helium, etc.). This marks the end of a row and the next element begins a new orbital as it fills an S orbital spot with an electron to match the one extra proton. 

Once again, a row will start over officially once similar properties start to repeat themselves. All of the first elements in the 1st column have similar qualities, thus they are organized as such, just like the 18th column which all mark the end of a row. Hope this helped!

What color is the snowshoe rabbit in The Call of the Wild?

The snowshoe rabbit is white or light gray, because it is hard to see in the snow. 

Dub is the one who sees the rabbit first.  He gets it started running, but is unable to catch it.  As a result, all of the dogs go after it.  The rabbit is hard to see, however, making chasing it a difficult task.  For one thing, the rabbit is light enough to run on the surface of the snow, but the dogs crash through it. 

Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead. (Ch. 3)

Buck enjoys the hunt.  He is getting wilder and wilder.  As he hunts the rabbit, he is enjoying himself.  Then he notices that Spitz is after it too, and he realizes that the two are about to do battle.  This time it will be a fight to the death. 

Buck did not know of this, and as he rounded the bend, the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another and larger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into the immediate path of the rabbit. It was Spitz. (Ch. 3) 

It is the nature of the wild for things to change in an instant.  Buck went from being one of sixty dogs chasing a rabbit to fighting for supremacy with Spitz.  The conflict between Buck and Spitz had been growing, and since everyone’s blood-lust was raised by the rabbit, it erupted into a challenge. 

When Buck killed Spitz, he became the leader of the pack.  The men are a little surprised, but they come to accept that Buck wants to be leader and is a natural leader.  They agree to let him become lead dog, since he insists and will not allow any other dog to be placed there.

Explain the importance of the setting in The Crucible. Could this story have been set in a different time and place and still have the same effect?

The Salem Witch Trials are such a well-known and disastrous chapter of American history that using Salem during the 1690s as the setting for this story enriches its mood and meaning.  Such a setting works almost like an allusion, adding layers of meaning and symbolism to the story, enhancing what is written on the page due to the emotional connotation most Americans associate with Salem, Massachusetts, during this era.  Almost immediately after the trials, people came to understand that innocents had been murdered as a result of the terrible fear and hysteria caused by a handful of little girls.  The story could not have been set in a different time and place and still have had the same effect because there is no other era in American history where hysteria was permitted to run so wild that people are systematically murdered as a result.

Where are the ideas of Common Sense in the Declaration of Independence?

The ideas of Common Sense can be found throughout the Declaration of Independence. Remember, of course, that Common Sense was in effect a call for a declaration of independence. Paine argued, among a great many other things, that the colonies had grown apart from the mother country, and that, as he said, "'tis time to part." The Declaration of Independence brought about Paine's desired goal. The Declaration also repeats many of the charges brought by Paine in a long series of indictments against King George III. Paine had characterized King George as a "royal brute," and the Declaration in essence repeated these charges, accusing him of inciting Native American and slave insurrections, ignoring the will of the American people, and imposing harsh taxes and sending standing armies amongst them to violate their liberties. The Declaration also shared fundamental assumptions about the role of government and the rights of the man. The Declaration famously stated that the role of government was to "secure" certain "unalienable rights," and that any government which became "destructive" of these rights should be altered or abolished. Paine had argued along exactly the same lines, even going so far as to proclaim that a hereditary monarchy could never really be representative of the will, or protective of the liberties, of the people.  

Which product is most likely to be observed when mixing a 1.0 M solution of silver nitrate (AgNO3) and a 1.0 M solution of potassium dichromate...

This is an example of a precipitation reaction. A precipitation reaction is one where two aqueous solutions react to produce a precipitate. A precipitate is an insoluble solid that emerges from a liquid solution. A precipitation reaction can also be classified as a double replacement reaction.

We can predict which product in a precipitation reaction will be insoluble by consulting a list of solubility rules. You can find a list of solubility rules online or in your textbook.

The two products of the reaction are potassium nitrate (`~KNO_3` ) and silver dichromate (`~Ag_2Cr_2O_7` ). 

The solubility rules for nitrates and chromates are as follows:

• 
  Nitrates: Nitrates are always soluble.


• 
  Chromates: Chromates are usually insoluble.

Therefore, we would predict that silver dichromate is insolule and forms the solid precipitate seen at the bottom of the mixing vial.

When did Jem and Scout get out of school in the book To Kill a Mockingbird?

The novel covers about three years of Scout's life. When the story begins, it is summer. She and Jem meet Dill in Chapter 1 and he leaves in Chapter 2, when Scout starts school for the first time.

Scout's first year of school is over in Chapter 4. Coming home from school, Scout and Jem find another gift in the oak tree. Dill arrives two days later. This summer the kids are still fascinated by Boo Radley. On Dill's last night in Maycomb, the three of them try to get a look at Boo at night. Jem loses his pants in the attempt and Dill leaves for the next school year. 

Scout's second year of school starts at the beginning of Chapter 7. Scout and Jem continue to find things in the oak tree, noting that the mysterious giver must be setting things out while they are at school.

Chapter 11 marks the end of another school year and the beginning of the next summer: 

There was a hint of summer in the air—in the shadows it was cool, but the sun was warm, which meant good times coming: no school and Dill. 

This summer, during which the trial occurs, extends from about Chapters 11 through 24. The trial is one of the most significant parts of the novel and therefore takes up a large portion. 

What are some methods of separating heterogeneous mixtures?

Mixtures are made by mixing various components. The resultant mixture may have a uniform composition or a non-uniform composition. The mixtures that have a uniform composition are known as homogeneous mixtures, while the mixtures with non-uniform composition are known as heterogeneous mixtures. Air is a homogeneous mixture, while trail mix is a non-homogeneous or heterogeneous mixture. 

There are a number of ways of separating a heterogeneous mixture. The most obvious way is the manual separation of individual components. For example, we can separate out individual components of trail mix (such as raisins, dry fruits, nuts, etc.) manually. If some components are magnetic, they can be separated by using electromagnets, that is, a magnetic separation. Centrifugation can also be used to separate out components. Filtering the mixture through various filter layers (or sieves) can also separate out various components. The flotation process is another option.

Hope this helps. 

What problems did Spanish colonists in New Mexico face ?

The early settlement of New Mexico by the Spanish was characterized as a constant struggle with the Native American populations in the region.  Aside from the challenging hot climate that sometimes produced  drought and difficulty for farming, the major problem for the colonists was the conflict with Indians.  New Mexico grew slowly as a colony of Spain and was primarily a Spanish mission that attempted to convert the Pueblo Indians.  The Pueblo had very little interest in abandoning their religious ceremonies and rebelled against Spanish interference in 1680.  The Spanish would leave the area for a decade before returning to reclaim New Mexico.  They attempted a peaceful resolve but ended up attacking the Pueblo.  The Spanish and Pueblo would form an alliance, but there was no shortage of Native American tribes to threaten the Spanish colonies.  The Comanche and Apache were the most serious threat, but the Spanish were surrounded on all sides by hostile Indian tribes.  Conflict with these tribes would be a legacy of Spanish rule in New Mexico.  

Does love make Romeo and Juliet better people? More accepting? More selfish? How does love affect individuals according to the play?

While love does make Romeo and Juliet more accepting of others, it also makes them more selfish. Love allows Romeo and Juliet to rise above the conflict between their two families. They seek to end the blood feud so that they may get married in peace, and while this aspiration is noble, it is also selfish. In pursuance of love, Romeo and Juliet disregard the ramifications of their actions. These ramifications include the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio. 

However, love also causes some of the characters to act more compassionately. Examples include the Nurse and Friar Lawrence, both of whom go out of their way in order to help facilitate the marriage between Romeo and Juliet. Additionally, the deaths of Romeo and Juliet ultimately result in peace between the two families. In this way, the love between Romeo and Juliet acts as a force that binds everyone together. Unfortunately, this comes out the expense of the two star crossed lovers.  

What is therapeutic touch (TT)?

Overview

Therapeutic touch (TT) is a form of energy healing popular in nursing in the United States. In the words of its official organization, “Therapeutic Touch is an intentionally directed process of energy exchange during which the practitioner uses the hands as a focus to facilitate the healing process.” TT is used by nurses in a variety of settings, from the medical office to the intensive care unit (ICU). However, there is no meaningful evidence that it is effective.

TT was developed in the early 1970s by two people: Dolores Krieger and a self-professed healer, Dora Van Gelder Kunz. Initially, TT involved setting the hands lightly on the body of the patient, but the method rapidly evolved into a noncontact energy healing method. Certified practitioners can be found in virtually all parts of the United States and in much of the world. TT is available in mainstream health-care facilities including hospices, hospital-based alternative health programs, and even ICUs.

TT is sometimes described as a scientific version of “laying on of hands,” a technique practiced by faith healers. However, there is more spirituality than science to this method; it makes use of beliefs and principles common in spiritual healing traditions but unknown to current science.

According to TT, the body has an energy field, and without physical contact, the energy field of one person can substantially affect the energy field of another. The practitioner is said to heal, balance, replenish, and improve the flow of a person’s energy field, thereby leading to enhanced overall wellness. However, there is no meaningful scientific evidence for any of these beliefs.

Scientific Evidence

There has been considerable research interest in TT. However, the evidence for benefit is no more than weakly positive at best. A 1999 review of all published studies concluded that many of the studies had serious design flaws that could bias the results; in addition, the manner in which they were reported did not meet adequate scientific standards. A similar review in 2008 focusing on pain concluded that TT (along with healing touch and Reiki) may have modest effects on pain relief, particularly in the hands of more experienced practitioners, but the evidence was still fairly weak.

To be fair, proper study of TT presents researchers with some serious obstacles. The only truly meaningful way to determine whether a medical therapy works is to perform a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. For hands-on therapies such as TT, however, a truly double-blind study is not possible, as the TT practitioner will inevitably know whether he or she is administering real TT or fake TT.

The best type of study that can be performed on TT is a single-blind study with “blinded” observers. In such studies, participants do not know whether they received real or fake TT, and an observer who also is blinded evaluates their medical outcome. However, such a study still has potential bias; practitioners could communicate a kind of cynicism when they use fake TT, and this problem appears to be insurmountable.

Further problems are involved in the choice of fake treatment. In most of the studies described here, sham TT involved practitioners counting backward in their heads by subtracting 7 serially from 100. The intent of this method was to avoid any possibility of projecting a healing concentration. It has been pointed out that this somewhat stressful effort would cause the practitioner to communicate tension rather than relaxation to study participants, and this too could bias results. However, it is difficult to suggest what should have been used instead as a placebo.

Some studies compared TT with no treatment. However, it has been well established that any therapy whatsoever will seem to produce benefit compared to no treatment for various nonspecific reasons; because of this, such studies say little to nothing about the specific benefits of TT. Finally, numerous trials have simply involved enrolling people with a medical problem, applying TT, and seeing whether they improve. Trials of this type prove nothing. Given these caveats, a summary of the research available thus far is presented here.

At the time of the 1999 review already noted, many published studies of TT were of unacceptably low quality and the results were quite inconsistent. For example, in one trial, thirty-one inpatients in a Veteran’s Administration psychiatric facility received TT, relaxation therapy, or sham TT. The study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of TT for reducing anxiety and stress. The results appear to indicate that TT was more effective for this purpose than the sham form. However, there are some serious design problems in this study that make the results difficult to trust. The real TT was administered by a woman in “street” clothes and the placebo treatment by a woman in a nursing uniform; to make matters more complex, the relaxation therapy was administered by a man dressed as a clergyman. These large differences in appearance could only be expected to considerably influence the results in ways that cannot be predicted.

In a better study, sixty people with tension headaches were randomly assigned to receive either TT or placebo touch. TT proved to be significantly more effective than placebo touch. However, in a reasonably well-designed study published in 1993, the use of TT in 108 people undergoing surgery failed to reduce postoperative pain to a greater extent than sham TT.

A series of studies evaluated TT for aiding wound healing. Some found TT more effective than placebo, others found no significant effect, and still others found placebo more effective than real treatment. These results suggest that the effects seen were caused by chance.

Subsequent to the 1999 review, several better-quality trials were published. One such study compared real TT and sham TT in ninety-nine men and women recovering from severe burns. Researchers hypothesized that the use of TT would decrease pain and anxiety during that arduous and traumatic process, and indeed some evidence of benefit was seen.

In a smaller study (twenty-five participants), real TT appeared to reduce the pain of knee osteoarthritis compared to sham TT. Furthermore, in a study of twenty children with human immunodeficiency virus infection, the use of TT improved anxiety while sham touch did not. Another study found that an actor pretending to perform treatment similar to TT produced significant improvements in well-being in people with advanced cancer.

Taking all these studies together, it appears that real TT may be more effective than sham TT (using the serial subtraction technique). However, whether these apparent benefits are caused by the energy-healing effects claimed by practitioners or, more simply, through emotional communication, remains unclear.

Some studies provide preliminary evidence that TT does not work in the manner practitioners believe it does. For example, in one well-designed study, TT produced no effect when conducted without eye contact. The researcher, an influential person in the history of TT, had hypothesized that TT involved a kind of energy transfer that would not need eye contact. The fact that no effects were seen without the addition of eye contact suggests that it might be focused attention that makes the difference, not energy transmitted through the hands.

Furthermore, if TT actually involves contact with a person’s “energy field,” it would seem that the practitioners would be able to sense the presence of such a field. However, in a widely publicized study, twenty-one practitioners who had practiced TT for one to twenty-seven years proved unable to do this. In this trial, TT practitioners placed their hands face up through holes in a barrier. The experimenter (a nine-year-old student) held a hand above one of the practitioner’s hands, and the practitioner was asked to sense its presence. The practitioners’ guesses proved to be no more accurate than chance would allow. This study has been strongly criticized by proponents of TT. Some said that the experimenter was in the throes of puberty, and for that reason her energy field was too disturbed to detect; others complained about the disturbing presence of video cameras. While these criticisms are potentially valid, the burden is actually on proponents of TT to prove that there really is such a thing as a human energy field.

Nonetheless, the studies already performed do indicate that, at minimum, concentrated, positive attention provided by one human being to another is consoling and calming. This is a wonderful fact, even if there is no special energy field involved.

Coakley, A. B., and M. E. Duffy. “The Effect of Therapeutic Touch on Postoperative Patients.” Journal of Holistic Nursing 28 (2010): 193-200.

Peters, R. M. “The Effectiveness of Therapeutic Touch.” Nursing Science Quarterly 12 (1999): 52-61.

Pohl, G., et al. “?‘Laying on of Hands’ Improves Well-Being in Patients with Advanced Cancer.” Supportive Care in Cancer 15 (2007): 143-151.

Rosa, L., et al. “A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch.” Journal of the American Medical Association 279 (1998): 1005-1010.

So, P. S., Y. Jiang, and Y. Qin. “Touch Therapies for Pain Relief in Adults.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2008): CD006535. Available through EBSCO DynaMed Systematic Literature Surveillance at http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed.

What are some importants details from "Raymonds Run" by Toni Cade Bambara?

Some important details from "Raymond's Run" by Toni Cade Bambara are as follows:

The main character and narrator of the story is a girl named Squeaky, who was given her nickname due to her high pitched voice. Her real name is Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker. Squeaky is tasked with taking care of her mentally handicapped brother, Raymond. Her older brother, George, used to take care of Raymond, but a lot of people picked on Raymond, and Squeaky is better at standing up to them than George was. 

Squeaky is a runner, and the big kids call her "Mercury" because she is so fast. 

In this story, Squeaky is training for the May Day Races, and she practices all of the time. Raymond is always with her.

Squeaky is in competition with a girl named Gretchen. Gretchen has a group of girls she hangs around with who like to say mean things about Raymond and give Squeaky problems, and Squeaky is always ready to fight them if it should come to that.

During the race, Gretchen and Squeaky nearly tie, but Squeaky comes out ahead. However, she has newfound respect for Gretchen and now sees her as a possible friend and partner. Together, Squeaky thinks, the two of them could coach Raymond because she realizes that he has also run the race on the other side of the fence and has kept up with them the entire time. 

What are sleep disorders?

Causes and Symptoms

Sleep is more than the absence of wakefulness. While a person sleeps, the brain continues to be quite active—indeed, this activity is essential for human survival. Brain activity can be measured in sleeping subjects and has been used to classify sleep into stages 1 through 4, where stage 1 is the lightest sleep and stage 4 is the deepest. A sleeper moves from stage 1, through stages 2 and 3, and to stage 4, and then back through stages 2 and 3 to stage 1. This cycle occurs every ninety to one hundred minutes throughout the night. During the latter part of the sleep period, stage 1 sleep is associated with brain activity that is as intense as that seen in waking subjects. During these periods of intense brain activity, rapid eye movements (REMs) are observed, and as a result these periods are referred to as REM sleep, and the other sleep stages are referred to as non-REM sleep. Although the precise function of sleep is still hotly debated in scientific circles, most people can verify from experience that adequate sleep has a major impact on their ability to function effectively and on their emotional stability. For those who suffer from a sleep disorder, life can become a daily struggle; sleep disorders often
have severe physical, financial, and social consequences.

Patients who are having difficulty with sleeping usually complain of insomnia, feeling sleepy during the day, or abnormal behaviors during sleep. Sleep disorders have been divided into four broad categories by the Association of Sleep Disorders Centers: the insomnias, or disorders of initiating or maintaining sleep; the hypersomnias, or disorders of excessive sleep; disorders of the sleep-wake cycle; and the parasomnias, or disorders of partial arousal such as sleepwalking and night terrors. Of these, the most common complaint are the insomnias.

Insomnia is a subjective complaint of nonrefreshing sleep. Patients believe that their ability to function during the day is impeded by short or poor-quality sleep. Since most people experience transient insomnia at various times in their lives, chronic insomnia is defined as insomnia lasting longer than three months. Individuals with insomnia have a variety of sleep patterns: Some may require a long period to fall asleep, some wake up after a few hours and cannot fall asleep again, and some may not know that they have awakened briefly hundreds of times during the night. The sleep patterns of the insomniac can vary from night to night, which increases the anxiety of the patient. Electrical monitoring of brain activity shows that most insomniacs have only a slightly reduced total sleep time, with few changes in sleep stages. Physiologically, poor sleepers have been shown to maintain a higher body temperature during sleep than normal sleepers, which may reflect a higher level of arousal. Insomnia is not a necessarily disorder in itself; instead, it can be a symptom of a large number of underlying disorders. These can be physiological, psychological, or behavioral in nature, or they can be a normal part of the aging process.

Insomnia can be caused by medical problems that interfere with breathing, such as sleep apnea, in which patients have multiple episodes each night when they stop breathing. A single episode can last ten seconds to two minutes, and in some severe cases, up to 50 percent of sleep time can be spent without breathing. Sleep
apnea is often seen in obese men and women because of obstruction of the air passage. Clinical signs include irregular snoring and daytime sleepiness. Insomnia can also be caused by neurological problems, muscular problems, or conditions that cause pain. Periodic leg movement can (but does not always) cause multiple awakenings during the night, as can a related disorder called restless leg syndrome, which is characterized by a creeping sensation in the legs. Psychiatric research has demonstrated that insomnia can be a symptom of clinical depression. Surveys have shown that insomniacs have a higher level of stress, tension, and anxiety than normal sleepers. In addition, insomnia can occur when behavioral patterns do not encourage sleep. The use of
caffeine or engaging in arousing activities just prior to bedtime can contribute to poor sleep. The normal aging process usually causes a decrease in total sleep time, in stage 1 sleep, and an increase in fragmented sleep, resulting in drowsiness and sometimes depression in the elderly.

In addition to all these causes, there are some individuals who complain of insomnia in which no abnormalities can be found. When comparing subjective reports from the patient to sleep recordings in the laboratory, there is a tendency for such insomniacs to report wakefulness even though the sleep recording indicates that the patient is sleeping normally. It appears that there are other sleep abnormalities that contribute to the quality of sleep which remain unknown.

The hypersomnias are defined by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and include the group of patients who are unable to stay awake during the day. Several external circumstances can contribute to EDS, such as jet lag, shift work, medications, or some of the disorders underlying insomnia listed above. In addition,
narcolepsy, a central nervous system disorder, is characterized by the overwhelming need to sleep several times a day. These sleep attacks often occur without warning. Narcoleptics can also experience cataplexy, or sudden muscle weakness when in emotionally charged situations that cause anger, laughter, or fear. They may also experience hallucinations when sleep begins or
sleep paralysis upon waking that can last for several minutes. Narcolepsy affects 0.05 percent of the population and causes significant hardship to those afflicted. It
can pose a danger if the person falls asleep while operating a car or when in a dangerous environment.

The daily cycle of wakefulness followed by a prolonged sleep period is controlled by circadian rhythms. People who travel across time zones or who work rotating shifts are often forced to sleep at a time when their circadian rhythm supports wakefulness and work when their circadian rhythm supports sleep. Other individuals have defects in the mechanisms that regulate circadian rhythms and may experience delayed or advanced sleep phase syndrome in which there is a shift of the normal twenty-four-hour cycle. If they follow their circadian rhythm, these patients will sleep for a normal amount of time; however, the social consequences of retiring at 7:00 p.m. or awakening at noon are prohibitive. Internal desynchronization between the sleep-wake cycle and the closely related circadian temperature cycle can also contribute to poor-quality sleep.

The parasomnias, or disorders of arousal, include sleepwalking and night terrors. Both of these disorders occur predominantly in childhood, although they can be experienced by adults. When brain activity is characterized by an electroencephalograph (EEG), there are elements of both wakefulness and REM sleep, often in the deepest stages (3 and 4). This finding dispels the myth that sleepwalkers are acting out dreams, since dreaming occurs during REM sleep. Sleepwalking activity can vary in length. The person usually has his or her eyes open, can respond verbally, and can move about normally. Sleepwalkers are usually aware of the environment at some level, although their judgment is impaired and they can sometimes injure themselves. Night terrors involve signs of panic such as shrieking, sweats, and frenzied movements and can be distinguished from nightmares, which involve little movement and more extensive memory. Both sleepwalking and night terrors are usually not recalled, and there is little connection between these syndromes and psychiatric disease. Both may be exacerbated by sleep deprivation, stress, fever, or medications.

Treatment and Therapy

One of the difficulties in diagnosing insomnia or one of the other sleep disorders is that there is much individual variability among normal sleepers in sleep needs and amount of sleep logged each night. Therefore, what may be adequate sleep for one person might cause another to report poor sleep. To determine the causes of poor sleep, a person is usually referred to a sleep clinic. There, a detailed history of the problem as well as a description of the patient’s sleep habits, lifestyle, and psychological state is recorded. Often, a description of behavior during sleep from someone who shares the bedroom can provide additional important information. Next, a polysomnogram, in which the sleeping patient is monitored with electrodes, is performed so that information on brain waves, breathing, muscle movements, and blood oxygen levels can be obtained. Sometimes this test is administered in the sleep center, and sometimes it is done in the more natural sleep environment of the person’s home using ambulatory monitoring devices. From this information, a diagnosis usually can be made and the appropriate therapy determined.

When insomnia is associated with an underlying psychiatric or medical problem, treatment usually begins with the primary problem rather than with the symptom of poor sleep. When the primary problem is solved, the sleep pattern usually returns to normal. Symptomatic treatment of the insomnia itself is provided only when the cause of the sleep disturbance cannot be treated. There are two major approaches: treatments that emphasize the use of drugs or technical aids and treatments that emphasize a change in behavior.

Although over-the-counter aids cannot improve sleep, large numbers of prescription drugs can affect sleep patterns and influence alertness during waking hours. Historically, barbiturates were administered for insomnia, but in 1970, benzodiazepines were introduced; they are now the most commonly prescribed drugs for sleeplessness. These drugs are usually taken about thirty minutes before bedtime, causing drowsiness and thus decreasing the amount of time it takes to fall asleep. Benzodiazepines alter the stages of sleep, decreasing the amount of stage 1 and REM sleep and increasing the amount of stage 2 sleep. The significance of these changes is not understood. When used alone, benzodiazepines are very safe and have few side effects; if they are combined with other drugs, however, there can be a toxic interaction. Although most people can tolerate these drugs and report no daytime grogginess, some impairment of function may exist upon waking. There is strong evidence to suggest that benzodiazepines be used for only a short period of time. With continued use (longer than thirty days), patients usually find that the drug
becomes less effective unless the dosage is increased to an unsafe level. When the drug is discontinued, the original symptoms of insomnia usually recur and often a “rebound insomnia,” which is even more severe than before the drug treatment began, may be present for a brief period. Because of these limitations, these “sleeping pills” are usually given when an acute but temporary situation exists. To treat insomnia that is caused by periodic leg movements, a muscle relaxant is sometimes used. For patients whose sleep apnea is not resolved by weight reduction, mechanical devices that hold the air passage open during sleep are usually employed. Orthodontic aids or tongue retainers may provide relief, and other patients wear masks that hold the air passage open, providing a continuous airflow during sleep.

Since insomnia is often caused by poor habits that condition the sleeper to remain awake, the problem can sometimes be solved by a simple commitment to avoid naps, reduce caffeine and alcohol intake, eat light meals in the evening, reduce noise in the sleep environment, and establish a regular bedtime. Many insomniacs are so preoccupied with the fear that they will not sleep well that they become tense as bedtime approaches. These fears may sometimes be put to rest by the knowledge that sleep needs vary greatly from individual to individual. In some cases, people may not physiologically require a “normal” amount of sleep but have been convinced that they have a sleep disorder by spouses who do. Another commonly held misperception that contributes to tension is the notion that, once sleep is lost, it can never be recovered. Studies have shown that sleep-deprived humans are able to return quickly to normal sleep patterns, and therefore a few nights of poor sleep is no cause for alarm.

For those whose anxiety about sleep persists, techniques that teach people to relax their muscles or meditation to decrease mental activity may reduce this anxiety and promote sleep. Patients who experience better sleep when away from their normal sleeping location may have “learned” to associate the bedroom environment with wakefulness. To overcome this problem, stimulus control is used to try to strengthen the bedroom as a cue for sleep. This method requires that patients use the bedroom only for sleeping and go to bed only when sleepy. Most important, if they do not fall asleep within ten minutes of lying down, they should get up, go into another room, and engage in a mundane activity, coming back to the bedroom only when sleepy. This may be done several times, but the main goal is to associate the bedroom with falling asleep quickly. Regardless of the length of sleep, patients should always get up at the same time and not nap during the day. This regimen may need to be continued for several weeks in order to overcome the previous habit and requires perseverance from the patient; however, the advantage of
behavioral therapy lies in the absence of the side effects caused by medication.

Excessive daytime sleepiness is usually diagnosed by a polysomnogram followed by a Multiple Sleep Latency Test. In this test, patients are allowed to fall asleep several times a day, and if sleep occurs within five minutes multiple times during the day, the diagnosis is positive. EDS is treated in different ways depending on its cause. If the cause is sleep apnea or periodic leg movements, the disorder is handled as described above. In other cases of sleep fragmentation, medication is used to prevent arousal during the night. The excessive daytime sleepiness found in narcoleptics is usually treated with drugs that act as central nervous system stimulants. Other symptoms of
narcolepsy are usually treated with antidepressant drugs that suppress REM sleep. Of these, gamma hydroxybutyrate has been shown to be effective and to cause limited side effects. Short naps taken throughout the day seem to prevent many of the symptoms associated with sleep attacks.

Problems with the circadian rhythms of the sleep-wake cycle are usually not helped by medication. Instead, chronotherapy may be effective in resetting the biological clock. Over the course of two weeks, the patient’s bedtime is gradually moved forward or backward around the clock until the desired bedtime is reached. Similar effects may be seen using strong light to shift the sleep period.

Perspective and Prospects

The field of sleep research is still in its infancy. For most of history, sleep was not studied at all because it was difficult to characterize the process without interrupting it. Early scientists such as Lucretius, however, made observations and suggested that the motions of sleeping animals might reflect their dreams. In the early nineteenth century, sleep was viewed simply as the absence of waking, and the treatment of lethargic patients with damage to the brain stem led doctors to postulate that this area of the brain had two centers—a waking center and a sleeping center. These two centers were thought to function and communicate with each other using chemical signals. As the field of neurobiology advanced, it became possible to measure the electrical properties of the brain using an electroencephalograph. By the 1930s, numerous studies had shown that the brain remains active during sleep and that the different stages of sleep have different patterns of electrical activity. REM sleep was first observed in 1953 and was linked to dreaming. Additional brain structures in the midbrain and pons were identified that controlled REM and non-REM sleep. An understanding of the neurotransmitters, or chemical substances involved in sleeping and waking, began in the 1960s when it was discovered that neurons in the pons contained serotonin and norepinephrine. Another neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, was found in neurons that were active during REM sleep.

It is only recently that the study of sleep disorders has been recognized as a legitimate pursuit. Most of the sleep disorders mentioned here were discovered in the 1960s and 1970s, and public opinion regarding those who complain of tiredness and fatigue has only gradually shifted from disdain to understanding that there might be a real physiological cause.

This greater acceptance might be due to a growing awareness of the toll of sleep deprivation. It is now understood by medical officials that the consequences of sleep deprivation are more severe than most people realize and affect metabolism, endocrine functions, immune system function, memory, mood, and reaction time. The average adult sleeps about an hour less than the eight hours per night recommended by sleep experts. Many people often stay up later than they should because of watching television or surfing the Web. Insomnia is experienced by more than half of the adult population at some point in their lives, and more than 10 percent of the population experiences restless leg syndrome. The factors most often identified for disrupting sleep are stress and pain. Despite sleep deprivation, many people will still strive while drowsy, and some have even fallen asleep at the wheel. Sleep deprivation has also negatively impacted work performance for numerous adults. The list of work-related problems includes being late for work, making errors, reductions in the quality of work, lower productivity, diminished concentration, and suffering injuries.

Perhaps because of such statistics and a growing public recognition of the dangers of sleep problems, the number of sleep centers and laboratories that are studying sleep and its accompanying disorders has grown tremendously. These sleep centers have been instrumental in elucidating the primary disorders of sleep and in educating the general public concerning sleep management and the safety risks that result from abnormal sleep. Research laboratories are investigating the anatomical, chemical, and physiological mechanisms of sleep and sleep abnormalities. Some of the most interesting areas of research include genetic studies that determine whether sleep disorders are inherited. There appears to be a significant genetic component to several sleep characteristics, including bedtime, sleep duration, insomnia, narcolepsy, snoring, and sleep apnea. It is expected that, as scientists come to understand more about the nature and mechanisms of the brain and normal sleep, further understanding of the causes and treatments for sleep disorders will be forthcoming.

Bibliography

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Caldwell, J. Paul. Sleep: The Complete Guide to Sleep Disorders and a Better Night’s Sleep. Rev. ed. Toronto, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2003.

Carskadon, Mary A., ed. Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming. New York: Macmillan, 1993.

Dement, William C., and Christopher Vaughan. The Promise of Sleep. New York: Delacorte Press, 1999.

Dotto, Lydia. Losing Sleep: How Your Sleeping Habits Affect Your Life. New York: William Morrow, 1990.

Hobson, J. Allan. Sleep. New York: Scientific American Library, 1995.

Montplaisir, Jacques, and Roger Godbout, eds. Sleep and Biological Rhythms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Pollak, Charles P., Michael J. Thorpy, and Jan Yager. The Encyclopedia of Sleep and Sleep Disorders. 3d ed. New York: Facts on File, 2010.

Reite, Martin, John Ruddy, and Kim E. Nagel, eds. Concise Guide to Evaluation and Management of Sleep Disorders. 3d ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 2002.

"Sleep Disorders." MedlinePlus, May 22, 2013.

"Sleep Disorders." National Sleep Foundation, 2011.

"Sleep and Sleep Disorders." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mar. 14, 2013.

"Sleep Disorder Topics." American Sleep Association, Sept. 2007.

Walsleben, Joyce A., and Rita Baron-Faust. A Woman’s Guide to Sleep: Guaranteed Solutions for a Good Night’s Rest. New York: Crown, 2001.

In Freak the Mighty, what are three ways Max and Kevin demonstrate the truth behind the saying, “The whole is greater than the sum of its...

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" means that putting separate parts together to make a whole creates something greater. This is exactly what Max and Kevin discover they can do together--create a greater whole. Max and Kevin are weak when each is on his own. For example, Max is weak in his learning, thinking and reasoning skills where Kevin is very strong. Kevin is weak because of his physical disabilities where Max is big and strong. As separate parts, or entities, each boy struggles with his own weakness; but, together they can create a greater whole. The three ways that Max and Kevin become greater than they are on their own is physically, academically, and socially.

Physically, Max carries Kevin around on his shoulders. This enables Kevin to experience life as if he could walk normally. He is also able to participate in normal activities, such as watching fireworks and seeing over the tops of people's heads during the Fourth of July activities in chapter 7. Next, Kevin helps Max with academics by teaching him how to develop better reading and writing skills. This enables Max to feel what it is like to be strong at school and more confident in his own mind. Finally, they both keep each other company as they develop a strong friendship. Before they met, both boys were social misfits and struggled to be accepted by their peers. This caused both of them to feel lonely and unaccepted. Together, they create a strong friendship as well as a unified team that is eventually accepted by their classmates and teachers.

Is the violent society of Verona the main cause of the tragic events in Romeo and Juliet?

I do believe the violence in Verona, violence that is the result of the long-standing feud between the Montague and Capulet families, is the main factor that contributes to the tragedy of the play.  First, if Romeo's and Juliet's families had not been so at odds with one another, it seems likely that they would have sanctioned the marriage between the two teenagers since the families were "alike in dignity" (Prologue, line 1).  They would not have had to hide their feelings for one another if there were not such a violent grudge between their families.  If they'd been able to be open about their relationship, then Juliet's parents never would have tried to force her to marry Paris, she would not have been made desperate, and events would not have led to her own and Romeo's deaths.

Furthermore, without the history of violence between the families, Tybalt never would have challenged Romeo, he would not have killed Mercutio, and Romeo would not have killed him.  Romeo, then, would not have been banished, and he and Juliet would not have been made desperate by being kept apart.  In short, the violence in the community that resulted from the feud between the Montagues and Capulets caused the tragedy of the story.

How can the last paragraph in Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition be analyzed prophetically?

At the end of Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition, Olivia Carteret finally recognizes Janet Miller as her mulatto half-sister when she wants Janet's husband, Dr. William Miller, to treat her dying child. Though Janet Miller has longed for this moment, her supposed moment of victory is bittersweet:

"Janet's eyes slowly filled with tears--bitter tears--burning tears...This, then, was the recognition for which, all her life, she had longed in secret...It had come, not with frank kindliness and sisterly love, but in a storm of blood and tears; not freely given, from an open heart, but extorted from a reluctant conscience by the agony of a mother's fears" (pages 327-328).

In other words, this is not the reunion that Janet Miller has long dreamed about. Janet's half sister, Olivia, does not welcome her with open arms and love but only out of fear because her child is sick. Janet refers to her sister's recognition as "tainted with fraud and crime and blood" (page 328) and rejects her sister's recognition, even as her husband, Dr. Miller, goes to help Olivia Carteret's child.

This section can be seen as prophetic because African-Americans had long sought equality and reconciliation with their white neighbors. However, this equality was long in coming and had to wait until long after this novel was published in 1901. During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, whites in the south were forced, mainly through federal laws, to grant some forms of legal equality to African-Americans. At this point, however, many African-Americans were embittered by their long suffering and by the fact that whites granted them rights because they were forced to do so. In the very last line of the book, the other doctor tells Dr. Miller that the white child can be saved but that there's no time to spare. This section is also prophetic because in the end, the south (like the child) was reclaimed, though it had to go through much agony beforehand. 

What are similarities between Jesus and the Book of Judges?

The book of Judges is in the Old Testament and is considered to be one of the "history" books in the Bible, a book that tells about events and people. Judges tells of events that happened after Joshua and Caleb brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land but before Samuel anointed Saul the first king of Israel. 

As a history book, Judges mentions several important people and it would be possible to find connections between Jesus and a number of them, but one of the most prominent people in Judges is Samson. Let's examine the relationship between Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah, and Samson. 

Both Samson's and Jesus's births were foretold and both were their mothers' first children. Samson's mother was quite old; in contrast, Mary was a virgin and quite young. 

Both Samson and Jesus were to have very special lives. Samson was dedicated before birth to be a Nazarite, which means he had religiously-based restrictions on how he was to live. These restrictions were meant to keep God in Jesus's mind as much as possible. Jesus, of course, did not need restrictions, as God was completely central to his life at all times. 

The "ministries" of Jesus and Samson were completely different. Samson broke his Nazarite vows and also had a weakness for the ladies. As strong as he was physically, he was brought down by his essential weakness in his desire for women. Jesus, in contrast, led a sinless life of service to others. 

Ultimately, both Jesus and Samson died in the process of saving their people. Samson died, blinded, in a temple to the Philistine gods because he found his strength and pulled supporting pillars down, thereby killing a lot of Israel's enemy. Jesus also chose his death; since he was able to perform miracles, he certainly could have gotten himself off of the cross. He wasn't powerless. He chose to die as the perfect sacrifice (in Old Testament terms) so God's relationship with people could be restored. Jesus suffered so everyone's sins could be forgiven. 

Across the Old Testament, there are other instances of people who shared significant characteristics with Jesus. For example, Moses is often compared to Jesus because he brought the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt while Jesus brought human beings out of the bondage of sin. As with Samson, the analogy is not perfect — there are contrasting elements because Moses and Samson were sinful. Still, Moses and Samson foreshadowed what Jesus ultimately accomplished.

How does Atticus help the townspeople in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

Atticus helps the townspeople by being their advocate for law and morality in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

One way in which Atticus serves as an advocate for both law and morality is through his decision to defend Tom Robinson. As Atticus explains to his brother in Chapter 9, he had hoped to progress through his career without having to deal with a case that is doomed to failure due to racial prejudices, yet when Judge Taylor assigned him to the case, Atticus knew he was morally obligated to take it because he knows all charged with a crime are entitled to the best defense possible and to be considered innocent until proven guilty. He also knows he is morally obligated because no concrete evidence exists to legitimately convict Robinson. As Atticus explains to his brother, "The only thing we've got is a black man's word against the Ewells'. The evidence boils down to you-did--I-didn't" (Ch. 9). More importantly, Atticus is defending Robinson despite objections raised by the townspeople. All throughout the novel, we see that many racist townspeople assume that Robinson is guilty because they hold a prejudiced belief that all African Americans behave immorally. Hence, Atticus is acting as the voice of legal and moral reason by upholding his principles and putting his all into defending Robinson.

While Atticus's defense of Robinson does not have a significant impact on the townspeople, as evidenced by the fact that Robinson is still found guilty despite all evidence to the contrary, Robinson's defense does have a tiny impact. In Miss Maudie's opinion, the fact that the jury was out so long with its decision testifies to the small impact Atticus's defense of Robinson made. In Miss Maudie's view, the town is "making a step--it's just a baby-step, but it's a step"--towards creating a more just society; Atticus's role as Robinson's defense attorney has helped move the town to make its baby step (Ch. 22).

Despite the fact that many of the townspeople objected to Atticus's decision to truly defend Robinson, the townspeople's decision to re-elect Atticus unchallenged to the state legislature shows that Atticus has still had an impact on the townspeople by influencing both their sense of morality and their sense of justice. Scout notes in the following the peculiarity of the townspeople's re-election of Atticus, despite their protestations that Atticus is a poor father who behaved disgracefully by putting his all into defending Robinson:

There was one odd thing, though, that I never understood: in spite of Atticus's shortcomings as a parent, people were content to re-elect him to the state legislature that year, as usual, without opposition. (Ch. 26)

However, Scout is too young to see that the townspeople's decision to re-elect Atticus shows they genuinely respect him as Maycomb's most upright citizen; they are just too prideful to admit it. Hence, though Atticus has not yet helped the townspeople to rid themselves of their prejudice, he has at least impacted their views of morality and justice in a tiny way.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, how does Chillingworth give in to sin?

Chillingworth gives in to sin when he makes finding and torturing Hester's co-sinner the singular goal of his life.  He tells her that "'[He] shall seek this man, as [he has] sought truth in books [....].  Sooner or later, he must needs be mine!'"  After several years of living in Boston, Chillingworth has patiently identified the Reverend Dimmesdale as a person of interest, and he moves in with him, ostensibly, in order to be his personal physician.  However, it becomes clear soon enough that he really wants to keep a closer eye on the minister to see if he is Pearl's father.  Soon after, townspeople began to notice a change that had come over him.

At first his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to the sight the oftener they looked upon him.

They suspected that his face was becoming "sooty" from the smoke created by the hellish fire in his laboratory.  He seems to become even more deformed, even more evil looking as time passes because his moral corruption has begun to affect his physical features.  The more evil he grows, the more evil he looks.  He is frequently described as a leech, a parasite that drains the life-blood from its host, and this is a metaphor for what he plans to do to Hester's co-sinner: slowly drain the life from him and make him suffer as long as possible.  This hateful endeavor shows how Chillingworth has given in to sin.

In the book Confessions of Saint Augustine, by Garry Wills, why does Augustine lost faith in Manichaeism, a philosophy that divided the cosmos...

In order for us to understand why Augustine turned his back on Manichaeism, we need to understand why he followed that dogma in the first place, and the answer is really fairly simple: he didn’t believe in Christianity because he didn’t believe a compassionate and loving God could stand by and watch the world writhe in so much pain and suffering. The dualism of Manichaeism, in which the physical world was ruled by evil and the spiritual by good, made more sense to him. It also allowed Augustine to justify his debauched lifestyle: “man was powerless to overcome evil so long as he was held captive by the evil body” (Hart, 1988). But Augustine also had trouble reconciling the dualism of Manichaeism with all the beauty he saw in the world. If the physical world was inherently evil, why did he see so much good? This question eventually led to his rejecting Manichaeism.

It would be easy to simply say that Augustine then turned to Christianity, but his conversion was a long process that began with reading the works of Plato, one of whose central ideas is that the material world is simply a representation of reality. Although Augustine later rejected this notion, as well, reading Plato got Augustine thinking about the transcendent (Hart, 1988) and helped him make sense of some of the more ethereal ideologies in the Bible. Later, Augustine began to follow the words of Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Because Ambrose was a man of superior intellect, Augustine reasoned that Christianity must not be a religion for the ignorant, and he began studying the Bible. Augustine came to the conclusion that his lifestyle was not something over which he had no control but that it was caused by sin. However, he did not seem able to give it up. Although studying Scriptures and seeking God, Augustine continued to live a morally questionable life until one day, he heard a young girl singing what he interpreted as “’Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege [Take up and read. Take up and read]’” (Hart, 1988). He grabbed his Bible and it fell open to Romans 13:13-14, which commands that one behave properly by not drinking and having immoral sex but by “[putting] on the Lord Jesus Christ” (New International Version). At this point, Augustine immediately and completely renounced his sinful lifestyle and turned completely toward God.

As to how modern people make sense of Augustine’s tales of his sexual sin, there are two basic lenses through which we must examine this question. First, because of Augustine’s faith-based opinions on sexual sin, we must examine this question through a Christian lens. According to Hunter (2002), Augustine’s big mistake was in conflating sexual desire with sin, believing that

Adam and Eve's choice to disobey God had led to disobedience within their own bodies. Sexual desire, because it operates independently of the human mind and will, became for Augustine a privileged symptom of the sinful human attempt to assert autonomy against God. The result of the original sin, Augustine argued, was that human beings lost control even over themselves.

Hunter (2002) further states that “by the time he wrote the Confessions, Augustine viewed marriage as one acceptable solution to his problem with sexual desire. He presented marriage as a legitimate way to manage the difficulties presented by unrestrained desires.”

These views are not too different than one the Church espouses today. Rishmawy (2013), summarizing a conversation he had with Timothy Keller, a Christian apologist and founder of the Presbyterian Redeemer Church in NYC, argues, “Illicit sex is an idol in our generation” and “one of the biggest obstacles to repentance for revival in the Church is the basic fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other.” He also cites research that shows perhaps as many as 90% of young people, including Evangelicals, are having “sex outside the bonds of marriage.” We can see in this one sources the focus on marriage as the ‘cure’ for sexual sin because it provides a proper place for desire to manifest. As we can also see, 

We do not know who God might be calling us to present with the Gospel’s call to sexual holiness. Keller’s challenge is for the Church to humbly but boldly call the Augustines sitting in our pews and local city coffee shops, bound fast in sexual sin, to turn and repent by the Spirit’s power to the true liberty of the Gospel. (Rishmawy, 2013).

For the Church, there is still a call to sexual holiness, to not be bound to and controlled by sexual desire. The converted and repentant Augustine would approve.

The second lens through which we must examine the question is, of course, a secular one. There is little research necessary here to draw a conclusion about how secularists and atheists would understand Augustine’s views on sexual sin: they are antiquated. They belong to a time that is past. Today the sentiments are “If it feels good, do it” and “Love is love.” There is little room for any idea of sexual purity, sexual sin, or controlling one’s desires. Although the converted and repentant Augustine would be grieved, the young one would wholeheartedly agree.

What is the cause of the boy's late arrival at Araby?

The boy's late arrival at the bazaar called "Araby" is his uncle's fault. The boy can't leave for the bazaar until he gets some money. The adults in the story cannot understand the importance of the bazaar because they are unaware of the boy's love for Mangan's sister. The boy doesn't want to go to Araby for his own sake, but rather because he promised to buy Mangan's sister something while there. He is not only suffering from the pangs of young love, but he is also being tortured because his uncle is unusually late to arrive home. At one point his aunt says,

I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord.

The narrator specifies that these were "the short days of winter," which would make it seem more and more impracticable to leave for the bazaar as time went on. 

At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten.

When the narrator says he could interpret these signs, he obviously means that when he hears his uncle talking to himself and hears the hallstand rocking under the weight of the overcoat, he knows his uncle had stayed late at some pub and gotten drunk. His uncle forgot about his promise to give the boy some money to spend at the bazaar. No doubt the boy would ordinarily have realized it was too late and too cold to be leaving at nine o'clock, especially since it might take him another hour to get there. His promise to Mangan's sister makes him feel he has an important quest and must endure all obstacles to fulfill it. The boy prudently endures another delay, waiting until his uncle is midway through his dinner before asking for the money. He hopes the food will make his uncle more sober and therefore easier to deal with. Evidently, the boy has had plenty of experience dealing with his uncle when he has been drinking. Finally, he receives a coin from his inebriated uncle, who insists on reciting The Arab's Farewell to his Steed.

I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. 

A florin was a British silver coin worth two shillings. The train takes an intolerable amount of time to start and then seems to creep among "ruinous houses" to its destination. The boy arrives at about the time the bazaar is ready to close. It is two minutes to ten. 

Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness.

The contrast between the reality of the place that calls itself by the exotic name of "Araby" and the boy's expectations is the main point of the story. The boy doesn't have enough money to buy anything, even if all the stalls had been open. 

I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket.

He pays a shilling to enter this closing bazaar, and most of the remainder of the florin went for train fare. He had only eight cents left to spend on a present for Mangan's sister. One of the few concessions that was still open seemed to be offering nothing but "great jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall." 

What are hallucinations?

Society often associates hallucinations with psychotic behavior, because schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness frequently involve hallucinations. Another widely publicized example of these symptoms is the use of hallucinogenic drugs, for example, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or marijuana. One must also consider the role of hallucinations in religious experiences and megalomania; such perceptions occur when ordinary people are subjected to extraordinary stimuli.

Medical science has resisted the study of hallucinations and treated them as symptoms of mental illness. Increasing evidence shows, however, that they arise from specific brain and nervous system structures involving specific biological experiences and common reactions to stimuli. Consequently, people suffering from drug abuse, alcoholism, and disorders similar to Alzheimer’s disease, in which severe loss of memory can provoke illusions, are subject to hallucinations.

Since a hallucination can be the result of physical causes as well as the traditional mental unbalance of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, it is difficult to categorize its symptoms. An individual experiencing hallucinations at times other than waking or falling asleep should see his or her doctor. If the incidents are attributable to a serious illness, early detection is possible. If they are an effect of a particular medication, the prescription should be changed immediately.

Bibliography

Alvarez, Sofia. Hallucinations: Causes, Management, and Prognosis. New York: Nova, 2013. Print.

Asaad, Ghazi. Hallucinations in Clinical Psychiatry: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals. New York: Brunner, 1990. Print.

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Bloom, Floyd E., M. Flint Beal, and David J. Kupfer, eds. The Dana Guide to Brain Health. New York: Dana, 2006. Print.

Jardri, Renaud. The Neuroscience of Hallucinations. New York: Springer, 2013. Print.

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Why is the equivalence point of the reaction between hydrochloric acid and sodium carbonate "somewhat acidic"?

The balanced chemical equation for the described reaction is as follows:

`HCl + Na_2CO_3 -> H_2CO_3 + NaCl ` .

The equivalence point is not at pH 7 but is slightly acidic.

The equivalence point is defined as the point during titration wherein the moles of added acid (or base) are equal to the moles of the base (or acid) being titrated. In titration of strong acids and bases, like the reaction of NaOH and HCl, the product is NaCl, a neutral salt, and water, a neutral substance. This is true for any strong acid and strong base -- the products will always be a neutral salt and water -- and hence, the pH of the resulting solution at the equivalence point is 7.

This is not the case, however, if one of the reacting species isn't a strong acid or a strong base. Sodium carbonate dissociates in water into its ions -- the sodium ion and the carbonate ion. The carbonate ion is a weak base. Since it is  a weak base, upon reaction with HCl, it produces its conjugate acid. The conjugate acid, just like any acid in a solution, will react with water to produce more hydronium ions. The generation of this extra hydronium makes the equivalence point of this given titration reaction slightly acidic.

In general, if a reaction is between a strong acid and a strong base, the equivalence point will be at pH 7. If it's between a strong acid and a weak base, it will be acidic. If it's between a weak base and a strong base, it will be basic.

What are the important things Martin Luther King wants his audience to know in his "I Have a Dream" speech?

In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King bases his thesis on two main ideas: (1) African Americans still are not free; and (2) now is the time for African Americans to fight for freedom. These are two critical points King wants his audience to know.

Within the opening paragraphs of his speech, King references the Emancipation Proclamation, ratified by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War to set slaves free. King further points out that, "one hundred years" after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the "Negro still is not free." The African American still was not free because he still suffered from racial discrimination, segregation, and poverty, preventing the African American from benefiting from the "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" promised by the Declaration of Independence.

King further warns his audience, especially his white audience members, against being foolish enough to believe that, now African Americans have had their day of protest, they "will now be content" to go back to their places of subordination. Instead, he argues that "[n]ow is the time" for African Americans to rise up against injustice. However, he also warns his people against using violence to achieve their goals and continues to promote peaceful protest.

What is the lesson of "A Poison Tree" by William Blake?

One lesson of "A Poison Tree" is that if you hold onto your anger and nourish it, it will grow and hurt someone--in the case of this poem, it hurts an enemy, but in other cases, it can hurt the person who is angry, too. The poem is an extended metaphor in which anger is described as a tree. 

In the poem, the narrator does not tell his foe that he is angry, so he says, "...my wrath did grow" (Blake line 4).  As a tree needs sunshine and water to grow and thrive, the narrator nourishes his anger, saying, "And I sunned it with smiles/And with soft deceitful wiles" (lines 7-8) and he watered it with tears.  In other words, he is dishonest with the person whom he is angry with, pretending to be friendly, while his anger grows and grows. 

As the tree gets larger, it bears fruit, "an apple bright" (line 10), that his enemy steals into his garden and takes.  Eating this apple, which is the fruit of the narrator's anger, kills the enemy, and the narrator sees "My foe outstretched beneath the tree" (line 16). 

When we are angry and we say what is on our minds and let it go, it loses its power over us and others.  When we hold onto our anger and obsess over it, it is toxic, hurting others, physically or mentally, and even hurting ourselves in body and spirit.  The more we feed our anger, the larger and more harmful it becomes. 

Why are some people superstitious?

Some people are superstitious because they believe in some type of spirituality or they feel that there are supernatural forces that interact with the natural world. 

Some people are superstitious because they believe that certain acts, thoughts, or behaviors will have certain outcomes. Carrying a rabbits foot is said to be good luck. Walking under a ladder is said to be bad luck. These are superstitious beliefs. 

In many cases, people embrace superstitions because they are searching for meaning or causes of events that they can not explain. If someone is sad or afraid, and he can not uncover the cause of this fear in his own mind, he might blame some external thing. 

The narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" is insane. He actually tries to prove that his mental imbalance has made his mind sharper. In his neurosis, he has convinced himself that the old man's eye is evil. The narrator has projected his own insanity to this old man's eye " . . . for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye." The narrator is unwilling or unable to admit that his anxiety and fear is in his own mind. Since he can not find the cause of this anxiety in himself, he projects it onto the old man's "Evil eye." He believes that the man's eye is some supernatural force meant to torture him. This is pure superstition. 

Poe uses a clever pun on "eye" and "I." The narrator projects his anxiety onto the old man's "eye." But his anxiety and fear comes from his own mind; thus, from the narrator's own perspective, it comes from "I." 

In what does Uncle Pumblechook believe in Great Expectations?

Uncle Pumblechook is Joe Gargery's uncle, and so is not really related to Pip, though he calls him "uncle." Pumblechook is vain and pompous. Dickens describes him as “a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked.” Pumblechook takes credit for getting Pip his invitation to go to Miss Haversham's, and therefore believes he is responsible for Pip's eventual rise in society. Pip's sister, Mrs Joe, and Pumblechook spend a great deal of time speculating about the mysterious and wealthy Miss Haversham:

Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, that I used to want—quite painfully—to burst into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.

In fact, Pumblechook has never seen Miss Haversham in person, nor even been in the house. His pretended familiarity is another example of his self-important behavior.

Describe the mood of Maycomb in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

In literature, the mood of a setting, such as the quaint town of Maycomb, is used to invoke certain feelings and create a specific atmosphere throughout the novel. In Chapter 1, Scout describes Maycomb as being a "tired old town," that was hot enough to wilt men's collars by nine in the morning (Lee 6). Scout goes on to say,

"Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o' clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum" (Lee 6).

She mentions that the people in the town moved slowly, and there was a "vague optimism" in the air. Harper Lee initially creates a mood of a comfortable, easy-going, tradition Southern town. The fact that the town is personified as slow moving, associates with its traditional values and beliefs that are hard to change throughout the novel, particularly regarding race relations. Maycomb is a relatively pleasant place to grow up, with kind neighbors and stable families. In Chapter 13, Scout says,

"New people so rarely settled there, the same families married the same families until the members of the community looked faintly alike. Occasionally someone would return from Montgomery or Mobile with an outsider, but result caused only a ripple in the quiet stream of family resemblance. Things were more or less the same during my early years" (Lee 175).

Again, Lee creates an atmosphere of familiarity throughout the town which resembles the closeness of the community. The mood of Maycomb shifts according to the scenes and events that transpire. In Chapter 15, Maycomb's jail does not have a light outside and is described as hideous looking. The atmosphere created is repulsive and gloomy which correlates with Maycomb's ugly prejudice. The dark mood also applies to the Radley house which is where Boo Radley remains confined throughout the novel. Overall, the mood of Maycomb is light and welcoming, with the exception of the jailhouse and the Radley place.

How can it be ensured that individual rights are protected against government intrusion?

There are a few different ways to protect individual rights against government intrusion.  Let us look at three of them.

First, we can protect individual rights by clearly stating what rights the people have that the government cannot take away.  The US Constitution does this, particularly in the Bill of Rights.  The Constitution proper protects Americans from being held without charge (right to writs of habeas corpus) or from having the government make laws (ex post facto laws) that criminalize actions that they took before the law was passed.  However, it was the Bill of Rights that really laid out rights that the government could not infringe upon.  The Bill of Rights specifically guarantees that the government (it now applies to both national and state governments) cannot take away our freedom of speech or religion.  It says government cannot search our homes or our persons without warrants.  It protects our right to carry firearms.  By specifically making rules that say the government cannot do these things, we protect our individual rights.

But what if the government wants to ignore these rights?  One way to guard against this is to create a system of separation of powers and checks and balances that makes it harder for the government to do things.  If you feel that gun control infringes on your right to bear arms, you should be happy that we have a system of checks and balances where Congress can reject President Obama’s gun control proposals.  If you feel that Donald Trump’s proposals to crack down on Muslims violates freedom of religion, you should take comfort in the idea that the Supreme Court (or Congress) would probably reject such actions.  When we divide up the government’s powers, we make it much harder for the government to act in ways that would take away our rights.

Finally, and most importantly, we must protect our individual rights by caring about them.  In a democratic system, the ultimate guardian of rights is the people.  If we believe that gun rights are important, we need to make our voices heard and elect pro-gun and punish anti-gun leaders.  If we believe in gay rights, we need to vote for leaders who support gay rights and vote against those who try to curtail such rights.  If we, the people, do not care about our rights, the government can take them away.  We can never set up a system that will absolutely prevent the government from intruding on our rights.  We have to remain vigilant and use our power of popular sovereignty to prevent government intrusions.

How is the lottery of caskets in The Merchant of Venice a test for the suitors who have come to woo Portia?

Portia's father has, in his will, set the requirements for the suitors who wish to marry her: they must choose between three caskets of lead, silver, and gold. Whoever chooses correctly will win the right to marry Portia. The whole exercise is, in simple terms, a lottery, as Nerissa states in Act 1, scene 2:

...therefore the lottery,
that he hath devised in these three chests of gold,
silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning
chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any
rightly but one who shall rightly love.

Nerissa here also states the belief that destiny is to determine that the person who chooses correctly will not only have made the right decision but will also be the one who truly loves Portia.

Added to this, the will requires that suitors undertake a solemn vow that, if they fail to choose the correct casket, they will never approach another woman for marriage and, therefore, spend the rest of their days as bachelors. Before they are given the opportunity to choose, the suitors have to visit the chapel and undertake the vow in the presence of Portia and other witnesses, as Portia informs the Moroccan prince in Act 2, scene 1:

You must take your chance,
And either not attempt to choose at all
Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong
Never to speak to lady afterward
In way of marriage: therefore be advised.

Breaking the vow will, of course, mean eternal damnation for the transgressor. If one takes into regard the deep religious convictions held by the general populace at the time, uttering the pledge is a critical step and not one to be easily dismissed. 

This, in itself, is probably the greatest test for all the suitors. If they are successful, they will benefit grandly, for not only will they win the hand of a beautiful and intelligent woman, but they will also own half of the enormous wealth her father has left her. If they fail, though, they are bound to the vow. There is thus an enormous risk involved in the decision to choose.

To complicate matters even further, the will forbids Portia to provide any form of assistance to the suitors. She undertook a vow to this effect and should she transgress, she will be disowned. She has no choice in the matter and will have to accept the outcome, whether she likes it or not, as she states in Act 1, scene 2:

...O me, the word 'choose!' I may
neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I
dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed
by the will of a dead father...

Portia is obviously enormously relieved when Bassanio, the one she loves, eventually makes the right choice, for she had no desire to marry any of the other suitors. 

Describe two changes that occur as a result of the arrival of the Europeans?

The arrival of English Christian missionaries in Umuofia had major impacts on traditional lifeways- both good and bad. For example, the missionaries built a trading store in the village, where staples such as palm oil and kola nut could be sold for a high price. In Chapter Twenty One, it is narrated that the trading store brought a lot of money into Umuofia. This would have been a benefit for some of the villagers, who could profit off of goods they already had or could easily acquire. In addition, the trading store was likely importing goods from Europe which would have otherwise been difficult to acquire in rural Nigeria. Things like tea, cane sugar, and bicycles would all have been desired by the missionaries as items they were accustomed to using at home. Whether this was of a benefit to the people of Umuofia, we do not know.

In the very same phrase from Chapter Twenty One, which I have mentioned above, the narrator states that the missionaries have brought with them a "lunatic religion." Christianity was in many ways at odds with traditional Umuofia religion, and this many many people unhappy. Even the people who did not mind or were amused by the Christians and their teachings might be angry to find that a family member had joined the Church. An important plot arc of the book is that the Christians are tolerated in Umuofia for some time, but tensions grow to the point that their house of worship is destroyed. The Christian missionaries intended to convert, "save," and "pacify" the people of Umuofia, and though they succeeded in converting a few, they disrupted many lives. The arrival of the missionaries could even be called divisive because their presence quickly marked those who were willing to be changed and appeal to European dominance and those who would resist.

Now that Eveline has decided to leave, what has she begun to notice?

In James Joyce's "Eveline," the title character notices the dust in her home. This dust is one of the major symbolic elements of this story. Throughout the opening pages of the story, including the opening paragraph, the narrator mentions dust several times. As Eveline looked out from her window "in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne." Later on, she again ponders about the dust by looking at the "familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from."

The dust symbolizes Eveline's life, which has become stuffy and stale and suffocating. Her life has become suffocating because of the responsibilities placed upon her. She must make money for her father, take care of children and live up to the promise she made to her dying mother.

Eveline notices the dust at this part of her life because she plans on leaving it, which means that the dust she so often cleans will no longer be cleaned. Instead, the dust will build as will the internal conflict within Eveline knowing that she is not fulfilling the promise she made to her mother.

Do you believe Victor was trying to play God?

Interesting question! Over the years, scholars have hypothesized about Victor’s role and motives in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. However, by analyzing the text, some insight is revealed.

Foremost, Victor desires to pursue education to achieve more power and a God-like status. Through his studies, he desires to accomplish something that only a supernatural power could do, recreate life. As the text reveals:

“I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”

Furthermore, he desires to be viewed as a creator, similar to God. Victor believes that after he creates this new species, he will be blessed and rewarded for his hard work and his gift of life. As the text reveals:

“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.”

Thus, it appears that in some ways Victor is trying to play God. Although he may not realize it, Victor seeks many components generally associated with a supernatural being. For example, Victor seeks to create life and a new species. He also desires praise and blessings from his new species.

What one of the four big ideas in biology does Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers address?

Well, I assume you mean the big ideas of an AP Biology course; the answer I would choose is Systems or Energy, although the case could be made for all of them. 

I say systems because death involves the entire body, top to bottom. Most of the chapters were concerned with how people use bodies. The first few chapters were about dissection and organ harvesting, like how systems of the body are separated at death for use in testing and research. Chapter three was about how the systems decompose after death; little had anything to do with the other topics of information or evolution. Medicinal uses of body parts and forensic research all seemed to fit the topic of systems.

I would say energy because the topic is death itself. The research on the mass of the soul and literal soul-searching was very concerned with how energy is stored in the body. In the second to last chapter, Roach considers using corpses as fertilizers, composts, and lamp fuel as an alternative to traditional fuels, and even before that discuses cannibalism throughout the world.