Wednesday, August 31, 2016

What is the thesis statement of the book The Night Circus?

I am torn on how to interpret your question.  On one hand, I think that you might be asking what a major theme to the book is.  On the other hand, I think that you might be asking what is a possible thesis that you could write about the book.  I will try to answer the question in both ways.  


Thematically, I think the book has several identifiable themes.  One of the most important themes is the theme of time.  Time is super important to The Night Circus.  In an interesting twist though, time is not that important to the people performing in the circus.  That's because as long as Celia and Marco are involved in their "battle," the circus and performers will not age. The theme of time has a symbolic object in the novel as well.  The object is Herr Thiessen's clock.  The clock works of course, but it seems to dilate time as well.  



Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As though the clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully.


All of this takes hours.



Another theme is the theme of light and dark.  The circus only performing at night is an easy example of this theme, but the theme is much deeper than that too.  Like the theme of time, the book uses physical objects to further cement this theme into the mind of a reader.  To help with the theme of light and dark is the color palate of the circus itself.  It is done entirely in black and white.  Even costumes are based on that color scheme.  The twins, Widget and Poppet, use the color interplay in their act alongside their costumes as well.  



"And how much you like whoever you're stuck there with," Poppet adds, kicking his black boot with her white one.”



A final theme is the theme of love.  Marco and Celia are battling each other at the command of their masters, but they are deeply in love with each other.



“Everything I have done, every change I have made to that circus, every impossible feat and astounding sight, I have done for her.”



 They are desperate to find a way to be together, to keep the circus in tact, and not to play their "game" to its intended finale (death).  If I had to suggest a single "thesis" about the main point of the book, it would be a statement about how love is able to conquer all obstacles.  


If you are looking to write a thesis statement about the book, my recommendation is to write a thesis that discusses the book's themes, its imagery, or its characters.  I always found Alexander an interesting character.  He exists outside of time like the circus performers, but he isn't a part of the circus.  He exists outside of it.  He also exists outside of the book's color palate as well, because he only wears gray.  He's neither black, nor white.  Your thesis could be something like "Alexander is critical to understanding the importance of the circus, because he alone manages an emotional distance from the circus and its performers."   

A car starts from rest to cover a distance s. The coefficient of friction between the road and the tires is mu. The minimum time in which the car...

Hello!


To change car speed, a force (horizontal in this case) must be applied to it. The force with the same magnitude will be applied to the ground because of Newton's Third law. If one would try to apply a force greater than the friction force `mu mg,` a car would slip on the ground.


By Newton's Second law, the maximum acceleration will be `a=(mu mg)/m=mu g,` where `m` is the mass or a car and `g` is the gravity acceleration. The distance as a function of time will be:


`s(t)=(a t^2)/2=(mu g t^2)/2`


So, for a fixed distance `s` the minimum time will be:


`t=sqrt((2s)/(mu g)).`



This is proportional to  "1/square root of `mu` " (the fourth option). 


The answer is: the minimum time is proportional to 1/square root of mu.

Explain two ways in which Jefferson still used Federalist ideas while President.

It is perhaps more accurate to say that Jefferson accepted the necessity of a strong federal government while President than to say that he adopted or accepted Federalist ideas. He had long been an opponent of key Federalist initiatives, particularly the economic program of Alexander Hamilton, which was enacted over Jefferson's protests during the Washington administration. When he became President, however, he did not get rid of the Bank of the United States, which had been the cornerstone of this program. He did, however, reduce the size of government by sacking some Federalist appointees, shrink the US military, and eliminate the hated Federalist excise tax on whiskey. But he generally recognized the economic and political expediency of the national bank, and kept it intact. Another incident where Jefferson is often seen as accepting Federalist ideals is the Louisiana Purchase. With a remarkably cheap land purchase deal on the table, Jefferson was troubled. To accept the deal meant accepting the Federalist idea that the US government could carry out policies based on implied powers (since the Constitution did not specifically enumerate the power to purchase land). But Jefferson could not turn his back on the Louisiana Purchase, and he thus compromised on what had been his political principles. He strengthened the power of the Presidency and Congress in so doing. 

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

What role does the Internet play in international competitiveness? How can managers protect the proprietary technology of their firms?

The internet has a profound impact on the way businesses market and distribute their products. With the internet, intellectual goods and services can be produced in one part of the world and distributed in a completely different part of the world. Additionally, the spread of information both helps and hinders the producers of intellectual property—although intellectual goods can easily span the globe and earn the producers more revenue, controlling those properties is extremely difficult and can lead to a loss of money over time.


First, it is critical to address how the internet plays a role in international competition. Due to online sales and marketing, intellectual properties such as songs, videos, literature, and other art forms can be accessed instantly from almost anywhere in the world. The ease of access to information can be a great thing for people who want to sell their properties to the widest consumer base possible. This also means a property that may have only existed in one part of the world can now exist elsewhere and enter the international market.


Consider a short story written in Hindi. Imagine this short story were to be published online in its native language in India. With the internet, that same story can be shared in France (or any other country). In fact, that story can be easily translated online, which allows the author to reach a much wider audience and earn more money for the product. That also means the story, once only marketable to an audience in India, can now compete within an international marketplace! On the other hand, anyone who has access to the short story can (illegally) take the initiative to translate it into any other language. If, for instance, the story is translated into Spanish by a third party, the author may not know and won't be able to collect revenue for their work. Additionally, the author is likely to lose control of their property as soon as it hits the web.


This story brings up another important point: how managers can protect the proprietary technology of their firms. No matter the source, the people who produce and own intellectual goods reserve the right to control the distribution of their own properties. With the internet, however, control for something like a short story is very difficult. With written properties, some managers choose to put the product behind a paywall with a third party service such as Amazon or Bluefire. These services make products more difficult to redistribute because they prevent readers from downloading, printing, or copying the product. These services may even watermark a digital version of the product so that, if an illegal version does pop up somewhere, the managers can locate the source of the copyright violator. Similar to written words, songs and videos are protected online. Publishers can use third party services like YouTube, Vimeo, and iTunes to host their intellectual work while maintaining some control over the content. Additionally, art pieces and photographic images can be published with low-quality version previews (to prevent downloads) or screen blocks (to prevent screen shots). Despite these and other ways to attempt to protect intellectual property, the internet still makes it very easy for people seeking to violate copyright to do so.

What does Scout want to happen in most of the story? Does she have any long/short-term goals?

Scout has several short-term goals that change throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Scout begins her "campaign" to get out of going to school. Scout utterly hates the educational system and finds it exhaustively boring. She first appeals to logic, claiming that she shouldn't have to go to school since Burris Ewell doesn't have to. She then tries convincing Atticus that she learns vulgar words at school, and even feigns illness to stay at home. Despite her numerous attempts to not go to school, Scout is forced to attend, and she eventually ends her "campaign." Scout's other short-term goals that never come to fruition include, attempting to gain Dill's affection back, stopping Jem from playing "One Man's Family," and visiting Calpurnia's house.


Scout's long term goal is to meet and develop a friendship with the reclusive Boo Radley. At the beginning of the novel, Scout fears the "malevolent phantom," and tries her best to avoid coming into contact with him. As the novel progresses, Scout realizes that Boo Radley is not the evil, grotesque character that her brother described as a child. At the end of the novel, Scout cherishes sitting on the porch with Boo and walking him home. She finally understands that Boo is simply a shy individual and Scout is content with her one and only personal interaction.


Another long-term goal of Scout's is to enter comfortably into the world of "womanhood." Scout is at the critical age where she is beginning to develop and understands that she will eventually have to become a "lady." Despite knowing the inevitable, Scout presently feels more comfortable in her "father's world," and continues to maintain her "tomboy" persona throughout the novel.

In Lord of the Flies, what powerful statement does Ralph make about the fire?How does this affect the hunters?

In chapter 5 Ralph calls an assembly after the hunters let the fire go out just as a ship passes the island. Jack and the hunters know that they will be reprimanded for what they have done. As soon as Ralph says, "about the fire," the boys let out a little gasp. Jack tries to distract himself and another boy. Ralph tells the boys that keeping the fire going is the only way they can ever hope to be rescued--except by pure luck. He asks, rhetorically, whether a fire is too much for them to keep going. He points to the group and says that there are plenty of boys available to perform the task. His most pointed statement is, "Can't you see we ought to--ought to die before we let the fire out?"


His severe reprimand, expressed in such extreme language, causes "self-conscious giggling among the hunters." Most likely the boys laugh because they are not used to being in such a dire situation. Their game of hunting had been a fun distraction, but Ralph's words are shaking them up, making them face the harsh reality they live in now. In addition, most of them know that one child has already died. Ralph's insistence that they should die before letting the fire go out would bring that truth to their minds as well. So they snicker to relieve tension. However, if Ralph had been an adult lecturing them, they would not have dared laugh at such a solemn statement. 


Ralph responds passionately to the boys' laughter, reiterating his point that they need to "make smoke up there -- or die." As he continues on to another subject, the boys mutter against more lecturing, but "Ralph overrode them." However, the control he wields over them is temporary; before long the meeting deteriorates and the boys have dispersed in a random scatter after Jack's pronouncement, "Bullocks to the rules!" 

Monday, August 29, 2016

What are the two subatomic particles that make up the nucleus of an atom?

The nucleus of an atom is made up of two subatomic particles: the proton and the neutron.


Atoms constitute the main building blocks of matter and they are made up of smaller subatomic particles consisting of a nucleus surrounded by electrons.


In the nucleus, the proton is electrically charged, carrying a relative positive charge but the neutron carries no electric charge and it is neutral. The nucleus is surrounded by electrons which carry a negative charge and they are arranged in shells or energy levels around the nucleus.


The atomic number of an atom is the number of protons in the nucleus and atoms are arranged in the periodic table in the order of their atomic number. Atoms do not have an overall electric charge because the number of electrons (carrying negative charges) in the atom is the same as the number of protons in the atom (carrying positive charges) in the ground state.

What are stevia's therapeutic uses?


Overview

Stevia, a member of the Aster family, has a long history of native use in Paraguay
as a sweetener for teas and foods. It contains a substance known as stevioside
that is one hundred to three hundred times sweeter than sugar but provides no
calories.




In the early 1970s, a consortium of Japanese food manufacturers developed stevia
extracts for use as a zero-calorie sugar substitute. Subsequently, stevia extracts
became common ingredients in Asian soft drinks, desserts, chewing gum, and many
other food products. Extensive Japanese research has found stevia to be extremely
safe. However, there have not been enough studies in the United States for the
Food and Drug
Administration to approve stevia as a sugar substitute.
Without its being identified as such, stevia is nonetheless widely used by savvy
manufacturers to sweeten commercial beverage teas and other products.


Although stevia is best known as a sweetener, stevia extracts also can be taken in
very high doses to possibly reduce blood pressure, according to two large Chinese
studies.




Therapeutic Dosages

Stevia is sold as a powder to be added to foods as needed for appropriate sweetening effects. It tastes slightly bitter if placed directly in the mouth. In liquids, however, bitterness is generally not noticeable, and most people find the taste delightfully unique.


In the studies of stevia that have shown an effect on blood pressure, stevia was given as a standardized extract supplying 250 to 500 milligrams (mg) of stevioside three times daily (a dose considerably higher than any reasonable use of stevia as a sweetener).




Therapeutic Uses

Stevia is primarily useful as a sweetening agent. In addition, two double-blind
studies suggest that it may also offer potential benefits for hypertension.
Weak evidence hints at potential benefits for diabetes.




Scientific Evidence

A one-year double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 106 persons with high blood pressure evaluated the potential benefits of stevia for reducing blood pressure. In the treated group, the average blood pressure at the beginning of the study was about 166/102. Participants were given either placebo or stevioside (stevia extract) at a dose of 250 mg three times daily. By the end of the study, the average blood pressure had fallen to 153/90, a substantial if not quite adequate improvement. Note that this is a high dose of steviosides, the sweetness equivalent of more than one-third of a pound of sugar daily. However, this study is notable for finding no benefits at all in the placebo group. This is unusual and tends to cast doubt on the results.


Benefits were also seen in a two-year double-blind, placebo-controlled study of
174 people with mild hypertension (average initial blood pressure of approximately
150/95). This study, performed by some of the same researchers who worked on the
study just described, used twice the dose of the previous study: 500 mg three
times daily. A reduction in blood pressure of approximately 6 to 7 percent was
seen in the treatment group compared with the placebo group, beginning within one
week and enduring throughout the entire two years. At the end of the study, 34
percent of those in the placebo group showed heart damage from high blood pressure
(left ventricular hypertrophy), while only 11.5 percent of the stevioside
group did, a difference that was statistically significant. No significant adverse
effects were seen.


However, once again, no benefits at all were seen in the placebo group. This result means the that study design had problems. Both studies were performed in China, a country that has a documented history of questionable medical study results.


Furthermore, a study by an independent set of researchers failed to replicate these findings. In this study, stevioside was given according to body weight, at a dose of 3.75 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) per day, 7.5 mg/kg per day, or 15 mg/kg per day. Compared with placebo, none of these doses affected the blood pressure of the study participants, all of whom had mild high blood pressure. These finding do not entirely refute those described above, however, as the dosage of stevia used was somewhat on the low side. For example, for a man weighing 60 kg (132 pounds), the highest dose would be 300 mg three times a day.


Another study involving diabetics as well as healthy subjects found that stevia, at a dose of 250 mg three times daily, had no significant effect on blood pressure after three months of treatment.




Safety Issues

Animal tests and the extensive Japanese experience with stevia suggest that this is a safe herb. Based primarily on the apparently incorrect belief that stevia has been used traditionally to prevent pregnancy, some researchers have expressed concern that stevia might have an antifertility effect in men or women. However, evidence from most (though not all) animal studies suggests that this is not a concern at normal doses.


The two studies described above in which use of very high dosages of a stevia extract led to reductions in blood pressure raise at least theoretical concerns about stevia’s safety. In theory, the herb could excessively reduce blood pressure in some people. Furthermore, if stevia can reduce blood pressure, that means that it is, in some fashion, acting on the cardiovascular system.


Because sugar substitutes are meant to be consumed in essentially unlimited quantities by a very wide variety of people, the highest levels of safety standards are appropriate, and unknown effects on the heart and blood circulation are potentially worrisome. This concern is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the daily dose of stevioside used in those studies was considerably higher than is likely to be consumed if whole stevia is used for sweetening purposes. Reassurance also comes from the study that found no effect with a dose of 15 mg/kg per day.


Safety of stevia use in young children, pregnant or nursing women, and those with severe liver or kidney disease has not been conclusively established. Because of the concerns noted above, individuals with cardiovascular disease should use high doses of stevia extracts only under physician supervision.




Bibliography


Barriocanal, L. A., et al. “Apparent Lack of Pharmacological Effect of Steviol Glycosides Used as Sweeteners in Humans: A Pilot Study of Repeated Exposures in Some Normotensive and Hypotensive Individuals and in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetics.” Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 51 (2008): 37-41.



Chan, P., et al. “A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Study of the Effectiveness and Tolerability of Oral Stevioside in Human Hypertension.” British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 50 (2000): 215-220.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

What are caffeine's effects on the body?


Short-Term Effects

Caffeine is used socially in drinks such as coffee, tea, and colas by a majority of the adult population in the United States; it also is popular worldwide. Although most use in this manner is moderate (such as one to two cups of coffee per day) and likely within safe health boundaries, higher intake and continual moderate use are thought to have distinct adverse effects on the health of numerous body systems, including cardiac, gastrointestinal, and renal organs.




Central nervous system (CNS) stimulation by caffeine increases levels of dopamine, epinephrine, and adrenaline in the body to increase alertness, concentration, and mood; insomnia or anxiety can occur at higher doses. Caffeine blocks the reception of adenosine in the brain, a process thought to regulate natural sleep patterns, making patients feel more awake. With acute use, caffeine constricts blood vessels to ease symptoms of vasodilating headaches, such as migraines, and increases gastric secretions and smooth muscle relaxation in the stomach to cause heartburn pain. Caffeine relaxes the renal vasculature to cause increased urination. Intake during evening hours may result in low energy levels and excessive fatigue the next day.


Caffeine also is an ingredient in many over-the-counter and prescription headache medications because of its own symptom relief and its amplification of other pain-relieving drugs. Some studies have suggested that caffeine can improve certain types of memory and attention span, although higher doses are generally observed to have detrimental effects. Dry mouth, poor appetite, and dizziness are possible directly after large caffeine intake, and caffeine acutely worsens existing ulcers and anxiety disorders. Within one hour of ingesting caffeine, some people may feel edgy and have increased heart rate and blood pressure because of caffeine’s effects on heart muscle and rhythm. A nursing infant may become jittery or may experience sleep disturbances from caffeine present in the mother’s breast milk.


Side effects, particularly mild effects like stomach upset and insomnia, can begin with moderate caffeine doses as low as 50 milligrams (mg). Caffeine circulates in the body within five to thirty minutes and may cause acute effects for up to twelve hours. Its half-life in adults ranges from three to six hours but is shorter in smokers because of enhanced liver metabolism. The half-life increases to five to ten hours in women taking oral contraceptives, nine to eleven hours in pregnant women, and thirty hours in newborns.


Caffeine is metabolized by CYP 450 demethylation twice, and both metabolites are active in the body as well. Several cups of coffee may provide a serum level of 5 to 10 micrograms per milliliter (microg/mL).




Long-Term Effects from Chronic Use

Some chronic effects of caffeine are simply extensions of short-term effects of use. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders recognizes four caffeine-related disorders: caffeine intoxication, caffeine-induced anxiety disorder, caffeine-induced sleep disorder, and caffeine-related disorder not otherwise specified.


Caffeinism, a diagnosis similar in part to panic disorder or generalized anxiety disorder
, acknowledges the dangers of caffeine in high amounts, particularly with repeated use. High levels of caffeine intake leading to this diagnosis cause anxiety, rapid heart rate and breathing, diarrhea and excess urination, tremors, and increased blood pressure. Irritability and agitation from caffeinism may be indistinguishable from anxiety disorders in the physician’s office, so the disorder is best identified by discussing caffeine use during symptom review. Prescribed antianxiety medications are unlikely to improve symptoms of caffeinism if caffeine use continues.


Any amount of chronic caffeine use can lead to abdominal pain, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety. Supposedly beneficial effects of caffeine, such as improved alertness and performance, also become less pronounced with chronic use. Heavy caffeine use has been linked to the development of osteoporosis from bone density loss and to peptic ulcer or gastroesophageal reflux diseases from smooth muscle relaxation and heartburn. Emotional lability (instability), prolonged hypertension, and cardiac disease are possible, and dehydration can occur with continual use.


Caffeine that remains in the body leads to adrenal exhaustion and, hence, tolerance. With tolerance, the body requires even more caffeine to obtain the same mood- and performance-heightening effects. Thus, caffeine is reinforcing, and users will ingest increasing amounts to experience alertness and concentration.


Abrupt caffeine discontinuation causes physiologic withdrawal even with only moderate chronic use (for example, two cups per day). Headache is the primary withdrawal symptom and may be throbbing at first; poor performance and depression over time may occur as a result of the sudden changes in dopamine and adrenaline levels. Other reported symptoms include reduced concentration and lethargy. Renewing caffeine intake relieves withdrawal symptoms temporarily but continues the habitual cycle of caffeine-induced symptoms, tolerance, and withdrawal symptoms. Although caffeine is rarely taken to get high, its narrow therapeutic index of 8 to 20 microg/mL and its variable effects can lead to chronic misuse.




Acute Intoxication


Overdose, or acute intoxication, is rare from social use. At doses of 5 to 50 grams or serum levels of 100 to 200 mg per kilogram of body weight, caffeine is potentially lethal, although highly sensitive persons may experience severe overstimulation with individual doses as low as 250 mg. Several cases have been recorded of fatal cardiac arrhythmia caused by caffeine toxicity, usually in combination with a preexisting medical condition exacerbated by particularly high caffeine intake. Caffeine intake greater than 300 mg per day may cause miscarriage or poor neonatal growth during pregnancy, and intake greater than 600 mg per day by pregnant women may induce premature or aborted birth.


Moderate toxicity from overdose (for example, the use of large quantities of energy drinks) causes vomiting, muscle stiffening, and heart muscle irritation. When caffeine levels in the blood are extremely high, intoxication causes metabolic changes in the body, including low potassium levels, high sugar levels, and ketosis. The CNS, cardiac, and musculoskeletal effects can include repeated seizures, muscle posturing and hypertonicity, and ventricular fibrillation or tachycardia.


More severe acute overdose effects involve breathing problems. Pulmonary edema occurs when blood vessels around the lungs dilate, leading to life-threatening blocked airways and hypoxia. Rhabdomyolysis, or muscle cell breakdown, and metabolic acidosis contribute to acute renal failure.




Bibliography


Allday, Erin. "Caffeine Dependence Tied to Physical, Emotional Problems." SFGate. Hearst Communications, 5 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.



“Anxiety: Nutrition–Caffeine.” Integrative Medicine. Ed. David Rakel. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2007. Print.



Brecher, Edward M. “Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs: Caffeine.” 1972. Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. Web. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu21.html.



Brodwin, Erin, and Kevin Loria. "What Caffeine Does to Your Body and Brain." Business Insider. Business Insider, 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.



Carpenter, Murray. "Generation Jitters: Are We Addicted to Caffeine?" Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 8 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.



Foxx, R. M., and A. Rubinoff. “Behavioral Treatment of Caffeinism: Reducing Excessive Coffee Drinking.” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 12.3 (1979): 335–44. Print.



Greden, John F. “Anxiety of Caffeinism: A Diagnostic Dilemma.” American Journal of Psychiatry 131 (1974): 1089–92. Print.



Griffiths, Roland R., and Geoffrey K. Mumford. “Caffeine: A Drug of Abuse?” Neuropsychopharmacology: The Fourth Generation of Progress. Ed. David J. Kupfer. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1995. Print.



James, Jack E. “Acute and Chronic Effects of Caffeine on Performance, Mood, Headache, and Sleep.” Neuropsychobiology 38 (1998): 32–41. Print.



Lande, R. Gregory. “Caffeine-Related Psychiatric Disorders.” Emedicine Health, 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2012. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/290113-overview.



Shannon, Michael W. “Theophylline and Caffeine.” Haddad and Winchester’s Clinical Management of Poisoning and Drug Overdose. Eds. Michael W. Shannon, Stephen W. Borron, and Michael J. Burns. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2007. Print.

How did the boy treat the woman?

Roger's treatment of Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones mirrors his transformation as a character. At the beginning of the story, he is wrapped up in his own self-interests, unwilling to consider other people and their needs as equally valid to his own. His choice to attempt to steal Mrs. Jones' purse shows that, even though he calls her "m'am," he does not truly feel the respect that such a title suggests. His lying and attempts to escape show that he is only concerned about his own well-being and avoiding the consequences of his actions.


When Mrs. Jones brings him to her house to feed him dinner and takes a genuine interest in his well-being, however, Roger gains respect for her. He suddenly cares what she thinks of him, choosing not to run when he has the chance and hoping that she will trust him if he sits far away from her purse. Though he does little directly to Mrs. Jones, the actions he takes in her house are considerate of her feelings and opinion of him, showing that he has grown as a character. His respect is no longer superficial and the gratitude he feels when they part is genuine. The hope of Mrs. Jones and the reader is that this respect and consideration of others will stay with the boy from now on.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Analyze Beatty’s character. What has happened to him? Why does he want to burn books? Does he really want to die as Montag thinks? Why would he?...

Beatty is an older man who is very well read. That means he's read and understands many (if not all) of the most influential books in the western world. He quotes Shakespeare, Greek philosophers, British poetry, and ancient mythology. One so educated and well read would not exist if he hadn't gone rogue in his younger life like Montag does. That is why Beatty knows exactly how to spin the information he teaches Montag in favor of the hedonist society in which they live. Beatty must have fallen in love with literature, and become an expert; but, in an effort to save his life and position in the community, he chose to use his knowledge against literacy rather than for it. After a long lecture to Montag about the history of books and their demise, Beatty says the following:



"The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we're the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dike. Hold steady. Don't let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you" (61-62).



It seems as if Beatty is trying to convince himself more than Montag. It's ironic because Beatty tells Montag not to get drowned in philosophy because he understands it better than anyone. Of all people, Beatty should be in favor of books and higher education. So why does he fight for illiteracy and hedonism? Either Beatty truly believes that true happiness doesn't come from reading and philosophy, and he is a proponent for hedonism; or, he puts on an act in order to survive in an illiterate world. The latter must be true because it seems that Beatty would rather die than live in a world without books:



"In the middle of the crying Montag knew it for the truth. Beatty had wanted to die. He had just stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, joking, needling. . . How strange, strange, to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad, and then. . ." (122).



Beatty drives himself crazy in the end. He acts just like the old woman in the beginning of the book who sets herself on fire rather than live without her books. It is an interesting twist for the main antagonist to die for something he fought so hard against throughout the whole story. He must have just wanted to give up the fight against something that he loved, but had to hide for most of his life. By the end of it, Beatty must have realized that his world wasn't worth all that he was fighting for because he truly loved all of the passages he spat out at Montag and used to twist the truth. But he couldn't admit that openly, so he used Montag to help him finish himself off and end his madness.  

What is adolescent sexuality?



Adolescent sexuality is the sexual development, feelings, and behavior of children going throughadolescence. It involves several different aspects, including exposure to sex, experimenting, discovering gender identity, and forming romantic relationships. Around twelve years of age, adolescents begin exploring their sexuality. Both boys and girls experiment sexually, such as masturbating. Some adolescents will even engage in sexual acts with others. However, adolescents lack emotional and cognitive maturity, so sexually active adolescents could put themselves at risk for unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Parents should, therefore, talk to their children about sex at an early age.





Overview

Sexuality is a major part of adolescent development. As an adolescent hits puberty and begins to mature, he or she will be exposed to sex and will begin experimenting. Adolescents are exposed to sex through the Internet, television, and entertainers and other celebrities. Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, adolescents become curious about their sexuality and begin experimenting. Boys around this age generally show more interest in sex than girls. Usually at twelve or thirteen, adolescents begin reading about sex and viewing sexual images. Such material may include information about sex, drawings in books, and pornographic images and videos. They may find this material in anatomy books, in adult magazines, on television, and on the Internet. Adolescents of this age may also begin peeping, or secretly observing someone naked or removing his or her clothes. Typically, adolescents who engage in any of these activities try to avoid getting caught or deny the activities.


Masturbation plays a significant role in adolescents’ sexual experimentation, especially for boys. They may experience frequent erections, and some may occur spontaneously. This can be attributed to the chemical and hormonal changes of puberty, or the set of changes an adolescent undergoes as he or she develops sexually. Boys often experiment with their erections, frequently engaging in
masturbation
, which is the stimulation of one’s own genitals, usually to achieve orgasm. Adolescent girls may experience spontaneous vaginal secretions, either because of sexual arousal or because of hormonal fluctuations during their menstrual cycle. Girls also engage in masturbation, but because girls are generally less aware of their sexual arousal than boys, girls typically do not masturbate as frequently as boys.


Gender identity and sexual orientation also play a role in adolescent sexuality.
Gender identity
refers to what gender an adolescent considers him- or herself to be. An adolescent may consider him- or herself to be masculine, feminine, or both, which is called
transgendered
. Similarly, sexual orientation constitutes what gender an adolescent is attracted to physically, emotionally, sexually, and romantically. An adolescent may be attracted to the opposite gender (heterosexual), the same gender (homosexual), or both genders (bisexual).


When adolescents turn fourteen or fifteen, they typically become interested in romantic relationships. They may seek a partner with whom to have such a relationship. These relationships may be short-term or long-term.


At about fifteen or sixteen years of age, girls begin to explore the moral and physical consequences of sex. They may grow concerned about a teen pregnancy. They may also ask themselves what sexual activities are acceptable and under what circumstances sex is okay. Boys around this age are not as concerned about these issues.


Many adolescents between sixteen and eighteen years of age will experience an increase in sexual activity. This may be in the form of masturbation or sexual acts with a partner. The frequency and intensity of this sexual activity may increase. During this time, adolescents also typically seek long-term, committed relationships.


At nineteen to twenty-two years of age, adolescents may show an interest in casual dating and casual sexual encounters. Others may be more interested in committed, monogamous relationships. Adolescents around these ages will generally make wise decisions regarding sex because their emotional and cognitive maturity has improved.


Typically, however, adolescents do not have the necessary emotional and cognitive maturity to make wise decisions regarding sexual activity. Furthermore, they are unable to handle the possible consequences of sex. For instance, many adolescents do not realize the gravity of unprotected sex and may engage in this activity, exposing themselves to an unwanted pregnancy and STDs. Adolescents may also have the misconception that other forms of sexual intercourse, such as oral or anal sex, are safer than penile-vaginal intercourse. These adolescents, however, are still at risk for STDs or even pregnancy.


Because of these risk factors, parents should discuss sex and sexuality with their adolescent children. However, the discussion about sex is often difficult for both parents and adolescents. Parents may have difficulty bringing up the subject, and adolescents may feel embarrassed talking about sex with their parents. Despite the uncomfortable nature of the sex talk, it is an important part of an adolescent’s sexual development. Parents should begin talking to their child about sex before he or she hits puberty. This would likely make the parents and adolescent more comfortable talking about sex as the child grows. Parents should share factual information about sex with their child. In particular, they should explain the consequences of having sex and the dangers of unprotected sex, including the possibility of pregnancy and contracting STDs. Parents should also address any questions their child may have regarding sex. Other topics parents should discuss with their child include peer pressure and media pressure associated with sex, values and morals with regard to sex, and sexual orientation.



Ferrell, Keith. “Adolescent Sexuality: Talk the Talk before They Walk the Walk.” Healthy Children. American Academy of Pediatrics. Winter 2008. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://www.healthychildren.org/Documents/Healthy-Children-Magazine/HealthyChildren-08winter.pdf>


Oswalt, Angela. “The Development of Adolescent Sexuality.” Seven Counties Services. Seven Counties Services. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41180&cn=1310>


Oswalt, Angela. “The Development of Sexual Orientation.” Seven Counties Services. Seven Counties Services. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41179&cn=1310>


Oswalt, Angela. “Middle to Late Adolescence (Ages 15 to 22): The Age of Romance.” Seven Counties Services. Seven Counties Services. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41181&cn=1310>

Friday, August 26, 2016

Discuss the importance of education as it evolves during the course of the novel, Animal Farm. At the same time, address the distinctions that may...

In Animal Farm, education begins as a means of promoting equality and improving the lives of the animals. After the Rebellion, for instance, Snowball provides lessons in reading and writing which are described as a "great success." It takes very little time for many of the animals to become "literate in some degree." While most of the animals are only interested in reading the Seven Commandments, their involvement in these lessons demonstrates their overall participation in the political process on the farm. 


But education soon becomes a source of disunity among the animals. The pigs, known for their high levels of intelligence and literacy, come to dominate the others. They make the decisions, organise labour and plan for the farm's future. This, in turn, is used as justification for their elevated status and better treatment: they have milk and apples mixed into their mash, sleep in comfortable beds and take over the farmhouse.


In the case of the pigs, however, the line between education and indoctrination is often blurry. When Napoleon takes the puppies in Chapter Three, for example, he does this in the name of education. But in reality, he is training them to be his personal body guards. He has, therefore, indoctrinated the puppies under the thinly-veiled guise of educating them. We see this indoctrination in action when Napoleon sets them on Snowball. The puppies have been brainwashed by Napoleon and attack Snowball as soon as they are commanded to do so. This violence is then used to keep the other animals in check because they know that if they speak out against Napoleon, he will not hesitate to use his dogs, just as he did to Snowball.  

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Why was Kashmir issue a problem for Pakistan in 1947? 7 marks I need 3 reasons for this question.

Kashmir is a region with a very long history, and ties to both Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism and Buddhism. Today most of the population is Muslim, but there are many important historical sites there that are highly valued by Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists as well.

So that is what I'd put as the number 1 reason: The conflict over Kashmir is a conflict over a region with significance to multiple different religions.

The second reason is the partition between India and Pakistan in 1947, where what was once a single colony under Britain became split into two countries, approximately--but not precisely--making India a country of Hindus and Pakistan a country of Muslims. Kashmir was right on the border, and both India and Pakistan wanted it; so the compromise was made splitting it in half (akin to East and West Berlin around the same time). In fact Kashmir is mostly Muslim, so Pakistan probably had the better claim; but India is economically and militarily stronger.

The third reason is that Kashmir itself had a quasi-independent government in 1947, and was trying to become a third independent country separate from both India and Pakistan--something that neither India nor Pakistan was willing to allow.

India and Pakistan been fighting over Kashmir on and off ever since, and now they have nuclear weapons pointed at each other.

What is the symbolism of angel food cake in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The angel food cakes symbolize the neighbors' compassion and meddling.


Bob Ewell attacked Scout and Jem Finch when they were walking home, and Boo Radley killed him.  Realizing this, Sheriff Heck Tate and Atticus decide to tell everyone that Bob Ewell fell on his knife.  They do not want to tell anyone that Boo Radley was the one who saved the children, because Boo is such a private person that he would not want anyone to know.


Heck Tate explains why.



“… All the ladies in Maycomb includin‘ my wife’d be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch, taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great service an‘ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight—to me, that’s a sin. It’s a sin and I’m not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it’d be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch.” (Ch. 30)



Boo Radley would hate it if the people of Maycomb knew what he had done.  They would be curious.  They would talk.  They would want to be neighborly, and come have a look at the hero.  Boo Radley would prefer to stay in the shadows.  He saved Scout and Jem because he cared about them.  Atticus and Sherrif Tate saved him from having to face an endless supply of neighborly attention.


The angel food cake is a symbol of neighborly compassion or neighborly meddling.  People bring it to show that they care, but it also puts them in contact with the person who is the object of the gossip.  This is why Heck Tate does not want to tell anyone what Boo Radley did.  Boo does not want any angel food cake, and he does not want any nosy neighbors.  He is an extremely private person.

Does Nora have any self-justification for wanting to leave Torvald in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House?

Nora had a great deal of self-justification for her decision to leave her husband Torvald by the end of Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House.

Nora's first argument is that she had been treated like a plaything all her life, first by her father who treated her like a doll and then by her husband, who also treats her like a doll. By asserting she has been treated like a plaything, Nora is arguing no one in her life has ever taken her seriously enough to learn about the real her by learning her opinions and preferences. As a result, she feels that even she has failed to learn her own mind. Instead, as she explains to Torvald, she either developed the same opinions and tastes as her father and husband or "concealed" her differences of opinion and "pretended" to share the same tastes.

Her second argument is that Torvald is "not the man to educate [her] into being a proper wife" since she no longer has any desire to be a proper wife if such a wife is nothing more than a plaything. She further asserts that she no longer believes she has a duty to fulfill as a wife and mother. Instead, she now believes her first duty is to herself as a "reasonable human being," just as her husband is a reasonable human being, one who is capable of knowledge and growth. Nora now believes her first duty is to become the reasonable human being she knows she is capable of becoming.

Nora's third reason for leaving Torvald is that she does not see herself as fit to raise her children because she never received an education. Before she is fit to raise children, she believes she must, "try and educate myself," a task she can only do by herself. In other words, Nora has come to understand that before anyone can depend on her, she must become her own person, something society has so far prevented her from doing. Nora is determined to gain independence by striking out on her own and working, just as Christine has done all these years.

Can you please give me a summary/analysis of Siegfried Sassoon's poem, "The Death Bed?"

Sassoon's "The Death Bed," like many of his poems written during his service in World War Two, is an account of an unnamed young soldier who has been mortally wounded, presumably on the Western Front, where Sassoon and his contemporary, Wilfred Owen, served and died. The poem begins by describing the young, semi-conscious soldier on his hospital bed, slipping in and out of consciousness, alternating between a partial awareness of his surroundings, evidenced by the first line of stanza two, "Someone was holding water to his mouth." The soldier has been seriously wounded, and the opioids, most likely morphine or heroin, which the doctors have given him, are only partly effective in palliating the "throb and ache that was his wound."


Likely as a result of both the injuries he has sustained, and what seems to be a heavy dose of opioids, the soldier's reaction to drinking the water carries him into a dream or hallucination, possibly a mix, or green water in a skylit alley, on which his boat rests. This is likely an allusion to a childhood memory, and from the description of the boat and water underneath an alley, it seems probably that he lived somewhere where there were canals. In line five of the second stanza, Sassoon references water sliding over a "weir," which is a small dam, and this reinforces the notion that the soldier is imagining his home or childhood. In his mind, he hears birds and sees flowers, and dips his oars into the water, rowing himself further into oblivion, as his body and mind become untethered to the physical world around him.


The next stanza, number three, takes us out of the soldier's mind and point of view and places us inside the hospital near the soldiers bed. A gust of wind ripples through the hospital ward, and the reader learns that the soldier is blind, presumably as a result of his wounds. He cannot see the stars outside, through his "drowning eyes." The soldier hears rain outside and imagines the soaked woods and "drooping roses," perhaps another reference to life wilting. Sassoon describes how the deluge from a storm washes the woods and thunder away, as well as the soldier's life, as if this were all a part of natural phenomenon, a life storm of sorts.


In the fifth stanza, the soldier begins to stir, and shifts his body, which rouses the pain from his wound, that grips him like a “growling beast,” tearing into his dreams with “claws and fangs.” As quickly and intensely as the searing pain comes, it dissipates, once someone comes to sit beside him, but the pain has taken a physical and mental toll, weakening the soldier and leaving him perilously close to death.


In the next stanza, Sassoon uses apostrophe, or direct address, asking the reader to “Lend lamps and gather round his bed.” The soldier has begun to die, and Sassoon has invited his readers to the vigil. He writes, “Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him.” The soldier, Sassoon writes, was young and hated war, so why, he asks, should he die when the “cruel, old” war hawks who had made the case for war with careless disregard to loss of life, are safe at home? Unfortunately, the personified figure of death remains unmoved by this plea, and says, “I choose him,” meaning the soldier. So he takes the soldier’s life, leaving silence in the room, even as the guns on the front continue their barrage, presumably killing more young men like this one.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

At the greenhouse where you work you need to make soil and vermiculite mixtures for potting plants. Flowering bushes need a mixture of 70% soil and...

Flowering bushes need a mixture of 70% soil and 30% vermiculite by volume. So if we simplify this it means to we need 30 buckets of vermiculite to mix with 70 buckets of soil.



Vermiculite needed to 70 buckets of soil `= 30`


Vermiculite needed to 1 buckets of soil   `= 30/70`


Vermiculite needed to 5 buckets of soil  `= (30/70)xx5 = 2.143`



So we need 2.143 buckets of vermiculite to mix with 5 buckets of soil. How ever we can measure two buckets easily. For the rest 0.143 bucket, it is a volume close to 1/6 of the total volume of the bucket. 

In The Great Gatsby, what does Nick observe "has its limits"?

In chapter one, Nick begins the story by describing how fortunate he feels to have had a superior upbringing. He credits his father's advice and prides himself on his broad-mindedness and nonjudgmental nature and observes that these qualities have led many men to confide in him.  To finish your quotation, it is Nick's tolerance that "has its limits."  Nick will tell the story of his summer in New York and his friendship with Gatsby retrospectively, and he implies that whatever he has learned about human nature has in some way scarred him emotionally.  He declares that at least temporarily, he does not want to be the person that others confide in, and he is uninterested in the ups and downs of other people's lives.

Monday, August 22, 2016

What risk does Nene take?

Nene seems to take two risks in the story.


First, she marries Nnaemeka even knowing that his father, Okeke, would not accept her easily into his life. It's a risk because the father's prejudice could make her marriage, and her life, quite difficult--especially if children enter the picture, which they do. As we see later in the story, her decision to marry Nnaemeka also means that she experiences judgment and prejudice of other local citizens, not just Okeke; she also has to deal with the emotional pain of Okeke's harsh rejection of her when he returned their wedding photo with her image cut out.


But second, and perhaps more to the point, Nene takes the risk of writing the revealing letter to her father-in-law. Let's look at what she wrote:



"...Our two sons, from the day they learnt that they have a grandfather, have insisted on being taken to him. I find it impossible to tell them that you will not see them. I implore you to allow Nnaemeka to bring them home for a short time during his leave next month. I shall remain here in Lagos..."



As you can see, she reveals the fact that Okeke now has two grandsons, and she begs him to allow those children to visit the grandfather they've never known. She even says she'll stay home and not accompany them on the visit.


This is a major risk! She's opening herself up to additional hurtful comments and actions from Okeke, but she's willing to risk it so that her sons can have a relationship with their grandfather.

Explain the role fate plays in Romeo and Juliet and how it affects the course of action and characters' lives.

In many ways, fate seems to be the driving force in the play.  It is even referenced in the Prologue; after the Chorus describes the feud between the Capulets and Montagues, they say, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life" (lines 5-6).  Thus, there was even something fateful ("fatal") in the births of Romeo and Juliet, and they are "star-crossed," or impeded by fate through the destructive influence of the stars.  Even from their births, then, they were destined to die; their relationship could be nothing but "misadventured" or unlucky (7).  


Later, when Romeo's friends are trying to convince him to go with them to crash the Capulets' party, he says that he fears some events that have not unfolded yet, and that -- by going to that party -- he will set into motion these events which will eventually "expire the term / Of a despised life closed in [his] breast / By some vile forfeit of untimely death" (1.4.116-118).  Romeo has a kind of premonition that going to Lord Capulet's home will be the action that initiates some consequences that will absolutely result in his own death.  However, he doesn't seem to think that he has much choice in the matter, as he says, "But he that hath the steerage of my course / Direct my sail" (1.4.119-120).  He does not feel that he actually controls his own life, as he feels compelled to take this action regardless of the fact that it will lead to his destruction.  


Even the way Romeo and Juliet compare one another to celestial bodies seems ill-fated.  He compares her to the sun when he sees her on her balcony, and she asks for him to be cut into little stars and placed in the sky after he dies.  

What is thumb sucking?


Physical and Psychological Factors

It has been estimated that 45 percent of all two-year-olds, 36 percent of four-year-olds, 21 percent of six-year-olds, and 5 percent of eleven-year-olds suck their thumbs. As children grow older, by age five, the occurrence of thumb sucking generally begins to fade during the daytime. If children continue to suck their thumbs, it is generally limited to nighttime.



Thumb sucking seems to be reinforcing to children because of its soothing property. For example, it is often observed among children when they are tired, frustrated, hungry, or uncomfortable, such as when teething causes discomfort. Furthermore, thumb sucking tends to increase the level of independence in infants. This becomes evident when observing an infant who is occupied by this self-stimulating behavior.




Disorders and Effects

Although thumb sucking is relatively harmless among children younger than three years of age, problems can develop if the behavior persists. Negative consequences may consist of dental problems, inhibited speech development, and critical peer and parental reactions.


One of the main problems associated with thumb sucking is dental problems, especially if this behavior persists after the age of four or five. Thumb sucking can also inhibit speech development in formal and informal settings at school or day care. For example, when children are sucking their thumbs during formal group activities, they are less likely to respond to adult questions. Also, during free-play time, children who are sucking their thumbs are less likely to speak spontaneously.


In addition to causing problems for speech and physical development, thumb sucking can create social difficulties for children. According to the Pediatrics article “Influence of Thumb Sucking on Peer Social Acceptance in First-Grade Children,” by P. C. Friman and colleagues, “Social acceptance is lower among children who suck their thumb, and they are viewed by their peers as being less intelligent, happy, attractive, likable, or fun, and less desirable as a friend, playmate, seatmate, classmate, or neighbor.” Furthermore, thumb sucking can create negative interactions between the parents and children. Because parents are often troubled by thumb sucking, children are routinely asked to stop. These requests can be positively reinforcing to the child and can increase the frequency of the behavior.


Given the problems associated with thumb sucking, many parents wonder at what point in time a child should be treated for this behavior. In their 1989 article “Thumb Sucking: Pediatricians’ Guidelines” in Clinical Pediatrics, Friman and B. D. Schmitt provide some guidelines to answer this question. As a simple rule, thumb sucking should not be treated until the potential negative consequences outweigh the benefits, which is seldom before the age of four. When children do suck their thumbs, often it is not frequent enough to warrant treatment. They also point out that at times the potential benefits may outweigh the risks, such as when a child uses thumb sucking as a means of coping with fear, pain, or a significant loss. As suggested by these authors, another indication for treatment is chronic thumb sucking, which they define as occurring “across two or more settings (e.g., home and school) and when it occurs day and night.”


Both positive and negative reinforcement techniques have been used to treat persistent thumb sucking. These include offering other types of stimulation or comfort (depending on whether the cause is boredom or stress), rewarding the child for not sucking his or her thumb, involving the child in breaking the habit, and applying bitter substances to the thumb as a deterrent. As with reprimands, the utility and ethics of other negative reinforcements such as bitter coatings continue to be debated.




Perspective and Prospects

Attitudes toward oral behavior in children have fluctuated over the years. It has been viewed as both indulgent and detrimental. There have been high and low attempts to prohibit the activity. Sigmund Freud and his colleagues did much to draw attention to the oral drive in the first year of life, and over the years, many writers have made observations about oral habits and psychological health.


The advent and wide use of pacifiers has done much to neutralize concern over oral behaviors. Pacifiers are generally seen as preferable to the thumb, from a dental perspective. Thumb sucking tends to arouse more anxiety for both parents and medical specialists than does the use of the pacifier; however, pacifier use beyond age four can lead to the same types of dental problems as those caused by prolonged thumb sucking.




Bibliography


American Academy of Pediatrics. "Pacifiers and Thumb Sucking." HealthyChildren.org, May 11, 2013.



A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia. "Thumbsucking." MedlinePlus, January 24, 2011.



Berk, Laura E. Child Development. 8th ed. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, 2009.



Friman, P. C., K. M. McPherson, W. J. Warzak, and J. Evans. “Influence of Thumb Sucking on Peer Social Acceptance in First-Grade Children.” Pediatrics 91, no. 4 (April, 1993): 784–86.



Leach, Penelope. Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five. Rev. ed. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2010.



Nathanson, Laura Walther. The Portable Pediatrician: A Practicing Pediatrician’s Guide to Your Child’s Growth, Development, Health, and Behavior from Birth to Age Five. 2d ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.



“Thumb Sucking and Teeth.” Pediatrics for Parents 19, no. 12 (2002): 1–2.



"Thumb Sucking: Help Your Child Break the Habit." Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, September 20, 2012.



Van Norman, Rosemary. Helping the Thumb-Sucking Child. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery, 1999.



Walker, C. Eugene, and Michael C. Roberts, eds. Handbook of Clinical Child Psychology. 3d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

What are ego defense mechanisms?


Introduction

Ego defense mechanisms are complex, largely unconscious mental processes that protect people from becoming overwhelmed by strong emotions. Defense mechanisms protect the mind and nervous system just as the immune system protects the body, and they are essential for healthy functioning and adaptation. However, when they are used maladaptively, psychiatric symptoms can develop and result in psychopathology.













At birth, only rudimentary defenses are in place, so infants require substantial protection from external sources (caretakers) to prevent them from becoming overwhelmed by internal and environmental stresses. Over the course of childhood and continuing into adulthood, increasingly complex defense mechanisms develop and are added to an individual’s defense repertoire. As a result, each individual forms a personal defense system from which to automatically draw when emotions threaten to become too stressful. Some defenses work better in certain situations than others, so optimal adaptation in life is related to having more mature defenses, as well as flexibility in using them.




History

The phenomenon of defense mechanisms was not recognized until it was identified in the last decade of the 1800s by Sigmund Freud
, the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis. Freud described defense mechanisms as discrete processes for managing emotion and instincts, but for more than twenty years, he interchangeably used the general term “defense” and the term for one specific defense mechanism, “repression,” which resulted in considerable confusion among his readers. In 1936, Freud clarified that there were many defensive operations used by the ego and referred to a book his daughter, Anna Freud, a famous psychoanalyst in her own right, had just written, entitled Das Ich und die Abwehrmechanismen (1936; The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, 1937). Building on this work, other researchers have since described additional defense mechanisms and have elucidated their roles as adaptive processes.




Anxiety

In his seminal work, Sigmund Freud focused primarily on defense mechanisms in their role of protecting the ego from anxiety
resulting from internal conflicts. A conflict is caused when two or more equally powerful influences cannot be satisfied at the same time. It is resolved when one of the influences prevails, but this often leads to frustration because one or more of the other goals is thwarted. Most internal conflicts involve the interactions of the id, ego, and superego. For example, one may have a strong id impulse to overeat, but one’s superego may exert an equally powerful influence to remain thin. Thus, the sight of food may cause one to feel anxious without knowing why, because this conflict may be buried in the unconscious.


Conflicts may be either conscious or unconscious; according to Freud, all conflicts are accompanied by anxiety. Anxiety is an unpleasant emotional response that signals impending danger. It is anticipation of danger to be experienced in the future. Only the ego can feel anxiety, and this anxiety can be unbearable. It can occur in the absence of any objective external threat; even when a real threat exists, the emotional reaction is often much greater than warranted. For example, speaking in front of an audience is, in the real sense, not dangerous, but it can cause extreme anxiety in some people. Frequently, the threat that causes anxiety is unconscious, and the person may not be aware of the source.


Anxiety is a signal to take action, so it is both adaptive and self-regulating. That is, when faced with anxiety, the ego automatically attempts to reduce it, which at the same time should reduce the potential danger. In this regard, fear and anxiety are similar. For example, if a person is attacked, the person can fight the attacker or run away. In both cases, the danger will be removed and the fear will subside. Since one of the main functions of the ego is to maintain survival, its typical response is to take actions that will protect itself and the organism. The ego responds in a defensive manner to all types of anxiety, no matter what their source. In the example above, the mode of reducing fear is overt—that is, it is easily observable whether the person fights or runs away. In other situations, the actions taken by the ego to protect itself are said to be covert, which means they are not directly observable. These covert actions of protecting the ego from anxiety are called ego defense mechanisms. According to Freud, they operate at an unconscious level.




Repression

Freud was especially interested in the process of repression, which begins when the ego fully separates itself from the id but probably does not become fully operational until the phallic
psychosexual stage of development. In repression, the ego blocks or diverts any ideas, thoughts, feelings, or urges that it finds unacceptable or anxiety producing. For example, a person might have a desire to have sex with his or her boss or teacher, but if this wish is totally unacceptable to the superego, it can be repressed into the unconscious. Allowing this wish to become conscious would result in punishment from the person’s superego in the form of guilt, anxiety, or shame. To avoid this psychological response, the ego prevents the idea from ever becoming conscious. Although there is no memory of this impulse, it is never destroyed; in fact, it maintains all of its energy, remaining immediately under the level of awareness with the potential to surface at any time. Because of this, the person may feel ill at ease or anxious but has no awareness concerning the origin of this distress. Furthermore, the repressed energy continues to seek expression, and it often escapes in a disguised form.


The most important disguised forms of repressed material are neurotic symptoms. According to Freud, repressed energy must be released if the organism is to remain healthy. As the ego puts more and more effort into repressing unacceptable drives, it becomes weaker; sooner or later, something has to give in. Symptoms serve as a compromise, because they allow the repressed ideas to be expressed indirectly in a disguised form without arousing anxiety. The symptoms may be either psychological or physical. Physical symptoms are sometimes called conversion reactions because the energy associated with the original repressed idea is converted into physical symptoms such as paralysis or even blindness, which are attributable to psychological causes rather than any real organic impairment. Thus, Freud delineated the manner in which repression can become maladaptive and result in psychopathology, a conceptualization that was extremely innovative for its time.


Freud hit on the notion of repression when he noticed that his patients were resisting his attempts to help them. In this sense, repression is intimately linked to resistance. According to Freud, when he was using hypnosis to treat his patients, this resistance was hidden; however, as soon as the technique of free association replaced hypnosis, resistance was clearly evident, and psychoanalysis was born.


Freud’s concept of repression (which he first called “defense”) appeared in print in 1894. At that time, most of his patients were women who were suffering from an emotional disorder that was then called hysteria. Freud believed that hysteria was caused primarily by the repression of sexual impulses and that it could be cured by means of a “talking” therapy. At the time, it was a giant leap for psychology, because the prevailing viewpoint of the nineteenth century was that emotional disorders were caused by organic or physical factors. Freud’s theory emphasized a psychological cause and cure for emotional disorders, opening a new area of exploration and setting the stage for clinical psychology and psychiatry.




Post-Freudian Theories

Freud wrote about various defense mechanisms in a number of his works, but his daughter, Anna Freud, is credited with bringing them all together in her book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. In it, she describes the original nine defense mechanisms—repression, regression, undoing, isolation, turning against self, reaction formation, reversal, projection, and introjection—and also adds sublimation and displacement. Over the years, other defense mechanisms, such as denial, rationalization, identification, intellectualization, and idealization, were added. New knowledge was added as well, including the importance of defense with regard to other emotions, such as anger, and the differences between defenses due to the ages at which they first develop, as seen in Joseph Sandler and Anna Freud’s book The Analysis of Defense: The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense Revisited (1985).


In 1977, George E. Vaillant, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, published Adaptation to Life, a landmark study on the mental health and adaptation of a highly select group of male college graduates over a thirty-five-year period of adulthood. In his book, Vaillant documents important shifts in defensive styles during adult development, and he also demonstrates that individual differences in the types of defenses used were dramatically related to variance between the best and worst outcomes, especially with regard to measures of social, occupational, and psychological adjustment. Vaillant believed that there were innumerable defenses, but he selected eighteen of what he thought were the most salient mechanisms and organized them into four levels according to their hypothesized maturity and importance with regard to the development of psychopathology:


•Level 1: Psychotic Mechanisms (delusional projection, denial of external reality, and distortion)


•Level 2: Immature Mechanisms (projection, schizoid fantasy or withdrawal, hypochondriasis, passive-aggressive behavior, and acting out)


•Level 3: Neurotic Defenses (intellectualization, repression, displacement, reaction formation, dissociation)


•Level 4: Mature Mechanisms (altruism, humor, suppression, anticipation, sublimation)


Level 1 defenses were noted as common in childhood prior to age five, in dreams of healthy individuals at all ages, and in psychotic types of psychopathology. Level 2 mechanisms were common in healthy children between the ages of three and fifteen and in some types of adult psychopathology, such as severe depression and personality disorders. Level 3 defenses were deemed common in healthy people of all ages after the age of three, in mastering acute adult stress, and in neurotic disorders. Level 4 defenses were listed as common in healthy individuals from age twelve on.


With regard to the study participants, Vaillant found that as adolescents, they were twice as likely to use immature defenses as mature ones, but by middle life, they were four times as likely to use mature defenses rather than immature ones. This developmental shift was not equally obtained by everyone, however. Rather, the thirty men with the best outcomes (termed “generative”) had virtually stopped using immature mechanisms by midlife, with roughly equal use of neurotic and mature defenses. The men with the worst outcomes (termed “perpetual boys”), on the other hand, failed to show any significant shift in defenses after adolescence. Thus, Vaillant demonstrated that ego development, including maturation of defense mechanisms, was distinct from physical maturation as well as from cognitive or intellectual development and that the level of defense maturation was directly related to life adjustment.


Vaillant was especially struck by the importance of suppression as an adaptive defense mechanism. He defined suppression as the conscious or subconscious decision to deliberately postpone attending to conscious conflicts or impulses without avoiding them. This mechanism allows individuals to effectively cope with stress
when it is optimal to do so. Vaillant delineated the evolution of this defense as beginning with denial before age five, followed by repression from five to adolescence, with suppression emerging during late adolescence and adulthood when defense maturation is optimal.


Thus, Vaillant helped to better delineate the relationship between the healthy and adaptive need for ego defense mechanisms and the psychopathological outcomes that occur when they are used maladaptively. Moreover, he demonstrated that their development over time is part of the maturation process. Unfortunately, this study involved a highly select group of men and no women, so generalizations to the larger population are difficult to make.




Applications of Defense Mechanisms

In spite of the difficulty with generalization, the body of information regarding defenses underscores the importance of teaching children and adolescents to use increasingly mature mechanisms. Research has shown that this can be done effectively with social and emotional literacy programs, for example, in school classrooms. This application primarily involves prevention and has been growing in use since about 1990.


Applications regarding interventions with individuals showing maladaptive defense use, on the other hand, have been used much longer than prevention. Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis at the turn of the twentieth century with this in mind, and other forms of psychotherapy have since evolved that also embrace the importance of defense mechanisms in the development of psychopathology.


One example from psychoanalytic theory provides an illustration of how complex this topic really is. Freud believed that many neurotic symptoms are associated with the sex drive. For example, a man with an unusually strong superego may repress all sexual impulses. Through the process of reaction formation, these impulses may be converted into compulsive hand washing. According to psychoanalytic theory, the symptoms serve as a substitute for the sexual gratification that he is not allowed to obtain in real life. This is an unconscious process, and the man has no idea of the connection between the symptoms and his sex drive. When a person’s behavior is dominated by defense mechanisms, or when symptoms become severe, there may be a need for psychotherapy. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate defense mechanisms but rather to strengthen the ego so that it uses more mature processes and can respond to conflicts in a more adaptive and productive manner.


One of the objectives of psychoanalytic therapy is to uncover repressed material that is responsible for the unconscious conflicts or symptoms, which in turn facilitate the development of suppression. In a sense, people relive their lives in the therapy room so the conflict can be traced to its origin. To help the patient do this, the psychoanalyst uses two major techniques within the important context of the therapeutic relationship. The first is called free association. This involves having the patient talk about anything and everything that enters his or her mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing it may be. This technique is based on the idea that thoughts and ideas do not enter one’s mind accidentally. There is usually an important reason for their appearance, and eventually thoughts that are related to the conflict are revealed. The second technique is interpretation, which can involve analyzing dreams, actions, feelings of the patient for the analyst, and so on. Freud was especially interested in dreams, the “royal road to the unconscious.” During sleep, ego defense mechanisms are weakened; therefore, many unconscious conflicts or desires may emerge—although still in a disguised form that needs to be interpreted by the therapist.


Although brief interventions can sometimes help people cope better with life’s stresses, therapy usually takes a long time, because maturation is generally a slow and complex process. Repression is especially difficult, because once material is repressed, the ego sets up a counterforce that prevents it from becoming conscious in the future. This counterforce is called resistance. It is responsible for a person unconsciously resisting treatment, as removing the symptoms only serves to return the ego to the original anxiety-producing conflict.


In the example above, once the resistance is overcome, the therapist may determine that the compulsive hand-washing behavior is rooted in an unresolved Oedipus complex. In this case, the man’s sexual attraction to his mother was repressed, and eventually all sexual impulses were treated in the same way. Giving careful consideration to timing, the therapist voices an interpretation, which is the method by which the unconscious meaning of a person’s thoughts, behaviors, or symptoms is divulged. One interpretation is not enough to cure the patient, but a slow process of “working through,” which involves many interpretations and reinterpretations, finally leads to insight. This last step occurs when a person fully understands and accepts the unconscious meaning of his or her thoughts and behaviors; at this point, the symptoms often disappear.




Examples of Selected Defense Mechanisms

Regression involves reducing anxiety or other strong feelings by attempting to return to an earlier and less stressful stage of development and engaging in the immature behavior or thinking characteristic of that stage. The most basic type of regression is sleep, which occupies most of the time of infants. For example, in response to an anxiety-producing test, a person might sleep through the alarm and thus miss the test (and avoid anxiety). Other examples of regression are a child engaging in thumb sucking when a new sibling is born and an adult engaging in smoking, both of which have their roots in the oral stage of infancy. Regression is one of the first defense mechanisms to emerge, beginning in the first year of life.


Projection is when one first represses one’s own unacceptable or dangerous impulses, attitudes, or behaviors and then assigns them to other persons. For example, a person may blame others for his or her failures. Freud believed that this occurs unconsciously, but some modern psychoanalysts believe that it can occur consciously as well. An example would be a married man with an unconscious desire to have an affair accusing his wife of having done so.


Denial occurs when the ego does not acknowledge anxiety-producing reality. For example, a person may not “see” that his or her marriage is falling apart and may behave as if nothing is wrong; a good student may “forget” that he or she failed a test in school. A form of psychotic denial is the example of a woman who continued to sleep with her husband’s corpse for several days after he had died.


Rationalization occurs when the ego tries to excuse itself logically from blame for unacceptable behaviors. For example, a student declares that he or she failed a test because roommates kept him or her up the night before, or a person gets drunk because he or she had such a “tough day” at the office.


Isolation is the process that separates unpleasant memories from emotions that were once connected to them. In this case, the ideas remain, but only in isolated form. For example, one might vividly remember a childhood situation of being spanked by one’s father but not recall the intense negative feelings one had toward him at that time because such feelings would be painful. This defense mechanism probably begins to emerge in the anal psychosexual stage, but it fully develops between ages three and five.


Introjection is also called identification. It involves modeling or incorporating the qualities of another person, such as one’s parents or teachers. Sometimes people do this with people that they fear; by doing so, the fear associated with them is reduced. Anna Freud calls this “identification with the aggressor.” For example, little boys identify with their fathers to reduce the castration anxiety associated with the Oedipus complex. As a result, boys adopt the social, moral, and cultural values of the father, all of which become incorporated into the superego.


Reaction formation occurs when a person expresses a repressed unconscious impulse by its directly opposite behavior. Hate may be replaced by love, or attraction by repulsion. The original feeling is not lost, but it does not become conscious. For example, a reaction formation to strong sexual impulses may be celibacy, or a parent who unconsciously hates his or her child may “smother” it by being overly protective. Reaction formation is another defense mechanism that is closely related to repression.


Sublimation involves channeling the power of instincts and emotions into scientific or artistic endeavors such as writing books, building cities, doing research, or landing a person on the moon. Freud believed that sublimation was especially important for building culture and society.




Summary

Defense mechanisms were initially discovered and studied in terms of their role in psychiatric symptom formation when used maladaptively. Unfortunately, this led many people to believe that defense mechanisms themselves were dysfunctional, which is not true. As Vaillant and others have shown, defenses are necessary for adaptation, survival, and happiness, but some are more effective for different stages of life than others, and maturational shifts in the development of ego defenses can have profound effects on social, emotional, and occupational adjustment.


On the positive side, Freud’s conceptualization of defense mechanisms led directly to his formulation of psychoanalysis, which was the first major personality theory and treatment method in psychology. Virtually all personality theories and treatment methods since then have been directly or indirectly influenced by the notions of defense and resistance. In addition, the concept of defense mechanisms has become an important part of Western language and culture.




Bibliography


Appignanesi, Richard. Freud for Beginners. Illus. Oscar Zarate. New York: Writer and Readers, 1994. Print.



Beresford, Thomas P. Psychological Adaptive Mechanisms: Ego Defense Recognition in Practice and Research. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.



Diehl, Manfred, et al. "Change in Coping and Defense Mechanisms across Adulthood: Longitudinal Findings in a Eurpoean American Sample." Developmental Psychology 50.2 (2014): 634–48. Print.



Freud, Anna. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. New York: International UP, 1974. Print.



Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. James Strachey. 24 vols. London: Hogarth, 1953–74. Print.



Metzger, Jesse A. "Adaptive Defense Mechanisms: Function and Transcendence." Journal of Clinical Psychology 70.5 (2014): 478–88. Print.



Perry, J. Christopher. "Anomalies and Specific Functions in the Clinical Identification of Defense Mechanisms." Journal of Clinical Psychology 70.5 (2014): 406–18. Print.



Sandler, Joseph, and Anna Freud. The Analysis of Defense: The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense Revisited. New York: International UP, 1985. Print.



Thurschwell, Pam. Sigmund Freud. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.



Vaillant, George E. Adaptation to Life: How the Best and the Brightest Came of Age. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1985. Print.

Friday, August 19, 2016

What is the topic of the poem "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke?

In "My Papa's Waltz," the narrator describes his relationship with his father. The speaker is waltzing with his intoxicated father. The poem shows the speaker's conflicting feelings. He is repulsed by the whiskey smell on his father's breath, but he "hung on like death." And even though this "waltzing was not easy," the image in the end is of the speaker clinging to his father's shirt. He loves his father but has a need to rebel from him. 


Roethke uses the waltz as a metaphor for the relationship between father and son. In the first stanza, he might be suggesting that the father needs to be a little drunk in order to express his emotions. In the next two stanzas, the speaker illustrates how the waltz is forced and even violent. One could derive different interpretations from this. But, in general, this suggests that the father tries to show his son that a man is tough. In their relationship, the father demonstrates that toughness with his son, or even on his son. 


Playing with this metaphor of the waltz, the father is traditional in the sense that he is the man of the family and he wants his son to follow in his footsteps. The father essentially "leads" his son the way a man would lead in a waltz. Sometimes, the son loves his father's guidance but sometimes he feels his father forces him. 


Roethke was interested in poetry at an early age. His own father was the masculine type described in this poem. Here, Roethke reflects upon that conflicted relationship of an artistic son being molded by a more traditional, masculine father. 

Thursday, August 18, 2016

How do I find quotations in "The Slave Dancer" regarding the friendship between Ras and Jessie?

In the book, The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox, there are several insightful quotations about the friendship between Ras and Jessie.


When looking for a quote, it helps to have a solid understanding of the book. For example, it helps to know where certain events or relationships occur in the book. In this specific instance, Ras and Jessie’s friendship develops slowly and is primarily prevalent after they are trapped for multiple days in the ship (chapter: “Ben Stout’s Mistake”).


Additionally, if you have an electronic copy of the book, you can also search the book to find specific words. Although searching the name “Jessie” would turn up dozens of responses, Ras is not as prominent. Thus, it would be beneficial to search for “Ras” and see if any of the results discuss Ras and Jessie’s friendship.


After knowing this, it is easier to find quotes about their friendship.  Here are a few quotes about their friendship to help you get started:



“Ras and I ate until the food ran down our chins and we were covered with grease. He pointed at me and laughed. I drew my finger along his chin, showing him the ham fat that had collected on his cheeks. He laughed harder.”



And:



“He [Ras] was gone in an instant. Daniel and I were alone.


I felt such a hollowness then . . .”



And:



“I knew that some part of my memory was always looking for Ras. Once, in Boston, I thought I really saw him, and I ran after a tall slender young black man walking along in front of me. But it was not he.”



Thus, it can be challenging to find quotations. However, by knowing the context, reading the book, and even searching for a word or phrase in an electronic copy, we can find great quotations! 

In A Streetcar Named Desire, what was Blanche's profession?

Blanche is one of two main characters in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, which debuted in 1949. In the play, Blanche is an English teacher, though she leaves her position when the play begins and moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella, and her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski. Blanche claims that she left her job as a teacher because of her "nerves." However, it is revealed later in the play that Blanche was actually dismissed from her teaching job after having an affair with a student.  


Blanche's profession is an important part of her characterization. Blanche uses poetic, lyrical, and over-wrought language, which places her in sharp contrast to Stanley, her antagonist, a Polish immigrant who speaks with coarse language. The combination of their dialects -- Blanche's poeticism and Stanley's grittiness -- are important components of the style of "lyrical realism" that Tennessee Williams pioneered in his plays.

Where in To Kill A Mockingbird does it show people often fear what they don't understand?

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Boo Radley is the most prominent example of the maxim, “People fear what they do not understand.”


The neighborhood, of course, fears Boo Radley. Boo Radley was once a rambunctious teenager who made one too many wrong decisions. For his friends, these misdeeds resulted in a reform school; for Boo, they resulted in a decades-long imprisonment in his home. It is likely, therefore, due to this forced confinement, that Boo developed some type of mental disorder. For example, early in his confinement, he attempted to stab his mother with scissors.


People in To Kill A Mockingbird fear Boo’s mental illness, which they do not understand.  Even now, after around eighty-five years of progress, our society does still not fully  understand mental illness or respond to it with empathy. Consequently, people with mental illnesses suffer not only from their illness but also from prejudice and mistrust. From the reactions of To Kill A Mockingbird’s characters to Boo Radley’s unique situation, we can infer that these attitudes were even more pronounced in the 1930s. For example, Boo is the subject of malicious rumors that exaggerate his situation and turn him into a villain when in actuality, he can be viewed as a victim. While the children, due to their age and inexperience, can be excused for their fear, the reactions of adult characters, such as Stephanie Crawford and the neighborhood gossips, are inexcusable.



Apart from Boo, this quote can also be applied to the characters who live in poverty. Caroline Fisher, Scout’s new teacher from out of town, fears her students because she does not understand their customs and traditions. She doesn’t understand why Walter Cunningham won’t accept lunch money and grows angry when Scout tries to teach her about the Cunninghams’ traditions. Caroline Fisher shows the warped logic behind why people continue to fear what they do not understand. They could, of course, help themselves and others out by trying to learn more. However, Miss Fisher fears being seen as ignorant, so she doesn’t acknowledge her lack of understanding.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

What literary devices are present in Chapters 1-5 of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins?

The first example of figurative language is a simile. A simile as “a figure of speech in which two things, essentially different but thought to be alike in one or more respects, are compared using “like,” “as,” “as if,” or “such” for the purpose of explanation, allusion, or ornament.” A simile occurs when Katniss goes up to the fence that is supposed to be electrified to go hunting. She is not supposed to go outside the fence, but this is a law she often breaks. The fence is quiet.



But since we’re lucky to get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, it’s usually safe to touch. Even so, I always take a moment to listen carefully for the hum that means the fence is live. Right now, it’s silent as a stone (Chapter 1).



This simile compares the electric fence to a stone. Stones do not make any noise. Since there is no electricity to the fence, the fence makes no noise. It is safe for Katniss to cross.


The second example is a metaphor. A metaphor as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to a person, idea, or object to which it is not literally applicable.” A metaphor is used when Katniss hears Prim’s name called during the Reaping for the Hunger Games. She is in shock.



That’s how I feel now, trying to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, totally stunned as the name bounces around the inside of my skull (Chapter 2).



Prim's name does not literally bounce around her skull. It is metaphorical because Katniss is very surprised to hear her Prim’s name. She is upset, and it takes time for the truth to sink in fully.


Katniss uses another metaphor when she is leaving for the Capital. She tells her mother and sister everything they need to remember to do, since she will not be there to do it for them. She is particularly worried about her mother, who is psychologically unstable.



Well, you have to help it this time. You can’t clock out and leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both alive. It doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever you see on the screen. You have to promise me you’ll fight through it (Chapter 3)!



When a person leaves work at the end of the day, he or she often punches a timecard. This is known as “clocking out.” Katniss uses it metaphorically here to say her mother needs to stay on the job of taking care of Prim and herself.


In the simile below, Katniss compares kind people to plants.



A kind Peeta Mellark is far more dangerous to me than an unkind one. Kind people have a way of working their way inside me and rooting there (Chapter 4).



When Katniss says kind people take root inside of her, she means that she grows attached to them. She worries about Peeta because she doesn’t want to like or trust him. He may be the other Tribute from her district, but he is also technically her competition.


Katniss seems to like similes. When she is being prepared for styling in the Capital, she compares herself to a plucked bird when they are removing all of the hair from her body that they do not think should be there.



My legs, arms, torso, underarms, and parts of my eyebrows have been stripped of the stuff, leaving me like a plucked bird, ready for roasting (Chapter 5).



Katniss uses this phrase because the treatment seems to have removed skin in addition to hair, leaving her feeling uncomfortable. She does not like having hair removed from her body, even part of her eyebrows; beauty has never been important to Katniss. She was more focused on survival.

What are hearing tests?

Indications and Procedures Hearing tests are done to establish the presence, type, and sever...