Compare the presentation of Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and Curley in Of Mice and Men, and what it reveals about their masculinity.

Shakespeare's Tybalt and Steinbeck's Curley represent the most negative aspects of masculinity. Both men are bullies and hold a good deal of power. Tybalt is from the wealthy Capulet family and so influences the men around him. Curley is the boss's son and has authority over the workers at the ranch. Both men wield their power with arrogance and violence. They both tend to act before thinking, as they are quick to enter into fights without listening to reason.

Tybalt appears in three scenes in Romeo and Juliet. In each scene his anger and belligerence are his most prominent characteristics. In Act I, Scene 1 he further instigates the violence which the Capulet servants have already started. He won't listen to the more level-headed Benvolio and instead insults him and threatens to kill him:

What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee, Benvolio; look upon thy death.

In Act I, Scene 5 he is again angered beyond reason as he overhears Romeo at Capulet's party. He immediately calls for his sword and is out to prompt a fight with Romeo when he is intercepted by Lord Capulet who doesn't want his party spoiled. In fact, Capulet, until his outburst in Act III, Scene 5, seems to represent the best aspects of masculinity. He is judicious, calm and shows humility. He is protective of his daughter, and when Tybalt attempts to spoil the party, he even speaks well of Romeo, saying,

Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-governed youth.

Eventually Tybalt backs down to his uncle, but vows to seek revenge later. He tends to hold a grudge and is not able to move beyond a perceived insult. In Act III, Scene 1 he ignores Romeo's pleas of restraint and, since Romeo won't fight, he engages Mercutio, who is equally childish in his display of masculinity. Neither man can accept what they perceive as weakness. That both men are killed reveals Shakespeare's verdict on men who are deaf to reason and display the worst characteristics of masculinity.

Like Tybalt, Curley has a quick temper. Steinbeck describes him as a braggart (everyone knows about how he competed in the Golden Gloves) and "pugnacious" (quick to fight). In chapter three, Candy perfectly describes Curley as a bully:

“Never did seem right to me. S’pose Curley jumps a big guy an’ licks him. Ever’body says what a game guy Curley is. And s’pose he does the same thing and gets licked. Then ever’body says the big guy oughtta pick somebody his own size, and maybe they gang up on the big guy. Never did seem right to me. Seems like Curley ain’t givin’ nobody a chance.” 

Curley's interactions with the men on the ranch are tense and seem to be always verging on violence. When he first meets George and Lennie, Steinbeck writes that "his hands closed into fists." Curley basically orders Lennie to talk with him and George has to warn Lennie to stay away from Curley. Steinbeck juxtaposes Curley with Slim, who represents a better example of masculinity. Slim is not judgmental, remains calm in the face of chaos and is well respected by the other men. Steinbeck writes that because everybody believed in Slim his decisions on any matter were carried through.

Curley is the direct opposite of Slim. The men disrespect him behind his back and even to his face after he accuses Slim of being with his wife in chapter three. This only proves to enrage Curley as he lashes out at Lennie, who is smiling over the thought of the farm. Even after Curley is physically and mentally humiliated by Lennie in the bunkhouse fight, his worst instincts are on display in chapter five after his wife is found dead. Rather than mourn his wife, as any caring man might do, he can only think of revenge and how he will kill Lennie. Like Tybalt he cannot accept an insult or a chance at gaining revenge.

Curley might also be considered a misogynist, maybe the worst masculine impulse. His wife is obviously lonely and admits that she doesn't even like him. Steinbeck suggests that Curley mistreats her and probably even cheats on her by going to the whorehouses in Soledad. Steinbeck portrays Curley as the stereotypical bully. Unlike most of the other characters in the book, Curley has no redeeming qualities and is one dimensional in the same way as Tybalt. They are negative in their masculinity because that is what the plot needs. Because each story is considered a tragedy, an antagonist, such as Tybalt or Curley, is all important. 

Other than the black box in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," what way can deconstructionist theory be applied to the story?

"The Lottery" almost could have been written to explicate aspects of deconstruction. Someone like Derrida would probably object to using the word "applied" to his thought, as if it were a set of rules that could be plunked down on a text, but leaving that aside, let's look at several directions this could take.

What immediately jumps to mind is Derrida's essay "Plato's Pharmacy," in which the word "pharmakon" means both poison and cure. "The Lottery" fits the paradigm of ancient sacrifice discussed both by Plato and Derrida: is the lottery the town's poison, cure, or both? 

Deconstruction looks at silences in a text: what is assumed but not spoken because it is so normative in a culture that it doesn't have to be said? What assumptions in the "langue" (or larger sign system) run so deep that they don't have to be articulated in the "parole" of a particular story? One that leaps out of "The Lottery" is patriarchy: we never once are told explicitly that this a patriarchal society, but that clearly underlies everything that happens: men run the lottery, men control the box. Women aren't even named until the eighth paragraph: the early emphasis is on men and male children. You could take all of this and run with it: what is the connection between patriarchy and violence and domination unspoken in this text?

In the same vein, "The Lottery" almost perfectly fits Rene Girard's "mimesis of envy" theory that says society needs a scapegoat, originally in the form of a human sacrifice, to purify itself of a build-up of aggressions and not tear itself apart. You might discuss what is "silent" in this text as this very envy—people all desiring the same thing—and the aggression underlying this seemingly very placid culture. 

Deconstruction, and here I think of de Man, reads "against the grain." Reading "with" the grain, we are supposed to understand the lottery as governed by random chance, but is it really random that a woman ends up as the sacrifice? How random is this male-controlled lottery? Beyond that, Tessie is the transgressive female voice in this story: she arrives late, having "clean" [think about that word in terms of the pharmakon as poison/purifying] forgotten. She is the one who repeatedly says what nobody else will: the lottery is unfair. What if we see the choice of a woman—and this particular woman—as a symbol of who must sacrifice in patriarchal society, not as a random gender choice?

What was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Joint Resolution of Congress, H.J. Res 1145, Public Law 88-408) was legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It authorized the president to respond to military attacks against U.S. military forces and against U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. By extending an ostensibly self-defense-oriented resolution to the defense of American allies, it authorized the president to engage the United States in a massive, long-term effort at preventing the fall of the government of South Vietnam to the North Vietnamese regime aided by the Soviet Union and China. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, in effect, formalized U.S. involvement in a war that would prove politically-divisive, cost over 58,000 American lives and, ultimately, end in failure.

The events that precipitated passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution involved one and possibly two attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats on the American destroyer USS Maddox, which was patrolling the waters of the coast of Vietnam. The first attack occurred on August 2, 1964. That the North Vietnamese naval craft fired on the U.S. ship is not in dispute. What has been disputed, however, are the allegations made by the crew of the Maddox that it was attacked a second time two days later. There exists among military people a phrase: “the fog of war.” This phrase is a reference to the difficulty of attaining accurate information during the chaos of combat and, equally importantly, the difficulty of separating fact from incorrect information that inevitably develops in the heat of combat. In other words, it can be extremely difficult to judge the veracity of information from the scene of a battle when tensions are obviously high and the effects of combat, such as smoke and fire, and the natural conditions of the setting, such as fog or the darkness of night, obscure vision and, occasionally, reality.

Up until the events of August 1964, the United States had been engaged in a protracted, but fairly limited effort at buttressing the government of South Vietnam, which had been struggling with a large-scale guerrilla insurgency—the Viet Cong—supported by North Vietnam and its allies. The incident(s) in the Gulf of Tonkin, however, provided President Johnson and congressional supporters of expanding American efforts in Southeast Asia the opening they needed to justify the large-scale deployment of American troops to defend the South against the North. The result was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed on August 7, 1964, the text of which follows:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.

Section 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.

Section 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise, except that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the Congress.

President Johnson used the political cover this resolution provided to open up a much broader war in Vietnam. Now, rather than training South Vietnamese forces and occasionally engaging in exchanges with Viet Cong guerrillas while conducting small-scale bombing and commando raids, U.S. military forces began large-scale actions against North Vietnam, most notably, Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign authorized the president on February 13, 1965 and that began on March 2nd. While most of these airstrikes were targeted against the routes used by North Vietnam to support the Viet Cong guerrillas operating in the south, Rolling Thunder was just a prelude to massive bombing campaigns that would follow.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, then, is important for representing the official start of large-scale American deployments to Vietnam.

Consider the description of Edward, the English king, in line 146-159 of Act 4, scene 3 of Macbeth. Why is this passage included in the play?

In Act 4, scene 3 of Macbeth, a Doctor briefly enters to tell Malcolm something regarding King Edward:

DOCTOR: There are a crew of wretched souls / That stay his cure. Their malady convinces / The great assay of art, but at his touch - / Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand - / They presently amend. (142-147)

It is an odd passage and it initially feels irrelevant. However, it is important for two reasons. First, the description of King Edward is drastically different from the impression Malcolm and Macduff give of Macbeth. King Edward is deemed a saintly and generous king. He is described as being blessed by God. Macbeth, however, is consistently described as being evil. King Edward is represented as a foil to Macbeth.

Secondly, this passage is placed in the play as an homage to the king. Shakespeare often described the leaders of England reverently, as they were typically patrons of his plays. This description of King Edward is, without a doubt, meant as a compliment to the king.

In what year was the story The Cask of Amontillado set?

The text of "The Cask of Amontillado" does not specify the year in which the story is set. It was published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1846. Montresor, the fictitious narrator, states that Fortunato's bones have not been disturbed for fifty years, so one might guess that the event occurred in the 1790's. Montresor twice mentions that he was wearing a roquelaire, which was a knee-length cloak named after the Duc de Roquelaure, a French nobleman and Marshal of France who died in 1738. Fortunato's murder apparently occurred sometime in the 18th century. The roquelaire was a practical garment. It would have been a useful type of cloak for Montresor to have been wearing, since he could have continued to wear it unencumbered while he was building his stone wall.

Speculative Analysis

It seems most likely that Poe intended the reader to assume that the story was originally written as a letter to a confidant, or confidante, whom Montresor addresses as "You, who so well know the nature of my soul." This letter had been discovered among the papers of the recipient and somehow found its way into the hands of an editor named Edgar Allan Poe, who translated it into English from French or Italian and published it in an American magazine.

Some readers have suggested that the narrative represents a confession to a priest by a man who would have been in his eighties or nineties and possibly on his deathbed. The problem with that interpretation is that there is no indication of a second person being present. A priest or any other interlocutor would be expected to make interjections and ask questions, if it was Poe's intention to present the story as a viva voce confession. 

What did Leslie suggest for her and Jess to have all to themselves?

The answer to this question is very important to the plot! Let's look in Chapter 4, titled "Rulers of Terabithia," when Leslie and Jess are playing together outside, near the creek bed:

"Do you know what we need?" Leslie called to him. Intoxicated as he was with the heavens, he couldn't imagine needing anything on earth.

"We need a place," she said, "just for us. It would be so secret that we would never tell anyone in the whole world about it." Jess came swinging back and dragged his feet to stop. She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "It might be a whole secret country," she continued, "and you and I would be the rulers of it."

Leslie is saying that they should have their own secret imaginary country, outside somewhere, where just the two of them could hang out together, play, and come up with all kinds of adventures. They'll imagine that they're the rulers of this place, and it'll belong to them.

So you can imagine how the promise of this fascinating place stirs something within Jess! They walk a little further together and decide on a place to build their imaginary country. It's beautiful, the perfect spot to play this imaginative game together:

"...here where the dogwood and redwood played hide and seek between the oaks and evergreens, and the sun flung itself in golden streams through the trees to splash warmly at their feet."

Like you might guess from the title of this chapter, and from the title of the whole book, they name their secret kingdom "Terabithia."

When you consider how Jess often feels crowded at home with all those sisters, like he has no privacy, you can imagine how tantalizing the idea of a secret kingdom is to him. And, he's captivated by the idea of being in charge of something; he's always getting bossed around at home and, to some extent, at school also. Since he's already so fascinated by his new friend Leslie and her incredible imagination, we know that this Terabithia will become a special place for their friendship and for Jess's development as a person to unfold.

What are the themes of "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" by Kurt Vonnegut? How can I analyze them?

In this, Vonnegut's first published short story, which appeared in 1950, a good-hearted professor develops the psychic ability to destroy weapons even from a great distance away. He goes into hiding and uses the "Barnhouse Effect" to destroy machines of war and armaments all over the world, leading to an uneasy world peace. To ensure that this peace is maintained, his student has also gone into hiding, to be trained to carry on the Barnhouse effect after his mentor's death.

This is a utopic story, but not without a strong edge of unease. It speaks to the deep desire of people, especially after the horrors of two world wars and the dropping of the atom bomb, to live in a world of peace, but acknowledges how fragile that peace is, even with seemingly limitless psychic power backing it up. Barnhouse imposes peace on an unwilling world, and the story makes clear that many would relish Barnhouse's death if it meant they could return to world of war and domination that, ironically, seems "safer" to them.

War and peace are thus the main themes of the story and it is to Vonnegut's credit that he delivers a tale about the seeming salvation of humans from warfare (this story was written as nuclear power was spreading) with a strong dose of anxiety. The story makes clear that a psychic weapon alone is not enough to ensure peace: the U.S. military would have misused it. The weapon rests on the conscience of the person possessing its secret, so luckily, Professor Barnhouse is, as he puts it, a "weapon with a conscience." But what if the weapon falls into the wrong hands? Weapons alone, the story suggests, are not alone what keep us safe.

It's worth noting that Vonnegut was a prisoner held by the Germans during World War II, and this lived experience informs both his desire for peace and his doubts about the human ability to achieve it. Only with eternal caution and care, the story says, will we achieve the dream of a peaceful world.