What does Austen put forth as grounds for good marriage?

In Pride and Prejudice, the best marriages are based on the mutual esteem of the partners. As Mr. Bennet says to Elizabeth when she tells him of her engagement to Mr. Darcy, "I know you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband." 

Elizabeth does esteem and respect Darcy, and he her, suggesting theirs will be a successful marriage. Readers can feel the same assurance about Jane and Mr. Bingley, who also love and respect each other. 

But even without mutual esteem, it is possible to have a good marriage in Austen's universe, as in the case with Charlotte Lucas. She finds her husband, Mr. Collins, ridiculous, but she is sensible and prudent enough for the two of them, arranging affairs so the marriage will be bearable. In Austen, good sense and maturity are always more important than grand passionate love to the success of a marriage. 

Money is also important in Austen's world: Elizabeth, Charlotte and Jane all make financially advantageous matches. Austen is practical and sees financial security as an important ingredient of a good marriage. For example, the sensible Mrs. Gardiner steers Elizabeth away from an imprudent match with the dashing but penniless Wickham. 

Marriages based on fleeting physical passion, such as that of Lydia and Wickham, have far less chance of success in Austen. 

Explain the events and people that have a significant influence on Pip’s development and his sense of identity in Volume One of Great...

Pip’s identity as an orphan has a significant impact on his character, making him the typical Dickensian child who is a victim of life and of the failures of the adults around him. His sister, Mrs. Joe, is the person responsible for rearing him, but she has made it clear that he is a nuisance and a bother. Her husband, Joe, is more of a companion to Pip, rather than a father figure. He joins with Pip in their sufferings under the hand of Mrs. Joe. Joe’s occasional attempts to be a moral influence, however, weigh heavily on Pip's conscience, especially when he seeks the life of a gentleman in London. Abel Magwitch, the convict, has yet to make a significant impact on Pip, other than a figure of fear, but this will become important at a later date. It is Miss Havisham and Estella who have a profound effect on Pip in his persona and especially his shame. They have made it clear that he is “beneath” them socially. Never having known shame of his condition, Pip begins to see aspects of himself that are not “gentlemanly,” which make him unacceptable to Estella. As the child makes the man, these people and incidents set him up for a futile dream of becoming such a gentleman as he has in his mind. However, they will also help him to overcome that dream to find a reality where he is his true, noble self.

How does the dialect and setting add to the short story "The Last Leaf" by O. Henry?

The setting of old Greewich Village with its leafy streets and ivy-covered two-story brownstones is an appropriate one for two young aspiring artists who need a place that has low rent, as well as a location where they can join other artists in the area. Old Behrman, who lives on the first floor, has a Yiddish accent that lends color and authenticity to the story. He is probably from Germany, one of many displaced Jewish persons from Europe who have come to New York.

Behrman may have had to flee Europe; at any rate, now he has little. But, he holds to hope, "the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul" as described by Emily Dickinson. For, Behrman hopes that one day he will paint his masterpiece. And, of course, he does because it is his painting that saves Johnsy from death.

When Sue, Johnsy's roommate, summons Behrman to pose for her, she reveals that Johnsy has pneumonia and now feels that she will die when the last leaf of ivy falls from the brownstone. Hearing this, the old curmudgeon is angered,

"Vass!" [What] he cried. Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy."

Yet, there is something endearing about his candid tirade. Certainly, his wrath is nothing to be feared because when Sue says, "Mr. Behrman if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't," he contradicts her, "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you." And, it is fortunate for Johnsy that he does because he is moved by his love for the young woman so much that he goes out into the winter storm and paints an ivy leaf onto the window. By his doing so, the "last leaf" will not fall and put Johnsy into despair.

Indeed, the Greenwich Village setting of young artists and the Yiddish accent of the colorful old Behrman lend a certain poignancy to O. Henry's story as well as some added color to the tragic circumstances of Johnsy's illness and Behrman's sacrificial death.

What are the two most powerful lines in this poem? What is the relevance of the lines to the theme, to the literary element you are discussing, or...

The two most powerful lines in the poem are not consecutive. One comes at the end of the seventh stanza: "But I’ve no spade to follow men like them." The other is the final line of the poem: "I’ll dig with it." The theme of the poem is that even though your ancestors may have had different gifts and different passions than you, they can nevertheless inspire you to excel at your own gifts and passions. In the poem, the speaker's father and grandfather were gifted farmers, and they seemed to get great personal satisfaction from the effort and results of their manual labor. The poem uses both symbols and analogy to carry out its theme. The spade symbolizes the work that the speaker's forefathers knew so well, namely "digging." The pen symbolizes the poet's craft of writing. The speaker draws an analogy, saying that he doesn't have a spade, but he does have a pen. He can get as much satisfaction and perform as much meaningful work as a writer as his grandfather and father did from digging. To apply the theme to your life, think of something one of your ancestors really loved to do and was good at but that you don't like to do or aren't good at. Then think of something you do well. Write about how you can gain inspiration for your passions and the things you are good at doing by considering how well your ancestors performed their tasks and what joy they gained from doing so.

Explain some of the causes of the Cold War.

There were several factors leading to the Cold War. The Allies had made some agreements near the end of World War II. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union didn’t follow some of these agreements.

One agreement dealt with Poland. There were supposed to be free elections in Poland after World War II ended, and some of the members of the pre-war Polish government were supposed to be in the post-war Polish government. When the new government formed in Poland, there were few members of the pre-war government in it, and there didn’t appear to be free elections.

The Soviet Union appeared to be violating the Declaration of Liberated Europe. This agreement stated that people would be free to choose their form of government after World War II ended. However, the King of Romania said he was pressured into having a communist government.

The Soviet Union also tried to spread communism to other areas in Western Europe and in Asia. We tried to stop this from happening. This led to many confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

There were several reasons why the Cold War began.

In the story "The Necklace," what is the atmosphere or tone?

Guy de Maupassant creates the atmosphere or tone of ironic pessimism in his short story “The Necklace.”

Through the third person omniscient narrator, the reader is introduced to the proud, young woman, Mathilde, who feels she deserves better than her past circumstances.

She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans.

Although she came from humble beginnings, she longs for the finer things in life so much so that she allows her inability to tell the truth to destroy her youth and much of her married life. The narrator describes how Madame Loisel “suffered” dearly through her want for the finer things in life.  

Throughout the story, the tone remains the same as Madame Loisel complains about all aspects of her life. Even when her husband secures a ticket to a coveted event, she protests that she has nothing to wear, which quickly dampens her husband’s spirits. He attempts to remain optimistic and suggests she seek proper jewelry from her friend, which ultimately leads to a life of hardship. Mathilde loses the necklace after attending the event but instead of telling her friend the truth, she and her husband go into great debt to replace the necklace.

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof.

The author uses words such as "agonizing," "black misery," "physical privation," and "moral torture" to emphasize the pessimism surrounding their existence in the story.

He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

Unbeknownst to them, the necklace was an imitation, which was revealed when Mathilde met her friend many years later. By then, she and her husband moved into a drab apartment, and Mathilde lost her looks and ambition from years of hard work to pay for the necklace. She was a bitter, pessimistic woman from her years of drudgery.

The story opens with the narrator telling the reader Mathilde was a girl of good looks and ends with her friend not recognizing her because those looks were gone. This along with the necklace being an imitation create the irony while the plot of the story creates the pessimism.

What are three examples of wordplay in The Handmaid's Tale?

At one point, Offred says, "I compose myself.  My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech.  What I must present is a made thing, not something born."  Here, she plays with the word compose.  When we say that someone composes a speech, we mean that the person writes and prepares it.  When we say that someone composes herself, we mean that she collects her thoughts and feelings and presents an image that seems put together, so to speak.  Offred seems to mean that she composes herself in both senses of the word: she attempts to collect and prepare all the fragments of her person under the Gileadean regime so that she can present herself as something that seems practiced and natural and polished, not awkward and strange.

Another time, when the Commander hands her a pen during one of their clandestine meetings, Offred recalls a memory from the Red Center.  She says, "The pen between my fingers is sensuous, alive almost, I can feel its power, the power of the words it contains.  Pen Is Envy, Aunt Lydia would say, quoting another Center motto, warning us away from such objects."  Penis envy is the Freudian idea that women are naturally envious of men's penises because the penis is the source of power.  Here, Offred plays with the letters, breaking them up differently to say "Pen Is Envy" because the ability to read and write has become an incredible source of power for the Commanders of Gilead.  She envies her Commander his right to the pen, something that she lacks.

When Offred describes Moira's escape from the Red Center, she says, "Moira had power now, she'd been set loose, she'd set herself loose.  She was now a loose woman."  Loose has several potential meanings here: Moira has been released or set free, but her pieces also seem to have come loose as though she's in danger of losing some now that she's no longer confined and defined by her societal role.  Further, to be a "loose woman" is a sort of old-fashioned way to describe a sexually promiscuous woman.  Taken together, Moira is both dangerous and endangered, which is just how the leaders of Gilead would want the other handmaids-in-training to think of her.