Examine Lear's mental conditionact 1 scene 4 to act 3 scene 4

Some critics believe that Lear in mad as the play begins.
 Why else would he divide up his kingdom?  Why else would he wrest authority away, to
his children?  Why else would he devise a silly love contest in his kingdom's allotment?
 If not mad, these acts are certainly foolish.

His age
doesn't help.  Lear is old for that time.  Senility and dementia are common for anyone
that age, not to mention the added pressure of being King.  Stress can ravage a
body.

We certainly have a correlation here: a divided
kingdom equals a divided mind.  Any king who divides his kingdom is asking for problems,
suffering, and unruliness.  Worse, any father who divides his love between his children
is setting himself and them up to fail.  And any father or king who enacts a contest to
determine awards is certainly asking for the worst in human behavior.  Greed and
ingratitude soon rear their ugly heads.

Casting away a
child (Cordelia) and a trusted advisor (Kent) will cause a detachment from reality.
 Compound this with two selfish forces (Regan and Goneril) competing for land and Lear
serves up a recipe for mental anguish.  Critic Laurence Stern
wrote:

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Nobody, but he who has felt it, can conceive
what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal
strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same
time.

So it is with Lear.
 Love and competition for love tear his mind into madness.  He cannot reconcile the two.
 His madness is a retreat from reality, a kind of denial of reality.  He cannot accept
the fear that his daughters and subjects do no love him.  He fears they may only want
from him.

R. Moore, in his essay "Madness in King
Lear," says:

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Several things attribute to Lear's eventual
madness. The Fool, initially, plays a large part in pointing out to the King his foolish
mistakes. Even before the onset of Lear's madness, the Fool is anticipating
it:

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thou hast pared thy wit o'both sides, and left
nothing i' the
middle.
(I.iv.194-95)

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Lear's gradual realization of the disloyalty of
his two elder daughters also leads him to anticipate his oncoming madness. Reproaching
himself for his blindness, he says of himself, "Either his notion weakens, his
discernings/ Are lethargied," (I.iv.236-37) and later, ". . . let thy folly in,/ And thy
dear judgement out!" (I.iv.280-81) It is Lear's reaction to Goneril's refusal to house
him together with his whole retinue that marks the first real premonition of his
madness, and the Fool suggests that it is his lack of wisdom, which accompanied his old
age, that will be the cause of it.

What is the significance of this quote, and how does it revealHale's character? “Let you not mistake your own duty as I mistook my own. I came...

Engaging in religion can be as sinful as maintaining a
heathen or pagan lifestyle. Even in our society today, churches and mosques and
synagogues are filled with people who go through the motions of religion in order to
satisfy a particular longing of theirs to just do it as if it is necessary to check a
mark off the list.

Hale performed the duties of his
ministry with pride and thought himself to be quite the intellectual as did the people
he served. However, somewhere along the line, TRUTH caught hold of him. This happens for
people in many faiths. They do it in the beginning because someone else encouraged them
to. But at some point, there comes a defining moment wherein the whole-heartedly choose
the life of the faith, which relies more on the faith, and not the ritual of the
religion.

Hale could not escape the conviction in John
Proctor. This man would not lie to save his life because he was trying to do right by
God. I think as Hale looked at himself, he probably would have lied in John Proctor's
shoes. This moved Hale to watch a common man so set in relationship or faith as opposed
to ritual.

What is the exposition of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe?

Narratology is the discipline that studies the structure and function of a narrative. "Exposition" is an element of structure within the the study of narratology. For the sake of clarity, "narrative" is anything that offers or presents a story with a sequence of events in which characters are involved. Thus the three of the indispensable elements of narrative structure are: (1) events, (2) chronological/cause-and-effect sequence of events, (3) characters who are (i) agents causing events or (ii) victims effected by events or (iii) beneficiaries who are benefited by events. Some other indispensable elements of narrative structure are narrator's voice and narrator's point of view (these are referred to collectively as "narrative mode"). There are several theories of narrative structure. One commonly taught in school is Freitag's Pyramid structure of narrative. Bear in mind however that Freitag's is not the only theory of narrative structure.

In Freitag's Pyramid (also called "Triangle") theory of narrative structure, the initial element of structure is called "exposition"; other structural elements follow while exposition is the initial element. What this means is that the exposition, in Freitag's Pyramid model, is the first thing the reader/listener learns in the narrative. There are two qualifications to this. The first qualification is that since narrative is defined as events-sequencing-characters, many things can offer narrative, including but not limited to billboard signs, advertisements in magazines, comic strips or comic books, true-life adventures (or misadventures) and news reports of natural disasters, think, for example, of the narrative followed by the reports of the 2011 Japanese tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdown. The second qualification is that Modernist and Postmodernist writers seek intentionally to undermine these narrative elements [scramble them up], especially chronological sequencing.

Knowing that these qualifications to narrative exist and that there are a number of theories of narrative besides Freitag's, the Pyramid offers exposition as the first step in narrative structure. What is exposition and how is it applicable to "The Tell-Tale Heart" by the genius of creepiness, Edgar Allen Poe? Exposition is the introductory material of a narrative, or story, in which the principle characters are introduced and in which the "backstory" or background information of the story is presented. The function of the exposition to to orient the reader/listener/viewer to the who and what of the story about to be told. The exposition can be complicated in some stories such as those that begin in medias res, in mid-event, because, in these, the backstory and introductory material may be delayed until after the immediate problem is resolved. For example, if a story starts during a Western shoot-out between Sheriff and bad guys, the exposition's introductory and backstory material will be delayed until after the shoot-out is settled.

In "Tell-Tale Heart," the exposition is spread out over the first three paragraphs and is complicated because it begins with a "frame" that complicates the chronological sequencing of the events. A "frame" is a story told in present, in the "now" of the story, about events that happened in the past, in the "then" of the story. In "Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator starts by questioning some unknown listener (not us) about why he is thought by the listener to be "mad" or insane. The rest of the paragraph adds to the introduction of this principle character, who doubles as the first-person narrator, and tells us about his personality traits: nervous yet calmly narrating, acute sensory perception, not mad. The second paragraph tells the backstory about the old man who "had never wronged" him, but whose eye was an offense, and introduces the conflict: "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever." The third paragraph gives the implied setting: the house that the narrator and the old man share: "And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it."

Thus we have from the exposition of "The Tell-Tale Heart," in the three opening paragraphs, the (1) principle characters, the (2) chronological sequencing within a frame story (a story told from within another story: e.g., I'm not mad: let me tell you a story to prove it.), the (3) setting, the (4) conflict integral to developing the plot and the (4) background story, or backstory.

Interactive Explanation of Exposition

Cached PPT presentation with Freitag's Pyramid Exposition

How did George and Lennie meet?Thank you for answering my question!

George and Lennie met as a result of George originally meeting and getting to know Lennie's Aunt Clara. She was the woman who devoted a part of her life to rearing Lennie. Upon her death, George Milton became the guardian of Lennie, as his protector, as Lennie is of limited mental acuity.

Lennie’s full name in this novel by writer John Steinbeck is Lennie Small, the last name a literary device that is indicative of how the world sees Lennie as concerns his mental ability, but not how they see him physically, as he is of great strength.

George, through knowing Lennie’s Aunt Clara, came to know Lennie and agreed to take on the responsibility of caring for Lennie upon her death. Lennie and George have been friends since childhood. Later in life, this leads to George and Lennie traversing California in search of better job (and overall life) prospects. They dream of living peacefully and working off the land together – a quiet, humble life that is not to be for Lennie, and ultimately, maybe not even George when all is said and done in his life.

What are three character or personality traits for Kira, Thomas, and Matt in Gathering Blue?

Kira is resourceful--although she is crippled, she finds ways to make herself useful even as a child, gathering cloth scraps from the looms. She is hard-working, a constant help to her mother and a tireless weaver. She is compassionate, as shown in her concern for her mother and for Jo.

Matt is energetic and courageous, which he proves by daring to venture into the unknown to find "blue". He is also intensely loyal, which he proves by protecting Kira's things after her mother's death.

Thomas is intelligent and observant. He knows his way through the Edifice's maze-like interior, and is not afraid to consider ideas outside the norm. He is also deeply artistic, and notes that the more he works on the singer's staff, the farther he feels from his "gift".

How would one define the relationships in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night?

Many different relationships
can be found in Twelfth Night. Some of those relationships include
friendships and false
friendships, and there is even an antagonizer-victim
relationship that gets flipped
around.

Maria proves to have somewhat of
a friendship with Sir Toby, even though she shows she
greatly disapproves of his behavior. We especially see their friendship in their
interactions in Act 1, Scene 2 as well as other scenes in
which they plan and execute the prank against Malvolio. Even though Maria scolds him,
warning that Olivia is very offended by his behavior, their friendly
banter shows their friendship. Act 1, Scene 2 also shows
Sir Toby's friendship with Sir Andrew, which proves to be a
false friendship. We already see it being implied that Toby
has only brought Andrew into the house to court Olivia because Toby wants to
take advantage of Andrew's money, which we see when Maria
asks why he brought such a fool as Sir Andrew into the house and one of Toby's replies
is, "Why, he has three thousand ducats a year," showing us just how interested Toby is
in Andrew's money (I.iii.20). Later, Toby's false friendliness to Andrew is exposed when
Toby declares what he really thinks of Andrew, "Will you help an ass-head, and a
coxcomb, and a knave? a thin-faced knave, a gull?" (V.i.212-13).

The
antagonizer-victim relationship is first shown
in Malvolio's antagonism of the other characters, such as
insulting Feste's abilities as a court jester and getting on the other characters'
nerves for being such a self-righteous "Puritan" (II.iii.129) and telling Sir Toby he
should leave the house if he wishes to continue his disorderly drinking. But the other
characters turn the tables on this relationship and
become the antagonizers while Malvolio becomes their victim
through their prank.

One type of
relationship found in Twelfth Night is
the love triangle. There are actually two
different love triangles found in Twelfth Night. Typically, a love
triangle usually involves two people who are in love with the same person; however,
there can be variations on the theme, just so long as all three
people have some sort of
relationship amongst each
other. 

The first love
triangle involves Duke Orsino, Olivia, and
Cesario. Duke Orsino believes he is in love with Olivia, but Olivia falls
in love with Viola, who is pretending to be Cesario. Meanwhile, Viola also falls in love
with Orsino, which completes the triangle. The unrequited love in this triangle
functions as the main conflict in the play. The resolution
occurs when Olivia mistakes Sebastian for Cesario and marries him instead; the
resolution further occurs when Orsino learns that Cesario is truly a woman named Viola
and decides to marry her instead. We especially see the resolution developed in the
final scene. Sebastian remarks on the advantage of Olivia having married Sebastian
rather than the real Cesario, pointing out that had she married Cesario, Olivia "would
have been contracted to a maid" (V.i.271). Furthermore, as soon as Orsino learns
Cesario's real identity, he makes the decision to join in on the happy moment by wanting
Viola for his wife instead of Olivia, as we see in his lines, "If this be so, as yet the
glass seems true, / I shall have a share in this most happy wreck"
(275-76). 

The fact that Olivia marries Sebastian instead brings us to
the second love triangle in the play. Olivia is in love
with Cesario, who rejects her because Cesario is actually a woman. Meanwhile, Olivia
meets Sebastian, who falls in love with Olivia immediately, forming the third corner of
the love triangle.

What is the main theme of the book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?

I feel Miss Brodie's betrayal to her students, to her school, and to the profession of teaching is the main theme. She chooses her six favorite students and openly lets the other students know they are her favorites. Her abuse of Mary is inexcusable, especially because Miss Brodie starts it. She openly attacks and breaks the school's rules and policies. By her own example of her actions and words, Miss Brodie teaches her students betrayal and distrust.

Sources:

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