What effect does the structure of the text create on the story itself?

Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" is structured in a way that it slowly peels away the facade of the technological improvements made by society to reveal the devastation some advancements can cause. Bradbury structures this story by turning something quaint into something terrifying.

The actions in the story, absent of any human presence, suggest this family that lived in the Allendale, California house led a fulfilled life. They celebrated birthdays, played together, ate...

Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" is structured in a way that it slowly peels away the facade of the technological improvements made by society to reveal the devastation some advancements can cause. Bradbury structures this story by turning something quaint into something terrifying.

The actions in the story, absent of any human presence, suggest this family that lived in the Allendale, California house led a fulfilled life. They celebrated birthdays, played together, ate as a family, and even listened to poetry.

While all of this seemingly pleasant life is occurring in the narration, Bradbury reveals the terrible thing that had happened. At 10 o'clock, the house was the only one standing amid "rubble and ashes" and a "radioactive glow" could be seen for miles. Not only this, but the fate of the family is even more devastating:

The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.

After this reveal, Bradbury returns to the activity of the house going on about its business. The house dealt cards, served dinner, and cleaned up. The nursery walls performed for no audience. But, in contrast to the pleasant opening of the story, the house now seems to be a haunting reminder of the meaninglessness of this type of activity. Other technology—particularly nuclear weapons—would make every object useless.

In a story without any human action and no traditional characters, Bradbury effectively relies on his story's structure to create an emotional response in readers.

Why is an excess of pampering more detrimental than beneficial?

David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again," the title essay in his 1997 collection of the same name, is a critique of mainstream American culture and the concept of leisure. In this essay, he recounts his week-long experience aboard a large cruise ship in the Caribbean.

In his view, for most of the passengers, "fun" means overindulgence. And for the staff working on the cruise ship, "hospitality" means excess. Food and drink is one of the primary excesses that Wallace highlights:

There’s never a chance to feel actual physical hunger on a Luxury Cruise, but when you’ve gotten accustomed to feeding seven or eight times a day, a certain foamy emptiness in the gut always lets you know when it’s time to feed again.

On this cruise ship, according to Wallace, there is too much food, too much coffee (he mentions his near-toxic over-caffeinated state many times in the essay), too much forced frivolity, and too many organized activities (what Wallace calls "Managed Fun"). The culture aboard the boat encourages indulging and taking it easy: none of the passengers need to exert themselves in any way or to think about anything. Everything is provided.

So what's the problem? For Wallace, the excesses turn him weak, soft, and spoiled—and unable to control himself:

I normally have a firm and neurologically imperative one-cup limit on coffee, but the Windsurf’s coffee is so good, and the job of deciphering the big yellow Rorschachian blobs of my Navigation Lecture notes so taxing, that on this day I exceed my limit, by rather a lot, which may help explain why the next few hours of this log get kind of kaleidoscopic and unfocused.

In other words, one cup of coffee would have been pleasurable. Four cups are too many, but there is no one to stop anyone from overindulging. Wallace talks about lying in bed "glassy-eyed" in the last stages of the cruise:

all through the next day and night, which period I spent entirely in Cabin 1009, in bed, mostly looking out the spotless porthole, with trays and various rinds all around me, feeling maybe a little bit glassy-eyed but mostly good—good to be on the Nadir and good soon to be off, good that I had survived (in a way) being pampered to death (in a way)—and so I stayed in bed.

Wallace was supposed to have fun on the cruise, but like most others, he is not self-disciplined enough to exercise restraint. And he doesn't like the emptiness of being without a purpose, of being unable to think properly (and, moreover, for having no reason to think about anything). The contrast between the cruise and his real life are beautifully summarized in the last lines of the essay:

subsequent reentry into the adult demands of landlocked real-world life wasn’t nearly as bad as a week of Absolutely Nothing had led me to fear.

In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," how does the family eating breakfast on the veranda create suspense?

The scene in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" where the family is eating breakfast on the veranda is full of suspense. First, Kipling foreshadows the life-and-death stakes of the scene twice before the scene actually occurs. When Nagaina is talking to Darzee's wife, Nagaina predicts that "before night the boy in the house will lie very still." Darzee's wife lets Rikki know of the cobra's murderous intent by telling him, "She means killing!" 

The way Kipling describes the scene...

The scene in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" where the family is eating breakfast on the veranda is full of suspense. First, Kipling foreshadows the life-and-death stakes of the scene twice before the scene actually occurs. When Nagaina is talking to Darzee's wife, Nagaina predicts that "before night the boy in the house will lie very still." Darzee's wife lets Rikki know of the cobra's murderous intent by telling him, "She means killing!" 

The way Kipling describes the scene is full of tension. Nagaina is set to strike at Teddy, and the humans are very fearful. We can picture them: They aren't eating, they aren't moving a muscle, and their faces have gone pale. The father whispers to the little boy to remain perfectly still. Nagaina is coiled near enough to Teddy's chair that she can reach him in one strike. Her head is swaying menacingly as she stares unblinkingly at the humans. 

The dialogue further adds to the suspense. The father whispers a warning, and Nagaina speaks threateningly to Rikki without turning around to face him. She says if he comes a step closer, she will strike. 

The foreshadowing, description, and dialogue all work together to create a highly suspenseful moment in the story. 

What is the significance of the river in "The Deep River?"

In Bessie Head's story, the river represents the Talaote people; it is a symbol of the collective will and purpose of a close-knit community.

Long ago. . . the people lived together like a deep river. In this deep river which was unruffled by conflict or a movement forward, the people lived without faces, except for their chief, whose face was the face of all the people.

The river is deep, perhaps also representing the...

In Bessie Head's story, the river represents the Talaote people; it is a symbol of the collective will and purpose of a close-knit community.

Long ago. . . the people lived together like a deep river. In this deep river which was unruffled by conflict or a movement forward, the people lived without faces, except for their chief, whose face was the face of all the people.

The river is deep, perhaps also representing the depth of the people's commitment to their communal way of life. The old traditions of common ownership and cooperative economics are long-standing, and that is why Sebembele's stubborn loyalty to Rankwana and Makobi is seen as a rebellion of the worst sort. Others even view Sebembele's love as unnatural and a masculine aberration (divergence or departure from what is considered normal).

We are told that Sebembele's actions constitute the "first ripples of trouble" stirring "over the even surface of the river" of the villagers' lives. In the end, Sebembele chooses to leave the village with Rankwana, Makobi, and other villagers who support their chief. So, the deep river is significant in that it represents the Talaote community and the collective will of the people. However, a river can also be split into what are called distributaries, smaller streams or rivers. The process of splitting is called river bifurcation.

In the story, Sebembele represents a "distributary" that has split from the main, deep river. His actions highlight the realities of individualism and the fate of a community divided by strife.

They accepted this regimental leveling out of their individual souls but on the day of dispute or when strife and conflict and greed blew stormy winds over their deep river, the people awoke and showed their individual faces.

What is the biblical significance of the story title "Do Seek Their Meat From God" by G.D. Roberts? How can the invocation of God be seen as ironic?

The Biblical allusion within this story's title refers to Psalm 104, verse 21: "The young lions roar after their prey And seek their food from God."  The purpose of this psalm is really to praise God for his creation of the beauty and wonder of the Earth: the sun knows when and where to set, the mountains knew when to rise, and the valleys know when to sink; the grass grows to feed the cattle,...

The Biblical allusion within this story's title refers to Psalm 104, verse 21: "The young lions roar after their prey And seek their food from God."  The purpose of this psalm is really to praise God for his creation of the beauty and wonder of the Earth: the sun knows when and where to set, the mountains knew when to rise, and the valleys know when to sink; the grass grows to feed the cattle, the ground produces food for us so that we may plant and grow more food, and so forth.  Ultimately, then, it is God that has supplied the young lions with the prey they seek in order to satisfy their hunger.  The lions are not malicious or evil—they are merely carrying out the job God created for them in the manner in which God must want it done.

We might see the invocation of God as ironic because the wild animals in the psalm as well as the story do not know God exists; they do not understand the belief that their instincts are created by something outside of themselves or even that it is instinct that compels them to seek food and search out their prey.  They only know that they must eat and that they have to feed and protect their young, just as the man in the story feels compelled to protect his son.  For them, there is no concept of God, so it might seem ironic to invoke him in the story's title.

What is molality?

In chemistry, the concentration of a solution refers to the amount of solute dissolved in a solution. There are various ways to report concentrations depending on the units used. Some of the most common ones are molarity, molality, and percentages. Percent of a solute can be weight by volume (w/v) or weight by weight (w/w), which is simply the ratio of the mass of the solute to the total volume or weight of the solution.

...

In chemistry, the concentration of a solution refers to the amount of solute dissolved in a solution. There are various ways to report concentrations depending on the units used. Some of the most common ones are molarity, molality, and percentages. Percent of a solute can be weight by volume (w/v) or weight by weight (w/w), which is simply the ratio of the mass of the solute to the total volume or weight of the solution.

Molarity and molality makes use of the ratio of the moles of solute to either the volume (in liter) of solution or the mass (in kilogram) of solvent, respectively. Molality is most often used in experiments that involve a significant change in temperature as molarity is sensitive to temperature due to expansion/compression that may result to significant changes in volume - and hence, apparent concentration.

In brief, molality is one way to express the concentration of a solution. It is the ratio of the number of moles of solute to the mass in kilograms of solution:

`m = (n_(solute))/(mass_(solvent))` .

In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, how does racism influence the narrator's search for identity?

In Ellison's book, racism presents a major challenge in the narrator's search for identity. Because of racism, the narrator finds himself facing two mutually exclusive choices: should he work within the status quo to achieve personal relevance as a black man or should he embrace Ras the Exhorter's more radical, black separatist approach?

In the story, Ras the Exhorter believes in the revolutionary approach, and he sees violence as the only legitimate response to pervasive...

In Ellison's book, racism presents a major challenge in the narrator's search for identity. Because of racism, the narrator finds himself facing two mutually exclusive choices: should he work within the status quo to achieve personal relevance as a black man or should he embrace Ras the Exhorter's more radical, black separatist approach?

In the story, Ras the Exhorter believes in the revolutionary approach, and he sees violence as the only legitimate response to pervasive racism. On the other hand, the Brotherhood espouses the principles of non-violence and cooperation. The narrator does join the Brotherhood, but he finds himself stymied by its unnatural focus on sterile conformity and its lack of emphasis on the individual. Meanwhile, Ras himself is frustrated with the narrator. He demands to know why the narrator refuses to disengage himself from the likes of the Brotherhood:

"Why you with these white folks? Why? I been watching you a long time. I say to myself, 'Soon he get smart and get tired. He get out of that t'ing.' Why a good boy like you still with them?...Brothers are the same color; how the hell you call these white men brother?...We sons of Mama Africa, you done forgot?...Why you with them?...They sell you out...They enslave us- you forget that? How can they mean a black mahn any good? How they going to be your brother?"

Ras also raises another important consideration: opposing factions of black men, divided by ideology, are anathema to the cause of equality.

"Me crazy, mahn? You call me crazy? Look at you two and look at me -- is this sanity? Standing here in three shades of blackness! Three black men fighting in the street because of the white enslaver? Is that sanity? Is that consciousness, scientific understahnding? Is that the modern black mahn of the twentieth century? Hell, mahn! Is it self-respect -- black against black?"

Racism is the reason two such mutually exclusive choices are foisted upon the narrator. His search for personal identity must encompass his ability to transcend the weaknesses inherent in both choices. He must reject blind conformity as well as gratuitous violence.

The narrator's response to racism colors his final decision to emerge from "hibernation." By the end of the novel, he experiences a crucial epiphany. He will be circumscribed by neither Brotherhood nor black separatist ideology. The narrator makes the choice to face the world on his own unique terms. In the end, it is his own unique response to racism that fuels his personal growth and emerging self-actualization.

Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? -- diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain...Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many -- This is not prophecy, but description.