Write a story about "Hills Like White Elephants" after the original story ended.

This is a really interesting assignment. The way you write it depends on what you think Jig, the protagonist, will do after she gets on the train for Madrid. At the end of the story, it is unclear whether she will get an abortion or not, in spite of the fact that her boyfriend seems to be urging her to do so. She has reservations about the subject, but she seems to be leaning in...

This is a really interesting assignment. The way you write it depends on what you think Jig, the protagonist, will do after she gets on the train for Madrid. At the end of the story, it is unclear whether she will get an abortion or not, in spite of the fact that her boyfriend seems to be urging her to do so. She has reservations about the subject, but she seems to be leaning in that direction.

When you write the story, you can write the conclusion to this question. Will Jig get an abortion or not? If she does, how will she feel about it? Will she be able to continue in a relationship with her boyfriend? If she does not get an abortion and has the baby, will her boyfriend stand by her? How will she raise the baby? You can go in a lot of interesting directions with this story.

Be sure to stay true to Jig's personality, which is conflicted and self-effacing (she tells her boyfriend that she does not care about herself). Has she grown as a character since the end of the original story? If so, explain in which ways (for example, has she become more self-assertive?).

Why does Margaret Fuller structure her initial paper as a lawsuit?

Imagine life as a female intellectual in the nineteenth century. Margaret Fuller (Ossoli) was born in Massachusetts and was given an intense classical education by her father, who treated his daughter, academically, as though she was a young boy. Her education started at home but included a short period in her teens where she went away to school. She was urged to learn about fine arts, literature, and history, and she learned to enjoy thinking about and discussing academic topics. Yet, this type of education for females was frowned upon by the average American at this time in history, meaning that she had very few fellow women to discuss her intellectual wonderings with.

Life could be lonely for a female academic in that time. In fact, even though she was surrounded by scholars, including several transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, she was rarely welcome in academic discourses. Many male scholars found her manner of speaking overly assertive and intense for a woman and were reluctant to invite her into their social circles. It was this widely prevalent disbelief in women's academic and social potential that led Fuller to write "The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women," the precursor to her full-length book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century. This animosity toward women and their intellectual and social potential led Fuller to write her text in the form of a legal lawsuit. 

Fuller's friendship with Emerson was instrumental in developing both of their ideas. Though they did not always agree, they urged one another to consider ideas from new perspectives. Fuller was first acquainted with Emerson when she was invited, by his wife, to the Emersons' home in Concord, Massachusetts. (She was already curious about him, recognizing his growing fame as a local scholar.) From that point on, they maintained a frequent correspondence throughout her life, until she died in a shipwreck off the coast of the United States. This friendship allowed both Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson to grow in their views. It is arguable that Emerson's friendship with Fuller, filled with many intellectual conversations and debates, led him to advocate for women's rights in a couple of speeches, including his speech "Woman," which he gave in 1855.

Fuller was bold, intelligent, and unafraid to be a bit different. This is seen in her personal life as well, as she moved to Europe as a single woman in her thirties, joined the Roman Revolution of 1848, got romantically involved with a Roman Catholic man (though she was Protestant), had a child with him, and later married him. Fuller was a free-thinking woman of the nineteenth century. She challenged the intellectuals around her, including prominent scholars such as Emerson, to think more seriously about the capabilities of women through her words and actions. Her passionate belief in women's abilities to change the world is what led her to structure her literary piece in the form of a lawsuit. As Rebecca Rix, of Reed College, remarked:

"The Great Lawsuit" allowed Fuller to perform in text what she could not in reality: a sermon and a quasi-legal 'case' . . ."

As a woman, Fuller did not have many opportunities to preach the truths of women's capabilities or to present a case for their improved treatment. Since she couldn't actually speak this type of argument, she wrote out her case instead.

Why do Sofia and Harpo argue?

There is a major conflict between Sofia and Harpo, two characters in Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple. What is the cause of this conflict?

First, let's establish the relationship between these two. Relatively early in the novel Harpo meets and falls in love with Sofia. After she becomes pregnant, they get married; they have several other children in quick succession. But they won't stay a couple for very long: Harpo wants to dominate Sofia,...

There is a major conflict between Sofia and Harpo, two characters in Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple. What is the cause of this conflict?

First, let's establish the relationship between these two. Relatively early in the novel Harpo meets and falls in love with Sofia. After she becomes pregnant, they get married; they have several other children in quick succession. But they won't stay a couple for very long: Harpo wants to dominate Sofia, but Sofia refuses to be dominated. Their arguments get physical, and she ultimately moves out with the children. Here, another character describes their fighting:

fighting like two mens. Every piece of furniture they got is turned over. Every plate look like it broke. The looking glass hang crooked, the curtains torn. The bed look like the stuffing pulled out. They don’t notice. They fight. He try to slap her. What he do that for? She reach down and grab a piece of stove wood and whack him cross the eyes. He punch her in the stomach, she double over groaning but come up with both hands lock right under his privates. He roll on the floor. He grab her dress tail and pull. She stand there in her slip. She never blink a eye. He jump up to put a hammer lock under her chin, she throw him over her back. He fall bam up gainst the stove. 

What causes this kind of fighting? Sofia isn't like a lot of other women of the day: she is assertive by nature, refuses to work as a maid, and wants equality with her husband. She is not afraid of men, and she's not shy about defending herself either; she's willing to fight to protect her own rights.

Harpo, meanwhile, is an otherwise kind man, but he is frustrated because he can't control Sofia or make her "mind." Maybe, Walker suggests, Harpo doesn't want to control his wife as much as he wants to live up to socially imposed standards for how men and women should behave:

Harpo want to know what to do to make Sofia mind. He sit out on the porch with Mr.——. He say, I tell her one thing, she do another. Never do what I say. Always backtalk.

To tell the truth, he sound a little proud of this to me.

Long story short, it is both the natural personalities of these two characters and the social expectations for each of them that causes the conflict between Sofia and Harpo.

What limits our understanding of the Holocaust?

I imagine that are many reasons that people cannot understand the horror of what happened in World War II and actually, previous to World War II.  But a few ideas do come to mind immediately.  First, while other genocides have occurred subsequent to the Holocaust, none has been on the scale that the Holocaust was, and I honestly think we cannot wrap our minds around the enormity of it, the fact that millions of people were systematically put to death largely on the basis of religion or ethnicity.  Second, we all think of ourselves as good people, and we find it hard to understand how ordinary people, presumptively good people, could allow such atrocities to happen, a lack of insight into those people in those times and places.

Just looking at the number of Jews killed, we find our minds reeling, six million Jews just gone.  In Rwanda, 800,000 Tutsis were put to death, and even in Cambodia, which stands out amongst genocides, the number is about two million.  If you have ever been to New York City, you might be able to imagine three-fourths of it wiped out.  But that is still difficult for any of us to conceptualize.  Hitler ultimately approached all of this in an exercise in efficiency, experimenting with means of killing that would not cost him overly much and that could be done quickly.  This scale and approach of man's inhumanity to man should be difficult for us to understand.  I would be quite concerned about anyone who said, "Sure. I can see how that could happen." 

Similarly, we do not want to be people who have mindsets that allow us to visualize being part of a situation like this, either actively helping to slaughter a people or simply standing by saying nothing.  No one wants to think him or herself capable of this. It is like a defense mechanism we all have, that keeps us our consciences clean.  We tell ourselves we wouldn't let this happen.  Sadly, this is not true. We are all capable of allowing this to happen.  One famous study showed that ordinary and decent people were perfectly capable of shocking another person, even to a life-endangering point if ordered to do so in an authoritative way.  This was the Milgram study.  We are all quite capable of this. That is, in fact, the point of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."  The towns around the concentration camps smelled people burning.  They saw people crowding the rail cars, going in but never coming back out.  But denial is a powerful force, and as long as we can tell ourselves we simply cannot understand this, we believe it can't happen here.

Unfortunately, our refusal to understand could doom us to other holocausts.  The situation that led to the slaughter of Jews and Gypsies and many other groups was a situation in which things were not going well in the economy and stirring up the populace to blame the problems on some "other" yielded Hitler, the Nazis, and the Holocaust, even aside from all the others who died in World War II.  There are parallels today, in Europe and the United States, and history should not go unheeded.  Not understanding is something we cannot afford. 

What examples did Henry give to show that Britain had no intention of peaceful reconciliation with the colonies?

Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty or give me Death" speech of 1775 is one of the most famous and memorable orations in American political history. At the time, revolution was in the air, and the great and the good of Virginia had come together in a statewide Convention to determine their political strategy. Inevitably, there was a wide variety of opinions on how to deal with the growing threat. Strange as it may seem today, there were many at the Convention who still held out the hope of a peaceful reconciliation with the British.

Henry, for his part, was certain that war was an inevitability and that it was therefore absolutely essential for Virginians to form themselves into militias to resist the British. Despite the martial rhetoric of his speech, he nonetheless puts forward a number of rational arguments for taking the fateful step of armed resistance.

Henry is guided by "the lamp of experience." In his experience, there is absolutely nothing that the British have done in the last ten years to suggest any hope of reconciliation. He illustrates his point by citing the example of British troops mobilizing across the colonies:

Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war-like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?

If the British were really serious about peaceful reconciliation, as some at this Convention believed, they had a funny way of showing it.

Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other.

Henry uses incontrovertible logic to press home his point. If the British are building up their army and navy, it can only be to suppress the American colonists. They have no other enemies in that part of the world.

Trying to reason with the British has been a complete waste of time. Time and time again the colonists have presented their grievances only to have them completely ignored and treated with utter disdain:

We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne. . . Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.

We tried to achieve peaceful reconciliation with the British, suggests Henry, but they just did not want to know. If they had really wanted to achieve better relations, they would at least have made meaningful efforts at negotiation.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, "Peace, Peace" but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!

The time for talking is over. We must now fight for our liberty and, if necessary, be prepared to die for it:

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Which country controlled most of western Africa?

French West Africa existed from 1895 to 1959 and included the areas of modern-day Senegal, Togo, Dahomey, Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), Mali, Niger, Guinea, and Mauritania. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in West Africa, followed by the Dutch, English, and French. The European powers initially traveled along the coast, as they were interested in developing trade ports. As the Transatlantic Slave Trade progressed, slave markets dominated West...

French West Africa existed from 1895 to 1959 and included the areas of modern-day Senegal, Togo, Dahomey, Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), Mali, Niger, Guinea, and Mauritania. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in West Africa, followed by the Dutch, English, and French. The European powers initially traveled along the coast, as they were interested in developing trade ports. As the Transatlantic Slave Trade progressed, slave markets dominated West Africa from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Other goods such as peanuts and gold increased European activity as well.

As the age of colonialism continued, there was a land grab in Africa leading to the consolidation of French West Africa. 

Due to the abolition of slavery, European interest in West Africa began to decline. However, the European imperial powers would hold on to as many of their colonial territories as they possibly could, even regaining some territories lost during WWII. At this point colonialism had fallen out of fashion, and world leaders encouraged granting independence to colonies. By 1960, all territories of West Africa had gained independence.

Does Bill Gates, the richest person in the world, face scarcity? Does everyone? Are there any exceptions?

Everyone in the world faces scarcity.  There are no exceptions.  Even Bill Gates cannot escape scarcity.  Scarcity is endemic to the human condition.

Scarcity exists because people have limited resources but, at the same time, have unlimited desires.  We people tend to want many things, but we do not have unlimited resources with which to fulfill those wants.  This is true even of Bill Gates.  Let us imagine that Bill Gates wants to buy a...

Everyone in the world faces scarcity.  There are no exceptions.  Even Bill Gates cannot escape scarcity.  Scarcity is endemic to the human condition.

Scarcity exists because people have limited resources but, at the same time, have unlimited desires.  We people tend to want many things, but we do not have unlimited resources with which to fulfill those wants.  This is true even of Bill Gates.  Let us imagine that Bill Gates wants to buy a certain island.  He might not be able to because the island is not for sale.  The owner of the island may love the island and may not want to sell it for any price.  In addition, even Bill Gates could not buy absolutely everything he might want to buy.  For example, Bill Gates could not come anywhere near to buying up all the shares of Apple or Google.  Those companies are worth much more than Gates’ net worth.  When Gates invests in the stock market, he cannot buy everything because even he does not have enough money to do so.

Now imagine that Gates had literally unlimited money.  Even then, he would still face scarcity.  He would still have to make economic decisions because he would have limited time.  He would still need to decide whether to work on Microsoft projects or on charity projects at any given time.  He would still have to decide whether to go on vacation in Place X or Place Y.  These are economic decisions because he has to give one thing up in order to do the other.

For these reasons, every human being (even if they were richer by far than Bill Gates) would face scarcity.