Why does the narrator, Montresor, never reveal the specific insult that prompted him to seek revenge against Fortunato in "The Cask of Amontillado"?

This is a question which every single reader of "The Cask
of Amontillado" must ask himself. Obviously, Edgar Allan Poe never gives us a specific
reason, only that there had been "the thousand injuries of Fortunato," and that, at some
point, Montresor's adversary had gone too far, forcing the narrator to take revenge.
Perhaps Montresor (or Poe) chooses not to reveal the exact insults to maintain a
mysterious aura; it could also be because Montresor is retelling the story 50 years in
the future, and the reasons are either unimportant or long forgotten. Since Montresor's
narration almost takes on a sense of confessional (perhaps to a priest or relative), his
goal may be to only confess his own crime, and not Fortunato's.

Compare and contrast Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

Tom is a slightly more civilized version of his friend
Huck. Both are wild, mischievous boys who disdain the civilized world's sense of rules
and decorum. Both have grown up in dysfunctional homes; Tom lives with his aunt, while
Huck's father is the town drunk who usually leaves his son on his own. They both have a
love of the river and adventure. Tom, however, is more willing to settle down, and he
seems to have an eye toward his future adulthood. Huck, meanwhile, is more comfortable
being on his own and finds a normal home life totally confining.

How would you analyze R.S. Thomas's poem titled "Service"?

An analysis of R. S. Thomas’s poem titled “Service” might
begin by examining the title. The poem is literally about a church “service”; the poem
presents a speaker who is conducting this service and is thus of “service” himself; and
both the priest/speaker and his congregants are by definition servants of
God.

The phrasing of the poem is simple and clear, and its
tone seems deliberately flat. The speaker is not describing an ecstatic, emotional
church service but in fact just the opposite. Neither the clergyman nor his congregation
seems to feel any great warmth toward one another, nor do they seem especially excited
about their mutual worship of God.

The word “‘prayer,’” in
line 2, is discussed as if it were an object: the clergyman “present[s]” it to them, but
they show no great appreciation for this gift. In fact, they hand it back. The somewhat
drab, prosaic style of the poem is, then, appropriate to the lack of great feeling in
both the priest and the congregants. Neither he nor they are vividly described; nothing
individualizes him or them. He feels isolated from them, and they apparently feel the
same way toward him. Indeed, the fact that he speaks of them while
telling us how he speaks to them suggests their fundamental
separation. (In contrast, recall the vivid sermon delivered by Father Mapple in
Melville’s Moby-Dick.)

In lines 6-8,
the clergyman says,

readability="5">

. . . I am left
alone

With no echoes to the
amen

I dreamed of. . .
.

Alienation, disappointment,
a sense of the contrast between the ideal and the real: these are all major themes of
the poem. This is a poem about “I” and “they,” not “we.” Paradoxically, the church,
which should ideally be a place of hope and joy, is here called in lines 9-10
a

. . .
place

Of despair . .
.

– literally, a place of
hopelessness. It is the sound of church music that “save[s]” this priest, not Christ. It
is the music that also finally provokes a response in the congregation as they join
together in singing. Indeed, lines 10-12 are full of images of union and
communion:

. .
. As the melody rises

From nothing, their mouths take up
the tune,

And the roof
listens.

These lines,
describing music, are themselves more musical than anything that has come before.
Alliteration appears in the repeated “th” sounds and in
“take up the tune.” The phrase
“their mouths take up the
tune” perfect exemplifies iambic pentameter rhythm in a
poem previously lacking a strong metrical pattern. Interestingly, line 11 is the poem’s
longest; it stands out in every way.

Very quickly, however,
the poem returns to its earlier somber tone and concludes with images of the priest’s
separation not only from his congregation but also from God. The poem ends as it began:
with images of looking but with no real sight. Ultimately, this seems a "service" that
is more of a burden than a source of
joy.

++++++++++++++++++

For
the text of the poem, see The Poems of R. S. Thomas (New York:
Everyman, 1997), 62.

A wave has a wavelength of 3mm and a frequency of 4hz. at what speed does the wave travel? Explain how you know that your answer is correct.please...

The wavelength of a wave is the distance between two
adjacent points where the shape of the wave is found to repeat. The wavelength is
expressed in the unit meter. The frequency of the wave is the number of wavelengths that
pass a point in a given interval of time, usually a second. Frequency is expressed in
the unit Hertz which is equivalent to per second.

As the
speed of the wave is the time taken by it to travel over a distance, it is given as
wavelength*frequency. The product of wavelength and frequency has units of meters per
second which is the same as the unit of speed.

The wave
given in the problem has a wavelength of 3 mm and a frequency of 4
hz.

The speed of the wave is 3*4 = 12 mm/s = 1.2*10^-2
m/s

Prove the inequality sin x>x*cos x, if x is in the interval (0,pi).

First, we'll create the function f(x) = sin x - x*cos x
and we'll have to prove that f(x)>0.

To study the
behavior of the function, namely if it is an increasing or a decreasing function, we'll
have to do the first derivative test.

A function is
strictly increasing if it's first derivative is positive and it is decreasing if it's
first derivative is negative.

We'll re-write the function,
based on the fact that the sine function is odd:

f(x) = sin
x - x*cos x

We'll calculate the first
derivative:

f'(x)= (sin x - x*cos
x)'

f'(x) = (sin x)' - (x*cos
x)'

We notice that the 2nd term is a product, so we'll
apply the product rule:

f'(x) = cos x - cos x -  x*sin
x

We'll eliminate like
terms:

f'(x)= -x*sin x

Since
the sine function is positive over the interval (0 ; pi), the values of x are positive
in this range and the product is negative, the first derivative is
negative.

The function is decreasing over the
range (0, pi), therefore the inequality x*cos x < sin x is
verified.

Can "The Open Window" fall into the category of horror?Hi. I have to compare this story to another horror story. Can I say that this story is a...

You are correct that "The Open Window" by H.H. Munro
(known as Saki) contains elements of both humor and
horror.

The story of fifteen year-old Vera "putting one
over" on the nervous Mr. Nuttel is clearly the tale of a successful practical
joke.

On a deeper level, however, the story is about the
fine lines that separate reality from illusion and sanity from insanity.  Vera's story
is in many ways perfectly plausible: hunters sometimes are killed, and their families
sometimes irrationally wait years for them to return.  Mr. Nuttel is certainly a nervous
man, and it is not surprising that the apparent realization of Vera's story is enough to
push him over the edge to insanity.

These "games" of
reality/illusion and sanity/insanity are standard tools-of-the-trade of horror writers.
 They create monsters that are just a bit more frightening than many real-life dangers
and they push their characters over the brink of sanity.

In
this respect, "The Open Door" can be considered a horror story.

Explain why, according to Guns, Germs, and Steel, humans and certain animals have unhappy "marriages."Guns Germs and Steel

In order to answer this question, you need to look at p.
168 and the following pages in the paperback edition of the book.  This is in Chapter 9,
roughly 6 pages from the end of the chapter.  There, Diamond gives you a number of
factors that can cause an animal to be undomesticable.  These are the factors that cause
the "marriage" to be unhappy.

The factors Diamond lists
are:

• The animal has to have a diet that can be
  compatible with being domesticated.


• It has to grow
  quickly enough to be worth keeping.


• It has to be willing
  to breed in captivity.


• It can't be too mean or hard to
  tame.


• It can't be too panicky because you need it to stay
  calm in enclosed areas and around people.


• It has to have
  a social structure that allows it to be
  domesticated.

If any one of these factors is
not present, the animal cannot really be domesticated.  This is why it is so hard to
find domesticable animals--they have to fit many criteria.

What was the term when the depositors decide to withdraw their money at once from a savings institution?

The term that you are looking for is "bank run" or "run on
a bank."  This is the term for what happens when a large number of depositors all try to
take their money out of a given bank at once.  This is a problem if so many depositors
try to take money out that the bank runs out of cash to give
them.

Banks do not simply keep all their deposits in a
vault.  Instead, they loan the funds out and only keep small amounts of liquid cash
around.  They rely on the idea that people are not all going to want their money at
once.  But if all the people do want their money at once, the banks are in trouble. 
This is what happened at the start of the Great Depression.  People worried that their
banks would fail so they started runs on the banks.  These bank runs ended up making
many banks fail in the early 1930s.