In Cantos II and III, assess the importance of the sylphs in our understanding of Pope's attitude to his subject in The Rape of the Lock.

Identifying the author's attitude toward the subject of a
literary work may be a difficult task. The author's attitude can only be inferred from
the narrator's tone. Additionally, it may be confirmed through elements contributing to
the story's mood (setting, characterizations, descriptions, diction, etc.). Therefore,
to find the attitude of Pope toward the subject matter in The Rape of the
Lock, the first step is to determine the tone.

The
narrator's tone is established by vocabulary, phrasing, diction, and sentence structure.
Incidentally, mood is very different from tone in that mood paints the feeling of the
characters within the story. For example, a story may have a frightening mood but an
objective narratorial tone as in some stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

To
reiterate, the narrator's tone can give inference to the author's attitude toward the
subject matter. In The Rape of the Lock the narratorial tone is a
lightly jesting tone of both ridicule and praise. You can see this from the opening
lines in the words am'rous, trivial, slight,
praise:

readability="10">

What dire Offence from am'rous Causes
springs,
What mighty Contests rise from trivial
Things,
[...]
Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise, ....
(Canto I)

When Pope turns to
talking about a fair maiden's dressing ritual aided by sylphs in Canto II, then to the
protection granted by Ariel and his fairies in Canto III, this tone is heightened. Thus
the inference of Pope's attitude is clarified.

readability="13">

To Fifty chosen Sylphs, of special
Note,
We trust th' important Charge, the Petticoat: (Canto
II)

anxious Ariel sought
The close Recesses of the Virgin's
thought;
As on the Nosegay in her Breast reclin'd,
He watch'd th'
Ideas rising in her Mind, (Canto
III)

To an audience steeped
in reading classical mythology, the mythological allusion to and image of sylphs
attending a fair maiden's dressing table under the instruction of Ariel would evoke
humor and laughter, thus pointing at the author's attitude. However, for contemporary
readers, the sylphs and others of Ariel's legions make a less significant impact
because, in large part, contemporary readers are not well versed in classical reading in
the way literate members of the English upper classes were in the 1800s.

The introduction of the sylphs by Pope is an important indication of
the attitude with which Pope addresses the subject of the theft of Belinda's lock of
hair--incidentally, the poem is based upon a true event that caused a temporary feud
between two families. From the tone and from the clarification provided by the mythical
allusion to sylphs, it may be inferred that Pope's attitude toward the theft of
Belinda's lock is one of gentle chiding ridicule that such a relative trifle should so
severely divide two families. It may further be said that the mythical allusion to
sylphs adds greatly to revealing the attitude of gentle ridicule in Pope's chiding poem,
The Rape of the Lock.

Bring out the element of satire in the poem "The Frog and the Nightingale."

In the story "The Frog and the Nightingale," by Vikram
Seth, the main character is a frog who croaks all night, and the creatures nearby suffer
his "noise." No amount of discouragement can stop him. One day a beautiful nightingale
comes and sings, and everyone is delighted. Not used to the applause, she is thrilled,
and returns again. The frog decides— even though her voice is loved—to offer her
critical advice. The frog doesn't know what he is talking about, but the less
experienced nightingale takes his words to heart and tries to change. The crowds still
come, and by now, the frog is charging admission.

The frog drives the
bird to work harder, though the joy of singing is starting to fade; the crowd misses her
passion. One more time she pushes harder than ever, but it is too much and she
dies.

The frog is not at all sympathetic. He says she should have
listened to her own voice rather than being like someone else—except this has been his
advice to her all along.

In searching for satire, this addresses those
who hold a certain place in society, who are not overly talented, but are tolerated
(frog). When someone new arrives on the scene (the bird), the first guy tries to take
the attention away from her gift and imposes his actions/manners onto
her.

The frog represents a person who tells others that he knows the
best way to behave. He rides the wave of success in the shadow of this new person, but
he is a taker. He offers no words of encouragement; he perpetually demands that the
other work harder and harder. Naive, the other person follows directions, but loses joy
in the life he/she used to have—now trying to live up to someone else's expectations.
Her sacrifices mean nothing: the "instructor" only demands more, and when she "dies" or
fails, he sweeps her aside, noting her silliness, and expressing the theme of the
poem...

Well, poor bird—she should have known

That
your song must be your own.

Satire is:

...a work
that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform
or ridicule.

This poem, then, is warning to people against giving over
their talents, self-confidence and "moral courage" into the charge of those who have
little knowledge himself, and shares no worthwhile advice. In essence the poem
encourages people to "listen to the beat of their own drum," while avoiding those who
are full of themselves and/or who feel threatened by a sense of competition. The frog
here represents the voices in the world that rob those who are more innocent or
weaker—of their voice. They are not at all interested in the success of other people,
and when the other fails, the first guy happily continues to do his own "thing," though
his competition is gone now.

Written in the 1920s, and reintroduced
during the 1960s, "Desiderata," by Max Ehrmann, echoes the story's
theme:

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or
bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than
yourself...

...Be yourself…And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

The story of
the frog criticizes people with self-importance, and it presses the reader to hold on to
self-confidence, "follow your bliss," and find joy in who you are and what you
do.

Additional
Source:

http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm

How should the sniper have reacted to his brother's death in "The Sniper?"emotions of the sniper after his brothers death

This depends on which of the sniper's personas you think
is the real him.  The sniper shows two personalities over the course of the story.  He
shows the one whose eyes have "the cold gleam of the fanatic," but he also shows the one
who is rattled and remorseful after the battle.  These two personalities would have
reacted very differently to the death of his brother.

You
would hope that the remorseful personality would win out.  If the sniper has any real
humanity left, it would surely be activated by the death of his brother.  He should feel
shocked and horrified by what has happened.  However, this horrible event might drive
him deeper into fanaticism.  He might become even more hardened as a way to protect
himself from the emotional impact of having killed his brother.  It is really impossible
to know for sure.  You should decide which of these sounds more plausible to
you.

How important is Hamlet's encounter with the players in Act 2, Scene 2 for the play as a whole?

Hamlet's encounter with the players is very important to
the advancement of the plot as well as the revelation of Hamlet's character. When he
first speaks to them, it becomes clear that he knows them personally, which is
interesting because that means that a royal subject is associating with a group of
actors. Actors were considered a rather lowly and unsavory group in those days. Hamlet
asks them to set up an impromptu performance of a play he saw them perform only once,
but he delivers the first 25+ lines of one of the monologues, thus illustrating Hamlet's
interest in theatre and his intelligence. The choice of play is not an accident. He
picks a play about a son who needs to avenge his father's death and at first delays, but
ultimately kills his enemy. This clearly reflects Hamlet's life at this point in
time. 

Hamlet plans to have the actors perform a play that
he revises to better match the death/murder of King Hamlet. He reveals in the soliloquy
at the end of the act that he hopes to "catch the conscience of the king" by watching
Claudius's reaction to the re-enactment of his foul actions. The players have provided
Hamlet with an opportunity to get the proof he needs to confirm the ghost's story.
Hamlet will not act against Claudius without proof for fear of damning his soul with an
unjust act.

The last thing the players do for Hamlet is
remind him that he isn't fulfilling his father's request. He is thoughtful at the
realization that these actors seem to show more emotion for something that is not real
to them than Hamlet shows for things that are very real. Hamlet's depression reveals
itself again, but the plan with the players keeps him motivated to move forward with his
ultimate quest for vengeance.

What is the mood in Act 3 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet?

Whenever we think about mood we are actually talking about
the feeling or atmosphere that a given story evokes. Thus a horror story could evoke a
mood of fear and trepidation, or a story about nature in the countryside could evoke a
mood of peace and tranquility. The important thing is to consider what happens and then
to think about what emotional feeling it has on you. When we consider Act III scene 1 of
this excellent tragedy, we can see that there are two distinct moods. There is one of
lighthearted humour that accompanies the banter between Mercutio and Romeo as they
engage in their verbal battle of wits, and then there is a much darker, suspenseful mood
as Tybalt kills Mercutio and is then killed by Romeo, concluding in the Prince's exiling
of Romeo:

Let
Romeo hence in haste,

Else, when he is found, that hour is
his last.

Bear hence this body and attend our
will.

Mercy but murders, pardoning those that
kill.

Note the way in which
Romeo's grief and rage against his situation is captured in his line, "O, I am fortune's
fool!" The mood has changed distinctly from the easy, light-hearted one at the beginning
of the scene to one of tragedy, as Romeo has been forced to kill Juliet's kinsman, who
is actually now his kinsman now that he has married Juliet.

What if the difference between a tissue and an organ system?

A tissue is made of cells of a single type, working
together. An example is striated muscle tissue which enables us to perform voluntary
movements in the body. Another example is epithelial tissue which lines organs inside
the body. The lining of the mouth contains epithelial tissue. An organ is composed of
several different types of tissue working together to perform a function. An example of
an organ is the heart. Tissues that make up the heart include--blood, nerve, connective,
muscle, and epithelial tissues. When these tissues work together, the job of the heart
can be performed. The heart is able to pump blood to the lungs and to all the systems of
the body, constantly throughout a person's life. However, the heart is only one part of
the organ system known as the transport or circulatory system. An organ system is
composed of several types of organs working together to carry out a life process, in
this case transport. The organs in the transport system include the heart, arteries,
capillaries and veins. Organ systems work together to maintain homeostasis within an
organism.

What are some dystopian elements in Never Let Me Go?

I would argue that one of the chief dystopian elements,
common to many dystopian classics, is the question of identity and what it is to be
human. The clones show themselves to be identical to humans: they are able to love,
dream and are physically the same. Yet they live in a society that has created them and
given them life solely for the purpose of taking and harvesting their organs to give
life to "real" humans. In this world that they live in they are looked down upon and
regarded as a kind of sub-human species. The question of what is humanity and how do we
define humans and separate them from such imitations abounds, and, just as in
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the answers are rather
unsettling.

Together with the issue of humanity, another
topic that rears its ugly head in this excellent novel is that of rights and control.
The clones live in a very tightly-controlled world. No mention is made of any clones
ever trying to rebel against their lot. Although there are rumours of extra time that
can be won, it is just extra time, not life, and these rumours are shown to be false in
the novel anyway. Clones are created and brought up to serve one purpose: to give their
organs until they die. As such, their existence is pitiful and short. They are used and
abused by humans.