Why is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas a fable?

Fables are characterized by a short story format and narrative which conveys some moral lesson. Though John Boyne's novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is longer than most fables, the fact that it contains strong moral themes could push it into this genre. I would also argue that the story could be condensed down to its major plot points, creating a shorter narrative, while retaining the moral lessons.

The story itself is set in...

Fables are characterized by a short story format and narrative which conveys some moral lesson. Though John Boyne's novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is longer than most fables, the fact that it contains strong moral themes could push it into this genre. I would also argue that the story could be condensed down to its major plot points, creating a shorter narrative, while retaining the moral lessons.

The story itself is set in Germany during the Nazi regime. Nine-year-old Bruno and his family have just moved to a new place where he feels quite alone. One day while wandering outside, he finds a boy his very age sitting on the other side of a fence. It turns out that Bruno and his new friend Shmuel have quite a lot in common, but they are different in one major respect. Bruno is a free German boy and the son of a Nazi commandant, while Shmuel is a Jewish boy imprisoned in the Auschwitz camp. 

Their friendship offers some comfort but ultimately leads them both to death-- a strong warning about the evils of involving children in, or making them ignorant of, war. The focal point of the pajamas sends an equally strong message about not taking people at face value. When Bruno dons his friend's pajamas, did he instantly become a prisoner? Did he become something his father hated and sought to punish? Though the pajamas represent the different life circumstances the boys experience, they also symbolize the religious, social, and ethnic context of the Second World War.

How did the persona of "A Poison Tree" deal with his anger while his enemy was alive? Give two things he did.

In "The Poison Tree," the persona deals with his anger while his enemy is still alive by nurturing it. He does this in two ways. First, as Blake puts it, he "water'd it in fears / night and morning with my tears." This means that when the persona wakes up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night he remembers over and over how he has been hurt by his enemy. He...

In "The Poison Tree," the persona deals with his anger while his enemy is still alive by nurturing it. He does this in two ways. First, as Blake puts it, he "water'd it in fears / night and morning with my tears." This means that when the persona wakes up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night he remembers over and over how he has been hurt by his enemy. He dwells on his "fears": how his enemy could hurt him again, and he thinks about his enemy with "tears" over the original injury.

The persona also pretends that nothing is wrong. Blake states it this way: "I sunn'd it [his anger] with smiles / And with soft deceitful wiles." Rather than confront his enemy or talk it through, the persona stuffs his anger down and pretends everything is fine. He smiles at his enemy. He is kind on the surface to his enemy. Meanwhile, the unresolved anger grows and grows.

We don't know how the enemy injured the persona, but the poem leads us to believe that whatever it was, the persona blows it (or grows it) all out of proportion both by dwelling on it silently and by pretending publicly that he is happy.

The contrast of youth and old age is important in this play. How far do you agree with this statement?

Shakespeare definitely presents a generation gap in Romeo and Juliet. Both Romeo and Juliet believe the older characters, Friar Lawrence and the Nurse, do not understand their love for each other. Juliet makes reference to the idea in Act II, scene 5 during her soliloquy to open the scene. Romeo does the same thing after the fight in Act III. He accuses the Friar of not realizing the depth of his love for Juliet.

...

Shakespeare definitely presents a generation gap in Romeo and Juliet. Both Romeo and Juliet believe the older characters, Friar Lawrence and the Nurse, do not understand their love for each other. Juliet makes reference to the idea in Act II, scene 5 during her soliloquy to open the scene. Romeo does the same thing after the fight in Act III. He accuses the Friar of not realizing the depth of his love for Juliet.

At the beginning of Act II, Romeo proposes marriage to Juliet. Later in the Act, Juliet sends the Nurse to discover Romeo's plans. In scene 5, Juliet is anxiously awaiting the Nurse's return. The Nurse is late and Juliet remarks that if the woman were younger she would be quicker and would better understand Juliet's feelings. Juliet says,

Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.
But old folks, many feign as they were dead,
Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.

The Nurse is also slow in revealing Romeo's arrangements and it drives Juliet crazy. She cajoles the Nurse but it doesn't speed up the news. The Nurse doesn't understand Juliet's haste and comments,

O God’s lady dear,
Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.

A similar conversation takes place between Romeo and the Friar in Act III, scene 3. Romeo has just killed Tybalt and taken refuge in Lawrence's cell. When the Friar gives Romeo the news that he has been banished, Romeo launches into a whining rant. He laments the fact that he won't be able to see Juliet and that he'd rather be dead. When the Friar tries to reason with him, Romeo accuses the Friar of being old and not comprehending his feelings. Romeo says,

Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murderèd,
Doting like me, and like me banishèd,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

The Friar eventually reprimands Romeo for his words and points out his immature behavior. He says,

Hold thy desperate hand!
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!

In the end the Nurse and Friar Lawrence fail in their roles as older role models for Romeo and Juliet. The Nurse gives Juliet bad advice about marrying Paris, forcing the girl to seek counsel from the Friar. The Friar fails in his plan for Juliet to fake her death as his message to Romeo is never received. In this case, the generation gap winds up being deadly for the young people.

In "Thank You, M'am," Roger wanted to say something more than "thank you." What did he want to say?

Part of what makes Hughes's story so compelling is that he does not exactly tell us what Roger would have said to Mrs. Jones.

It is clear that Mrs. Jones had an impact on Roger.  When she caught him at the start of the story, he tried to run away. However, as the story develops, he is touched by the way she looked out for him.  He is willing to go to the store for...

Part of what makes Hughes's story so compelling is that he does not exactly tell us what Roger would have said to Mrs. Jones.

It is clear that Mrs. Jones had an impact on Roger.  When she caught him at the start of the story, he tried to run away. However, as the story develops, he is touched by the way she looked out for him.  He is willing to go to the store for her and is shocked with her proposition that he could have "simply asked" her for the money.  By the time he leaves, he wants to say more to her.  Hughes writes that as she leads Roger out of her home, "the boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, m’am” to Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones."  It is not clear what this would be.  

We can surmise that Roger wanted to communicate how thankful he was for someone showing care to him.  He might have also wanted to continue a relationship with the woman, as it was clear that she understood his reality and the challenges that confronted him.  Roger might have even told her that her reaction to him had forever changed the way he viewed his life and the choices he made within it.  Simply put, we do not know what he would have said to her.  However, we do know that he was experiencing some authentic emotions of gratitude and emotional debt towards her.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, how do the Finches deal with the Great Depression?

The Great Depression was a time of economic hardship in the United States.  People of all classes were negatively impacted by the Depression.  In Maycomb, both the farmers and the professionals were impacted.  Atticus explained why to his children:

... professional people were poor because the farmers were poor. As Maycomb County was farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers (To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 2).

...

The Great Depression was a time of economic hardship in the United States.  People of all classes were negatively impacted by the Depression.  In Maycomb, both the farmers and the professionals were impacted.  Atticus explained why to his children:

... professional people were poor because the farmers were poor. As Maycomb County was farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers (To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 2).

The Finch family had very little money because of this.  They did not, however, go hungry or cold.  When Mr. Cunningham required legal services from Atticus, he paid him in various items because he had no cash.  For months, Mr. Cunningham dropped off everything from firewood to turnip greens to hickory nuts.  Though Atticus made no money from the services he provided to Mr. Cunningham, his family gained food to eat and wood to keep them warm in the winter.  Atticus also made some money from his job as a state legislator.  

Living simply was also key for the survival of the Finch family during the Depression.  Atticus rarely drove his car, and instead he chose to walk to work.  This saved money on gasoline.

Is it true that the conclusion paragraph of an essay is not critical?

You should base the structure of an essay on its purpose, and some essays do not have conclusion paragraphs.

First of all, there are many different kinds of essays. You probably have written a lot of essays for school, and possibly for different classes. People write essays for newspapers and magazines as well. The essay is a very popular literary genre. Many professional essays vary significantly in structure from the typical five-paragraph essay.

The five...

You should base the structure of an essay on its purpose, and some essays do not have conclusion paragraphs.

First of all, there are many different kinds of essays. You probably have written a lot of essays for school, and possibly for different classes. People write essays for newspapers and magazines as well. The essay is a very popular literary genre. Many professional essays vary significantly in structure from the typical five-paragraph essay.

The five paragraph essay has been a school staple for generations. This essay typically begins with an introduction paragraph supported by three body paragraphs, and ends with a conclusion paragraph. This is still a good general rule of thumb. The introduction gives you a place to include your thesis, which is where you focus your essay, and the conclusion gives you a chance to review your arguments.

The most common case in which you will not always have a conclusion is in on-demand writing. This is the type of writing used on standardized tests such as the Advanced Placement test. In this case, many teachers suggest dispensing with the introduction and conclusion process, because there is not much time and the essay graders would rather you get to your arguments and focus on them.

For this type of essay, it is best to begin with a thesis and then jump right into your points. You should first make sure that your thesis is clear and specific, and fully addresses the prompt (the essay question). Then use the next paragraphs to support your thesis. Be sure to use a lot of evidence to support your points, whatever you are writing about. In this case, you often do not have time to summarize your case in a conclusion, and summarizing is not considered as important as getting your arguments across.

A good rule of thumb in a multi-essay, on-demand writing situation is to write the thesis and support for all of your essays first. Then go back and proofread. If you have time, you can add a conclusion after you have done this. You will have made sure that you accomplished your task first.

When and where does the short story "The Interlopers" take place?

The short answer to your question can be found by reading the very first sentence in the story:  “In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening.”  The Carpathian Mountains stretch from the Czech Republic to Romania in Eastern Europe, and its eastern spurs would most likely place this forest somewhere in either Ukraine or Romania.

This particular “narrow strip of...

The short answer to your question can be found by reading the very first sentence in the story:  “In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening.”  The Carpathian Mountains stretch from the Czech Republic to Romania in Eastern Europe, and its eastern spurs would most likely place this forest somewhere in either Ukraine or Romania.

This particular “narrow strip of precipitous woodland” is on the outskirts of the forestlands owned by Ulrich von Gradwitz, on the border of the family’s property.  The land had been given to his grandfather in court, taken from the Znaeym family, the neighboring landowners who had never acquiesced to the ruling of the court but had instead continued to illegally hunt on this bit of forest, which they considered to be rightfully theirs.  Over the generations a blood feud developed, and now Ulrich von Gradwitz and George Znaeym are mortal enemies.  When we are introduced to Ulrich, he is in the contested land with his rifle waiting for Znaeym family raiders.

As far as when this story takes place, this also is answered in the first sentence:  we are in winter.  A “wind-scourged winter night,” to be specific, two generations after the initial contestation of the border forest, and therefore two generations deep into the rivalry between the Gradwitz and Znaeym families.