Why would Mildred and her friends turn Montag into the police in the novel Fahrenheit 451?

After Montag leaves Faber's house, he is determined to scare the hell out of Mildred and her superficial friends by making them confront reality. Mrs. Bowles is opposed to Montag reading poetry and says, "We can't do that!" (Bradbury 95). Mildred explains that once a year firemen can take home one book to show their family how silly literature is. She asks Montag to read a poem, and Montag reads "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. After he reads the poem, Mrs. Phelps breaks down and begins to cry. Mrs. Bowles reacts out of anger and yells at Montag for reading the "silly awful hurting words" (Bradbury 97). Montag proceeds to insult the women about their superficial, wasted lives, and threatens to kick them out of the door. When the women leave, Mildred is silent and refuses to respond when Montag calls her.

Mildred and her friends would turn Montag into the police for several reasons. The first being that Montag has a book of poetry in his possession which is illegal in Bradbury's dystopian society. The second being that he is attempting to express intellectual views to emotionally assault Mildred and her friends. One of the main reasons why the government chose to censor books is because the populace was upset at authors for criticizing society and their immoral life decisions. Montag is essentially criticizing the women for their worthless lifestyle which would be another reason they would call the police on him.

What thoughts did the postmaster have when he left? How were his emotions different from those of Ratan?

“The grief-stricken face” of Ratan began to haunt the postmaster when he left for his home. The boat had already left the shore when he felt a powerful impulse to take Ratan along with him. But by then, it was too late:

…the boat had got well into the middle of the turbulent current, and already the village was left behind.

The author comments on the postmaster's feelings—“then he felt a pain at heart…” The pain being referred to could be described as the pain arising out of his sympathy for the “lonesome waif,” or it could also be interpreted as the pain caused by his guilty conscience. He knew very well that if he had taken Ratan along with him, all her worries and sorrows would have ended. Still, he didn't do so.

The postmaster, however, began to console himself with philosophical thoughts:

So the traveller... consoled himself with philosophical reflections on the numberless meetings and partings going on in the world—on death, the great parting, from which none returns.

In this way, he tried to disburden himself of the pang of guilt that tormented him.

On the other hand, Ratan was a parentless girl. She had grown much attached to the postmaster, keeping herself busy doing “odd jobs for him” and looking after him. Moreover, the postmaster had begun teaching her how to read. She enjoyed these lessons, and within a short span of time she had made remarkable progress. Since his posting in the village, she had been happy, as she had found a close companion in him. She didn't feel that lonely anymore.

Therefore, despite her request to the postmaster when he left without her, she was heartbroken.

She was wandering about the post office in a flood of tears.

Unlike the postmaster, “Ratan had no philosophy” to support herself with. Her source of consolation was her hope that he would return to take her along with him.

Ratan’s grief was much deeper and stronger than that of the postmaster’s for several reasons. First, unlike him, she had no family to which she could go and seek the warmth of human affection. Second, she was a young, illiterate girl, without a learned man’s philosophical thoughts to console herself with in this time of acute crisis.

So we see that the postmaster had begun to come to terms with the fate of Ratan, finding himself helpless to alleviate her pain, while Ratan “could not tear herself away” despite her deep grief because “she had still a lurking hope in some corner of her heart that her Dada [the postmaster] would return.”

What is Ponyboy's opinion of Johnny in the beginning of The Outsiders?

At the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy views Johnny as the "gang's pet." He mentions that Johnny was a smaller boy who had a nervous look in his eyes. Pony describes Johnny as a dark, lost puppy that had been kicked too many times. Ponyboy feels sympathy for Johnny because of his rough home life, and the vicious beating he received from a group of Socs four months earlier. Ponyboy relates to Johnny because they share similar interests and ideas, such as movies and the greaser "lifestyle." They share a close friendship with each other because they are nearly the same age and are the smallest members of the gang. Ponyboy is happy to run away with Johnny because he is intelligent and sensitive.

In "The Devil and Tom Walker", what would you expect to find in the forest as the story begins? Why?

What one "should expect" is, of course, a matter of opinion, and we should take caution with questions and interpretations such as these that we do not develop an overly strong imperative that a reader "must" feel or think a certain way when experiencing a piece of literature. However, we can develop several reasonable expectations and inferences based on the content of this particular story, and the consistent elements of the genre it is written in.

While the exact genre of "The Devil and Tom Walker" is alternately described as Gothic, Romantic, or a simple parable, it does seem fairly consistent throughout the story that appearances are not deceiving; things are as they appear, and that which seems evil, ominous or foreboding, shall be so.

Thus, considering that the forest is described as dark, imposing, and generally not the sort of place you'd want to spend a lot of time around, we can conclude that it is probably an evil place as well, and we should expect to find evil there, or at least things which are consistent with traditional Western depictions and symbols of evil. This manifests in things besides the Devil, such as the appearance of the vulture later in the story, or the black mold which covers part of the ruined Indian fort.

In "The Open Window," how does Mrs. Sappleton's comments about the hunters coming back contribute to the plot complications in the rising action?

Vera has set Framton Nuttel up to believe that Mrs. Sappleton's husband and her two brothers were killed exactly three years ago when they were sucked into a bog while hunting on the moor. The cunning girl has also made Framton believe that her aunt lost her mind as a result of the tragedy and for the past two years has been leaving the big French window open and waiting for the three men to return for tea. Not only that, but Saki, the author, has convinced the reader that Vera has told Framton the absolute truth.

Then when Vera's rather silly, dithering aunt appears in order to take over the hostess role from her fifteen-year-old niece, Framton naturally assumes that Mrs. Sappleton is insane. She only confirms Vera's assessment of her when:

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"

Framton Nuttel, as has been well established, is suffering from a "nervous condition" and is only staying in this region as part of his "nerve cure." Vera's story about the three men being killed in a horrible manner (similar to the way the villainous Mr. Stapleton is killed in Grimpen Mire at the end of "The Hound of the Baskervilles") has already upset the nervous visitor, and Mrs. Sappleton's apparent insanity upsets him even further. Mrs. Sappleton is so positive that the three presumably dead men will be returning imminently that she plants that gruesome image indelibly in Framton's mind. Then:

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

"Up to the eyes" is good because it makes them seem as if they have been buried in the bog for all these years. This is all told through Framton's point of view. He is seated in such a way that he cannot see the open window. He is looking at Mrs. Sappleton. Then he turns to look at Vera, expecting her to be showing by her facial expression that she shares Framton's pity and tolerance for the demented woman. But Vera is staring at the window with a totally unexpected expression.

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. 

The reader still isn't in on the joke. He thinks Vera's look of "dazed horror" is genuine. This expression on the face of the formerly "self-possessed" and apparently innocent young girl, makes Framton turn to look at the open window. And he sees what Vera expected him to see. Surely these men walking toward the open window are the dead hunters returned from the bog that killed them three years earlier!

Three ghosts would be bad enough, but three ghosts carrying guns are too much for poor Framton. He flees from the house without a word and is last seen running up the country road for his life. The reader does not realize Vera has played a trick on the visitor until Mrs. Sappleton's husband and two brothers enter through the open window and show that they are only ordinary mortals.

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

Why is race important in How it Feels to Be Colored Me?

Race is extremely important in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” because the essay deals with the social construct of race, racism, and maintaining one’s cultural identity.

She begins the essay with, “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.” Immediately, Hurston jokes about one of the ways she sees African Americans classify themselves, referring to the cultural joke that African Americans like to include being Indian as part of their cultural identity. Unlike most African Americans, Hurston suggests she is 100% black (colored), a fact she did not realize until she was thirteen.

She states, “I remember the very day that I became colored.” Hurston then begins a series of incidents that help to form her awareness as a black person. “Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando.” Huston explains that because she grew up in an all-black town, her race was never an issue. It was when she moved to the white town of Jacksonville that the concept of race, more particularity, her race became clear. “It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown--warranted not to rub nor run.” Her first encounters with racism after moving to Jacksonville made her aware of her race.

The essay recounts the various situations in which her race is more apparent to her because of the racism she experienced simply because of the color of her skin. She writes of her experience at Bernard College, “I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” She highlights again that it is others who are more concerned about her race, something she rarely thinks about. She writes, “The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.” Huston’s identity and confidence is less about her race and more about who she is a person.

Throughout the essay, Hurston exerts her identity as an American who just happens to be black. It is society, not her, that seeks to place her in a certain category (black). She ends the essay by illustrating that people are all the same. She states, “But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless.” Because “How it Feels to Be a Colored Me,” deals with Huston’s cultural identity and the way society forces her to classify herself because of her skin color, race is an important element of the essay.

In CLOSET SPACE, Melinda tries to enhance her environment. How does she do this? What does she use the space for?

The first thing Melinda does to feel more comfortable in her new space is to remove the mirror from the wall. This is significant, as avoiding mirrors is a motif that comes up time and again in the novel. Melinda does not want to face what happened to her and that is represented in an almost literal way by her reluctance to face herself in a mirror. 

Since she can't unscrew the mirror from the wall, she covers it with a poster of Maya Angelou. This is important too, as Angelou becomes an encouraging force for Melinda. Her presence in the novel is also an allusion to Angelou's own past: raped at a young age, Angelou stopped speaking for a period of time herself and, like Melinda, found her voice again through art.

Melinda also does a bit of house-keeping in her closet, saying, "I sweep and mop the floor, [...] scrub the shelves, [...] chase the spiders out of the corners" (pg 49). Melinda compares the work she is doing on her closet to building a fort, which is a telling comparison. The closet acts as a safe retreat from the world, a place where Melinda can hide and nap and read and escape the responsibilities of her young adult life. It provides her with a place to be a little girl again.