What happens to Buck after he leaves Judge Miller's home in Call of the Wild?

The theft and sale of Buck in The Call of the Wild completely alters the dog's life as it reverses the generations of domestication of his breeds of St. Bernard and the Scottish shepherd and returns him to the atavistic nature of his ancestors.

Once Buck is in the possession of his captors, his freedom and kind treatment by humans vanishes. He becomes no more than a caged animal, at first. Then, he finds himself harnessed to a team that pulls a sled in Alaska. "He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old life." He begins to gobble down food lest another take it from him, and he steals what he can. These actions marks his adaptability and his new owners are pleased.

Because the "dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck" certain traits emerge in him such as cunning and deliberateness. For instance, he avoids fights, and although he hates his rival, the lead dog Spitz, Buck does not display his feelings and avoids offensive acts that would spur Spitz to fight. But, one day when Spitz tries to steal the nest Buck has made under a rock, he feels the "beast in him" roar, and he fights the usurper. However, as they fight, "famished beasts" appear, trying to steal as much food as they can. Buck fights them fiercely. Finally, one day Buck kills Spitz and takes over as the lead dog.

Later, Buck finds himself on another team that carries heavy loads of mail. When he and the other dogs arrive, they are in a "wretched state, worn out and worn down." One of the dogs is shot because he is so weakened. Afterwards, the owners sell Buck and his team to three eager prospectors. Unfortunately, they have little knowledge of the climate or dogs, and they overload the sled and have planned poorly for the journey they undertake. The woman, Mercedes, overfeeds the dogs early on and they run out of food for the dogs. By the time that they arrive, out of fourteen only five have survived. When the man, Hal, tries to beat the dogs and force them to cross thin ice, Buck's instincts tell him to rebel because of danger. When he does so, Hal beats him fiercely, but John Thornton intervenes, rescuing Buck from his insensitive owners who fall through the ice.

With Thornton as his owner, Buck lives happily; in his devotion to the man who has saved him, he, in turn, saves his owner from drowning and from an attack by another man. Buck even wins over a thousand dollars for Thornton as he pulls a load weighing about half a ton. Over time, however, more of the primordial beast emerges in Buck and he wanders off to hunt real game such as moose. He also mingles with wolves, but he still returns to camp at night. One time, however, Buck returns to find his owner has been killed by Yeehat Indians. Fiercely, he kills several of the Indians and runs off the others. Afterwards, Buck charges into the wild,; there he hears yelps that act as that atavistic call which persists in his memory. 

It was the call, the many-noted call, sounding more luringly and compelling than ever before.

Now without his human owner, Buck answers this call. When a pack of wolves come one day, Buck kills the boldest one and fights the others. But, when an old wolf approaches and sniffs his nose peacefully, then turns up his head and howls at the moon, Buck, too, howls. After this night he runs with the pack of wolves, yelping as they do. In time Buck becomes a legendary figure as the Indians who yet fear him call him the Ghost Dog.

What is the conflict in Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder?

In this first book in the Little House series, the Wilders live in the "big woods" of Wisconsin in a small log cabin. The area is already settled, and they have neighbors, though none too close by. The book is a year-long series of vignettes about the family's life. Their first conflict is the struggle to survive: Pa, their father, must hunt and kill enough animals for them to eat through winter as well as to have fur pelts to trade in the spring. The family must slaughter a pig for winter provisions and harvest crops and vegetables. In the winter, they gather maple syrup, while spring and summer are exhausting seasons of planting and harvesting. 

Other conflicts animate the story: the tomboy Laura, the book's protagonist, is often jealous of and sometimes fights with her pristine, golden-haired older sister Mary, who is prettier and does everything in a more ladylike way. Laura struggles with her own tendencies to disobey and rebel; for instance, she touches hot bullets although she is warned they will burn her fingers and she does not want to sit still, be quiet, and be good on Sundays. Although very young, Laura must learn to control her impulses, a lesson repeatedly reinforced in the narrative.  

What does the second chapter in Richard Dawkins' 2006 book, The God Delusion, say about religion?

"The God Hypothesis" is the second chapter in Richard Dawkins' 2006 book, The God Delusion. Dawkins is one of the more outspoken members of a movement sometimes termed the "new atheism", a vocal anti-religious movement. Dawkins himself is an evolutionary biologist and takes a Darwinian perspective on religion, seeing it as part of a primitive belief system that is no longer relevant to a modern, scientific world view.

While Dawkins heaps scorn and sarcasm on religion, picking out individual absurdities and distasteful elements in the Bible in this chapter, there doesn't seem to be much of a coherent philosophical argument. Dawkins' construction of religion is at what theologians would consider an extreme of literalism. He assumes that all religions take their narratives as absolute historical fact rather than as parables teaching moral lessons. He also tends to conflate all religions into a single set of naive supernatural beliefs. Oddly, he seems to see religion as a (failed) form of history or science rather than something on a different order, part of a tradition of philosophical understanding of the mysteries of our world and ourselves. Dawkins is not a fan of mysteries.

Dawkins tends to construct religion as a set of self-serving lies by the clergy to preserve their power and wealth or as a set of delusions. In a sense, one can say that Dawkins constructs religion in his own image, as something singular, literal-minded and scientific, albeit wrong, as opposed to ways that diverse thinkers over many cultures and periods have attempted to understand spiritual, mystical, and emotional aspects of humanity and the divine.

In J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, what causes Holden to almost “neck” with Jane?

Chapter 11 is where Holden discusses Jane Gallagher the most. He talks about what a great figure she has and how good looking she is, but his mother doesn't think that Jane is pretty. He likes her even if his mother doesn't think she is cute, though.

The situation surrounding "the only time old Jane and I ever got close to necking" deals with Jane's step-father (78). Holden and Jane are sitting out on her screened-in porch playing checkers. Mr. Cudahy, the step-dad, comes out and asks Jane where the cigarettes are, and she doesn't answer him. Jane never discloses what the issue is with her step-dad, but Holden asks her if he ever "got wise" with her. Jane starts to cry and Holden jumps to the rescue by sitting next to her and kissing her all over her face. It's ironic, though. Here he is asking if her step-dad has tried anything physical with her, and in her despair, Holden tries to comfort/get physical with her! 

". . . the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over--anywhere--her eyes, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows and all, her ears--her whole face except her mouth and all. She sort of wouldn't let me get to her mouth" (79).

Since Jane just sits there and takes his kisses and won't let him kiss her on the mouth, Holden declares it "close to necking." 

How would you film the opening settings in Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle?

Washington Irving placed his stories in the New York that he knew well, especially the lush woods and hills along the Hudson River. Any film based upon his 1819 short story Rip Van Winkle, then, would need to include copious footage of this type of landscape. As multiple depictions of Rip Van Winkle have been filmed, or recreated in animation, any student contemplating the appropriate settings for another depiction of Irving’s story would do well to consult one or more of these previous productions for ideas and inspiration, as well as studying photographs of upstate New York and similar regions, such as the densely-forested areas of the Appalachians. A good filmed-version of Rip Van Winkle is that directed by Francis Coppola in 1987 for the Faerie Tale Theatre series produced by actress Shelley Duvall (best known for her portrayal of the wife in Stanley Kubrick’s version of Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining).

Once the location scouting has been done, the next task is to design and construct era-appropriate structures, such as houses, churches, saloons, and so on. In today’s computer-generated-imagery world, all of this, of course, can be done artificially, but set design and construction still occurs and would make for a more realistic depiction. Irving stories reflect the Dutch heritage prevalent in much of the region, and any portrayal of the time and place described in Rip Van Winkle should similarly display that heritage. Irving assisted in this regard by providing the following description of the village in which his story takes place:

“It is a little village, of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.”

In addition, then, to capturing the natural geographic beauty of the region, the opening scenes should include the noticeably Dutch-inspired architecture that would have been prevalent.

The physical setting thus established, one would now focus on the story’s principal protagonist, the titular character of Rip Van Winkle. Irving’s story is a commentary on culture in which he was raised and on the dynamics that develop between and among communities and families. Rip, the author notes, is a descendant of a great family that has, through time and intermarriage, been constitutionally diluted. Note, for example, the description of Rip in the following passage from the story:

“In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.”

So, we now have the physical setting that would dominate the opening scene, possibly accompanied by opening credits, and an introduction to the main protagonist. Rip would be seen as a simple-minded man dominated by an overbearing wife. He is kind to everybody, but will clearly leave no discernable mark on this earth—at least until the heretofore unseen events to follow take place. The Van Winkle home and surrounding property, modest though it would be given Rip’s lack of worth ethic, would reflect his disdain for hard work and all-around laziness. In other words, the property would be a mess (“it was the worst-conditioned farm in the neighborhood”). The Van Winkle children, similarly, would reflect Rip’s cavalier attitude towards good order and discipline (“His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody”).

The student’s question did not specify how far into Irving’s story he or she wished depicted. Like any good story-teller, though, and Irving was a very good story teller, Rip Van Winkle does not lack descriptive narrative to aid in designing the settings in which the story occurs.

How do Portia's and Calpurnia's attitudes compare with those of their husbands?

Portia is in total sympathy with her husband Brutus. Her only complaint is that he doesn't take her into his confidence. She is troubled by seeing all the furtive men visiting him at his home at all hours. She keeps insisting on knowing what is going on until he finally tells her, in Act II, Scene 1:

Hark, hark, one knocks. Portia, go in awhile,
And by and by thy bosom shall partake
The secrets of my heart.
All my engagements I will construe to thee,
All the charactery of my sad brows.
Leave me with haste.

We do not hear what Brutus tells her later on. Shakespeare evidently felt that would be redundant, since his audience would already knows it all. But in Act II, Scene 4, Portia knows everything about the conspiracy and has in effect become a co-conspirator. She is tormented because, as a woman, she is confined to her home and cannot go to see what is happening at the Capitol. But she is obviously hoping that her husband's plans will be successful. Towards the end of this scene she says to herself:

The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!

Calpurnia, on the other hand, opposes her husband Caesar when he prepares to go to the Capitol where he expects to be crowned king. In Act II, Scene 2, she says:

What mean you, Caesar? Think you to go forth?
You shall not stir out of your house today.

Calpurnia feels sure that something dreadful will happen if her husband goes to the Senate House. She obviously senses intuitively that the men who have come to escort Caesar to the Capitol are not as well disposed towards him as they seem. Caesar should have listened to her, but he is driven by ambition and pride. He wants that crown. The wily Decius tells him:

...the Senate have concluded
To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.
If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock
Apt to be rendered for someone to say
"Break up the Senate till another time,
When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams."

Calpurnia is overruled because she is a woman. Caesar cannot let it be known that he was staying at home because of a woman's dreams and a woman's fears. Caesar is a powerful man, but he is blinded by his ambition. After Decius finishes speaking, Caesar tells Calpurnia:

How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia!
I am ashamed I did yield to them.
Bring me my robe, for I will go.

This is the end of the conflict between Calpurnia and Caesar, but Scene 2 does not end immediately. Shakespeare prolongs it with some incidental dialogue, but evidently the playwright's main purpose is to show a servant bringing Caesar his robe and helping him to put it on. That robe is of great importance in the play. In Act III, Scene 2, Mark Antony will be showing the mob what appears to be the same robe covered with bloodstains and shredded with what appear to be the sword and dagger strokes of the assassins. This duplicate robe will serve to represent Caesar's mutilated body, which is never shown to the mob but only described.

What's the purpose of having the boys land on an island in Lord of the Flies?

William Golding chose to have the boys crash land on an abandoned island to illustrate how children would react without societal boundaries and adult supervision. The setting of the novel Lord of the Flies takes place on an uninhabited island, with an ideal climate, and abundant food source. The boys are free to express themselves without consequence or interference from civil authorities. This setting creates the ideal location for human instincts to develop untethered and unapologetic. The island is removed far from civilization, and the topography allows the author to create various scenes that enhance the plot and imagery throughout the story. The beautiful island symbolizes the Garden of Eden. William Golding alludes to Biblical events throughout the novel, and the setting allows him to parody The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne.