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In Chapter 3 of  The Secret Life of Bees , Lily and Rosaleen are fleeing and looking for a place to stay for the night. After Lily suggests they rent a room at a motel, Rosaleen looks at Lily and says, "there ain't gonna be a place that takes a colored woman. I don't care if she's the Virgin Mary..." After this response, Lily asks the question, "Well, what was the point of the Civil... In Chapter 3 of  The Secret Life of Bees , Lily and Rosaleen are fleeing and looking for a place to stay for the night. After Lily suggests they rent a room at a motel, Rosaleen looks at Lily and says, "there ain't gonna be a place that takes a colored woman. I don't care if she's the Virgin Mary..." After this response, Lily asks the question, "Well, what was the point of the Civil Rights Act?" and goes on to assume that the law fixed all the discriminatory practices in the South. Lily's assumptions reveal her naïveté, which is one of the pr...

One could argue Romeo is the most flawed character in the entire play. Let's take a closer look at some of Romeo's character traits and how they detrimentally affect him: - Romeo is fickle in love and chooses to embark on conquests doomed from the start.  Romeo begins the play with what he proclaims to be an undying love for Rosaline. This is problematic for two reasons. First, Rosaline is the niece of Lord Capulet and, thus, a member of a rivaling family. Second, she decided to take a vow of chastity, meaning that she is literally unavailable—physically, emotionally, AND spiritually. Within the space of a single act, Romeo experiences a radical shift in emotion, and sets his sights on Juliet Capulet instead. Again, this is an ill-fated conquest. Juliet is the daughter of Lord Capulet, who hopes Paris will be Juliet's husband. Romeo makes poor choices in women, selecting only those obviously out of his reach. This self-sabotaging behavior is compounded by Romeo's incons...

Act 1, scene 2 of Shakespeare's  The Merchant of Venice  is when Portia and Nerissa discuss the different suitors who have come to court to play the game of chance for Portia's hand. Portia has not been impressed with anyone so far. Nerissa names them off in this scene, and Portia gives witty and informative reasons as to why she doesn't like each one. She is witty because she can joke about each suitor's character and personality to make Nerissa laugh, but she also shows her intelligence because she can peg each one exactly. In fact, Portia is so good at categorizing each man that by today's standards, she might be considered prejudiced because she pokes fun at their stereotypical vices. For example, when Portia criticizes the man from England, she makes fun of the fact that he doesn't know any other language than his own. The English would conquer a nation and force everyone to speak English, so Portia plays on that with her comments. Of the Frenchman, she say...

One summer evening, Scout, Jem, and Dill decide to sneak into the Radley yard to spy on Boo.  They hope to catch a glimpse of the infamous figure.  Instead, Mr. Radley comes out and shoots his gun into the air.  The children escape through the fence, but Jem's pants get caught in the barbed wire.  His is unable to get them free, so he leaves them behind.   Jem knows that he needs to get... One summer evening, Scout, Jem, and Dill decide to sneak into the Radley yard to spy on Boo.  They hope to catch a glimpse of the infamous figure.  Instead, Mr. Radley comes out and shoots his gun into the air.  The children escape through the fence, but Jem's pants get caught in the barbed wire.  His is unable to get them free, so he leaves them behind.   Jem knows that he needs to get his pants back.  He is sure that he will get in trouble with his father if he does not get them back.  He had told Atticus that he lost his pants to Dill in a game of strip poker.  He decides to sneak back to ...

This whole epic tale spins around the idea of sacrifice. The theme is woven throughout the main plot, the crisscrossing sub-plots, and all the other mythology only hinted at in the tale. The gods exist because humans sacrifice their energy and even their lives to them—without the power of human belief, the gods wouldn’t exist at all. However, gods must make sacrifices as well. Shadow’s horrific nine-day vigil upon Mr. Wednesday’s death is deeply symbolic.... This whole epic tale spins around the idea of sacrifice. The theme is woven throughout the main plot, the crisscrossing sub-plots, and all the other mythology only hinted at in the tale. The gods exist because humans sacrifice their energy and even their lives to them—without the power of human belief, the gods wouldn’t exist at all. However, gods must make sacrifices as well. Shadow’s horrific nine-day vigil upon Mr. Wednesday’s death is deeply symbolic. Gaiman is using Shadow’s sacrifice as a parallel of the Norse myth in which O...

There's ample evidence of Juliet's loyalty to Romeo, but the scene that strikes most at my own heart is the one in which Juliet discovers Romeo killed her cousin, Tybalt, but she decides to continue to love Romeo anyway. This part of the story occurs in Act Three, Scene Two, and I believe it to be one of the most dimensional and realistic aspects of the narrative. Here, Juliet is dealing with both the death of a family member (one committed at the hand of another loved one) and the banishing of her husband. She must weigh these two acts and their contradictory nature; she must decide how to properly grieve Tybalt's death AND Romeo's exile without diminishing one or the other while acknowledging these events are inseparably linked.  Juliet's Nurse reacts to this news very judgmentally, crying out that, "There's no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men." She then wishes that "Shame come to Romeo!" Juliet reacts immediately to this curse, stating...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is made up of two long polynucleotide chains wrapped around each other to form what is referred to as a double helix. Each chain is called a DNA strand held together by a sugar-phosphate backbone from which four bases extend. The base portion on one strand binds to a complementary one on the other strand. They are held together by hydrogen bonds between them to form base pairs. The sequence of these... Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is made up of two long polynucleotide chains wrapped around each other to form what is referred to as a double helix. Each chain is called a DNA strand held together by a sugar-phosphate backbone from which four bases extend. The base portion on one strand binds to a complementary one on the other strand. They are held together by hydrogen bonds between them to form base pairs. The sequence of these four bases- adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T) encode the information stored in the DNA . A copy of our DNA is repl...