In "There Will Come Soft Rains," why are so many things happening at once in the house?

In "There Will Come Soft Rains," so many things are happening at once because the house is programmed to execute multiple functions at specific times in the day.

The house is a marvel of modern technology.  We see this when the house blares out its responsibilities at precise moments.  At seven in the morning, it wakes people up, while at 8:01, it tells the children to hurry off to school.  At 9:15, the house begins cleaning, while at five in the evening, a bath is drawn.  The house knows that, at these moments, certain events must simultaneously take place. For example, as the house reminds that it is time to wake up, it gives them reminders for the day: "Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills."  

The house has been programmed to assist human beings with multiple tasks at specific times.  It simulates daily life.  This is why there is so much happening at once in the house.  In day to day life, we are never doing just one thing.  There are always other events that happen at the same time.  For example, when we wake up in the morning, we think about what we have to do for that day. When we get the kids ready, we are also making lunches and ensuring that everyone is dressed for the weather conditions outside. We remember that certain bills have to be paid and other responsibilities must be met. The house mirrors this tendency.  The house replicates human activity even though no humans are living in it.

In The Cay, what quotes show the characters' personalities?

I like the following quote a lot.  It appears in chapter ten.  

Wanting to hear it from Timothy, I asked him why there were different colors of skin, white and black, brown and red, and he laughed back, "Why b'feesh different color, or flower b'different color? I true don' know, Phill-eep, but I true tink beneath d'skin is all d'same."

The quote is an important quote because it shows a turning point in Phillip's attitude about race and Timothy.  When the book starts, Phillip isn't exactly kind toward Timothy, and Timothy's race has a lot to do with that.  The above quote shows that Phillip is starting to accept Timothy as an equal.  The quote also illustrates that Timothy, while not having much formal education, is an incredibly wise and tolerant character.  

The next quote is from chapter nine, and it does a nice job of illustrating how much Phillip's attitude changes over the course of just a few chapters.  

"You ugly black man! I won't do it! You're stupid, you can't even spell."

The quote shows a very different side of Phillip this time.  The quote is filled with racial prejudices, and shows that Phillip links Timothy's skin color with his intelligence.  

What are the disadvantages of being a librarian?

What the disadvantages are in becoming a librarian depend a great deal on why a person wants to become a librarian in the first place. In other words, the disadvantages seem to lie mostly in individual expectations that may not be met. There are educational and financial aspects to becoming a librarian that are problematical today, as well as possibly some unmet expectations regarding job satisfaction. 

Today, it is almost impossible to become a librarian without a master's degree, which for most people means student loans for approximately six years of education. That is a long time and a large investment for a profession in which the average starting salary is not quite $57,000 per year.  Furthermore, this is an area in which growth is predicted to be slow, about 2% a year through 2024.  Becoming a librarian is not the road to monetary riches.

For the person who loves old-fashioned books and wants to spend the day talking to people about them, being a librarian today could be a disappointment. The offerings of libraries are increasingly digital, with a far greater emphasis on music, movies, and even video games.  A librarian must now be technologically proficient and spend far less time making book recommendations and chatting about good books. Probably the closest one can get to the old-fashioned kind of librarian is in a very small town library or in the children's section, where parents sometimes do really seek advice for their children's reading. And story hour is any librarian's delight. 

All of this is not to say that becoming a librarian is a bad idea.  It is just to say that the expectations of the profession's rewards must be reasonable ones.  Most of the librarians I know, and I know quite a few, are perfectly happy people.

Who was Martha Washington? How was she Helen's good companion?

Martha Washington was the daughter of Helen Keller’s family cook and was her friend and playmate when she was younger.

When Helen was little, Martha Washington was her playmate but hardly her equal. 

In those days a little coloured girl, Martha Washington, the child of our cook, and Belle, an old setter, and a great hunter in her day, were my constant companions. Martha Washington understood my signs, and I seldom had any difficulty in making her do just as I wished. (Ch. 2)

Because Helen was blind and deaf, she liked the fact that Martha Washington could understand her signs.  Young Helen found it very hard to communicate with anyone, so this was a big benefit.  The other advantage was that Martha let her push her around.  Young Helen was a bit bossy.  The fact that Helen mentions her at the same time as the dog shows that she considered her more of a companion than an equal.

In addition to the race difference, Helen Keller notes there was also an age difference between the two girls.

Martha Washington had as great a love of mischief as I. Two little children were seated on the veranda steps one hot July afternoon. ... One child was six years old, the other two or three years older. The younger child was blind–that was I–and the other was Martha Washington. (Ch. 2)

It seems like Martha Washington enjoyed getting into trouble with Helen Keller though.  Little Helen was very intelligent, and even though she could not speak like a normal person or hear what Martha was saying, they could still play together and be very creative in getting into trouble.

Once Helen started working with Anne Sullivan, she learned sign language and was able to communicate more fully with more people.  She was able to learn a more standard language.  Her early childhood was pretty lonely though.

What are some adjectives and examples to describe the relationship between Ruth and Beatrice in Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on...

Paul Zindel's play contains a powerful central metaphor in the title and to what it refers. The experiment Tillie conducts to determine if radiation creates mutations in marigolds symbolizes the effect that negative energy and dysfunction has on her own family. The impact of negative emotions like anger, regret, and cruelty strongly affect the family unit.

The relationship between Beatrice and her daughter Ruth is particularly problematic. The outgoing Ruth shows some promise of being socially accepted—unlike Tillie, whose shyness prevents her from engaging with people. Beatrice thinks of herself as attractive and outgoing, but people in her community mock her behind her back and suggest she is mentally ill. This creates a problem with Ruth seeing her mother as a role model. Like Betty, Ruth is very aware of other peoples' opinions of her and is vulnerable to them.

An example is that people have been known to call Beatrice "Betty the Loon," and this remark is overheard by Ruth at school. Ruth repeats it to insult her mother when the two are arguing over the science fair. Ruth's illness makes her dependent on others, though. This causes her to feel resentment, and she may be worrying she'll turn out like her mother, as her condition makes her vulnerable to taunting like Betty was. Some adjectives to describe their relationship might include problematic, toxic, complicated, dysfunctional, dependent, antagonistic, intense, and volatile.

What are the positive aspects of George and Lennie's friendship in Of Mice and Men?

Although a study of Of Mice and Men has to focus on the negatives and what eventually happens to Lennie, it is unfair to say there are no positive aspects of George and Lennie's friendship. The friendship provides Lennie an opportunity to participate in a world that would otherwise be very unaccommodating to him; for George, the friendship provides a focus that takes him beyond merely day-to-day survival.

Lennie's disability is not clearly defined in the novella, but it is historically accurate to say a person with an intellectual disability at the time at which the story is set would have had very few options available to him. Before George takes Lennie under his wing, Lennie is cared for by his aunt. For the time period, that is believable. People with disabilities were frequently hidden away by family or institutionalized. (For historical context, consider President John F. Kennedy had a sister who was kept out of the public eye in an institution for most of her life—and she was from a wealthy, respected family.) When it came to dealing with the handicapped, the goal of the time period was not to provide rich stimulation; instead, the goal was "out of sight, out of mind." Once Aunt Clara dies, Lennie has no one obligated to care for him, so George's friendship truly does provide Lennie with entrance to a world that would never have accepted Lennie on his own. Even something as mundane as keeping track of his work card is too much for Lennie to handle by himself, but George makes sure Lennie has opportunities to work for pay in a time when jobs were hard to find even for those without handicaps. Without George, Lennie would have not had entry into a workforce where his tremendous strength could be viewed as an asset. With George, Lennie can fit in and even be quietly admired for his abilities instead of maligned for his disability.

For George, Lennie provides a purpose and meaning to everyday work. George and Lennie's shared dream of having a small parcel of land to call their own makes George different from the other men who drift and squander their paychecks on visits to bars or brothels. Although George complains about Lennie and says he could be like those other men, it is clear Lennie provides an excuse for George to have the loftier goal of their shared future plans. Being friends with Lennie sets George apart on a ranch where characters are judged harshly for marrying hastily or caring for an old pet. 

Both Lennie and George gain something from their shared friendship. Interestingly enough, Lennie gains the sense that he can be just one of the guys instead of being set apart, while George gains the reputation of being set apart because he is not like the other guys.

What makes Bluntschli say that "The officers send for their wives to keep discipline"?

The immediate cause is Major Petkoff's request that Catherine accompany him to talk to the men in Act III. Bluntschli had just told Sergius to take a strict, forceful tone with his soldiers:

Tell them that if they stop to drink or tell stories--if they're five minutes late, they'll have the skin taken off their backs.

Then, doubting Sergius's ability to follow through, Bluntschli urges the Major to go with him:

Just see that he talks to them properly, Major, will you?

Petkoff first makes a show of being ready to do so, but then seems to lose confidence and asks his wife to help with the task:

Quite right, Bluntschli, quite right. I'll see to it. [He goes to the door importantly, but hesitates on the threshold]. By the bye, Catherine, you may as well come too. They'll be far more frightened of you than of me.

And that sparks Bluntschli's comment. But we should keep the background in mind. Bluntschli is already well aware that Catherine exerts dominance over her husband in the domestic sphere. Bluntschli took cues from Catherine regarding the need to deceive Petkoff and Sergius about his prior visit to the house. He has observed Catherine directing Petkoff in the library:

CATHERINE [in a low warning tone] You can stop interrupting, Paul.

Bluntschli is also well aware that Petkoff isn't very competent at his job. Bluntschli had negotiated with him at the end of the war, an encounter in which Bluntschli "humbugged" Petkoff into "giving him fifty able bodied men for two hundred worn out chargers." And now, in the library, he was helping Petkoff sort out the logistics of sending the cavalry regiments to Philippopolis -- a problem that seems to be entirely beyond Petkoff's capabilities.

So when Bluntschli makes his comment about wives, it comes in the context of his being dismayed with Petkoff's apparent inability to handle anything on his own. More generally, this reaction is part of his dismay towards the unprofessional approach taken by Bulgarian military officers.

In Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, what surprises await Gulliver when he reaches Brobdingnag?

When Gulliver reaches Brobdingnag, he and the other men see no source of freshwater nor any signs of human life, and he separates from the group, walking a mile or so in the other direction.  When he turns back, he sees the men rapidly rowing their small boat back to the ship, and he is just about to call out to them when he sees a "huge Creature" pursuing them by walking through the water.  The little boat is able to escape the "Monster," and, realizing he'd been abandoned, Gulliver runs quickly onto the land; there, he sees corn that is "forty Foot" high and a man who is as "Tall as an ordinary Spire-steeple."  Each of this man's strides is ten yards long!  When he sees a number of these figures advancing through the corn, he attempts to hide, but he quickly begins to fear for his soon-to-be fatherless children and widow (because he believes that his own death is imminent).  Certainly, Gulliver is surprised to be abandoned by the ship's crew, and he is even more shocked to see the giants, some six times his size.  He is later surprised to realize how disgusting these Brobdingnagians appear, simply because Gulliver is so much smaller and can distinguish every tiny mark on their skin; he realizes that this must be how the Lilliputians saw him too.

What are examples of conformity and rebellion in Jackson's "The Lottery" that I could use for research paper prompts and thesis statements?

There are many examples of conformity and rebellion in The Lottery. The story is about a town that hosts an annual "lottery" for population control. Even though nearly every member of the society knows that stoning someone to death is probably wrong, they all conform as it is an accepted form of control by the government. 

Even the children in the society are okay with the lottery. In the beginning of the story, you hear about two young kids trying to pick the biggest rock around the lot to use. The reader is not told why they are looking for the biggest rock until the end of the narrative, but we see that even the kids conform to the lottery. Children imitate their parents because they think that is what is acceptable. Children see their parents and friends' parents stoning one random person year after year and that begins to become normal to them. 

Please provide a brief summary of each of the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling.

Here is a brief summary of each of the Harry Potter books.  You may need to add more details to these summaries depending on how long they need to be.  You can find more details in the summaries of these books.  Links to two of these summaries are included below.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Harry is left with his relatives, the Dursleys, who treat him badly.  He learns that he is a wizard and starts school at Hogwarts.  With help from his friends, he prevents Voldemort from obtaining the sorcerer’s stone, which would have enabled Voldemort to get a body again.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:  During the year, a series of students (and a cat and a ghost) are petrified.  The culprit is young Voldemort’s soul, which has possessed Ginny Weasley, who releases a basilisk that attacks the students.  Harry saves Ginny, kills the basilisk, and destroys the diary that held Voldemort’s soul.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban and apparently wants to kill Harry.  Everyone believes he was a Death Eater who betrayed Harry’s parents.  Harry finds that Sirius is innocent and prevents him (and a hippogriff) from being unjustly executed.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:  The Tri-Wizard Tournament is held (for the first time in 202 years) at Hogwarts.  It turns out to be an elaborate plot to bring Harry to Voldemort.  Voldemort uses Harry’s blood to help make himself a new body, but he fails to kill Harry.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Ministry of Magic tries to take over Hogwarts, sending the evil Dolores Umbridge to, in essence, run the school.  Harry resists her and the ministry.  All year, he is plagued with visions that eventually lead him and his friends to battle Voldemort and the Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Harry spends most of this book learning about Voldemort’s youth.  Dumbledore shows him many memories of Voldemort’s youth so that Harry will be able to fight Voldemort.  Harry learns that Voldemort has divided his soul and cannot be killed until all the pieces of the soul are found and destroyed.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Voldemort controls the Ministry of Magic so Harry, Hermione (and sometimes Ron) are fugitives.  They hide from Voldemort’s people and seek the horcruxes that house the pieces of Voldemort’s soul.  A final battle between Voldemort’s forces and the forces of good occurs at Hogwarts.

 

Why do you think Jamie objected to Claudia covering his mouth the way she did?

In Chapter Seven, after renting a post office box, Claudia and Jamie return to the museum.

Both of them badly want to deliver their letter to the museum officials, but they're afraid of the consequences if they do. So, they decide that they will select a messenger from one of the school groups that regularly come through the museum.

They look for a school group in all the usual places: the Egyptian Art area, the Costume Institute, and the Arms and Armor section. Soon, they settle on a school group filing out of the Egyptian wing, past the entrance. However, as Jamie and Claudia listen to the conversation of the schoolchildren, they come to the realization that these are Jamie's classmates.

Meanwhile, Jamie's eyes meet Claudia's, and he opens his mouth as if to speak. Without a moment to lose, Claudia clamps her hand over Jamie's mouth to prevent him from speaking. Essentially, she wants to stop Jamie from exposing both of them. For his part, Jamie is upset that Claudia doesn't trust him. He feels that he has a little more sense than to expose both of them to his classmates. Jamie thinks that Claudia should have trusted in his good sense, so he's a little offended when she doesn't do so.

Still smarting from what he thinks is her high-handed action, Jamie threatens to re-join his school group, but Claudia has a better idea. She tells Jamie that he should capitalize on being in the third grade and pretend that he's part of the school group from Greenwich (which in theory, he actually is). Then, he can deliver the letter himself at the museum office, claiming that he's doing it on behalf of someone who belongs to the third grade school group. In the end, this is exactly what Jamie does.

What occurs in Raina's bed chamber before the entrance of Bluntschli in Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw?

The scene you are referring to, when Bluntschli enters Raina's bedchamber, occurs quite early in George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man, and lays the groundwork for an exciting plot as well as some intriguing philosophy in regard to soldiers, war, and courage. 

The play is set in 1885 in Bulgaria as the end of the Serbo-Bulgarian war nears.  Just before Bluntschli--also known as the "chocolate cream soldier"--enters, Raina and her mother Catherine have been discussing the news of Raina's fiance Sergius.  Soldier Sergius has led a successful cavalry charge against the Serbian forces, who are now being hunted down throughout the city.  Louka, the maid, comes in to announce that it is crucial that doors and windows be locked because of these fleeing soldiers.

After Catherine and Louka leave, Raina kisses Sergius' photo.  Moments later--the balcony window having been left unlocked--Bluntschli enters to offer quite a contrast to the puffed-up bravery of Sergius.  Bluntschli does not carry ammunition but rather chocolate creams--an element of Shaw's anti-war satire.  At first Raina mocks him and gives him chocolates, but this is only the beginning of the story. 

In works such as Simulacra and Simulation, how does Jean Baudrillard describe the material body in relation to the hyperreality of consumerism?...

Jean Baudrillard's view on the relationship between the material body and the hyperreality of consumerism is most clear in Simulacra and Simulation. This work breaks the process of simulation into four sign-order stages. The first stage is a faithful copy of the original. The second stage is a copy that is a perversion of the material body in some way while still maintaining many of its original properties. The third stage is a copy with no original. The fourth stage is pure simulation, and it is in this stage that the simulation has no connection to the material body or reality whatsoever.

The Material Body and Consumerism

Baudrillard connects the concepts of the material body and the hyperreality of consumerism in the fourth stage of the sign-order stages. In this stage, there is no need for consumer products to maintain any claims of originality. The culture itself becomes artificial, and artificial products lend themselves more easily to consumer culture. In this way, the lives of consumers become so artificial they take on hyperreality. Reality itself becomes a sentimental concept and fundamentally unnecessary to the artificial culture.

Hyperreality is an interesting concept in the context of a consumer-driven society. Baudrillard defines hyperreality itself as a state that is "more real than real." The artificial or the fake embodies the qualities of the original more than reality itself.

Can you explain each of the five features Lenin believed characterized the latest stage of capitalist development? Why was he convinced this latest...

Lenin believed the last stage of capitalism had the following five features:

1. the concentration of capital into monopolies that exert a powerful control over economic life


2. the combination of bank and industrial capital into what he called "finance capital"


3. a large importance placed on exporting capital as opposed to commodities


4. the formation of monopolies that have international reach


5. the division of the world into colonies controlled by imperialist powers

Lenin felt this late stage of capitalism would lead to wars, depressions, and revolutions because the inherent boom and bust cycle of capitalism would result in economic recessions and depressions. In addition, he believed the desire of capitalist powers to control other less-developed nations would result in wars caused by imperialism. This was indeed the case when Lenin wrote this book in 1916, during World War I. These imperialist wars would result in revolution among the members of the countries that capitalist countries attempted to control, and people in the capitalist countries who were subject to the economic depressions inherent in the capitalist cycle would also be prone to revolution. John Maynard Keynes would reject the idea that capitalism necessarily leads to boom and bust cycles, as he believed the government should intervene in the economy to prevent economic depressions and protect people from the parts of the capitalist cycle that Lenin thought would result in revolution. 

What knowledge would contribute to survival in the early colonies?

Like any venture into unknown lands, the ability to provide food and potable water to one's self and companions is very important.  The settlers of Jamestown learned this the hard way as the gentleman farmers knew little about the actual production of food and they settled next to the brackish James River that was so crowded with mosquitoes that not even the native Americans would live there for any period of time.  One also had to have the ability to build a shelter--this was a priority with the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth late in the year and who needed to protect themselves from the Northeastern winter.  Finally, one had to be able to make peace and negotiate with the native Americans.  Both the settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth had to make alliances and trade networks with native tribes for their survival.  Both groups did this with varying degrees of success, but ultimately through disease and war they ended up dominating the local tribes.  

What line of poetry should I use for my descriptive writing assignment?

What you need to find is a poem that paints only part of the painting, so to speak. Then you can feel free to take the prompt further on your own and describe the scene that you imagine, based on the few beginning words that the poet supplies. I have three recommendations. The text of each poem is provided in a link below.

If you pick Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” you can follow the first line, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” How do you see these two roads? Are they at all the same? How are they different? Which one would you be inclined to take, if you had to make the choice? What lies at the end of each road?

If you pick William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” you can describe the field of daffodils that he discovers. Take the lines from the second verse, “They stretched in never-ending line / Along the margin of a bay.” How do you see the daffodils in relationship to the water? Are boats sailing nearby? Are any other people walking nearby? Does anyone else see these 10,000 daffodils besides you? Or is this a special place that only you know about? How would it look in summer, fall, or winter, without the flowers?

If you pick Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” you can describe the painted portrait of the woman. Begin with the first two lines, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, / Looking as if she were alive.” Since she was a Duchess, she was part of royalty. What country is she from? What is she wearing in the portrait? What color is her hair? Is she smiling or frowning? Is she holding anything important? Where is this painting hung? Who sees it on a regular basis?

Ask yourself questions, and let your imagination answer them. Then write down what you see in your mind.

How did the quote "I go to see a great perhaps" have an impact in Looking for Alaska by John Green? What does it mean for something to impact a novel?

"I go to seek a Great Perhaps" were the last words of Francois Rabelais, a French Renaissance writer and humanist.  The narrator of Looking for Alaska, Miles, is fascinated by the last words of famous people.  One of his dominant character traits is his ability to memorize and take apart these quotes.  Alaska, too, is fascinated by the idea of a "Great Perhaps."  A running theme in the novel is for characters to define the "Great Perhaps" as they see it, and the Great Perhaps is one of the means Miles uses to cope with his grief over Alaska's death.  It's a quote that binds Miles and Alaska together as well as a quote that helps Miles find peace.

Something impacts a novel by giving it more depth and meaning.  In this case, the Great Perhaps is used to explore death and grief and the emotions therein.  The dying words of a real man lend weight to a fictional story, because the emotions within the novel are emotions that everyone will struggle with at some point in their lifetime.

In the prologue of Guns, Germs, and Steel, what are the three considerations Diamond talks about as he ponders Yali's question?

In the prologue, Yali asks Diamond three questions:

1) He wanted to know about Diamond's work on guinea birds and how much he was compensated for it.

2)He wanted to know how his people came to populate Papua New Guinea.

3)He wanted to know how white Europeans came to colonize Papua New Guinea within the last 200 years.

From these three questions, Diamond hypothesizes that Yali is really asking a larger question: Why does inequality exist between different cultures? For example, why were Native American, Aboriginal Australian, and African societies colonized by European powers and not the reverse?

In pondering the answer to this question, Diamond discusses the three considerations or objections to studying the question:

1) First, Diamond maintains that, in trying to determine how some societies came to dominate others, some concerned parties conflate an "explanation of causes" with a "justification or acceptance of the results." He argues that this erroneous conclusion about the purposes of historical inquiry is counter-productive. Instead, Diamond insists that anything one learns about the past should be used towards altering disastrous events rather than in perpetuating or repeating genocide, conflict, and hegemony.

2) Second, Diamond insists that his historical treatise is not an "Eurocentric approach to history." Instead, he maintains that his book also discusses relationships between non-European peoples, "especially those that took place within sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and New Guinea." By exploring the impact of non-European cultures on European cultures, Diamond asserts that his readers can come to understand how the "basic elements" of Western civilization were imported from other cultures.

3) Third, Diamond argues that his research in no way epitomizes a biased approach towards "civilization." He maintains that he is simply interested in examining the causes for how European powers came to dominate non-European cultures. For his part, Diamond maintains that he doesn't "assume that industrialized states are 'better' than hunter-gatherer tribes, or that the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for iron-based statehood represents 'progress,' or that it has led to an increase in human happiness."

Effectively, in pondering Yali's question, Diamond is most concerned about uncovering pertinent facts rather than relying on preconceived notions about hegemony and civilization. Ultimately, he presents the basic hypothesis for his book:

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.

Why is not [-2,0] also in the range of `sqrt(4 - x^2)` along with [0,2]?

Hello!

When we define the square root function, the function which we start with is a square function `(y=x^2).`  We want a function which, given an `y,` would return an `x` such that `x^2=y.`  In other words, we want the inverse function for the square function.

But the problem is that the square function gives the same result(s) for `x` and `-x:` `x^2 = (-x)^2.` Therefore actually for any positive `y` there are two roots: positive and negative. Usually we want that any function be one-valued (it is more convenient).

For this reason it was agreed between mathematicians that the symbol `sqrt(y)` will denote the positive (non-negative) root, at least for real numbers. And in our example, `sqrt(4-x^2)` is also non-negative for all `x`'s for which it is defined `(-2lt=xlt=2).` This is the cause why `[-2,0)` isn't in the range of `sqrt(4-x^2).`

Note that the domain of this function does contain [-2,0) along with [0,2].

In Walk Two Moons, what are some examples of Sal's grandparents getting into trouble?

Sal’s Gram and Gramps Hiddle are an unpredictable pair. They have a peculiar line of reasoning for decision-making that doesn’t always make sense to others. In Chapter 5, Sal tells about a trip to Washington, D.C., when her grandparents “borrowed” the tires off a senator’s car, their own tires being flat (Sal explains that this is something that one could do in Bybanks, but not in the nation’s capital). In the same chapter, Gramps tries to help a woman who is having car trouble, only ending up tearing out all the hoses from her engine.

In Chapter 15, Sal and her grandparents stop by the river for a quick swim. As they are approached by a suspicious boy, who claims that they are on private property, a poisonous snake bites Gram. Though they are able to get her to the hospital for help, she is never quite the same after that.

In Chapter 41, when Gram is in the hospital following a stroke, Gramps gives Sal the keys to the car, even though she is underage and unlicensed. She reaches her destination, but she encounters the sheriff. Though he helps her with the task of finding the spot where her mother’s bus went off the road, he takes her back to town to Gramps, but due to Gram's death, he does not serve Gramps with any consequences for allowing Sal to drive.

Gram and Gramps find themselves in trouble mainly through their good intentions and unfamiliarity with the “wider” world. Though Sal’s father says that he should have just called the police as soon as they left the driveway, they never intentionally seek to cause trouble. Trouble finds them anyway, but their innocence usually keeps them out of serious mischief.

Under what kinds of conditions does technology develop and how and why did technological development differ from one place to another?

Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, is an attempt to understand the causes of unequal development of technology in different cultures and regions. He argues that the causes are not, as racists claim, due to inherent differences in intelligence between people of different races and cultures, but rather due to environmental factors.

For Diamond, several major preconditions are needed for the development of advanced technology. The first is the neolithic transition to agriculture to provide enough of a food surplus to enable people to devote time to tasks that are not directly involved in food production. This creates a virtuous cycle in which people can specialize in technology such as making pottery or metal work or food production technology creating a virtuous cycle of increasing efficiency in food production leading to freeing up more people to specialize in various crafts and technology. Easily accessible natural resources such as metals and clay contribute to this process.

Two key environmental elements for technological development are living in a region with readily domesticable plants and animals and being in an area that has no barriers to east-west travel and communication, something which enables rapid sharing of ideas and trade in goods. 

What factors made the rise of civilization possible in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America? What are the major similarities and...

The "rise of civilization" is not a single event, but a process of technological and cultural development that occurred over centuries. It's impossible to pin down a particular moment when any civilization was founded; they established themselves gradually over time. Often we date the founding of a civilization at the earliest writing; this is as much for convenience as anything else, as written records provide us with much richer details than we would get from studying other artifacts. It does create a substantial bias, however, because, by that definition, cultures such as the Navajo that never had a written language are not "civilized," even though the Navajo have many of the other features (such as agriculture, pottery, labor specialization, and government) we ordinarily associate with civilization.

The most important precursor for civilization is agriculture, which was invented in what is often called the Neolithic Revolution. Agriculture allows humans to maintain a large and steady supply of food in one particular place, and thus to grow much larger populations. Larger populations require more structure — government — and more opportunities for specialization, which creates a virtuous cycle of improved economic efficiency toward further output, more population growth, and still more specialization. In one form or another, this process has continued for thousands of years.

Still, it is notable that writing and other features arose around the same time in many places; it's still unclear how much contact there was between cultures of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, so it is possible that these were in fact all offshoots of one still-more-ancient culture. Most scholars, however, think these civilizations were founded independently when and where conditions were appropriate. What we do know is that Latin American civilization was almost certainly founded independently; there's no plausible way people of different Latin American cultures could have been in contact during that time.

Early civilizations have a lot in common with one another, but also some important differences. Religion was very important and often directly tied to government, but the details of each religion vary tremendously. They tend to be founded along rivers or in river valleys, where fresh water is plentiful. They usually have some sort of founding text — a book or code of laws that sets down their religion and system of government. Literacy was exceedingly rare in this time (writing itself was a very new invention), and those who had it therefore had abilities most people couldn't understand. Thus, books appear to have been believed by many people to hold literal magic powers; we continue to see remnants of this thinking today in all sorts of tropes about "magic books" and "sorcerer's scrolls." 

Another interesting similarity between Egyptian and Latin American civilizations that is often commented on is pyramids. Many people imagine some strange, supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation for this similarity, but the truth is much simpler: Pyramids are a basic and very stable geometric shape. They are easier to build than most other shapes, and more likely to remain standing over long periods of time. In fact, most modern skyscrapers are actually very steep, truncated pyramids which are slightly wider at the bottom than the top, rather than actually being true rectangular prisms of constant width.

Civilizations always appear to have been founded in particularly fertile regions (we don't think of the Middle East as very fertile today because its land has been drained over centuries, but thousands of years ago it had some of the most fertile land in the world), and often during times of historically unusual fertility. It may be that the abundance of food in such regions was necessary to take the risk and start the process of establishing permanent agriculture. Metalworking was also important, so accessible bronze (as bronze is the hardest metal that's easy to work) for making tools and weapons was another important factor. A variety of domesticated animals appears in almost every civilization; they perform work and provide food. The ability to find animals to domesticate (a wide variety of animals in the Middle East, llamas and alpacas in Latin America) was therefore an important factor in founding civilizations.

Ultimately, the most important factor may simply have been having someone in the tribe smart enough to think of the idea, and a tribe supportive enough of new ideas to listen. Every technology humans have ever invented ultimately began as somebody's crazy idea, and there's no reason to think bronzeworking, pottery, writing, or even agriculture were any different. It could have been a group who thought of it (simultaneous discovery is common even in science today), but it couldn't have been everyone. We may ultimately owe all of civilization to somebody who just had a spark of genius and realized you could plant seeds from plants and they would grow again, rather than just eating all the plants you have and not doing anything with the seeds.

Why does the grandmother call the Misfit a "good man" in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor?

One of the most baffling moments in Flannery O'Conner's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" occurs near the end, when the grandmother insists the Misfit is a "good man" despite repeated examples to the contrary. It's never explicitly stated why the grandmother persists in doing so, but we can make at least two assumptions regarding her motivations based on the context. First, it seems like the grandmother is trying to flatter the Misfit by calling him a good man and, in doing so, convince him to stop murdering her family members.  Second, by calling the Misfit a "good man," the grandmother could also be trying to convince herself of this fact. Panicking in a dreadful situation, the grandmother appears to be grasping at any kind of security available to her, even if that means clinging to an increasingly absurd fantasy that the Misfit is a "good man." Therefore, with these two ideas in mind, the grandmother's interactions with the Misfit become more and more desperate. 

What are the gang's feelings about the destruction of the house in "The Destructors" by Graham Greene?

The gang feels that the destruction of the house is creative. They disregard the historic nature of the house. Blackie says at the beginning of the story, "Wren built that house, father says.” They talk about how Wren also designed St. Peter's, but Blackie says he doesn't care. Later, T. visits the house, which they call "Old Misery's," and describes it as "beautiful." The rest of the gang regard his use of the word "beautiful" with disdain, but when T. tells them they will take the house apart, he wins them over and becomes leader of the gang. The gang take apart the house with a kind of organization they've never had before. In destroying the house, they feel that they have created something:

"Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the seriousness of creators—and destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become!"

The gang regards the beauty of the house in its capacity for complete destruction. Once the house collapses, their work is complete. The house that once stood with what Greene describes as "dignity...like a man in a top hat" has been leveled entirely. This is the potential the gang sees in the house--its complete disintegration. 

How is it true that two families with the same income may have different qualities of life?

Precisely what constitutes a desirable quality of life is bound to be disagreed about by some, but there are characteristics, I think, we might all agree upon. There are many factors that can create or not create quality of life for different families that have exactly the same income.  You may or may not have ever noticed this, but when we divide people into classes, we often speak of them in socioeconomic groups, not just economic groups. This is because the "socio" part turns out to be just as important as how much money people make.  Our values, our tastes, our upbringings, our educational level, and even the communities we live in all have a powerful impact on our choices in life. And it is in those choices that the differences between families can emerge.

Let's take a family that makes $75,000 a year.   The family purchases a very expensive house and a very expensive car.  The monthly payments are steep.  They leave little room to even furnish the house very well and no room at all for family vacations or many of the amenities that make for a good quality of life, such as concerts, athletics, or extra-curricular educational experiences.  This family may very well be eating canned tuna fish for dinner most nights, not having the wherewithal to eat tuna steaks, which are expensive but much better for us.  My values are such that I do not consider this family to have a good quality of life, in spite of the impressive house and car. They lack comfortable furnishings, they do not get to travel, they eat poorly, and they are all missing out on valuable experiences.  

Let's look at another family that makes the same income. The parents are educated and informed. They are aware of the concept of conspicuous consumption and have no desire to impress anyone with fancy houses or cars. They purchase a modest house and an inexpensive but reliable vehicle that is a few years old.  Their money goes for fresh, healthy food, books, music, travel, and perhaps summer camps for the children. Their choices are based more upon their health and intellectual growth than on whom they can impress. 

A third family might make the same amount of money with each parent working two different jobs.  The parents are not educated and they rent because they have never been able to save up a down payment to buy their own house.  They live in a neighborhood that has no supermarket nearby but has many fast food places.  They do not own a car because their credit is not the best and they don't have the cash to purchase one.  They are dependent on public transportation and gypsy cabs for anything they want to do.  Thus, even getting groceries back to the home is an effort.  Because they work so hard, they do not have time to do much meal preparation anyhow. So they resort to fast foods to feed the family.  They could make their money go much further if they cooked at home and perhaps even saved up for a car.  They might be able to afford health insurance, so that they need not resort to the emergency room for their medical care. But they are trapped in this cycle of poverty, often through no fault of their own, often not understanding how much a difference these choices make in the long run. They are living day to day, with a very poor quality of life, making $75,000 per year, eating poorly, working hard, and having virtually no amenities or great experiences. 

Yet another family with the same income might provide all of the latest technology for its members, the latest iPad, the latest game systems, the most recent smartphones.  The family does not go to the zoo anymore because they can all look at animals on the internet. They don't go to concerts because they can find the music on Spotify. They don't go to museums or art galleries because all the collections are available on-line. Who needs to see the "Mona Lisa" in person? They seldom eat real family meals together because everyone is on his or her own device, and no one is motivated to cook. They have chosen to spend all of their discretionary income on devices, not experiences.  I personally do not think their quality of life is very good.

We could be a society in which everyone had exactly the same income, but it is the choices that we make and sometimes the barriers that society places in our paths that make these differences in quality of life.  We have often been socialized in ways that predispose us to make particular choices, which is why it is so difficult to break the cycle of poverty for some families, even those that are making a reasonable amount of money, while for others, the choices passed down ensure another generation with a good quality of life.

Explain why Hitler was able to rise to power.

There are four main reasons why Hitler was able to rise to power.  Let us examine each of them.

First, Hitler was clearly a charismatic man.  We know that he had a quality that attracted people to him and made them want to follow him.  If he had not had this quality, he would not have been able to attain power.

Second, many Germans were very unhappy in the years after World War I.  They felt that the Allies had treated them very harshly and unfairly in the Treaty of Versailles.  That treaty had, for example, taken away much of Germany’s territory, prohibited Germany from having a full military, and forced Germany to admit that the war was all its fault.  This humiliated the German people and made them want to get revenge against the Allies.  In addition, the Great Depression harmed Germany’s economy just as it harmed the economies of many other countries in the world.  By the early 1930s, Germans were angry about their country’s status in Europe and they were also angry about the economic hardships they were undergoing.  When people are this angry, they are much more likely to accept radical ideas such as those that Hitler espoused.

Third, Hitler was able to rise to power because his ideas were not that repugnant to most Germans.  Hitler did not originally campaign on the idea of actually killing all the Jews.  Instead, he argued that they were a threat to Germany and that they should have their rights curtailed and that they should not be seen as good Germans.  This was broadly acceptable to many Germans as there were not that many German Jews and they were not particularly popular in Germany (as in many other parts of Europe and indeed the United States).  Since Hitler was “only” proposing to take away various rights from an unpopular minority, his ideas did not repel many Germans.

Finally, Hitler was able to rise to power because he and the Nazis were ruthless and willing to be violent.  Once Hitler was Chancellor, he and his movement were willing to use questionable legal tactics as well as simple violence to suppress all opposition.  Once they got into power, they were willing to do whatever it took to keep that power.

For these reasons, Hitler and the Nazis were able to rise to power in Germany in the 1930s.

A collection of atoms has 20% of the sample in a state 5.9 eV above the ground state. If these emit coherent radiation, what is the wavelength of...

I double-checked the math and there must be something wrong with the way you're putting your numbers in, if you're getting 260nm instead of 210. Your procedure is correct - according to manipulations of Planck's Equation we should get E = (hc)/lambda, which can be rearranged to lambda=(hc)/E, where lambda is the wavelength, E is the energy of the photon and h and c are the planck and lightspeed constants.

Since the energy difference between the ground state and excited state is given as 5.9eV, we're assuming all of this energy is converted into radiation, and therefore E = 5.9eV, or (5.9)(1.6x10e-19) = 9.44x10e-19

hc = (6.626x10e-34)(3x10e8) = 19.878x10e-26

(19.878x10e-26)/(9.44x10e-19) = 2.10x10e-7, or 210nm.

I honestly can't tell where the error producing an answer of 260 is coming in, because it would require a pretty significant deviation from the given values on your input.

How does the mob provoke the officer in "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell?

The officer is provoked by the mob into shooting the elephant because he feels he must do so in order to avoid displaying weakness as a member of the ruling class.

After a call comes in about a rogue elephant, a crowd has formed by the time Orwell arrives with a rifle he only brings to defend himself if necessary. He begins to feel foolish with the "ever-growing army" of Burmese following behind him, jostling one another for position. When he spots the elephant, he sees it does not notice of the crowd, but continues to pull bunches of grass calmly, beat them against his knees to knock out the dirt, and then stuff them in his mouth. Looking at this elephant contentedly eating, Orwell "knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him."

Because of the crowd, which has grown to nearly two thousand to watch him "as they would a conjurer about to perform a trick," Officer Orwell feels baited by the crowd. At this moment, Orwell has a sudden realization about the burden of colonialism:

The white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys. . . it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him.

Therefore, in his compromised position, Orwell feels compelled to shoot the elephant "solely to avoid looking like a fool."

What is Chapter 10 of Cheaper By the Dozen about?

Chapter 10 of Cheaper By the Dozen is, for the most part, about health and doctors.  Like most of the chapters in the book, it centers on the eccentricities of Mr. Gilbreth and on his obsession with time management studies.

The main “action” in this chapter has to do with the Gilbreth children getting the measles and also getting their tonsils removed.  One major theme of the chapter is Mr. Gilbreth’s attitude towards his children’s health.  His approach is to simply demand that they not be sick.  At the beginning of the chapter, he is quoted as telling his children

You've been given health, and it's your job to keep it. I don't want any excuses. I want you to stay well.

This is very much in keeping with Mr. Gilbreth’s tendency to be (at least seemingly) domineering and demanding when he deals with his children.

However, the chapter also shows us that Mr. Gilbreth is really not a bad or domineering man, no matter what he tries to pretend.  When the children (almost) all get measles, he paints red spots on his face to try to make it look like he has measles too because he misses being around them.  When he gets his tonsils out, he falls apart (after telling the kids there is nothing to the procedure) and has to be nursed back to health for weeks.  These things show how Mr. Gilbreth likes to bluster and pretend to be very severe even though he really is not like that.  This is one of his eccentricities.

The other major theme of the chapter is Mr. Gilbreth’s fascination with trying to make everything as efficient as possible.  We are told that he believes that he could make surgeons more efficient and has filmed an operation.  He critiques the movements of the physicians, talking about how much more efficiently they could be working.  He even tries to film his children’s tonsillectomies, but is foiled when his cameraman forgets to take the lens cap off. 

Thus, Chapter 10 of Cheaper By the Dozen is largely about health, but it is also meant to emphasize the main topics of the book, which are Mr. Gilbreth’s eccentric ways and his fascination with efficiency.

In communication, weighing the rewards and dangers of self-disclosure, what advice would you give a woman who wants to tell her parents through a...

There are two issues here, one being whether a letter is an appropriate genre and the other being Sara's actual situation.

Given the closeness of the familial relationship, this level of self-disclosure is appropriate. In general, it is not appropriate to share personal information with co-workers or strangers, but it is appropriate to share it with family or close friends. That being said, how people should best handle coming out to their parents really depends on cultural and personal context. In countries such as Saudi Arabia or Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal, the person might not want to inform his or her parents for fear of making them legally complicit. 

In general, a letter is considered less intimate than an in-person discussion or telephone call but less superficial or casual than an email or text. While its limited level of interactivity can make it seem cold for an important child-parent communication, it does allow a level of careful thought and editing that can be useful in a fraught situation. If the person is on good terms with his or her parents, a visit might be more appropriate, but if the news could potentially be received badly, a letter followed by a visit or a phone call might be a good strategy.

Next, one needs to think of context. If the person lives in Canada or Sweden, and his or her two mothers are married, they would probably be delighted to learn of the relationship. If the parents are homophobic, sharing details of the relationship might not elicit a positive response. In the case of very elderly homophobic parents, discretion might be the better part of valor.

In Holes, what surprising thing did Stanley find out about his stay at Camp Green Lake?

Louis Sachar's Holes tells the story of 14-year-old Stanley Yelnats, whose family has been cursed with bad luck for generations. This curse manifests in Stanley's life when he is accused of stealing a pair of shoes donated to an orphanage by a famous basketball player. He is found guilty and sent to a juvenile detention center called Camp Green Lake, which is located in the middle of a desert. Part of Stanley's punishment is being required to dig one hole, five feet wide and five feet deep, every day.

Stanley's surprise comes when he realizes that the counselors require him to dig holes not to "build character," as they claim, but because they are looking for something in particular. When he and his friend Zero leave the camp, they find the treasure and Stanley realizes it was stolen from the same great-great grandfather that started the curse on his family. The treasure is a collection of jewels and bonds, which Stanley and Zero share to help their families.

How was the character Hamlet or any other characters, relatable to the younger generations of the Elizabethan era? Basically in what ways did the...

There are several characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet that the author uses to target the interests of young people during the Elizabethan (English Renaissance) period.

The first character is Hamlet. While Hamlet's father has just died and Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark, the throne has passed, instead, to his uncle Claudius. At that time, this would have been an acceptable procedure if Hamlet was believed to be too young or too experienced. Hamlet has been away studying at the university, and Claudius has obviously been judged to be better suited (than Hamlet) to assume the throne upon his brother's sudden death. Claudius assures Hamlet that he is still next in line to the throne:

...for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. (I.ii.111-115)

This would certainly be something with which young people in the audience, specifically young men of nobility (though the audience was made up of people from all classes) could identify and empathize.

Another thing that would resonate with a young Elizabethan crowd would be the sense that one was expected to bow to the wishes of a parent, and also a king, pushing his or her own wishes aside.

Claudius is quick to tell Hamlet that he should put mourning behind him, which Hamlet (of course) does not appreciate. After all, Claudius sits where Old Hamlet once reigned, and more distressingly, has married Old Hamlet's widow—and Hamlet's mother—Gertrude. However, Claudius also does not want Hamlet to return to school, but to stay on in Denmark.

For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here... (115-119)

We also see this pattern of socially accepted behavior as Laertes requests permission to be excused in order to return to France. As is appropriate, the King asks if Laertes has requested his father's permission (59).

Learning that this had been done, Claudius grants Laertes leave to depart from the royal court and Denmark:

KING:

Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will! (64-65)

It is interesting to note that Laertes is allowed to leave to return to France—and he simply goes to have a good time! However, Hamlet, who desires to return to school is not allowed, and this has to irritate him as he does not like his uncle—in fact, he very much resents him. After all, it is obvious to Claudius and Gertrude that Hamlet is extremely unhappy. In that Claudius has asked Hamlet to look upon him as a father, we can infer that the King knows that Hamlet's dark mood has a great deal to do with his uncle. Keeping Hamlet at home might raise questions in the audience's mind: when we discover that Claudius is a murderer, might the sovereign not want Hamlet neatly out of the way at school so he is not there to question the circumstances surrounding Old Hamlet's death?

Ophelia, Polonius' daughter and Hamlet's sweetheart, is also at the mercy of her superiors, "easily dominated." She is an obedient daughter who would not resist anything her father—or her king—might ask of her. We see Ophelia as a pawn of the men in her life. (In that era, women were not valued—considered weaker and less intelligent than men.) Polonius is not above using his daughter to spy on Hamlet, most importantly because he wants to impress Claudius. So with the King, Polonius arranges that they will hide behind a curtain ("arras") and eavesdrop on Ophelia and Hamlet as they speak.

I'll loose my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter. (174-176)

Essentially, Ophelia is forced to spy on the man she loves. The idea of stepping away from one's personal desires is something a young audience of the time could identify with, most especially if they had been asked to turn their back on someone they loved so that it might benefit someone else—particularly from a financial or political standpoint. Ophelia's powerlessness would ring true to many of the young women in the audience, though most would know better than to complain, as they were at the mercy of the men in their lives regardless of their social standing.

These are things with which a young person from the Renaissance-era (or today) would not be pleased, and could well appreciate.

1) Define and present the characteristics of distinctive organizational capabilities. 2) Outline the steps in the identification of distinctive...

1) Define and present the characteristics of distinctive organizational capabilities.

The characteristics of distinctive organizational capabilities include resources, capabilities and core competencies. Each of these characteristics is essential in the structure and function of the organization.

Resources

Resources are assets a company possesses that allow it to carry out its work and any other goals it has as an organization. Resources are crucial to the realization of a business' definition, mission, goals and objectives.

Capabilities

Organizational capabilities are the output of its collective resources. Capabilities are complex and they determine how efficient a business is at turning resources into goods and services. These capabilities may be dynamic, which means that they are flexible and able to change according to the organization's needs.

Core Competencies

The core competencies of an organization are the value-creating capabilities that exist across more than one product line or line of services produced by the company. These competencies are different from capabilities because they are arrived at through an internal sharing process.

2) Outline the steps in the identification of distinctive organizational capabilities.

In phase I, there are five steps to identifying organizational capabilities. The first step is to prepare a current market profile that gives an overview of interactions between the customer and the organization. The second step is to identify which elements of the organization-customer interaction give the company a competitive advantage and which sources result in a disadvantage. The third step is to describe and define all organizational capabilities and competencies. In the fourth step, the organization must sort these capabilities and competencies in order of strategic importance. In the fifth and final step, the organization must agree on the identified key capabilities and competencies and come to a decision about resource allocation based on this information.

In Tagore's "The Postmaster," how did the postmaster's family become very much a part of Ratan's life?

The postmaster's family became a part of Ratan's life as a way to become closer to him as well as to experience family life.

As the postmaster stays on in Ulapur, his need for companionship increases. Being a new transplant to the village, he knows no one.  The only bond he forges is with Ratan.  Being an orphan, Ratan has no connection with anyone.

However, upon befriending the postmaster, Ratan experiences the joys of human contact.  It becomes a new world to her.  She waits on the postmaster, and tends to his every need.  As their relationship increases, she "would sit outside waiting" for him to call out to her." Ratan fully immerses herself in his world.  She recognizes this as a way to strengthen their bond. This is why his family becomes very important to her.  When he would "call up memories of his own home" and of the family he missed so much, Ratan would facilitate conversation.  By "recalling them aloud in the presence of the simple little girl," the postmaster's and Ratan's connection became stronger.  She ended up appropriating them as her own family so that he would feel more comfortable with her. This is why she would "allude to his people as mother, brother, and sister, as if she had known them all her life." In making his family her own, Ratan is able to increase her bond with the postmaster.

However, there is something a bit more melancholy behind Ratan's adoption of his family as her own.  Tagore is deliberate when he writes, "In fact, she had a complete picture of each one of them painted in her little heart." Ratan is unable to form pictures about her biological family.  The orphan knows little of her own past.  Yet, through the postmaster's retelling of his own family, she sees and experiences familial love.  In making his family her own, Ratan is able to go back into her past.  She can experience what she was unable to experience when she was a child.  There is something poignant about an orphan finding a family wherever it might exist.  In Ratan's "little heart" is this possibility of having a family.  It might be his, but through immersing herself in it, she recaptures a moment when she feels what it's like to have a "mother, brother, and sister."  In this way, Ratan acquires even more sadness to her characterization.