What are some values from Holes by Louis Sachar?

One value reflected in the book Holes is the importance of friendship. In the book, there is a tremendous value placed on friendship. Stanley actually becomes quite happy with his situation (despite it still being dangerous) once his friendship with Zero is solidified.  

Another value present in the book is justice. That might seem odd at first because the book starts with Stanley being punished for a crime that he didn't commit. There doesn't seem to be any working legal justice. As the story continues, though, readers see a strong sense of moral justice among many of the boys at Camp Green Lake. They know they are being unfairly treated, and there is a sense of moral outrage at the severity of the punishments based on the minor crimes they committed. They know justice is not being properly served.  

Perhaps I can take the justice value further. By the end of the book, everything is set right. Good people are rewarded and evil people are punished. It's as if the universe itself willed justice to be done. Call it fate or cosmic justice, but it still happened.

What does Ralph's father do for a living? Why does this provide hope for Ralph and the boys on the island?

In Chapter 1, Ralph tells Piggy that his father taught him to swim when he was five and that his father is a commander in the Navy. In Chapter 2, Ralph holds an assembly and offers the boys hope by telling them that they will be rescued because his father is searching for them. He also tells the group of boys that his father has access to a collection of maps with all the islands in the world on it. Ralph then says that sooner or later his father's ship will pass the island, and the boys will be rescued. The possibility of Ralph's father searching for the stranded group of boys provides every boy on the island with a sense of hope. The boys are relieved to hear Ralph's encouraging words and believe that they will be rescued by his father.

In Winter Dreams, what do you think Judy wants and gets from Dexter?

Interesting question! In the story, Dexter is infatuated with Judy, a woman who treats him with "interest, with encouragement, with malice, with indifference, with contempt." Because Judy is a great beauty and is used to being fawned over by men, she doesn't think twice about dismissing a suitor once she becomes bored. As a seductress, she is able to inspire both "ecstatic happiness" as well as an "intolerable agony of spirit" in any man. It looks like Judy is the sort of temptress who prefers to have the upper hand in any relationship. She certainly does revel in the 'gratification of desires' and seems impervious to masculine attempts to usher her to the wedding altar.

Judy only pays attention to Dexter because he is independently wealthy; after callously rejecting a man because he is as "poor as a church-mouse," she becomes sexually involved with Dexter. However, to his humiliation, Dexter finds himself only one of many suitors Judy is juggling in her life. We get the idea that Judy wants a man who is sexually attractive, wealthy, and supremely confident. He would be nothing at all like the men who constantly vie for her attention, for the purposes of securing her interest. Judy becomes easily bored with men who are emotionally reliant on her, as we can see from the way she treats the son of the president of a New York trust company. She basically leaves this rumored beau dangling while she cavorts with another love interest.

By all indications, Judy is not averse to marriage. After all, she does get married, but to a man who is by all indications a deplorable husband. He drinks and "runs around" on her, and she is certainly not the center of his world. But it is rumored that she "stays at home with her kids" despite this. One thing is clear: Judy's husband does not appear to be emotionally reliant on her.

As described above, what Judy wants from Dexter, he cannot give her, and he is wise enough to recognize this.

...when he had seen that it was no use, that he did not possess in himself the power to move fundamentally or to hold Judy Jones, did he bear any malice toward her. He loved her, and he would love her until the day he was too old for loving--but he could not have her. So he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong, just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness.

All Judy gets from Dexter is his ceaseless infatuation with his idea of the woman she is. Even as he remembers "her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning," Dexter comes to the conclusion that everything he has ever felt about his relationship with Judy is a mirage. He becomes greatly disillusioned, knowing that he can never retrieve all that he thinks he has lost.

Is it true that your genetics (nature) make you who you are, or is it your life experiences (nurture)?

We cannot say that nature entirely makes us who we are or that nurture entirely does so. It is incorrect to say either of these two influences is the only thing that makes us who we are. Instead, it is a combination of nature and nurture that makes us who we are.

We cannot dispute that some of who we are comes from our genes. Some of us are born with the potential to be taller and more athletic. Those people might be more likely to be good at sports where height is often an advantage. Some of us are born with more musical or artistic talent. Some of us are born with different character traits, like our levels of patience and the quickness of our tempers. Some of us seem to be born with a higher susceptibility to alcoholism or drug addiction.

We cannot say nature is the only thing that makes us who we are. Clearly, our environment and life experiences also affect us. If we have the genetic potential to become tall, but we are underfed in our youth, we will probably not reach our potential height. If we are born with musical talent but are never given the chance to play an instrument, we will not realize we have this talent. If we are prone to alcoholism but live in a subculture that is strongly against alcohol and drugs, we might not have the occasion to drink or take drugs enough to become addicted.

There are very few traits that are completely controlled by nature or our environment. What we are is determined by a mixture of these two factors.

How are family dynamics/interactions integral to the plot of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens?

In his highly structured A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens employs the motif of pairings and counterparts throughout his narrative. Certainly, the interactions among the families of the Manettes and the Evrémondes and the family of Madame deFarge are central pairings in the novel. 

The intricate workings of the family interaction begin with the voyage to Calais, France by Lucie Manette and the venerable Mr. Lorry of Tellson and Company, who acts as her adviser and chaperone. In Paris, Lucie meets her father for the first time since he has been hidden away as a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years, having been abducted and placed there because of the dastardly Evrémonde twins. He is "recalled to life," as it were, and is cared for by Ernest Defarge, who was Manette's servant long ago. After Lucie Manette arrives in St. Antoine at the Defarges' wine shop and meets her father, she takes him back to England with her so that he can recuperate from the nearly two decades of deprivation that he has suffered.

Manette's tragic past is also connected to the vengeful and cruel Evrémondes, aristocrats whose pasts are additionally tied to the family of Madame Defarge, a family who were peasants on their estates, and who died because of the cruelty of these Evrémonde twins. For, it was Madame Defarge's sister who was ravaged and killed by these arrogant and cruel men, and her brother who died trying to defend this sister. Shortly thereafter, the father died from grief.

Ironically, the history of the Evrémondes is also resurrected after Lucie meets Charles Darnay during her passage back to England, as well as in the court at the Old Bailey after Darnay is accused of treason. From this meeting of Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette there develops a love relationship. When Darnay comes to Dr. Manette to ask for the hand of Lucie in marriage, he tells the old physician that he has a secret to reveal about himself. But, Manette refuses to listen to his revelation until after he and his daughter are married. Therefore, on the wedding day, Charles Darnay reveals what Dr. Manette has feared. That is, Darnay's real name is Evrémonde; he is the son of the twin who has died. Also, Charles informs the doctor that he has renounced his family name because of his father and uncle's nefarious actions.

If the Manettes and the Darnays were all to have remained in England, the past may have faded somewhat from their memories and lives. But, Charles is summoned back to France after he receives a letter from his overseer, who has been arrested by the revolutionaries and implores Darnay's testimony that he no longer taxes the peasants on his land. Unrealistically, too, Darnay hopes to influence the radicals to more reasonable actions. Of course, once the revolutionaries learn that he is Charles Evrémonde, they arrest him. When Dr. Manette, revered by the new government as the Bastille prisoner, tries to save Charles from the guillotine, an earlier document that was written while he was a prisoner in the Bastille surfaces. In this, Manette condemned the Evrémondes, declaring that the entire family should be "exterminated." So, Dr. Manette unfortunately harms, rather than helps, Charles, who is then taken to prison.

When he learns of Darnay's fate, Monsieur Defarge implores his wife to have some sympathy for this innocent son of the cruel Marquis d' Evrémonde, who has renounced his name and his family, but she wrathfully tells her husband, "Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!" (Bk. 3, Ch. 12).
 
Later, it is this misfortune of Charles Darnay that allows the dissipated Sidney Carton to intervene and keep his promise to the woman he adores, Lucie Manette. Having promised Lucie that he would "do anything" for her and her loved ones, Carton, who resembles Darnay, manipulates one of the spies at the prison and switches places with Darnay by drugging him and having him carried out. The Manettes then leave France and return to England as Madame DeFarge, too, fails in her attempt to kill Lucie and avenge herself.

Clearly, the interweavings of family interactions are intrinsic to the plot and essential to the development of themes in A Tale of Two Cities.

In Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, when Montag burns books, how does he feel?

At the beginning of the novel, Bradbury describes Montag's experience burning books. Bradbury writes, "It was a pleasure to burn" (1). Montag enjoys his work as a fireman and takes pleasure in burning books. He firmly believes that he is helping humanity by burning books and is essentially institutionalized. Bradbury writes that Montag is calm as he flicks the igniter and watches as the flames engulf the books. Montag thinks of a relatively enjoyable experience by wishing that he could roast marshmallows over the flames. Bradbury also mentions Montag's "fierce grin." When Montag returns to the firehouse and looks in the mirror, he winks at himself. While Montag lays in his bed at night, his fiery smile does not go away. Bradbury is suggesting that although Montag is unsympathetic about his occupation and appears happy, his feelings are artificial.

After Montag becomes friends with Clarisse and realizes that he is living a meaningless life, Montag feels differently the next time he burns books. When Montag responds to a call suggesting that a woman has a library in her attic, Montag feels guilty about destroying the books. He is not unattached while he sets the novels on fire and even reads a line from one of the pages. He thinks about what he has read the entire time and even steals one of the books. Montag's feelings of guilt reflect his change in perspective. 

Why is Clarisse's uncle arrested in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?

Clarisse's uncle is arrested for driving too slowly on the highway. He was once caught driving at forty miles an hour; as a result, he was jailed for two days.

Clarisse tells Montag no one really notices the details in life, as no one is allowed to slow down long enough to observe anything. Basically, Clarisse and Montag live in a totalitarian world, where citizens aren't allowed individual, autonomous thoughts that aren't sanctioned by the government. To keep its citizens docile and subservient, the government creates draconian and arbitrary laws that permeate every aspect of life. Failure to comply is met with stringent punishment.

Clarisse maintains that people have to drive so fast that they can't make out what they're seeing. They must imagine a green blur stands in for grass, a pink blur stands in for a rose-garden, a white blur stands in for a house, and a brown blur designates a cow.