In The Secret Life of Bees, how and why does Lily change from the beginning of the story to the end?

Lily, the main character in The Secret Life of Bees (Kidd), begins the book as a disengaged, troubled, sheltered, and insecure teen. Her quest to solve the mystery of her mother's life takes her on a journey that is inward and outward, so that as the book ends, she has transformed to a person who is happier, wiser, more confident, and more empathetic.

Lily lives in the country, near a small Southern town, and the book begins in 1964 as the Civil Rights Act is about to become signed. Her mother died when Lily was four, and there is some mystery surrounding her death.  Lily's father, T. Ray, while not exactly an evil villain, is not the father of the year, either.  He lacks a mother's touch and sympathy and punishes Lily quite cruelly, by making her kneel on grits for hours. (If you have never done this, I do not advise it. It's like kneeling on crushed glass.)  The only "mother" in Lily's life is Rosaleen, an African-American, who is a kind of housekeeper/nanny who has no children but does love Lily and try to protect her.  Lily's worldview is constructed from her surroundings, and so she holds a low opinion of African-Americans, aspires only to work in a beauty shop, and is crippled by what she does not know about her mother and her mother's death. 

When Lily and Rosaleen run away to Tiburon, South Carolina, Lily is following the only clue she has about her mother, a wooden plaque that has pasted upon it a picture of an African-American Mary or Madonna and the name of this town on its back. Lily and Rosaleen are lucky enough to make their way to the Boatwright sisters, August, June, and May, who keep bees and make their living selling honey.  They meet a whole cast of characters through the Boatwright sisters, including the Daughters of Mary and Zach, a young African-American who works for the sisters and wants to be an attorney.  It is here that Lily solves the mystery of her mother and her mother's death, learning that her mother had run away from T. Ray and that Lily herself, accidentally, was responsible for her mother's death. This journey's end is a transformational one for Lily in many ways. 

As she lives with the Boatwright sisters and slowly falls in love with Zach, she looks within herself and examines her prejudices about African-Americans, coming to understand that they are people like any others, with the same feelings and thoughts as white people.  This alone would be an extraordinary transformation in that time and place, but Lily also grows as a person as she confronts her own role in her mother's death and learns that marriage and love are more complicated than she had understood. 

She learns that her mother was trying to leave, that her father was trying to stop her mother, and that somehow, in the midst of that fray, Lily accidentally shot her mother and she died.  She learns that the Boatwright sisters had taken her mother in and tried to help her heal from what seems to have been severe depression, as well as an unhappy marriage. This allows her to have some insight into her parents, which is a sure sign of maturity.  She is learning not to judge so much and to understand that relationships are complex, not easily reducible to good or bad.  In effect, she is working on forgiving herself and forgiving her parents for being what parents inevitably are, imperfect.  At the same time, Lily is also becoming a more fully engaged person.

Lily is offered a new form of spirituality and meaningful work at the Boatwright house.  She learns how to care for the bees and very gradually becomes absorbed into the spirituality of the household through the Black Mary, a figurehead from a ship that symbolizes freedom for the Daughters of Mary, and in a way, freedom for Lily, too, since she is breaking the chains of her unhappy past. She comes to understand that she can be a writer, something that one teacher had suggested, but that she had thought an impossibility until she meets Zach, who encourages her to go for it and leads by example with his own plans to become an attorney. 

The forces that send Lily on the run expose her to a new world, one that helps her grow as a person in so many ways. She learns about love. She learns about prejudice. She learns about empathy. She learns that families are not perfect and that they can be created by bonds other than blood.  She gains spiritually and intellectually.  And at the end of the book, she is well on her way to being a happier, wiser, more fully engaged human being. 

Do you believe Brutus is responsible for his own downfall in Julius Caesar?

Indirectly, yes, I do believe that Brutus is responsible for his own downfall in Julius Caesar. While it's Mark Antony who incites the Roman mob to turn against the conspirators, thus starting the civil war that results in Brutus' death, Brutus sets the stage for this catastrophe to happen.

Since he's a noble, honorable man who acts out of a selfless interest to protect others (specifically the Roman populace), Brutus rather naively expects other people to do the same. However, Rome is a cutthroat political stage, and Brutus should have expected his political companions to exploit his own nobility. By allowing Antony to speak at Caesar's funeral, Brutus unwittingly gives Antony the chance to manipulate the masses of Rome against the conspirators. By doing so, Antony gains a lot of power for himself, but he also ensures that Brutus and his companions are doomed. As such, though it's Antony who actually commits the acts that lead to Brutus' downfall, Brutus naively sets the stage for this to happen, and so he indirectly brings about his own demise. More than anything else, it's this detail that makes Brutus a tragic hero. 

In In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar, what are three adjectives to describe the main character, Suleiman?

The three adjectives that describe Suleiman at this time of his life are trapped, intelligently perceptive (with an adverb modifying the adjective) and confused. A successful narrative exposition establishes the most essential character traits of the protagonist. In In the Country of Men, what we learn about Suleiman reveals his most essential characteristics, which lead to relevant adjectives describing him as we find him during his story. Suleiman opens with his interaction with his mother; he moves to his inner interactions with himself, then shares his surprise as he inexplicably sees his father, "right there, close enough that ... [he] could touch him," in town at the square graced by the statue of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Intelligently perceptive, Suleiman feels trapped and confused by the complicated and overwhelming circumstances surrounding him in a veil of silence.

1. Trapped [adj]: Suleiman is surrounded by silent, deceit, and power struggles, and he is feeling a sense of responsibility for the power struggle engulfing his mother in "a world full of men and the greed of men."

2. Intelligently perceptive [adv+adj]: Suleiman is aware of the psychological battles within his mother, who acted "embarrassed and shy, as if she had walked out naked," and aware (beginning from the first morning of his story) of the fabrication within his father's life, who, supposedly away on business, walked from the square into "a building with green shutters ... the color of the revolution."

3. Confused [adj]: Suleiman felt far from governing an understanding of his place in the world; he felt far from conquering the forces that kept him from his father and his father from him--symbolized by two "dark lenses [that] curved ... over his [father's] eyes"--and that kept him angered toward his mother, "not caring if [he] lost her or became lost from her," as when he went to stand ironically under the statue of Septimius Severus, who began by governing Gaul and ended as the all-conquering Emperor of the Roman Empire (Ancient History Encyclopedia).

What are twelve major events in chronological order in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee?

1. Scout, Jem, and Dill try to make Boo Radley come out.


2. Atticus is appointed the defense attorney for Tom Robinson, a black man accused of rape by Mayella Ewell, a white woman.  His defending Robinson is unpopular with Maycomb’s white population.


3. Scout gets into fights with schoolmates and her cousin Francis defending her father, even though she doesn’t really understand what the fuss is about.


4. Boo Radley leaves presents for Scout and Jem, showing that he is not a monster and is really just a shy recluse who wants friends.


5. There is a fire at Miss Maudie’s house. Boo Radley puts a blanket on Scout’s shoulders.


6. Scout’s Aunt Alexandra comes to stay with them to support her brother.


7. The Trial starts.  Atticus demonstrates that no one called for a doctor for Mayella, that her injuries were most likely caused be her father, and that Tom Robinson’s crippled shoulder makes it almost impossible for him to have committed the crime he was accused of.


8. The trial demonstrates how ugly racism is in Maycomb.  Dill has to leave during the proceedings, unable to stomach the prosecutor Mr. Gilmer’s treatment of Tom Robinson.

“Well, Mr. Finch didn’t act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he crossexamined them. The way that man called him ‘boy’ all the time an‘ sneered at him, an’ looked around at the jury every time he answered—” (Ch. 19)

9. Tom Robinson is convicted, but Atticus considers the jury's deliberation a minor moral victory.

... Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. (Ch. 22)

10. Tom Robinson is shot trying to escape prison.

11. Bob Ewell threatens Atticus, spitting in his face.  Atticus dismisses the threat.

12. Boo Radley stops Bob Ewell from hurting Scout and Jem, killing Ewell.  Jem only has a broken arm and Scout is relatively unharmed.

What was Jim's most prized possession in "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry?

In O. Henry's short story "The Gifts of the Magi," James "Jim" Dillingham Young's most prized possession is the gold watch that belonged to both his father and his grandfather and has been passed down from one generation to the next. This watch is so fantastic that O. Henry claims,

Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasure piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

Unfortunately, the Dillingham Youngs are not a wealthy couple. With Christmas approaching, Jim decides to make a huge sacrifice: he pawns off his watch in order to get money to purchase a lovely set of tortoiseshell combs for his wife, Della, whose beautiful hair is her most prized possession.

When Jim arrives home that night, he discovers Della cut off and sold her hair in order to purchase a chain for his watch. The pair is stunned by the sacrifices they each made that also ultimately render both gifts useless. Despite this, they are incredibly moved by their love for one another, and this willingness to give from the heart with no concern for one's own happiness serves as the lesson of "The Gift of the Magi." 

What are some major battles in Beowulf?

As is typical of heroic epic, the main theme of Beowulf is that of a hero proving his virtue and his valor by defeating enemies in battle. The first battles in Beowulf's life were actually with the sea monsters he encountered during a swimming contest with his childhood friend Breca.

Next, the monster Grendel attacks the mead hall Heorot routinely over a period of twelve years. Beowulf comes to the aid of King Hrothgar and has an epic fight against Grendel in which he manages to rip off Grendel's arm, a wound that proves fatal. 

Grendel's mother, angered and grief stricken by the death of her son, then attacks the mead hall. Beowulf manages to follow her back to her lair and kill her.

The final battle of the poem is the one against a dragon. Beowulf kills the dragon but takes a mortal wound and dies in the process. 

What circumstances led to Jamestown succeeding as the first permanent English Colony?

Jamestown was successful largely because of the introduction of tobacco as a cash crop. While strong leadership played a role in the colony's short-term survival in the years following its foundation, it was its ability to make money for its founders in London, the Virginia Company, that ensured its long-term survival. Following the introduction of tobacco from colonies in the Caribbean by John Rolfe, Jamestown began to flourish economically as demand for tobacco continued to rise in Europe. Virginia planters began to aggressively acquire larger tracts of land and to import indentured servants (and eventually enslaved people) into the colony to work on them. The introduction of tobacco as a cash crop not only led to the long-term economic success of the colony, but also shaped its social structure. Over time, the politics of the colony were dominated by wealthy planters who developed as a tightly-knit elite class.