In Krakauer's Into the Wild, does Chris McCandless ever change? For example, do his personality, attitude, or beliefs ever change?

The question is basically asking if Chris McCandless is a dynamic character.  In general, I would say that McCandless is not a dynamic character.  He really never displays any huge character growth or change over the course of the novel.  Keep in mind that Into the Wild is Krakauer's interpretation of McCandless and what happened to him.  It's possible that McCandless's personality changed a great deal at one point, but McCandless was by himself so often that drastic character changes were never witnessed.  

Throughout the novel, McCandless is portrayed as self-confident, focused, passionate, friendly, intelligent, and at times rash.  In general, McCandless is also averse to asking for help.  

The question above does ask if McCandless ever changes.  If I'm 100% honest, then I have to say yes, McCandless does change at one point.  Unfortunately, the change is too late.  Once he begins his trek into the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless is as full of self-confidence and joy as he has ever been.  

“There was just no talking the guy out of it,” Gallien remembers. “He was determined. Real gung ho. The word that comes to mind is excited. He couldn’t wait to head out there and get started.”

He's also a bit unwilling to take the supplies, help, and advice offered to him by Jim Gallien.  

Gallien offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage, buy him some decent gear, and then drive him back to wherever he wanted to go.

“No, thanks anyway,” Alex replied, “I’ll be fine with what I’ve got.”

However, once McCandless becomes stranded by the bus, it's clear that he has changed enough to be begging for help.  McCandless is so weak and injured that he is no longer the joyous, confident person he was months before.  He is so weak that he is only capable of searching for berries among the nearby plants.  In case somebody shows up at the bus, McCandless leaves a note begging for help.  

S.O.S. I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST?

Notice that McCandless even drops the "Alex Supertramp" name that he has been using when everything is going well.  He now uses his real name because he knows he is in real trouble.  If the question is simply asking if McCandless ever changes, even a little bit, then I have to answer yes.  He changes just before he dies. 

True or False? In Virginia, the ruling classes eventually bequeathed to the white indentured servants a “number of benefits” ranging from land,...

In the first part of the statement you want to assess, it is true that the Virginia’s General Assembly passed laws designed to regulate the contract terms, behavior, and treatment of indentured servants. In their Virginia Encyclopedia article online, “Indentured Servants in Colonial Virginia,” Brenden Wolfe and Martha McCartney write,

As indentured servants poured into Virginia, they came to account for fully half of Virginia's population. Such rapid change caused problems, however, and the General Assembly passed numerous statutes designed to address them. These laws served several broad purposes, including regulation of servants' contract terms, behavior, and treatment.

Nevertheless, the regulations were written to benefit the masters, not the indentured servants. Contract terms were granted based on the age of the servant, and primarily aimed to cover the costs incurred by the master for transportation to America, upkeep and health care, as well as to prevent “disruptive turnover, labor shortages and an unstable workforce.”

An indenture labor contract often, but not always called for “freedom dues” which were to be given when the contract expired. Freedom dues generally meant corn, clothing, and tools. Though masters did not always comply with freedom and the freedom dues, an indentured servant could take his master to court. Following are some examples of masters refusals to follow the rules as set by the Virginia General Assembly:

In 1675, an indentured servant who charged his master with cheating him asked the General Court to free him "and pay him corne & clothes." The judges ruled in his favor,…

Occasionally the owners of indentured servants refused to release them or give them their freedom dues. At Jamestown, when a male indentured servant who had fulfilled his contract insisted on receiving his "corn and clothes," his master exploded in rage and struck him on the head with his truncheon.      -Wolfe and McCartney

The second part of the true/false statement says, “Their African slave counterparts eventually received the same benefits by 1640.” If this part of the statement is true, the answer you should give is true. If it is false, the answer you should give is false.

No laws were passed by the Virginia General Assembly giving the right of freedom dues to African slaves by 1640 or anytime before the Civil War (1861-1865). It is interesting to note, however, that the 1675 court case above was brought by a black indentured servant, but he was not a slave.

Nonetheless, there were some individual slaveholders who gave what can be called “freedom dues” to slaves they freed. For example, an excerpt from the will of Charles Bagwell, who lived in Accomack Co, VA, says, “[t]o negro Daniel his freedom & 6 acres in Robins Hole for life.” This was a generous slaveholder who gave his slave freedom and land, but these instances were not, in general, “benefits conferred on African slaves” by the ruling class in Virginia by 1640.

Given this information, is the scenario true or false? Before deciding that a statement is true or false, keep in mind that if any part of the statement is false, the whole statement is false. In other words, all parts of the statement or scenario must be true for the answer to be true.

How is the motif of dualities present in Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities?

Dualities in A Tale of Two Cities serve to point to the similarities of internal problems in England and France as well as developing themes and characterization.

From the opening of this classic novel on, there are presentations of dualities. With thesis and antithesis, Charles Dickens points to the similarities between England and France in the opening chapter, as he compares the king of England with the king of France while the Woodman, symbolic of the guillotine, and the Farmer, symbolic of the peasants who stormed the Bastille, work unheeded.

Some characters act as dualities, as well, as Dickens often places an English character in contrast to a French one:

• Sydney Carton -- Charles Darnay (Evremonde)

The brilliant, but dissipated, Carton sees in noble Darnay what he could have been, and he is inspired by his idealized love for Lucie Manette to redeem himself through self-sacrifice. "For you and for any dear to you, I would do anything," he declares to Lucie in Chapter 13 of Book the Second. In the end, Carton finds redemption after he replaces Darnay in the prison and goes to the guillotine in place of Charles Evremonde (Darnay), who escapes with his family to England.

• Mr. Lorry -- Dr. Manette

The "man of business," as he describes himself, is often in sharp contrast to the delusional and irrational Dr. Manette. Often, too, he lends a sympathetic ear and moral support to Lucie and the weakened physician.

Mr. Lorry is a loyal and sensible friend to Dr. Manette as, for instance, after Manette learns the real identity of Charles Darnay on his and Lucie's wedding day, the physician has a relapse and pulls out his shoe-making kit.

After this relapse, Mr. Lorry consults with Dr. Manette about a "friend" who has resorted to working on his occupation, an activity from a time in his life that should be put behind him. Dr. Manette suggests destroying that which he occupies himself, and he agrees to its destruction if the object can be taken from him when he is not around.

• Dr. Manette -- Manette

In a sense, Manette is a duality himself. He is the imprisoned man, who has spent many years in the Bastille. On the other hand, he is a man who has been rescued from a living death, who sometimes loses his hold upon life and regresses to his old occupation when he was in prison.  

• Lucie Manette -- Madame Defarge

The stereotypical Victorian heroine, Lucie is kind and loving while, in contrast, Therese Defarge is a malevolent force. Lucie stands outside her husband's prison window so that he may see her. She also brings out the best in Sydney Carton, motivating him to sacrifice himself on the guillotine for Charles so that he may leave France with his family:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

On the other hand, Madame Defarge is a force of evil, knitting the names of her victims into the material that she fashions. Consumed by the desire for revenge against the French aristocracy, particularly the Evremonde family, who are responsible for the deaths of her sister and brother, Madame Defarge pursues Charles Darnay in her effort to annihilate the aristocrats. When her husband suggests that she be merciful to Dr. Manette because of the anguish of his daughter, Madame Defarge insists that the Evremondes are summoned to answer for the things they have done to her family. Guilt lies on Dr. Manette because he aided the Evremonde brothers. She tells Monsieur Defarge,

Then tell the Wind and Fire where to stop,...but don't tell me."

Madame Defarge is certainly a classic villain in her singleness of intent for vengeance, just as Sydney Carton is the redemptive hero. The contrasts of such characters and others in the motif of dualities certainly provide a strong effect for A Tale of Two Cities.

Every lesson that Helen was taught by her teacher was set amidst the beauty and magnificence of nature. Elaborate using examples from the text.

Helen Keller writes in The Story of My Life about how her teacher, Anne Sullivan, taught her in the outdoors. She writes in Chapter V:

"Long before I learned to do a sum in arithmetic or describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass."

Sullivan brings her student to nature to learn about the world around her and to teach her the names of objects in nature using sign language. 

Nature also helps Keller learn the meaning of abstract ideas. As she is trying to understand what love means, she observes the following in nature:

"The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendor."

The natural world allows her to understand more complex concepts such as love, as she equates the appearance of the warmth of the sun after a day of storms with the concept of love. By bringing Keller outside, Sullivan makes her lessons enjoyable. As Keller writes, "The loveliness of things taught me all their use." Keller's early enjoyment of her lessons outside causes her to be eager to learn more, setting her on a path that will take her to Radcliffe College (then the sister school of Harvard) and to a life of learning, speaking, and activism. 

In Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, how do Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss react to Charlie's intelligence?

Dr. Strauss was introduced to Charlie through Miss Kinnian. He, in turn, introduced Charlie to Dr. Nemur and their experiment on intelligence. Dr. Nemur was at first reluctant to use Charlie as the test subject. However, Dr. Strauss believed Charlie was the right subject because he was motivated to develop his intelligence. He succeeded in convincing Dr. Nemur to authorize Charlie’s participation in the experiment.

The first visible sign of Charlie getting smart was when he first beat Algernon. His intelligence continued to grow, and he noticed that Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur argued a lot. Charlie overheard an argument between the two doctors about the experiment. Dr. Nemur stated that it was his experiment, and Dr. Strauss claimed that he also contributed much to the research. Dr. Nemur wanted to publish the results of the test for recognition, but Dr. Strauss thought it was best to give it more time. Dr. Nemur was also intimidated by Charlie’s growing intelligence, and he was uncomfortable around him.

What was one key event from the 1850s that escalated tensions between the North and South? How did the push for western expansion impact this event?

One event from the 1850s that heightened tensions between the North and the South was the raid by the abolitionist John Brown on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, which was then in the state of Virginia.  This raid helped increase tensions because the North and South reacted to it in different ways.

In this raid, Brown and his followers took control of the federal armory.  Their plan, such was it was, was to give out weapons to the slaves who, they were sure, would flock to them.  These slaves would then carry out an armed rebellion.  Brown and his people were defeated and Brown was later executed. 

The “argument” on the part of the North (or at least on the part of many Northerners) was that John Brown was a hero.  Northerners saw Brown as a martyr for his cause.  They felt that he was a courageous man who had stood up for what he believed in.  This infuriated the South.  Their “argument” was that Brown was a killer who was breaking the law in an attempt to get the slaves to rise up and kill the people of the South.  They hated the idea that the North would lionize a man who wanted to cause the massacre of Southern whites.  In this way, the debate between the two sides was not really about the raid, but about how people should perceive Brown.

Westward expansion did not have a great impact on this event. It happened in Virginia, not in any western area.  However, expansion did have one impact.  Westward expansion brought about the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the violence of “Bleeding Kansas.”  John Brown was part of that violence.  He helped lead anti-slavery fighters in Kansas and was involved in an incident now known as the “Pottawatomie Massacre,” in which five pro-slavery men were killed in cold blood.  Although Brown was already an abolitionist, we could argue that westward expansion helped to radicalize him and make him more likely to carry out such an extreme act as his raid on Harpers Ferry.

How would you compare and contrast ancient Persia with ancient Greece?

Both ancient Persia and ancient Greece were societies that had an immense impact on subsequent cultures. Both were advanced civilizations which developed or adapted complex writing systems to daily life and administration. Both had sophisticated legal systems, relatively advanced technology for their period, and important artistic traditions. Both the Greeks and the Persians owned slaves and considered themselves far superior to "barbarians."

While Persia was a monarchy that imposed uniform political and administrative systems over a vast empire, Greece consisted on many independent city states, each of which had its own political system. While the Persian Empire had a vast network of roads and land transportation, the Greek city states were separated by mountains and they tended to rely more on naval transportation. While the Persian Empire tended to follow Zoroastrianism, the Greeks had a wide range of deities, of which the twelve Olympians were the most prominent.