What are the themes in chapter 9 of "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

The theme of social realism is the dominant theme in this chapter. The complicated workings of family is shown with Scout's interactions with members of her family. The differing reactions on the issues of prejudice are show, as well. Francis, Scout's cousin, has an angered reaction to Atticus taking Tom Robinson's case, and Scout has an argument with him over it. Scout also gets into a fistfight over the issue at school, and gets spanked by Uncle Jack. Aunt Alexandra and Uncle Jack try to stress to her the importance of being a lady.

All of the interaction causes Uncle Jack to doubt his need for kids and family. This chapter shows the complicated workings that exist within a family. Atticus's decision affects everyone in the family, and they all have something to say about it.

The theme of prejudice is also apparent in the chapter. Atticus's controversial decision to defend a black man accused of attacking a white woman causes an uproar in the town.

Who is "the woman" and how does she help Marlow? What does Marlow mean by women are "out of touch with the truth?"Are "the women" specific...

"The Woman" is the queen of an African tribe. She is strong and unafraid, unlike others in her tribe who are afraid of the ship and its whistle. She and Kurtz live together in the time he is in the interior. She is a proud and "magnificent" woman.
As Kurtz leaves, she stands at the water's edge with her arms skyward, knowing she will never see him again.

The comment about women being "out of touch" is first said by Kurtz, and later repeated by Marlowe. It shows the view that women are innocent and unaware of life's harsh realities. Their nature cannot comprehend such issues that men are forced to endure.

When was the Great Depression?What are a couple of examples showing the start and the end of the Great Depression in the US.

It started just after the prospects of the Roaring Twenties. The then President Herbert Hoover, the popular conservating hero of WWI convinced American citizens that USA would have a booming economy and would become a prosperous country, but the disaster struck. On October 1929, also known as the "Black Tuesday", the stock market suddenly collapse like dominoes and everywhere was in chaos. Businesses and companies went bust and millions of people were jobless or were retrenched, or even their homes were lost. Economy was stagnating and other nation like Germany, France and Britain plunged into complete recession, and brought to their knees.

So during the Great Depression, many Americans resented that Hoover didn't provide any financial assistance, and so voted him out of office and so Democrat Theodore Roosevelt was the next President of USA. It started off with the New Deals, but it still cannot help USA to recover from the Great Depression. It is only during WWII in December 1941 did their economy rebounded.

What does the narrator mean by “a moment of temporary mental apparition”?

Sam and Bill are obviously swindlers, confidence men, who
specialize in cheating simple rustic people out of their money with various schemes.
Both men have cultivated big vocabularies in order to impress the yokels. They are
similar in this respect to the two rapscallions in Mark Twain's The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn who call themselves The King and The Duke but who are
really only ignorant petty crooks. Both Sam and Bill use big words inappropriately.
These are called "malapropisms." What Sam the narrator is trying to say is that Bill
expressed the idea of kidnapping a child "during a moment of temporary
aberration." Part of O. Henry's reason for portraying these two
would-be kidnappers as men who are not as smart as they think they are is to explain how
they could have made so many mistakes and gotten themselves into so much
trouble.

In Hollywood parlance "The Ransom of Red Chief"
would be called "a busted caper story." There have been many films in which crooks plan
a crime (a "caper") carefully but things start going wrong because of unforeseen
circumstances. An excellent example of a "busted caper" film is
Fargo (1996), starring William H. Macy as the man who hires a
couple of incompetents to kidnap his wife so that he can collect a million dollars in
ransom from her wealthy father.

According to
Wikipedia:

readability="6.75">

The word malapropism comes
ultimately from the French mal à propos meaning "inappropriate" via
"Mrs. Malaprop", a character in the  href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Brinsley_Sheridan">Richard Brinsley
Sheridan comedy  href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rivals">The Rivals (1775)
who habitually misused her
words.

In addition to
malapropisms, there are other misuses of language in the story. For example, Sam
says:

There
was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external
outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my
view.

The words "somnolent"
and "sleepiness" mean the same thing, as do "external" and
"outward."

A large part of the comedy in O. Henry's "The
Ransom of Red Chief" comes from the fact that the kidnap victim's father, whom they take
to be an ignorant country bumpkin, outsmarts the two city slickers. This sort of theme
has been a staple of American humor for many years.

What does the narrator mean by “a moment of temporary mental apparition”?

Sam and Bill are obviously swindlers, confidence men, who specialize in cheating simple rustic people out of their money with various schemes. Both men have cultivated big vocabularies in order to impress the yokels. They are similar in this respect to the two rapscallions in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn who call themselves The King and The Duke but who are really only ignorant petty crooks. Both Sam and Bill use big words inappropriately. These are called "malapropisms." What Sam the narrator is trying to say is that Bill expressed the idea of kidnapping a child "during a moment of temporary aberration." Part of O. Henry's reason for portraying these two would-be kidnappers as men who are not as smart as they think they are is to explain how they could have made so many mistakes and gotten themselves into so much trouble.

In Hollywood parlance "The Ransom of Red Chief" would be called "a busted caper story." There have been many films in which crooks plan a crime (a "caper") carefully but things start going wrong because of unforeseen circumstances. An excellent example of a "busted caper" film is Fargo (1996), starring William H. Macy as the man who hires a couple of incompetents to kidnap his wife so that he can collect a million dollars in ransom from her wealthy father.

According to Wikipedia:

The word malapropism comes ultimately from the French mal à propos meaning "inappropriate" via "Mrs. Malaprop", a character in the Richard Brinsley Sheridan comedy The Rivals (1775) who habitually misused her words.

In addition to malapropisms, there are other misuses of language in the story. For example, Sam says:

There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

The words "somnolent" and "sleepiness" mean the same thing, as do "external" and "outward."

A large part of the comedy in O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" comes from the fact that the kidnap victim's father, whom they take to be an ignorant country bumpkin, outsmarts the two city slickers. This sort of theme has been a staple of American humor for many years.

What are some poetic devices that Shakespeare uses to enhance the effect of the witches' chants in "Macbeth"? (Act 4 scene 1)

Shakespeare relies on alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, and repetition in this scene.  Here is an explanation for each:

Alliteration - repetition of initial consonsonant sound.  Alliteration is the verbal equivalent of a drum beat, adding to the sense of rhythm that may or may not already exist in a passage.  Here is an example:  "toil and trouble";  also "boil and bubble".

Rhyme - the use of rhyme creates a song-like effect to a piece of writing.  This elevates the writing, making it some cases more romantic, in others more suspenseful.  In this case, it is suspenseful, accentuating and connecting each line to the other and - again - acting like a drum beat in the scene.  The rhyme scheme is aa/bb, meaning there are always two lines together that rhyme.

Rhythm - This is the versification of written language, so that the "beat" of the words is the same and repeats.  In this case, the rhythm is in iambic pentameter, meaning that the beat is "duh duh DA".  The beat builds the tension in the theme.

Repetition - Each of the listed techniques is a form of repetition.  However, Shakespeare also repeats the chorus of "double double toil and trouble/fire burn and cauldron bubble".  This enhances the idea of a "spell" and makes the scene more creepy.

In "The Frogs", what are the qualities of Aeschylus that would help to reconstruct the polis?

Hmm. The centrality of the chorus would provide a foundation. It gives us a sense of how strong the voice of the community was in the polis. After that, the way Aeschylus allowed his play structures to develop provides a parallel with the larger city-state; he allows individuals to emerge over time. The content of his plays, with their blend of history and what we call myth (but which would have been shared belief for a lot of the audience—religion), but through a lens that allows him to comment on contemporary action, gives a good sense of how past, faith, and present interweave in the polis.

Now, within "The Frogs," he claims to strengthen the morality of his fellow citizens.