Scout developes a warm friendship with Miss Maudie. Describe this friendship, comparing Miss Maudie with Atticus.From the book To Kill A Mockingbird

Neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson serves as a sort of advisor
to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. She dispatches words of wisdom
and sometimes explains to the children the reasons behind some of Atticus' decisions.
She is also a friend and confidante to Scout, who knows she can trust
Maudie.

...
Jem and I had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had never told on us, had never
played can-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives. She
was our friend.

Miss Maudie
(who is actually not a "Miss" at all, but a widow, just like Atticus) is down-to-earth
and usually says what's on her mind, not unlike Scout's father. She enjoys baking cakes
for the children and allows them the freedom to play in her yard. Miss Maudie and
Atticus are also great friends, and his rare humor comes to life around Maudie more than
anyone else. Atticus, of course, has a different relationship with Scout: He is the
father and he must make the important decisions involving his children. Maudie merely
serves as someone to lean on when she needs an older friend.

Describe the style and thesis in Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story."

In Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story," O'Brien challenges the nature of truth and argues that the truth is often fictionalized to make it acceptable for both the speaker and the listener.  He uses elements of contradiction to suggest to the reader that events during war are often so outlandish that the speaker needs to alter the facts so that others accept them as truth.  O'Brien also suggests that people alter their own truths so that they can live with the horrors of war.  Throughout the text, O'Brien uses anecdotes to share war stories with the reader, and then in the following lines he says that the stories are not true which puts doubt in the reader's mind.  This story appears in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried which is supposed to be O'Brien's memoir of his time spent in the Vietnam War, but just as "How to Tell a True War Story" casts doubt in the mind of the reader, it casts a shadow of doubt over the entire book.  In the end, the reader is left questioning whether the truth of the story or the memory of the experience is the more important factor.

In what ways does Veronica find pride in herself as a strong individual?

I think that it is significant that Veronica is a singer.  Someone who is a singer takes notes and motifs that might not have been envisioned and puts them together in the form of song that provides inspiration and recollection for others.  They create out of what others cannot see or hear, but is clear to them.  Veronica's singing ability is not only what defines her dream but it is also what gives her the confidence to exude a sense of pride in herself as a strong individual.  Veronica is not afraid of the present, not one weighed down by the past.  Even when confronted with the reality of what happened to her mother, she is not scared of venturing out, sojourning into what her grandfather calls "a bad world," in order to pursue her dream.  Veronica finds pride in that the new South Africa is one in which she has a shot at her dream.  She is not content with "scrubbing the White Man's floor" as her grandmother had done.  She is not content with the notion of living on the land, something that she feels "takes our lives."  She sees promise and opportunity, a song of hope that awaits her.  It is in singing this song where pride is evident, the pride that enables her the courage to leave with strength and resilience that is convincing.  When The Author tells her that "The future belongs to you now," it is challenge that is issued to her, one that she eagerly awaits as a strong individual.  It is this passion and sense of pride that will not only enable her to achieve her dreams, but what Fugard believes will help to craft the new South Africa.  In this, there is pride in Veronica as a strong individual, brimming with hope and pride.

List four effective and four ineffective examples of persuasive techniques from Twelve Angry Men.

Effective persuasive techniques:
1 - Juror eight explains his reasons for voting "not guilty" at the beginning of the play.  He effectively persuaded juror nine to vote "not guilty" by explaining that he had some doubts that needed to be discussed.
2 - Juror eight explains his doubt about the testimony of the old man about being able to hear the boy yell "I'm going to kill you" while the el train was going past the window.  He does this by discussing the amount of time it takes for an el train to pass the window and how loud it is.
3 - Juror eight explains his doubt about the old man's testimony about going to his front door and seeing the boy running down the stairs.  He does this by acting out how long it would actually take for the old man to get to his front door (referencing his use of canes and the diagram of the apartment).
4 - Juror eight establishes that it is possible that the boy told the truth about the switch knife, by purchasing and bringing in an exact replica of the knife in question.

Ineffective persuasive techniques:
1 - Juror three tries to persuade the other jurors to stay with him by talking about his own son.
2 - Juror ten tries to persuade the other jurors to vote guilty because of his racist views.
3 - Juror seven tries to persuade the other jurors to vote guilty because he has better places to be.
4 - Juror three tries to persuade the other jurors to vote guilty by threatening to hang the jury.

Enumerate the activities taking place at Araby. To what extent do they sustain its “magical name”?

The bazaar itself in Joyce's "Araby," doesn't fulfill its
magical name.  The image of the bazaar that Mangan's sister and the narrator have is an
illusion.  That's the point of the bazaar in the story.

By
the time the boy arrives, it's half-closed, the conversation by the workers that he
overhears is silly and coarse and trivial, and the objects for sale are not worth
buying. 

The boy realizes the bazaar is just a low-rent
place to buy worthless trinkets sponsored by the church for the purpose of making money
for the church.  It is the destruction of this illusion, that leads the boy to his
realization, or epiphany, that destroys his other illusions:  that Mangan's sister is
somehow akin to the Virgin Mary, that he is a holy warrior, and that they have some kind
of special relationship. 

He realizes how foolish and silly
he's been.  The blindness, figuratively, is lifted from his eyes. 
 

What happened at the end the story? What happened to John? Are the narrator and Charlotte Perkins Gilman the same?

During the story, the woman becomes more and more obsessed with the wallpaper, and as time goes by she gets convinced that there actually is a woman in there. The narrator forces herself to rip off the wallpaper, and she says that the woman inside helps her. At the end, she is so occupied with the wallpaper, that she thinks that she herself came out of it. Just like the women she sees outside the windows, she starts creeping around in the room, along the wall. What happens at the end is that John enters the room, and sees his wife creeping on the floor. I guess he gets really frightened by the sight, and therefore he faints.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the writer of The Yellow Wallpaper, also suffered from a mental illness. I don’t think the narrator and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are the same, though. Maybe she based the character on herself in some parts of the story. Two of the similarities are that neither the narrator nor the writer were allowed to write during their illnesses, and their recommended treatments were about the same, but I don’t think that the writer had the same experience as the narrator, I think it’s all made up.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Brutus and Antony in Julius Caesar? The answer must have phrases quoted from the text.

Mark Antony's strengths include being a strong orator.  He is able to convince the crowd to turn against the conspirators and create a civil war with his "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech.  He is a loyal friend to Julius Caesar and avenges Caesar's death.  After telling Cassius and Brutus that he would gladly join them if they could explain why Caesar had to be killed, once Antony is alone with Caesar's body, he asks for forgiveness with, "Oh pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth/That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!"  He does, however, prove to be more ambitious than Cassius believed Caesar to be.  Once the civil unrest began, Antony got together with Octavius and Lepidus to create a triumverate.  Once things got going his way, though, he planned on getting rid of Lepidus.  Antony was even ready to sacrifice "his sister's son"  for his political gains.

Brutus' strength is that he is a loyal Roman above all else: before friendship, before family, before self.  He joins the conspiracy because he is convinced by Cassius that Caesar is overly ambitious.  In his oration after the assassination, he shows that he did care for Caesar with his words: "Because Caesar loved me, I weep for him....but as he was ambitious, I slew him".  His major fault is that he is a bad judge of character. He believes that Antony is harmless, but soon learns differently.