What is the humour in the poem "The Mending Wall?"

The poem tells of the annual walk of the narrator and his neighbor, as they put back the rocks that have fallen from the wall that marks their property line. Some stones have been dislodged by gravity, some by weather, and some by hunters or other folks. The poet seems to find more humor in this activity than his neighbor does. The other owner merely keeps saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.” But the rocks are irregularly shaped, and sometimes it takes a bit of work to get them to stay put. The narrator jokes:

We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" (lines 18-19)

He sees this rock-replacing task not as work, but as something interesting and fun, like a sport:

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. (lines 21-22)

At a point where the wall disappears, and where his apple trees and the neighbor’s pines make another kind of natural border, he says:

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. (lines 25-26)

He makes a bit of fun of his neighbor’s repetitive remark. Evidently neither one of them owns farm animals that need to be kept behind such a wall:

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. (lines 28-31)

As for how the rocks have fallen off in the first place, the poet has an additional theory he thinks he could pose to his friend, in jest:

I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. (lines 36-38)

He would like his friend to be having as much fun as he is. When the poem is read with an eye to look for such humorous statements, it turns out that the verse is much funnier than you may expect it to be, at first. You get the impression that this annual walk means much more to the poet’s serious neighbor than to the poet himself.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall

How long did apartheid last in South Africa?

The policy of apartheid, or separateness, was first put into practice by the white minority South African government in 1948. Racial discrimination and segregation had long been a part of South African life. But it wasn't until the National Party came to power in 1948 that such discrimination and segregation were formally placed upon a legal and administrative footing. The new parliament quickly got to work, passing a whole panoply of legislation designed to keep the races apart and ensure the continued dominance of the white minority. Public amenities were segregated on racial grounds, mixed marriages were outlawed as were sexual relations between different races, the education system was split along racial lines, and one's race determined where you were allowed to live and which occupation you could follow.
From the outset, apartheid was a deeply controversial policy, which earned South Africa international pariah status. Internal opposition was widespread too, from both the oppressed black majority and a handful of white liberals and Communists. Yet despite such hostility, successive South African governments persisted with apartheid. But eventually, sustained pressure from the international community triumphed, and steps were finally made to end apartheid and begin the transition to free, democratic elections.
The South African President, F.W. de Klerk, made the symbolic gesture of releasing Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990. Thus began the formal transitional phase from apartheid to black majority rule. Negotiations between the government and the ANC continued for a number of years, with both sides committed to a peaceful handover of power. Apartheid legislation was formally dismantled in 1991, ending 43 years of official segregation and racial oppression. Despite mounting tensions, the 1994 elections went ahead as planned, and as expected led to an overwhelming victory for the ANC, and for Nelson Mandela, who became the first president of the new post-apartheid South Africa.

How were Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Jefferson alike?

Both Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. were outstanding users of the English language. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is still quoted today, and Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" has offered hope to revolutionaries all over the world. King was a better speaker and this played well to television and radio audiences while Jefferson was excellent with the written word—this was essential to a period that used handbills and pamphlets as ways to get out information. Both men sought to change the social order of society. Jefferson believed that the people could govern themselves without relying on the arbitrary rule of a king while King believed that black and white races were equal.
Both men were interested in equality, though Jefferson looked only at equality for white males, while King wanted all races treated equally. Both men also had their detractors. In Jefferson's case, his detractors thought that he was too radical and that the people were not capable of self-government. In King's case, there were some that thought that blacks and whites would never get along and that segregation was the natural order of things.  

What are the ghost's functions as a dramatic device in the plot of Hamlet?

The guards' talk of the ghost on their foggy, gloomy night watch at the castle and the ghost's appearance at the end of act 1 make for a dramatic and memorable opening to this play, along with vivid imagery of eyes bugging out of heads and hairs on heads unfurling and standing on end.
More importantly, the ghost's appearance is what sets the plot in motion. Up until this time, Hamlet has been depressed by what he believes was the accidental death of his father. Now, he confronts a ghost who claims he is Hamlet's deceased father. The ghost tells him he was murdered by Hamlet's uncle, Claudius. With this news, Hamlet is expected to avenge his father's death.
This revelation throws Hamlet into a turmoil for several reasons. First, he has to determine if the ghost is telling the truth or if it is an evil spirit tempting Hamlet to murder an innocent man. Second, being confronted with such evil as the deliberate murder of his father by his uncle causes Hamlet to distrust the corrupt Danish court and to contemplate suicide. Finally, Hamlet's desire that Claudius not die in a state of grace but unforgiven, like his own father, leads Hamlet to miss the opportunity to kill Claudius at his prayers. Instead, he ends up killing Polonius by mistake, bringing Laertes and his lust for vengeance down on Hamlet. The ghost, in other words, is the catalyst for all the action that follows.

Do you think Buck from Jack London's The Call of the Wild would be able to rejoin man at some point in his future?

I would say Buck would be unlikely to rejoin man, but that doesn’t mean he never could. Buck’s early experiences with humans were good. He was the judge’s dog, and he was the king of the house. He had a very good life. Buck then had some terrible experiences; he was abused and neglected by the sled drivers. Finally, Buck had a good life with John Thornton, the first sled driver to show him love. Buck went into the wild after Thornton’s death, and the ending of the book seems to indicate he stayed there.

The years were not many when the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves   . . . But more remarkable than this, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest hunters (Chapter 7).

Buck would not feel kindly toward the Yeehats because of John Thornton, whom he loved. Buck would, however, also feel at home with the wolves. He was the head of the pack and created his own hybrid wolf-dog tribe.
This does not mean that a scenario could not come into play where Buck would not return to humans. In White Fang, there is a severe drought that drives the wolves and narrators to distraction. The titular White Fang is a hybrid, and his story is the opposite of Buck’s in some ways. White Fang starts off wild and becomes domesticated. 
Circumstances change. Buck's experiences certainly seem to indicate that. It is possible to imagine a circumstance where Buck would lose his tribe and be vulnerable enough where he would need people again, even though as the book ends he seems to be in a strong position.

Calculus of a Single Variable, Chapter 8, 8.8, Section 8.8, Problem 31

int_0^infty cos (pi x)dx=
Substitute u=pi x => du=pi dx => dx=(du)/pi, u_l=pi cdot 0=0, u_u=pi cdot infty=infty. (u_l and u_u are lower and upper bound respectively).
1/pi int_0^infty cos u du=1/pi sin u|_0^infty=1/pi(lim_(u to infty)sin u-sin0)
The integral does not converge (it diverges) because lim_(u to infty) sin u does not exist.
The image below shows the graph of the function (blue) and area between it and x-axis representing the value of integral (green positive and red negative). We can see that any such integral (with infinite bound(s)) of periodic function will diverge.

Select a short section from the summer chapter that identifies a particular incident of diction or style that is particularly revealing. Identify and analyze the author’s use of literacy devices. List three questions about the short passage.

This chapter marks the final section of Morrison's novel, and, like most of the other chapters, it begins with an evocative presentation of summer and what this season means to the speaker, as well as how this meaning is altered by the speaker's family life and family history. This opening passage, then, is a valuable section for analysis in that it is rich with evocative imagery and figurative language which offer revelations to the reader about the speaker's relationship with summer and with her mother.


I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer—its dust and lowering skies. It remains for me a season of storms. The parched days and sticky nights are undistinguished in my mind, but the storms, the violent sudden storms, both frightened and quenched me. But my memory is uncertain; I recall a summer storm in the town where we lived and imagine a summer my mother knew in 1929. There was a tornado that year, she said, that blew away half of south Lorain. I mix up her summer with my own. Biting the strawberry, thinking of storms, I see her. A slim young girl in a pink crepe dress. One hand is on her hip; the other lolls about her thigh— waiting. The wind swoops her up, high above the houses, but she is still standing, hand on hip. Smiling. The anticipation and promise in her lolling hand are not altered by the holocaust. In the summer tornado of 1929, my mother’s hand is unextinguished. She is strong, smiling, and relaxed while the world falls down about her. So much for memory. Public fact becomes private reality, and the seasons of a Midwestern town become the Moirai of our small lives.


The imagery of the "tightness of a strawberry" in the first phrase is very sensual: the reader can almost imagine how teeth would "break into" it, and yet this image is juxtaposed against a seemingly unexpected one of summer as a season of "dust and lowering skies." One would ordinarily associate strawberries with sunshine and open fields, but the speaker's immediate conception of summer as "a season of storms" offers a revelation into the speaker's frame of mind. This is particularly true because the third element in the speaker's mental understanding of summer is her mother: "Biting the strawberry, thinking of storms, I see her." The three elements are connected in the speaker's mind, and the speaker seems to mentally associate herself with her mother's "storms": "I mix up her summer with my own." We can read this information in combination with the comment that "the violent sudden storms both frightened and quenched me," and contemplate the metaphorical meaning of the storms that may be suggested in terms of the speaker's mother and their relationship. The storms seem a break from "parched days and sticky nights," something to "distinguish" them, and the speaker remembers them clearly as a source of both relief and fear.

As the passage goes on, it becomes clearer that the storms are metaphorical as well as literal. In the speaker's mind, her mother, "a slim young girl," "waiting," is cast away on the storm, swept up by it: "the wind swoops her up," and she is "not altered by the holocaust." This image offers us an illuminating insight into why the association between storms and the speaker's mother is a positive one: when a storm appears, her mother remains "strong, smiling and relaxed while the world falls down around her." The speaker acknowledges that this may not be the reality of the situation—"so much for memory"—but the metaphor of the young girl in the storm is a metaphor of how she remembers her mother, her "pink crepe dress" recalling the pink of strawberries, "strong" in the face of a tornado. The allusion in the final sentence of the passage, to the Moirai, or the Greek fates, expresses the idea that ultimately the speaker feels that their "small lives" have been controlled by the turn of the seasons—the weather of their lives, both literal and metaphorical.

Some questions about this passage:


Why do you think the speaker chooses to focus upon her mother in the "summer" chapter in contrast to the focus upon her father in the "winter" chapter?


Why might the speaker draw a parallel between a storm in her own memory and one particular tornado of 1929? What does this suggest about the nature of memory?


All of Morrison's chapters open with descriptions of how she feels in relation to each season. What is the effect of this on the work as a whole?