What are Della's and Jim's most prized possessions?

O. Henry tells about Della's and Jim's most prized possessions in a single rather fanciful paragraph early in the story.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's.The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures 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.

The big irony in the story is that each sells his or her most prized possession in order to buy a Christmas present for the other, so that they both lose their prized possessions and acquire new possessions which are useless. But the emphasis throughout the story is on Della. it is told from her point of view. We see her being shorn by Madame Sofronie. We see her "ransacking" stores to find the ideal present for her husband. We see her trying to do something with what is left of her hair. We do not see Jim agonizing over getting Della a present or selling his watch. He is kept offstage, so to speak, until the end of the story. Readers will always remember "The Gift of the Magi" as a story about a young woman who sold her beautiful hair to get enough money to buy her husband a Christmas present. In discussing the story, it would probably be advisable to focus on Della's problems and not attempt to give both characters' sacrifices equal weight. 

How do Dickinson's structural choices contribute to the development of a central idea in "I Felt a Funeral, In My Head"?

For her poem "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain," Emily Dickinson chose to use a standard ballad structure known as the "fourteener." This is a stanza consisting of fourteen syllables in iambic rhythm arranged in alternating lines of eight and six syllables. A ballad is a poem that tells a story, and this poem has a story arc with a beginning, rising action, climax, and denouement. However, the story is not a story of outer action but of what is taking place in the speaker's mind and emotions. One could take it to be the loss of sanity, the spiraling into depression, or being consumed by grief.

The consistency of the rhythm and meter of the poem reinforces the ruminating thoughts that continue to plague the speaker from which she cannot seem to break free. The repetitious iambic beat corresponds to the "beating - beating" of the "Drum" in her head and the feeling that her brain is going numb. 

Although the rhythm and meter are monotonous, Dickinson uses enjambment and caesura to contribute variety as the poem progresses, thus adding to the development of the story. In the first three stanzas, she uses enjambment--places where there is not a stop at the end of a line. This shows that at this point there is still some fluidity of thought, although she is oppressed. But in the last two stanzas, each line ends with punctuation, and even within lines, commas break the thoughts into little pieces, showing the fragmentation of her thought process is increasing, building to the last line of the fourth stanza, "Wrecked, solitary, here." 

The next line is the climax when the "Plank in Reason broke." Here she goes over the edge, whether into insanity, depression, or grief. In the final line she uses caesura at the final word "- then -" as if she has hit bottom. 

While this poem uses one of Dickinson's oft-used structures, the fourteener, she uses it to great effect in this poem to advance the central idea of the poem.

In "Still I Rise," what are the inherited gifts that the writer brings with her?

Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘Still I Rise” chronicles her ancestors' feelings and the legacy of slavery and oppression until she chooses to rise above the history of the past.  She inherits from her ancestors subjugated by slavery, “a past rooted in pain”, “nights of terror and fear”, and “shame.” But out of that, Angelou finds the “dream and hope of the slave” and rises above the oppression of those who “lie” about her and see her as less than what she is.  Through the hopes and dreams of her ancestors, she has become “sassy”, “sexy”, and “haughty”.  She has overcome the hate of others and has found her self-worth.  She is valuable like oil, diamonds, and gold, and she has chosen to rise above those who say she is less.

Because of the sacrifices of what others before her had to endure, Angelou becomes self-actualized by their hopes and dreams for her. She will not let others keep her “broken” and with “bowed head.”  Instead, she will rise again and again like her ancestors have always done despite the hardships of racism and prejudice.

What are the sound devices and the figures of speech in the poem "Mother to Son"?

Langston Hughes uses a number of sound devices and figures of speech in the poem “Mother to Son.”

The poem is metaphor for life, which Hughes describes as a “crystal stair.” A mother speaks to her son about the difficulties she has endured in her life using the voice and dialect of an African American woman living in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.

Upon examining the first stanza, examples of a form of alliteration, consonance, are found in line 1. Hughes repeats the l sound with the words, well, I’ll, and tell. This begins the poem on a lyrical note. The word And is repeated at the beginnings of lines 4, 5, and 6, as the mother emphasizes the tribulations she faced in life. This literary device is called anaphora. Lines 6 and 7 are an example of enjambment where one line flows into the next taking the thought with it.

Again in the second stanza, Hughes uses consonance with the in sound in the words climbin’, landin’s, turnin’, and goin’. The use of anaphora continues with the word and at the beginning of lines 10, 11, and 12.

In both the second and third stanzas, Hughes repeats the mother’s use of the slang contraction I’se instead of using the words I am. This use of repetition adds authenticity to the mother’s character.

Throughout the poem, there are examples of visual imagery that add to the metaphor of the “crystal stair.” The mother profoundly explains how she continues to rise out of her difficult Harlem life. It has not been easy, with stops and starts, and sometimes feeling like there is no hope, but still, she continues to encourage her son to push onward, not to give up in despair.

But all the time

 I'se been a-climbin' on,

 And reachin' landin's,

And turnin' corners,

 And sometimes goin' in the dark

 Where there ain't been no light.

How exactly did the New Deal change the American government?

The effects of the New Deal are still contested--many conservatives in particular view its effects as disastrous--but it is beyond dispute that it changed the size and scope of the federal government. The New Deal was an institutional response to the problems of the Great Depression. Under FDR's leadership, Congress passed dozens of laws establishing programs aimed at relief, recovery and reform. Many of these programs, like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) involved direct government action to create work for Americans who had lost their jobs amid the economic collapse of the early 1930s. Others, like the Social Security Administration, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were intended to provide structural reform to avoid or at least manage the American economy in such a way as to avoid future economic collapses. As historian David Kennedy has written in his book Freedom From Fear, the New Deal did not really redistribute income or establish anything like state socialism in the United States. But it did "mend the evils of the Depression by reasoned experiment within the existing social system" and promote reforms that are with us today (380). This process involved an enormous expansion of the federal government that exists today.

Pi notes, “The Greater Good and the Greater Profit are not compatible aims, much to Father's chagrin” (78). What is the significance of this...

Pi's father owns and runs the Pondicherry zoo, but when there is a political transition in the mid-1970s, the nation's economy suffers and he has to sell out. Pi says that small businesses are the ones that risk the shirts on their backs. That is to say that since small businesses are run by one or a few families, people's own finances can get hurt more easily. Unfortunately, they don't have multiple resources to keep going if people stop showing up. Father also says the following to describe their situation:

". . . the Greater Good and the Greater Profit are not compatible aims" (78).

This means that a zoo—which provides services that positively influence the community's education and culture—usually doesn't make the most money for profit. He also mentions that public libraries and museums can be placed in the same category as zoos because the benefits from these businesses provide enrichment for the greater good, but they aren't necessarily good for the private owner's pocket.

In 2008, the United States suffered a decline in the economy because of a recession. Created mostly from the housing market crash, the recession forced many to lose their jobs and homes. When economic recessions or depressions afflict a nation, the small business owners and average laborers tend to feel the pinch in their pocketbooks the most. This is what happened to Pi's father. The nation suffered an economic hardship and he was forced to sell. Not only that, he decided to move to Canada in search of better financial opportunities.

For further examples of how economic decline affects service-oriented jobs, educational services and government services, look up the Great Depression that started in October of 1929, and/or government shutdowns, and the influence of national debts as seen on the news recently. When a nation falls financially, the little man seems to fall first, faster, and harder.

In "The Devil and Tom Walker", what strange things did Tom do to his horse? Why?

The latter half of "The Devil and Tom Walker" describes the remainder of Tom's life after he makes a deal with Old Scratch, the terms of which are implied to be his soul in exchange for a great deal of money. Tom was already a thoroughly unlikable and morally corrupt person, and this continues and worsens with his newfound wealth. 

As Tom ages, the certainty that his soul is damned becomes more and more of a concern to him. He begins looking for ways to cheat the terms of his deal, such as by going to church. He takes a particularly strange precaution with his horse; he has the horse shod (given new horseshoes) and then buried upside-down, because Tom believes that the world will be turned upside-down on the "last day" (i.e. the Apocalypse) and thus the horse will be right-side up, and Tom will be able to ride him to escape the Devil. 

However, the text cautions that this, like many other supposed details of the story, are more likely to have been concocted and added to it by the people who tell the story, or at least, those who have no direct experience with the events. The narration implies that it is focused only upon the true "core" of the story, and that this extra effort by Tom, if truly done, was useless anyway.