How does racism affect the following Maycomb community members: Tom and Helen Robinson, Calpurnia, Scout, Jem, Dill, Mayella Ewell, and Dolphus...

Tom Robinson becomes a victim of racism when he is unjustly convicted. Tom, who is black, is wrongly convicted of raping Mayella Ewell based solely on the color of his skin. Racist jury members convict Tom Robinson because he is black and not because of the evidence presented during the trial. Helen Robinson, Tom's wife, has a hard time finding work because she is associated with Tom. If Tom had not been wrongly accused of raping a white woman, then Helen would not face discrimination from the Maycomb community.

Calpurnia was not given the chance to go to school as a child because she was black and learned to read from Miss Buford. Aunt Alexandra views Calpurnia with contempt because she is black and petitions Atticus to fire her. Calpurnia's job is in jeopardy because of Alexandra's racist views.

Scout and Jem are forced to contend with the racist community members of Maycomb, who insult them and their father because Atticus is defending a black man. Dill is emotionally disturbed after witnessing Mr. Gilmer badger Tom Robinson during the trial. Mr. Gilmer talks down to Tom Robinson because he is black and Dill feels that he is treating Tom unfairly. Dill has to leave the courtroom because he begins to cry.

Mayella Ewell falsely testifies against Tom Robinson because she has broken a "time-honored code" of society. Her father beats her because she has seduced a black man. In the racist community of Maycomb, it is looked down upon for a white person to have relations with a black person. This is the same reason Dolphus Raymond is discriminated against. He is shunned by society because he chooses to associate and maintain relationships with black community members.

In what ways did the Gulag help the Soviet regime in terms of gathering allegiances, crushing dissent, and economically?

The Gulag was the penal system of the former Soviet Union. Prisoners were sent to labor camps and were forced to work without pay for long periods of time. Citizens could be sent to the Gulag for serious crimes, but also for petty infractions like missing work, showing up late for work, or stealing food from the fields for your starving family. Many prisoners were also there for political purposes. If you spoke out against the government, or if party officials saw you as a threat to their power, you could be sentenced to forced labor in the Gulag.

The Gulag was very effective at creating allegiance to the state and also for crushing dissent. The reason for its effectiveness in this end was because of the cruel conditions in the camps. The Gulag was located in isolated parts of Russia where it was very cold. The workers were tasked with difficult menial tasks and worked long hours with only simple tools. It was likely that you could die if you were sent to the camps as food rations were meager and conditions were very unsanitary. Violence upon the workers was common. For this reason, you dared not do anything to draw the suspicion of the Soviet party officials. Fear can be an effective tool for gaining loyalty and crushing dissent.

The economic benefits for the party are obvious: the use of free labor to draw profit. The Gulags performed many essential economic functions such as the mining of coal, deforested areas for lumber, mining copper, and sometimes large scale projects like the construction of canals. The cost of acquiring and maintaining this labor force was very low. For this reason, the Gulags provided an economic advantage for the Soviet Union.

Can you please explain how the application of microscopes affected people or environment negatively?

Microscopes have had a huge impact in science and society, most of it positive. Advances in medicines, food safety, agriculture, chemistry, material sciences, microbiology, etc. have been mostly possible because of microscopes. In fact, field of nanotechnology would not even exist in absence of microscopes. It is really tough to find negative impacts of microscopes. Advances in weaponry can be considered one negative impact. Most virulent strains of biological agents, such as anthrax bacteria and smallpox virus, have been developed to be used as biological weapons. Similarly, advancements in material sciences have resulted in better weapons and armors. Another negative impact can be related to the implications of genetics. Advances in genetics have made GM crops possible and pesticides are also possible only because of advances in microbiology and chemistry (and our ability to more closely study the pests). Both the GM crops and pesticides have had their share of negative impacts on environments and people. Pesticides are responsible for water and soil pollution in a number of regions and is a cause of concern.

Hope this helps. 

What is the negative connotation in the last stanza of "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold?

Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" is about the loss of faith and the continuity of sadness in the history of the world. He begins his poem listening to the sea, and then the sounds brings him back to ancient times in the second stanza. When Sophocles heard the sound of the sea, it brought "Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow / Of human misery" (lines 17-18). Arnold writes that "The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full" (lines 21-22). These lines mean that at the creation of the world, people were full of faith and love, just as the sea is full.

However, in the last stanza, Arnold remarks on the dismal state of modern affairs. He writes:

"Ah, love, let us be true / To one another! for the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new, / Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; / And we are here as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night" (lines 29-37).

These lines mean that Arnold is calling for a return to true love and faith. The world, he writes, looks majestic and dream-like, but it really promises no happiness or love or any kind of reassurance. Instead, the world is like a plain on which armies are fighting in the dark. Only romantic love, his call to "be true," promises a release from the never-ending sadness of the world. Arnold starts the poem in the modern day, thinks back to ancient times, and then returns to the present. The continuity in the poem is sadness, meaning that humans are destined not to find their wishes fulfilled. Arnold is stating that humans are eternally sad and that only love can provide a respite.

Is Ambrose Bierce biased toward one side of the Civil War? Does the narrator describe the Union soldiers more positively than Farquhar or vice...

Since Ambrose Bierce fought on the Union side in the Civil War and was involved in several important battles, he was undoubtedly sympathetic to the Union cause. However, he does not show any such sympathy in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." We are naturally sympathetic with Peyton Farquhar because we are held firmly in his point of view and he is being hanged. The Union soldiers who are performing the hanging and those who are watching it happen are not portrayed unsympathetically. They all seem like faceless automatons. If Bierce had wanted to create sympathy or antipathy he could easily have created a Union officer who would have had some conversation with the condemned man. But Bierce chose to keep the Union soldiers anonymous. They are all military men holding rigid postures and dressed in identical blue uniforms. There is no animosity; they are just obeying orders. Our sympathy is entirely with Peyton Farquhar. It is quite possible to feel sympathy with an enemy after he has been defeated. He is, after all, a fellow human being. Perhaps it was Bierce's intention to emphasize that Farquhar is a fellow human being and that it is tragic that men have to be so cruel to one another. This feeling was particularly common during the Civil War, when men who had nothing against each other found themselves enemies without quite understanding why or how it had happened.

We do not feel sympathy for Peyton Farquhar because of the cause he represents but in spite of it. We feel sympathy for the man because we can easily understand his feelings. He wants to live and to return to his wife and his home. We cannot even condemn his intention to burn down the Owl Creek bridge because it shows his remarkable courage to attack the Union army single-handedly. It is natural to feel sympathy for the underdog, and Farquhar is certainly the underdog in this story. The narrator describes the large assemblage of Union soldiers who are all involved in the execution of a single man. They include the following formidable group: 

Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators--a single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest," the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. 

In the eighth line of the poem "Love is not all," Edna St. Vincent Millay says, "Even as I speak" What is the relevance of this clause? Does it add...

Written in the sonnet form, the poem’s main theme is to bring home how important love is in one’s life. Interestingly, Edna St. Vincent Millay deals with this ever popular theme in quite an unconventional manner. She opens the sonnet with the ironic statement - “Love is not all.”

Until line six, Millay defines love in terms of what it is not or what it can’t do or achieve. This is a special literary device named litotes, that employs an ironical understatement in negative in order to further affirm the positive side of something. 

The poet says love can’t fulfill the needs essential to sustain life. For instance, love can’t satisfy appetite for food or quench thirst for water; nor can it cure diseases or save the life of a drowning man. Nevertheless, it’s vital. She says,

Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone

There are a lot of people that embrace death because they haven’t found love in their lives. They may posses every fundamental thing they need to survive, yet "for lack of love" they choose death over life.

The clause “Even as I speak” emphasizes the point that at every moment somebody is choosing death because they haven’t found love. Millay wants to make sure when a reader goes through this line, he or she must realize that at that very moment too, somebody is exchanging death for life as they have failed to find the warmth of love.

In this way the poet wants to emphasize that though love may not meet the basic requirements, it’s still indispensable part of life. Thus, using the clause "Even as I speak," Millay underscores the essential character of love, without which life may be unimaginable. 

What does Steinbeck suggest the relationship of wealth and destruction is?

It is not that money is the “root of all evil,” but the love of money. In Kino’s case, it is what that money can bring to his life to change it for the better. In Chapter 1, it is clear that Kino is content with his lot in life. He has a wife, a child, a home, and a means for making a living for them all. It is only when he discovers the pearl that he begins to dream bigger dreams of material prosperity (relatively speaking). He wants an education for his son, a wedding for his wife, and perhaps a rifle for himself. To him, this means a great advance in his station in life.

The underlying theme is that money itself cannot buy happiness. In fact, more often it brings sadness, discontentment, even death. The “siren call” of the wealth that the pearl represents finally disappears when Kino and Juana throw back the pearl into the sea from whence it came.