What causes the narrator's feelings for Pluto to change from love to hate?

The short answer? Alcohol. The narrator describes how his "general temperament and character -- through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance -- had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse." Basically, he went from a loving husband and parent to many beloved pets to an angry drunk who would lash out at both his wife and his animals. He describes verbal as well as physical abuse on both.

Still, he kept from harming his favorite, Pluto, for a time, showing that Pluto's well-being was more important to the narrator than that of his own wife. Eventually, though, even Pluto is the victim of the narrator's violence, leading up to a terrible moment. 

The narrator begins suspecting that Pluto is avoiding him (only natural, considering his behavior). The thought of his beloved favorite avoiding his presence enrages the narrator and he grabs the cat forcefully. Pluto bites his hand, and the narrator responds by carving out Pluto's eye with a penknife and then hanging him, dead, from a tree. 

Clearly, the narrator's actions are totally outside the realm of reasonable reactions. Blowing Pluto's behavior out of proportion – or even inventing it entirely – causes him to murder his favorite creature. I think the blame lies squarely with the narrator and his terrible alcohol addiction.

When fluorine reacts with hydrogen, a covalent bond is formed between the two elements. How does this reaction occur and what is a covalent bond?...

Fluorine (`~F_2` ) reacts with hydrogen (`~H_2` ) to form the compound hydrogen fluoride (`~HF` ) as shown in the reaction below:

`~F_2 + ~H_2 -gt 2HF`

The bonds formed between H atoms and F atoms are covalent bonds. The electrons in a covalent bond are shared between the atoms. Covalent bonds can be composed of two shared electrons, four shared electrons, or six shared electrons. A covalent bond that is composed of two shared electrons is called a single bond. A covalent bond that is composed of four shared electrons is called a double bond. A covalent bond that is composed of six shared electrons is called a triple bond. The covalent bonds formed between H and F atoms are examples of single bonds.

What quotes show that Mrs. Putnam envies Rebecca Nurse in The Crucible?

Mrs. Putnam’s jealousy of Rebecca Nurse stems from the fact that Mrs. Putnam has had many children die in childbirth, while Rebecca Nurse has had no problem bearing children. Ultimately, this leads to the accusation of Rebecca Nurse for witchcraft, for which she is sentenced and hanged. This conflict is laid out from the beginning, when Mrs. Putnam admits that she had sent her daughter, Betty, to Tituba to find out who killed her seven children, who all died in childbirth. Rebecca Nurse, on the other hand, reveals that she has “eleven children” and is “twenty-six times a grandma.” Mrs. Putnam cannot accept that God would be so kind to one person and cruel to another, so she blames her own children’s deaths on witchcraft rather than believing the more rational explanation that they died from natural causes. At first, she places the blame on Goody Osburne, who was midwife to three of those children. Later, though, because of her jealousy, Mrs. Putnam accuses Rebecca Nurse of witchcraft. Frances Nurse reveals this in Act II, when he says that Rebecca Nurse was charged “for the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies.” Though Rebecca Nurse is one of the most respected women in Salem, Mrs. Putnam needs someone to blame, and because Rebecca Nurse has been so fruitful in bearing children, she is an easy target.

What makes Atticus think the children didn't "stay put"?

When Miss Maudie's house catches fire, Atticus wakes the children and tells them to stand in the Radley yard. Jem and Scout follow Atticus' directive and stand in the Radley yard watching the neighbors attempt to save Maudie's furniture from the blaze. It was a very cold night, and Scout says that she felt like she was freezing. The next morning, while Atticus is making the children hot chocolate, he notices that there is a blanket wrapped around Scout's shoulders. He assumes that Scout and Jem left the yard to get a blanket because Scout did not take a blanket with her outside. When he asks Scout where she got the blanket from, she is at a loss for words. Atticus smirks and says, "Looks like all of Maycomb was out tonight, in one way or another." (Lee 95) When Atticus tells Scout that Boo Radley was the person who put the blanket over her shoulders, she nearly throws up.

What are the transformations Eliza Doolittle undergoes in Pygmalion? How do these transformations affect the ways that others think about her and...

The types of transformations undergone by Eliza Doolittle indicate, in a very astute manner, what constituted the concept of an upper-middle or upper class lady in her period. They embrace every aspect of her character and appearance; it is not until she has completely transformed every aspect of her outward being that she is fully accepted in "polite" society.

Voice and Accent: The initial transformation proposed by Professor Higgins is purely vocal. In the England of that period (and even to the present day), accent is a clear indicator of socio-economic status. Her voice, trained by expert linguist Higgins, is what first (falsely) convinces people that she is an aristocrat.

Personal Hygiene: As Eliza points out, the conditions of extreme poverty in which she lived made bathing impractical, and many of the upper class concepts of appropriate personal hygiene are quite alien to her. Dirt defined her as a member of the lower classes and repulsed members of the upper classes. Mrs. Pearce originally reacts to her with disdain because of her appearance. She is treated with greater respect by everyone when she appears after being cleaned up.

Manners and Conversation: Pickering especially and Mrs. Higgins teach Eliza not just the proper accent but appropriate topics of conversation and the degree of self-restraint that is considered essential to proper behavior. 

Once Eliza has managed to assimilate herself into the outward style and manners of upper class society, she becomes accepted in it. Interestingly, one of her more astute observations is that this is a two-way process and that it was, to a great degree, Pickering treating her like a lady that enabled her to become one.

What roles do Darzee and his wife play in the story? What types of characters are they? Use details from the story to explain.

Darzee and his wife are tailorbirds. In the story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," Rudyard Kipling uses these two characters as a foil and a sidekick for Rikki, the mongoose.

Darzee is a foil. A foil is a character who reflects the qualities of another character in the story through contrast. One of Rikki's outstanding qualities is bravery; Darzee, on the other hand, is timid. When Rikki asks who Nag is, he cowers down in his nest. Rikki is also very intelligent and forward-thinking; Darzee "could never hold more than one idea at a time in his head." These contrasts with Rikki make the mongoose seem all the more heroic.

Darzee's wife is a sidekick. A sidekick is a character who assists the hero. Granted, she only helps him at one point in the story and doesn't accompany him on most of his adventures. But in the scene where Rikki finds and destroys Nagaina's eggs, Darzee's wife is a fine assistant. Pretending to have a broken wing, she distracts Nagaina long enough to let Rikki locate and crack open the eggs and kill the baby snakes. She does this at great personal risk. She then calls out to Rikki to warn him that Nagaina has gone to the bungalow. Most heroes have a sidekick, and Darzee's wife fulfills that role for Rikki when he needs it.

Both Darzee as a foil and Darzee's wife as a sidekick help portray Rikki as a brave and cunning hero.

What is the assonance in "Two Friends" by Guy De Maupassant? What is the author's purpose?

Like many other Frenchmen, Maupassant felt very bitter about France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which lasted from July of 1870 to May of 1871. The French were forced to accept costly and humiliating peace terms, including the loss of the province of Alsace and the Moselle department of Lorraine and an agreement to pay the Prussians an indemnity of five billion francs before the Prussian army would withdraw from the large area of France it occupied. Maupassant's story "Two Friends" reflects the hatred of Germans generally felt by Frenchmen as well as a detestation of the military mentality which had caused the war and their defeat. This attitude towards war is expressed by the two friends, Monsieur Morissot and Monsieur Sauvage. Maupassant himself hated war and soldiers. He writes in this story:

And Mont-Valerien thundered ceaselessly, demolishing the houses of the French with its cannon balls, grinding lives of men to powder, destroying many a dream, many a cherished hope, many a prospective happiness; ruthlessly causing endless woe and suffering in the hearts of wives, of daughters, of mothers, in other lands.

Maupassant's story is intended to show that the French are more peaceful and civilized than the hated Germans. It is also intended to show that Germans are cruel, ruthless, despicable men. It is thinly veiled propaganda. The two innocent friends are only trying to enjoy a day of peaceful fishing. The arrogant Prussian officer knows they are not spies but ends up having them shot by a twelve-man firing squad because the courageous little Frenchmen refuse to divulge the password they had been given to get through the French outposts. They sacrifice their lives because they know the diabolical Prussian would use the password to get his men through the French lines and kill French soldiers and civilians. 

Maupassant wrote a number of stories which were mainly intended to help prolong and intensify the French hatred of the Germans. The most famous of these is "Boule de Suif," about a patriotic French prostitute who is forced to submit to a hateful Prussian officer who holds up the coach in which she is riding with a group of French civilians until she relents. "Two Friends" can be best appreciated if read in conjunction with "Boule de Suif." Characteristically, Maupassant portrays the Prussian officer as a superficially polite but sadistic and ruthless man. 

French "revanchism" (spirit of revenge) influenced the Treaty of  Versailles after Germany's defeat in World War I. France reclaimed Alsace-Lorraine and also imposed ruinous reparation payments which were one of the causes of Hitler's rise to power and the catastrophe of World War II. Hitler defeated France in 1940 and imposed draconian peace terms on the French. He intended to re-annex Alsace-Lorraine if Germany was victorious in World War II.