Explain a situation from Twelfth Night where the audience knows more than the characters.

Your question refers to what we call dramatic irony, which is when one or more characters and/or the audience know something that other characters on the stage do not. Of course, this concept is particularly relevant for this excellent comedy, because so much of the humour and the plot is built around the way that Viola disguises herself as a male, Cesario, who is in turn confused for her twin brother Sebastian, who she thinks perished in the shipwreck that threw her up on the coast of Illyria.

The specific situations where this is referred to are numerous, but one that we could analyse is when Olivia first meets Cesario, who is entrusted with the task of delivering his master's love to her. However, much to the audience's amusement, we see that Olivia, far from becoming enamoured of Orsino, has fallen in love with the messenger instead:

'What is your parentage?'
'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit,
Do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast:
soft, soft!

We as the audience know what Olivia unfortunately does not: that Cesario, the man who has charmed her so greatly, is in fact no man, but a woman disguised as a man. Our privileged position of seeing all the action gives us superior knowledge in this instance.

How does John F. Kennedy employ rhetorical elements of ethos and pathos to persuade his audience?Read the text below from John F. Kennedy's...

When a speaker or writer uses pathos, they are appealing  to the emotions of their audience.  They are hoping that, through making the audience feel deeply about what they are speaking about, then the audience will side with them on the issue at hand.  For example, if you are trying to convince your teacher to boost your grade from an A- to an A, and emotional appeal might be, "My grandmother was really sick in the hospital this term, and so I was a bit distracted with that.  I tried my hardest to get my work done, but sometimes it was more important to be with her."  In this example, you are using pathos to pull on the heart strings of your teacher.

In Kennedy's speech, he uses pathos when he speaks of the many trials that their generation has gone through.  He mentions that they were

"born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by hard and bitter peace."

Referring to war brings up all of the deaths that occurred, all of the suffering that they went through.  Referring to how hard it has been to have peace again, and to recover, it appeals to people's difficulties and emotions in regards to overcoming the tragedies of war.  So, he uses pathos, an appeal to the audience's emotions, hoping they will agree with him, commiserate, and be more willing to rally with what he is saying.

Ethos is defined differently, depending on the teacher.  Some teachers define it as how the speaker or writer uses his own reputation as a way to get you to believe what he is saying. I don't see any of that in this excerpt, so we'll go with the other definition, which refers to appealing to a community's sense of pride and uniqueness, in order to elicit a form of patriotism, which helps the audience to stand on your side.  In Kennedy's speech, he mentions that "we are heirs to that first revolution," appealling to Americans' united ancestry of the revolutionary war.  He continues by saying that we are "proud of our ancient heritage," which helps us to feel at one as Americans, wanting to unite together in the cause of "the success of liberty."  So, he appeals to our sense of community, to our uniqueness as Americans, and uses that to convince us that we need to fight for liberty.

I hope that those examples help; good luck!

What does the resolution of Titania's quarrel with Oberon imply about the fairy dreams in Act 4?

It is obvious from the title that dreams are one of the key themes of the novel. Dreams are central to the chaotic action that occurs in the forest and of course Puck further confuses the boundary between dreams and reality at the end by telling us that if the action of the play has offended us we can pretend that it was all a dream.

However, the end of Act IV represents the end of the dreaming sequence, as all of those affected by Oberon and Puck's magic are restored to their rightfully intended states. The resolution of Oberon and Titania therefore implies a return to rightness and the restoration of a sense of order governing relationships - most profoundly seen in the ceremony of marriage, which joins the various lovers and of course which Oberon and Titania bless.

However, there does seem to be a slightly darker side to these "dreams" - we can see that especially in the case of the 4 lovers, what happens to them in the forest exposes them for who they really are. We see Lysander, who has been up until then defiant about the constancy of his love, become incredibly inconstant. Demetrius is forced to play the role of pursuer of Helena for a change, and the friendship of Helena and Hermia disolves into a catfight. Whilst the end of Act IV therefore signals a return to normality, are left questioning this "happy ending", as Shakespeare has shown us what shallow and inconstant creatures we are.

What is the big similarity between "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "A Doll's House"?

The two works are about women's rights, or the lack thereof for both main characters, Nora of The Doll House and the unnamed narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper.  Both women are confined by their marriages, one literally, in The Yellow Wallpaper, Nora, emotionally and intellectually in The Doll House. 

The similarities that the two works share has to do with the rights of women in the late 19th century. Women struggled for many decades in the second half of the 19th century to gain freedom from the control of their husbands.  In the 1840s, the Women's Movement began, women did not get the right to vote until 1920.

Both works illustrate the limited amount of freedom that women in this period had, both express how a woman could be under the complete control of her husband to the point of having no access to money of her own, property or employment opportunities.   

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the unnamed narrator is a woman who is confined in a room, suffering from a nervous condition or post-partum depression because she just had a baby.  She is controlled by her husband and her sister-in-law, she is not permitted to make her own decisions and her access to the outside world is limited to what her caretakers allow.

"Because the narrator is completely dependent on her husband and is allowed no other role than to be a wife and mother, she represents the secondary status of women during the nineteenth century."

In A Doll's House, Nora, the wife in the story or the "doll" is dominated completely by her husband Torvald who refers to her with pet names like Squirrel and singing lark.  He treats her like a child, a possession and he never considers that she is a thinking individual.

"She is viewed as an object, a toy, a child, but never an equal. Her problem is that she is totally dependent upon her husband for all her needs; or she deceives herself into thinking so until the end of the play."

Who were the 'magi'?

In the story, "The Gift of the Magi," the characters of Jim and Dehlia, the husband and wife in the story are representative of the Magi, described in the other two answers.  O Henry uses this title particularly to highlight the uniquely sacrificial love that Jim and his wife share.

It is a rare occasion for self-sacrifice to dominate a relationship in the way the it does Jim and Dehlia's marriage.  Their personal sacrifices made for each other, symbolize for O Henry the great love and respect that the Magi showed the infant Jesus.  Like the Magi, who traveled far and with great risk to personal safety, Jim and his wife surrender their most valued personal possessions to buy gifts for the other.

The other is more important than the self in this story, that is at the heart of the theme, love, sacrifice, and an understanding of a greater gift that has nothing to do with material possessions.  

What does Gene mean by, "Phineas you wouldn't be any good in the war even if nothing had happened to your leg"?

Finny is a poor candidate for military service because he doesn't have any evil in him.  Gene means that Finny could not harm anyone if he tried.  Notice in their rivalry how Gene is able to harm Finny, but Finny is so good and trusting that he can't possibly fathom that someone, let alone a friend, would do such an evil thing.

Finny lacks the understanding of true evil that would be necessary to kill or harm others in war.  The closest Finny comes to that is in athletics.  Even there he insists that everyone participate.  He even insists on switching sides to keep the competition going.  That's why Gene tells Finny later that he wouldn't be any good in a war because when there was a break in the fighting, Finny would start talking to the Germans and pretty soon he'd organize a football game and soon everyone would be playing and they'd forget about what they were all fighting about in the first place.

Finny just doesn't have the capacity for evil to ever fight in any type of war.

How would you describe Tom's Ma and Pa in Chapter 8 of Grapes of Wrath?

Pa is working on the truck, nailing the top rails on its sides when Tom Joad first sees him.  Although he moves lithely, Pa is "an aging, graying man"  with "a grizzled, bearded face".  He is wearing

"a black, dirty slouch hat and a blue work shirt over which (is) a buttonless vest; his jeans (are) held up by a wide harness-leather belt with a big square brass buckle...his shoes (are) cracked and the soles swollen and boat-shaped from years of sun and wet and dust".

Despite his obvious age, Pa is a strong man.  His forearms sport "bulging, powerful muscles...(his) stomach and hips (are) lean, and (his) legs short, heavy, and strong".  Pa's skin is brown, and the corners of his eyes are wrinkled from long hours in the sun.  From the way that he thrusts his head forward when looking at something, it is evident that his eyes are beginning to fail.

Ma Joad is also at work when Tom returns to the farm.  She is making side-meat and biscuits, and when Pa announces cryptically that they have visitors, she immediately invites them to share in the meal she is preparing without even asking whom they are, giving evidence to her generous spirit. 

Ma is "heavy, but not fat, thick with child-bearing and work.  She wears

"a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color (is) washed out now, so that the small flowered pattern (is) only a little lighter gray than the background".

Ma has "strong, broad, bare feet" which move "quickly and deftly" over the floor.  Her hair is "steel gray", thin, and "gathered in a knot at the back of her head".  Her arms are strong and freckled, and in her full, kind face her hazel eyes "(seem) to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding" (Chapter 8).