Speaking of balanced beings, i must mention someone who is very important in my life and to whom i owe everything that i am: my father. from him i learned about laughter, tenderness, independence, generosity, and the joy of playing and creating. the love and respect i feel for him have allowed me to establish healthy relationships with the masculine world, and it is to his wonderful influence that there is a balance between the masculine and feminine in my work. you’ll have to forgive this boldness, but i think women are very fortunate that men exist! the gods are very wise and certainly knew what they were doing. they created the sun and the moon, light and darkness, the eagle, and the serpent, all for the same reason. they are the perfect complements and the mechanism we use to reach heaven. in my life, this loving, passionate, intense union of masculine and feminine has given fruit to a book and a film that embrace my family’s past, my national conscience, my obsessions, my fears, my hopes, and more than anything else, my belief in the love between two people. a love that is now public and circulates in theaters and bookstores all over the world and which has made me worthy of public acknowledgement. acknowledgment that i feel compelled to share with my mother, my daughter, my grandmother, my sisters, with sato and tita, and all the women before and after them who day by day, year after year, have put us in contact with our true origins. i also want to share it with all the women who have not forgotten that stones do speak and that the earth is a living being. and with those who transform each daily task into a ceremony of union with the universe during the twelve intense, masculine solar months, and the thirteen magical feminine moons each year of their lives without ever being recognized for it. what has esquivel learned about gender roles as discussed in this excerpt?

What do both in memoriam, a. h. h. and “the lady of shalott” by alfred, lord tennyson suggest about people’s relationships with others? people can remain united even in death. people are mysterious and can never fully know one another. separation from others can lead to pain and loneliness. people create barriers that can prevent them from forging ties with others.

Identify the sentence in which the underlined word or words are punctuated incorrectly. a) pam was (well prepared) for the debate. b) she had (read three quarters) of the material more than once. c) she has always been (self assured). d) the winner needs a (two-thirds) majority of the votes.

Industrialization in europe changed the way people lived. the urban working class came into being, and with it came the drudgery of work. which two parts of this excerpt from franz kafka's the metamorphosis most closely reflect this impact of industrialization on people's lives? "what's happened to me? " he thought. it wasn't a dream. his room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. a collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table—samsa was a travelling salesman—and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. it showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer. gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. "how about if i sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense," he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn't get into that position. however hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. he must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before. "oh, no", he thought, "what a strenuous career it is that i've chosen! travelling day in and day out. doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. they can all go away! " he felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn't know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder. he slid back into his former position. "getting up early all the time", he thought, "it makes you stupid. you've got to get enough sleep. other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. for instance, whenever i go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. i ought to just try that with my boss; i'd get kicked out on the spot. but who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. if i didn't have my parents to think about i'd have given in my notice a long time ago, i'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what i think, tell him everything i would, let him know just what i feel."