The film is based largely upon Norse mythology. In the film's opening scene Erik (Tim Robbins), a young Viking, discovers that he has no taste for rape and pillage, and suffers guilt over the death of Helga (Samantha Bond), an innocent woman.
Erik learns from the wise woman Freya (Eartha Kitt) that Fenrir the wolf has swallowed the sun, plunging the world into the age of Ragnarรถk. Erik resolves to travel to Asgard to petition the gods to end Ragnarรถk. Freya informs him that to do so he must seek the Horn Resounding in the land of Hy-Brasil. The first note blown upon the Horn will take Erik and his crew to Asgard, the second will awaken the gods, and the third will bring the crew home.
Keitel Blacksmith (Gary Cady) and his underling Loki (Antony Sher) are opposed to Erik's plan, because peace would end the demand for Keitel's swords. Keitel joins Erik's crew to sabotage Erik's plans. Halfdan the Black (John Cleese), afraid that peace will mean the end of his reign, sets sail in pursuit.
Arriving at Hy-Brasil, Erik and crew are astonished to find it a sunlit land whose people are friendly (if musically untalented). Erik promptly falls in love with Princess Aud (Imogen Stubbs), daughter of King Arnulf (Terry Jones). During one of their romantic encounters, Erik hides from Arnulf using Aud's magic cloak of invisibility.
Aud has warned the Vikings that should blood ever be shed upon Hy-Brasil, the entire island would sink beneath the waves. Erik and his crew defend Hy-Brasil against Halfdan's ship. In gratitude for Erik's having saved Hy-Brasil, King Arnulf presents him with the Horn Resounding, which is much larger than Erik had imagined. Loki steals the Horn's mouthpiece, without which it cannot be sounded, and persuades Keitel to throw it in the sea. Snorri, one of Erik's men, catches them in the act, and Loki kills him. A single drop of the man's blood falls from Loki's dagger, triggering an earthquake that causes the island to begin sinking.
Erik's crew, joined by Aud, prepare to escape in their ship with the Horn safely aboard, but Arnulf refuses to join them, denying that the island is sinking up to the very moment he and the other islanders are swallowed by the waves. Aud, who was able to recover the mouthpiece by chance, sounds the first note on the Horn. The ship is propelled over the edge of the flat Earth and into space, coming to rest upon the plain of Asgard. Erik sounds the second note to awaken the gods, and he and his crew approach the great Hall of Valhalla.
Erik and the crew encounter old friends and enemies slain in battle. The gods are revealed to be petulant children who have no interest in answering mortal prayers. Odin persuades Fenrir to spit out the sun, but tells Erik that the end of Ragnarรถk will not bring peace to the world. Odin then informs Erik that he and his crew cannot return home. Nor may they remain in Valhalla, since they were not slain in battle; instead they are to be cast into the fiery Pit of Hel. Some of the Vikings who were killed in the sea-battle with Halfdan attempt to save them, but even as they are drawn into the Pit, they hear the Horn Resounding's third note, which flings them clear.
Erik's crew, including the formerly dead men, immediately find themselves back in their home village. They are dismayed to find that Halfdan and his soldiers have arrived before them and are holding the villagers captive. Halfdan and his men are crushed to death by Erik's ship as it falls out of the sky with Harald the Missionary (Freddie Jones) aboard. As the villagers celebrate Erik's return and Halfdan's defeat, the sun rises, ending the age of Ragnarรถk.

Question: What does Erik use to hide from King Arnulf during one of his romantic encounters with the king's daughter?

a magic cloak of invisibility
cloak of invisitbility


At a bistro in the Montmartre district of Paris, IRA operative Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) meets with ex-special operatives-turned mercenaries Sam (Robert De Niro) and Larry (Skipp Sudduth), both Americans, and Vincent (Jean Reno), a Frenchman. She takes them to a warehouse where fellow mercenaries, German Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård) and English Spence (Sean Bean), are waiting. There, Deirdre briefs the men on their mission: they have been hired to attack a heavily armed convoy and steal a large metallic briefcase, the contents of which are never revealed. As the team prepares, Deirdre meets with her ex-IRA handler, Seamus O'Rourke (Jonathan Pryce), who reveals that the Russian mob is bidding for the case and the team must intervene. After Spence is exposed as a fraud by Sam and summarily dismissed, the others depart for Nice. Sam and Deirdre develop an attraction to each other during a stakeout. On the day of the sale, Deirdre's team ambush the convoy at La Turbie and pursue the survivors back to Nice. After a gun battle at the port, Gregor steals the case and disappears.
Gregor tries to sell the case to the Russians, but he is forced to kill his contact when he betrays him. He then contacts Mikhi (Féodor Atkine), the Russian mobster in charge of the deal, and makes him agree to another meeting. The rest of the team later track Gregor through one of Sam's old CIA contacts and corner him in the Arles Amphitheatre, where he is meeting two of Mikhi's men. Gregor flees but is captured by Seamus, who kills Larry and escapes with Deirdre. Sam gets shot saving Vincent's life and is taken to a villa in Les Baux-de-Provence owned by Vincent's friend Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale). After removing the bullet and letting Sam recuperate, Vincent asks Jean-Pierre to help them locate Gregor and the Irish.
Back in Paris, Gregor is brutally interrogated into leading Seamus and Deirdre to a post office, where they retrieve the case. Sam and Vincent pursue them in a high-speed chase, which ends when Vincent shoots out Deirdre's tires and sends her car over a highway overpass. Gregor flees with the case while roadworkers save Deirdre and Seamus from the burning vehicle. Sam and Vincent then decide to track down the Russians and learn from one of Jean-Pierre's contacts that they are involved with figure skater Natacha Kirilova (Katarina Witt), who is appearing at Le Zénith arena.
That night during her performance, Natacha's boyfriend Mikhi meets with Gregor, who reveals there is a sniper in the arena who will shoot Natacha if Mikhi betrays him again. Mikhi kills Gregor anyway and leaves with the case, letting the sniper kill Natacha. Sam and Vincent follow the panicked mob out of the arena in time to see Seamus shoot Mikhi and steal back the case. Sam runs ahead and finds Deirdre waiting in the getaway car; he urges her to leave, revealing himself to be an active CIA agent pursuing Seamus, not the case. Deirdre drives away, forcing Seamus to run back to the arena with Sam in pursuit. In the final showdown, Seamus is about to kill Sam when he is fatally shot by Vincent.
Sometime later, in the bistro where they first met, Sam and Vincent talk while a radio broadcast announces that a peace agreement was reached between Sinn Féin and the British government, partly as a result of Seamus' death. Sam looks toward the door expectantly, but Vincent reminds him that Deirdre will not be coming back. After parting, Sam drives off with his CIA contact. Vincent pays the bill and leaves.

Question: What does Seamus and Deirdre pick up at the post office?

The steel case.
A large metallic briefcase.


Most of the film is told as flashback: Puff (Rhys Ifans) testifies to Congress, Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette) tells her story to the police, while a dead Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins) addresses an unseen audience in the netherworld.
Lila is a woman with a rare hormonal imbalance which causes thick hair to grow all over her body. During her 20s, Lila decides to leave society and live within nature where she feels free to exist comfortably in her natural state. She writes a successful book about her naked, savage, happy, and free life in the woods embracing nature. Then, at age 30, strong sexual desire causes her to return to civilization and have her hair removed in order to find a partner.
The partner she finds is Dr. Nathan Bronfman, a psychologist researching the possibility of teaching table manners to mice. Lila and Nathan go hiking in the woods one day. Lila sights a naked man in the woods who has believed himself to be an ape his entire life. Lila discards her clothes and chases him until he's cornered on a tree branch. The man falls off the branch and fall unconscious as Nathan comes along. Nathan brings this man to his lab where the man is named Puff. This name is after his French research assistant, Gabrielle's (Miranda Otto) childhood dog. We discover later from her phone call to an unknown person that she is actually an American with a fake French accent. First with the help of Gabrielle and later with Lilaâs help, Nathan performs extensive manner training on Puff, so that he can speak and go through the motions of appreciating high culture, though he still has difficulty controlling sexual urges.
To demonstrate his success, Nathan takes Puff on tour. Puff secretly drinks heavily and patronizes prostitutes. Meanwhile, Nathan and Lila's relationship deteriorates and Nathan has an affair with Gabrielle. Eventually Lila decides to take Puff back into the forest to undo his manner training and return him to his natural state.
Lila and Puff live naked in the woods together until Nathan finds them one day and Puff kills Nathan. Lila turns herself in as the murderer and asks Puff to testify on the waywardness of humanity before he returns to his home in the forest.
After the reporters and spectators leave, Puff comes back out of the forest and gets into a car with Gabrielle. They both drive off to get food (she still speaks with a French accent).
At the end of the film, there is a philosophical passage read while the credits appear. It is an excerpt of William of Ockham from Opera Theologica in which Ockham explains his theory of intuitive cognition. "Intuitive cognition is such that when some things are cognized, of which one inheres in the other, or one is spatially distant from the other, or exists in some relation to the other, immediately in virtue of that non-propositional cognition of those things, it is known if the thing inheres or does not inhere, if it is spatially distant or not, and the same for other true contingent propositions, unless that cognition is flawed or there is some impediment."

Question: What happens when Nathan returns to the forest at the end of the story?


After the First Punic War, Carthage is unable to fulfill promises made to its army of mercenaries, and finds itself under attack. The fictional title character, a priestess and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca, the foremost Carthaginian general, is the object of the obsessive lust of Matho, a leader of the mercenaries. With the help of the scheming freed slave, Spendius, Matho steals the sacred veil of Carthage, the Zaïmph, prompting Salammbô to enter the mercenaries' camp in an attempt to steal it back. The Zaïmph is an ornate bejewelled veil draped about the statue of the goddess Tanit in the sanctum sanctorum of her temple: the veil is the city's guardian and touching it will bring death to the perpetrator.
Chapter 1. "The Feast". During a victory banquet, the mercenaries destroy Hamilcar's garden for sport in his absence. Hamilcar's daughter Salammbô tries to quell the riot. Matho falls in love with her. The slave Spendius is released, and he tries to persuade Matho to take Carthage for the mercenaries.
Chapter 2. "At Sicca". The mercenaries leave the city unpaid and travel to Sicca. Later, Hanno comes and speaks to the mercenaries about delays in recompensing them, but he is driven off when Zarxas arrives and tells them of a treacherous massacre of 300 slingers who had stayed behind.
Chapter 3. "Salammbô". Hamilcar's daughter prays and is instructed by Schahabarim.
Chapter 4. "Beneath the Walls of Carthage". The mercenaries besiege Carthage; Matho and Spendius penetrate via the aqueduct.
Chapter 5. "Tanit". Matho and Spendius steal the Zaïmph. Because Matho is caught while breaking into Salammbô's bedroom to see her again, she falls under suspicion of complicity.
Chapter 6. "Hanno". The mercenaries leave Carthage and split into two groups, attacking Utica and Hippo-Zarytus. Hanno surprises Spendius at Utica, and occupies the city, but flees when Matho arrives and routs his troops.
Chapter 7. "Hamilcar Barca". The hero returns and an attempt is made to blame him for Hanno's losses. He defends himself before the Council and defends the mercenaries, but turns against the barbarians when he sees the damage they have done to his property.
Chapter 8. "The Battle of the Macar". Hamilcar defeats Spendius at the bridge of the Macar, three miles from Utica.
Chapter 9. "In the Field". Hamilcar's troops are trapped by the mercenaries.
Chapter 10. "The Serpent". Schahabarim sends Salammbô in disguise to retrieve the Zaïmph.
Chapter 11. "In the Tent". Salammbô reaches Matho in his tent at the encampment. Believing each other to be divine apparitions, they make love. The mercenaries are attacked and dispersed by Hamilcar's troops. She takes away the Zaïmph, and on meeting her father, Hamilcar has her betrothed to Narr' Havas, a mercenary who has changed sides.
Chapter 12. "The Aqueduct". The Carthaginians return to their city with the mercenaries in pursuit. Spendius cuts off the water supply to Carthage.
Chapter 13. "Moloch". Carthaginian children are sacrificed to Moloch. Hamilcar disguises a slave-child as his son Hannibal and sends him to die in his son's place.
Chapter 14. "The Defile of the Axe". The drought is broken and aid comes. Hamilcar drives the mercenaries away from their encampments. Later, thousands of mercenaries are trapped in a defile and slowly starve (the Battle of "The Saw"). Deaths of Hanno and Spendius, both by crucifixion.
Chapter 15. "Matho". Victory celebrations at Carthage. Matho is tortured before his execution; Salammbô, witnessing this, dies of shock. The Zaïmph has brought death upon those who touched it.

Question: To whom are the children of Carthage sacrificed?


In the 23rd century, the Federation starship USS Kelvin is investigating a "lightning storm" in space. A Romulan ship, the Narada, emerges from the storm and attacks the Kelvin. Narada's first officer, Ayel, demands that the Kelvin's Captain Robau come aboard to negotiate a truce. Robau is questioned about the current stardate and an "Ambassador Spock", whom he does not recognize. Narada's commander, Nero, kills him, and resumes attacking the Kelvin. George Kirk, the Kelvin's first officer, orders the ship's personnel, including his pregnant wife Winona, to abandon ship while he pilots the Kelvin on a collision course with the Narada. Kirk sacrifices his life to ensure Winona's survival as she gives birth to James T. Kirk.
Seventeen years later on the planet Vulcan, a young Spock is accepted to join the Vulcan Science Academy. Realizing the Academy views his human mother Amanda as a "disadvantage", he joins Starfleet instead. On Earth, Kirk becomes a reckless but intelligent young adult. Following a bar fight with Starfleet cadets accompanying Nyota Uhura, Kirk meets Captain Christopher Pike, who encourages him to enlist in Starfleet Academy, where Kirk meets and befriends doctor Leonard McCoy.
Three years later, Commander Spock accuses Kirk of cheating during the Kobayashi Maru simulation. Kirk argues that cheating was acceptable because the simulation was designed to be unbeatable. The disciplinary hearing is interrupted by a distress signal from Vulcan. With the primary fleet out of range, the cadets are mobilized. McCoy and Kirk board Pike's ship, the Enterprise. Realizing that the "lightning storm" observed near Vulcan is similar to the one that occurred when he was born, Kirk breaks protocol to convince Pike that the distress signal is a trap.
Enterprise finds the fleet destroyed and the Narada drilling into Vulcan's core. The Narada attacks the Enterprise and Pike surrenders, delegating command of the ship to Spock and promoting Kirk to first officer. Kirk, Hikaru Sulu and Chief Engineer Olson perform a space jump onto the drilling platform. Olson is killed but Kirk and Sulu disable the drill. Despite their efforts, Nero launches "red matter" into Vulcan's core, forming an artificial black hole that destroys Vulcan. Spock rescues the high council and his father Sarek, but Amanda dies.
As the Narada moves toward Earth, Nero tortures Pike to gain access to Earth's defense codes. Spock maroons Kirk on Delta Vega after Kirk attempts mutiny. Kirk encounters an older Spock, who explains that he and Nero are from 129 years in the future. In that future, Romulus was threatened by a supernova. Spock's attempt to use "red matter" to create an artificial black hole and consume the supernova failed, and Nero's family perished along with Romulus. The Narada and Spock's vessel were caught in the black hole, sending them back in time. Nero stranded Spock on Delta Vega to watch Vulcan's destruction.
Reaching a Starfleet outpost, Kirk and the elder Spock meet Montgomery Scott. With the elder Spock's help, Kirk and Scott beam onto the Enterprise. Following the elder Spock's advice, Kirk provokes younger Spock into attacking him, forcing Spock to recognize he is emotionally compromised and relinquish command to Kirk. After talking with Sarek, Spock decides to help Kirk. While the Enterprise hides itself within the gas clouds of Titan, Kirk and Spock beam aboard the Narada. Kirk fights with Nero and Ayel, killing the latter and rescuing Pike while Spock uses the elder Spock's ship to destroy the drill. Spock leads the Narada away from Earth and sets his ship to collide with Nero's ship. Enterprise beams Kirk, Pike and Spock aboard. The older Spock's ship and the Narada collide, igniting the "red matter". Kirk offers Nero help to escape, but Nero refuses, prompting Kirk to give the order to fire, dooming the Narada to be consumed in a black hole.
Kirk is promoted to Captain and given command of the Enterprise while Pike is promoted to Rear Admiral. Spock encounters his older self, who persuades his younger self to continue serving in Starfleet, encouraging him to do what feels right instead of what is logical. Spock remains in Starfleet, becoming first officer under Kirk's command. The Enterprise goes to warp as the elder Spock speaks the "where no one has gone before" monologue.

Question: In the end, who becomes first officer under Captain Pike's command?


Mr. James Dillingham Young ("Jim") and his wife, Della, are a couple living in a modest apartment. They have only two possessions between them in which they take pride: Della's beautiful long, flowing hair, almost touching to her knees, and Jim's shiny gold watch, which had belonged to his father and grandfather.
On Christmas Eve, with only $1.87 in hand, and desperate to find a gift for Jim, Della sells her hair for $20 to a nearby hairdresser named Madame Sofronie, and eventually finds a platinum pocket watch fob chain for Jim's watch for $21. Satisfied with the perfect gift for Jim, Della runs home and begins to prepare pork chops for dinner.
At 7 o'clock, Della sits at a table near the door, waiting for Jim to come home. Unusually late, Jim walks in and immediately stops short at the sight of Della, who had previously prayed that she was still pretty to Jim. Della then admits to Jim that she sold her hair to buy him his present. Jim gives Della her present – an assortment of expensive hair accessories (referred to as “The Combs”), useless now that her hair is short. Della then shows Jim the chain she bought for him, to which Jim says he sold his watch to get the money to buy her combs. Although Jim and Della are now left with gifts that neither one can use, they realize how far they are willing to go to show their love for each other, and how priceless their love really is.
The story ends with the narrator comparing the pair's mutually sacrificial gifts of love with those of the Biblical Magi:
The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the new-born King of the Jews. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi.

Question: Why can't Jim use the present Della got for him?

He sold his watch to buy combs for her hair.


The plot concerns an advanced race which has developed within the Earth's core. Eventually their most intelligent members create an offspring. This created entity encompasses both great good and great evil, but it slowly turns away from its creators and towards evil. The entity is called either the Dweller or the Shining One.
Eventually of the race which created it only three are left; these are called the Silent Ones, and they have been 'purged of dross' and can be described as higher, nobler, more angelic beings than are humankind. They have also been sentenced by the good among their race to remain in the world, and not to die, as punishment for their pride which was the source of the calamity called the Dweller, until such time as they destroy their creationâif they still can. And the reason they do not do so is simply that they continue to love it.
The Dweller is in the habit of rising to the surface of the earth and capturing men and women which it holds in an unholy stasis and which in some wise feed it. It increases its knowledge and power constantly, but has a weakness, since it knows nothing of love. The scientist Dr. Goodwin and the half-Irish, half-American pilot Larry O'Keefe, and others, follow it down. Eventually they meet a woman, beautiful and evil, named Yolara, who in essence serves the Shining One, and the 'handmaiden' of the Silent Ones, beautiful and good, named Lakla. Both want O'Keefe and eventually battle over him.
There is also a race of very powerful and handsome 'dwarves' and a race of humanoids whom the Silent Ones developed from a semi-sentient froglike species.
There develops a battle between the forces of good and evil with not only the entire world, but perhaps even the existence of good itself is at stake. But can the forces of good prevail using fear as a weapon? Or will they have to rely upon love expressed by willing sacrifice?

Question: Who is Larry O'Keefe?


While attending Temple College, Claude tried to convince his parents that attending the State University would give him a better education. His parents ignore his pleas and Claude continues at the Christian college. After a football game, Claude meets and befriends the Erlich family, quickly adapting his own world perception to the Erlichs' love of music, free-thinking, and debate. His career at university and his friendship with the Erlichs are dramatically interrupted, however, when his father expands the family farm and Claude is obligated to leave university and operate part of the family farm.
Once pinned to the farm, Claude marries Enid Royce, a childhood friend. His notions of love and marriage are quickly devastated when it becomes apparent that Enid is more interested in political activism and Christian missionary work than she is in loving and caring for Claude. When Enid departs for China to care for her missionary sister, who has suddenly fallen ill, Claude moves back to his family's farm. As World War I begins in Europe, the family is fixated on every development from overseas. When the United States decides to enter the war, Claude enlists in the US Army.
Finally believing he has found a purpose in life - beyond the drudgery of farming and marriage - Claude revels in his freedom and new responsibilities. Despite an influenza epidemic and the continuing hardships of the battlefield, Claude Wheeler nonetheless has never felt as though he has mattered more. His pursuit of vague notions of purpose and principle culminates in a ferocious front-line encounter with an overwhelming German onslaught.

Question: Where did Claude fight the Germans?


When Mr Henry Dashwood dies, his house, Norland Park, passes directly to his only son John, the child of his first wife. His second wife, Mrs Dashwood, and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, inherit only a small income. On his deathbed, Mr Dashwood extracts a promise from his son, that he will take care of his half-sisters; however, John's selfish and greedy wife, Fanny, soon persuades him to renege on the promise. John and Fanny immediately move in as the new owners of Norland, while the Dashwood women are treated as unwelcome guests. Mrs Dashwood begins looking for somewhere else to live.
In the meantime, Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars, a pleasant, unassuming, intelligent but reserved young man, visits Norland and soon forms an attachment with Elinor. Fanny disapproves of the match and offends Mrs. Dashwood with the implication that Elinor is motivated by money. Mrs. Dashwood indignantly speeds her search for a new home.
Mrs. Dashwood moves her family to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, near the home of her cousin, Sir John Middleton. Their new home is modest; however, they are warmly received by Sir John, and welcomed into local societyâmeeting his wife, Lady Middleton, his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings and his friend, the grave, quiet and gentlemanly Colonel Brandon. It soon becomes apparent that Colonel Brandon is attracted to Marianne, and Mrs. Jennings teases them about it. Marianne is not pleased as she considers the thirty-five-year-old Colonel Brandon an old bachelor, incapable of falling in love or inspiring love in anyone else.
Marianne, out for a walk, gets caught in the rain, slips and sprains her ankle. The dashing, handsome John Willoughby sees the accident and assists her. Marianne quickly comes to admire his good looks and outspoken views on poetry, music, art and love. Mr. Willoughby's attentions are so overt that Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood begin to suspect that the couple are secretly engaged. Elinor cautions Marianne against her unguarded conduct, but Marianne refuses to check her emotions. Unexpectedly, Mr. Willoughby informs the Dashwoods that his aunt is sending him to London on business, indefinitely. Marianne is distraught and abandons herself to her sorrow.
Edward Ferrars then pays a short visit to Barton Cottage but seems unhappy. Elinor fears that he no longer has feelings for her, but feels compelled, by a sense of duty, to protect her family from knowing her heartache. Soon after Edward departs, Anne and Lucy Steele, the vulgar and uneducated cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Lucy informs Elinor of her secret four-year engagement to Edward Ferrars, displaying proofs. Elinor comes to understand Edward's recent behaviour towards her and acquits him of blame. She pities Edward for being held to a loveless engagement by his sense of honour.
As winter approaches, Elinor and Marianne accompany Mrs. Jennings to London. On arriving, Marianne rashly writes a series of personal letters to Willoughby, which go unanswered. When they finally meet, Mr. Willoughby greets Marianne reluctantly and coldly, to her extreme distress. Soon Marianne receives a curt letter enclosing their former correspondence and love tokens, including a lock of her hair and informing her of his engagement to a young lady with a large fortune. Marianne is devastated, and admits to Elinor that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but she loved him and he led her to believe he loved her. In sympathy for Marianne, and to illuminate Willoughby's true character, Colonel Brandon reveals to Elinor that Willoughby had seduced Brandon's fifteen-year-old ward, Miss Williams, then abandoned her when she became pregnant. Brandon had been in love with her mother, who had been his father's ward and who had been forced into an unhappy marriage to his brother; Marianne strongly reminds him of her.
In the meantime, the Steele sisters have come to London as guests of John and Fanny Dashwood. Lucy sees her invitation to the Dashwoods' as a personal compliment, rather than what it is, a slight to Elinor. In the false confidence of their popularity, Anne Steele betrays Lucy's secret. As a result, the Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is ordered to break off the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward, refuses to comply and is immediately disinherited in favour of his brother, gaining widespread respect for his conduct, and sympathy from Elinor and Marianne who understand how much he has sacrificed. Colonel Brandon shows his admiration by offering Edward the living of Delaford parsonage.
Mrs. Jennings takes Elinor and Marianne to the country to visit her second daughter. In her misery over Willoughby's marriage, Marianne becomes dangerously ill. Willoughby arrives to repent and reveals to Elinor that his love for Marianne was genuine. When his aunt learned of his behaviour towards Miss Williams and disinherited him, he felt he had to marry for money rather than love. But he elicits Elinor's pity because his choice has made him unhappy.
When Marianne recovers, Elinor tells her of Willoughby's visit. Marianne comes to see that she could never have been happy with Willoughby's immoral and expansive nature. She comes to value Elinor's conduct in a similar situation and resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense.
On learning that Lucy has married 'Mr. Ferrars', Elinor grieves, until Edward arrives and reveals that, after his disinheritance, Lucy jilted him in favour of his now wealthy brother, Robert. Edward and Elinor soon marry, and later Marianne marries Colonel Brandon, having gradually come to love him.

Question: Where do Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters move?

To Barton Cottage in Devonshire.
Barton Cottage in Devonshire.


The story is narrated by a ten-year-old boy living on Earth after it has become a rogue planet, having been torn away from the Sun by a passing "dark star". The loss of solar heating has caused the Earth's atmosphere to freeze into thick layers of "snow". The boy's father had worked with a group of other scientists to construct a large shelter, but the earthquakes accompanying the disaster had destroyed it and killed the others. He managed to construct a smaller, makeshift shelter called the "Nest" for his family, where they maintain a breathable atmosphere by periodically retrieving pails of frozen oxygen to thaw over a fire. They have survived in this way for a number of years.
At the end, they are found by a search party from a large group of survivors at Los Alamos, where they are using nuclear power to provide heat and have begun using rockets to search for other survivors (radio being ineffective at long range without an ionosphere). They reveal that other groups of humans have survived at Argonne, Brookhaven, and Harwell nuclear research facilities as well as in Tanna Tuva, and that plans are being made to establish uranium-mining colonies at Great Slave Lake or in the Congo region.

Question: What happened to the previous shelter the boy's father helped create?

It was destroyed by earthquakes.
It was destroyed by the earthquake .


Sara Matthews (Minka Kelly) is starting her freshman year of college. She meets Tracy (Aly Michalka), Stephen (Cam Gigandet) - her love interest, and Rebecca (Leighton Meester) - her college roommate. The girls begin to bond and Rebecca learns that Sara had an older sister, Emily, who died when Sara was nine, and an ex-boyfriend, Jason (Matt Lanter), who keeps calling her in attempts to reconcile. As time goes on, Rebecca's obsession with Sara grows, which causes her to drive away anyone who could come between them.
Rebecca attacks Tracy in the shower, pinning her down and ripping out her belly-button ring, and threatens to kill her unless she stays away from Sara. Tracy moves to another dorm, fearful of Rebecca. An old friend of Sara's named Irene (Danneel Harris), who is a lesbian, invites Sara to move in with her when Sara's cat Cuddles is discovered. Rebecca then kills Cuddles by putting her in the dryer. She then lies to Sara that the cat ran away. Rebecca then inflicts injuries upon herself and says she was assaulted by a thug. Sara feels bad for her and decides to spend the Thanksgiving with Rebecca. When Sara's philandering fashion design professor, Roberts (Billy Zane), kisses her, Rebecca plans to get the professor out of the picture by seducing him while recording their dialogue on a tape recorder to make it sound like he was trying to rape her.
During her stay, Sara overhears a conversation between Rebecca and her father (Tomas Arana), hinting Rebecca has had trouble making friends in the past. Rebecca's mother (Frances Fisher) mentions that Rebecca is supposed to be taking medication. She and Stephen later find a bottle of Zyprexa pills, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But the bottle is full, implying that Rebecca hasn't been taking the pills. Sara, worried about what would happen, decides to move in with Irene. Irene goes to a club where she sees Rebecca. They make out in the club's bathroom and Irene, not knowing that Rebecca is Sara's roommate, takes Rebecca back to her place. The following morning, Sara goes to Irene's apartment but she's not there.
Rebecca gets Sara's sister's name tattooed in the same place on her breast as Sara, saying that Sara can now think of Rebecca as her sister. A shocked Sara realizes that Rebecca is obsessed with her and packs all her things, except her sister's necklace, which she can't find (being later revealed that the necklace had been stolen from her by Rebecca). Jason arrives at Sara's dorm and slips a note under her door, saying that he wants to see her. Rebecca reads the note, impersonates Sara with her sister's necklace and tattoo, and dyes her hair to look like Sara. She then goes to Jason's hotel room and stabs him to death.
Later, Sara gets a text from Irene, saying she needs her right away. Sara informs Stephen she will be at Irene's place. When she gets there, she finds Irene held hostage by Rebecca with a revolver. Rebecca reveals that she was responsible for what happened to Tracy, Cuddles, Professor Roberts, and Jason and that she did it all to win Sara's friendship. Rebecca wants to kill Irene in order to finally have Sara all to herself. Stephen arrives just in time to help stop Rebecca from pulling the trigger on Irene. Sara reaches for the revolver to shoot Rebecca, however, the cartridge is empty. Enraged at this, Rebecca picks up Sara and tries to strangle her to death, but Sara stabs Rebecca in the back with a boxcutter, which kills her.
Sara moves back into her dorm and moves the extra bed out of her room with the help of her boyfriend Stephen, proclaiming that she does not want a roommate for a while.

Question: How does Sara kill Rebecca?

Stabbing her in the back with a razor blade


The film starts with the Polaroid photograph of a dead man. As the sequence plays backwards the photo reverts to its undeveloped state, entering the camera before the man is shot in the head. This is followed by sequences of black and white chronologically and color reverse-chronologically interspersed.
The black-and-white sequences begin with Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) in a motel room speaking to an unnamed telephone caller who is not shown on-screen. Leonard has anterograde amnesia and is unable to store recent memories, the result of an attack by two men. Leonard explains that he killed the attacker who raped and strangled his wife (Jorja Fox), but a second clubbed him and escaped. The police did not accept that there was a second attacker, but Leonard believes the attacker's name is John or James, with a last name starting with G. Leonard conducts his own investigation using a system of notes, Polaroids, and tattoos. As an insurance investigator, Leonard recalls one Sammy Jankis (Stephen Tobolowsky), also diagnosed with the same condition. Sammy's diabetic wife (Harriet Sansom Harris), who was not sure if his condition was genuine, repeatedly requested insulin injections to try to get him to break his act. As a result of these requests she overdoses, subsequently falling into a coma and dying.
The color sequences are shown reverse-chronologically. In the story's chronology, Leonard gets a tattoo, based on self-directed instructions, of John G's license plate. Finding a note in his clothes, he meets Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), a bartender who resents Leonard as he wears the clothes and drives the car of her boyfriend, Jimmy. After understanding his condition, she uses it to get Leonard to drive a man named Dodd (Callum Keith Rennie) out of town and offers to run the license plate to help his investigation. Meanwhile, Leonard meets with a contact, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano). Teddy helps with Dodd, but warns him about Natalie; Leonard finds a photo written to not trust him, however. Natalie provides Leonard the driver's license, which shows a John Edward Gammell, Teddy's full name. Confirming Leonard's information on "John G" and his warnings, Leonard meets Teddy and drives him to an abandoned building, killing him as shown in the opening.
In the final black-and-white sequence, prompted by the caller, Leonard meets Teddy in the motel lobby. Teddy is an undercover officer and has found Leonard's "John G," Natalieâs boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz (Larry Holden), and directs Leonard to the same abandoned building outside of town. When Jimmy arrives, Leonard strangles him and takes a photo of the body. As it develops, the black-and-white transitions to color, thus beginning the color sequences. Leonard swaps clothes with Jimmy, hearing Jimmy whisper "Sammy." As Leonard has only told Sammy's story to those met, he doubts Jimmy is the attacker. Teddy arrives and asserts that Jimmy was John G. But when Leonard is not convinced, Teddy reveals that he helped Leonard find and kill the real attacker over a year ago, and he has been having Leonard kill troublesome people for him ever since. Jimmy was a police officer who was investigating them. Teddy points out that since "John G" is a common name, he will continually forget, beginning his search again and that even Teddy himself has a "John G" name. Further, Teddy claims that Sammy's story is actually Leonard's, and he has repressed the memory in order to escape his guilt.
After hearing Teddy's exposition, Leonard consciously burns Jimmy's photograph, drives off in Jimmy's car and has Teddy's license plate number tattooed on himself as the one of the second attacker, which will lead to the events of Teddy's death.

Question: What does Teddy reveal to Leonard about Sammy?

That Leonard is Sammy and he repressed the memory to escape his guilt.


The plot focuses on Adam Salton, originally from Australia, who is contacted by his great-uncle, Richard Salton, in 1860 Derbyshire for the purpose of establishing a relationship between these last two members of the family. His great-uncle wants to make Adam his heir. Adam travels to Richard Salton's house in Mercia, Lesser Hill, and quickly finds himself at the centre of mysterious and inexplicable occurrences.
The new heir to the Caswall estate, known as Castra Regis, the Royal Camp, Edgar Caswall, appears to be making some sort of a mesmeric assault on a local girl, Lilla Watford, while a local lady, Arabella March, seems to be running a game of her own, perhaps angling to become Mrs. Caswall. Edgar Caswall is a slightly pathological eccentric who has Mesmer's chest which he keeps at the Castra Regis Tower. Caswall wants to recreate mesmerism, associated with Franz Mesmer, which was a precursor to hypnotism. He has a giant kite in the shape of a hawk to scare away pigeons which have gone berserk and have attacked his fields.
Adam Salton discovers black snakes on the property and buys a mongoose to hunt them down. He then discovers a child who has been bitten on the neck. The child barely survives. He learns that another child was killed earlier while animals were also killed in the region. The mongoose attacks Arabella who shoots it to death. Arabella tears another mongoose apart with her hands. Arabella then murders Oolanga, the African servant, by dragging him down into a pit or hole. Adam witnesses the murder which he cannot prove. Adam then suspects Arabella of the other crimes.
Adam and Sir Nathaniel de Salis, who is a friend of Richard Salton's, then plot to stop Arabella by whatever means necessary. They suspect that she wants to murder Mimi Watford, whom Adam later marries. Nathaniel is a Van Helsing-type character who wants to hunt down Arabella.
The White Worm is a large snake-like creature that dwells in the hole or pit in Arabella's house located in Diana's Grove. The White Worm has green glowing eyes and feeds on whatever is thrown to it in the pit. The White Worm ascends from the pit and seeks to attack Adam and Mimi Watford in a forest.
Adam plans to pour sand into the pit and to use dynamite to kill the giant White Worm while it is inside the pit.
In the final scene, Adam Salton, Mimi Watford, and Nathaniel de Salis confront Arabella and Edgar Caswall. A thunderstorm and lightning destroy Diana's Grove by igniting the dynamite.

Question: Before visiting his uncle, where was Adam Salton originally from?

Adamn Salton was originally from Australia.


George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a middle-aged former stand-up comedian turned movie star. Despite his millions he is sad and lonely and most of his recent film work is low-brow and dumb. He is diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and offered an experimental treatment that has only an eight-percent chance of therapeutic response. Believing he is about to die, he returns to his roots to do stand-up comedy.
Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) is an aspiring stand-up comedian in his twenties who shares an apartment with his two best friends, Mark and Leo (Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill). Mark is a lead in his own TV comedy series and makes good money. Leo is a rising comedy star and guest star or a recurring role on Mark's TV show. George meets Ira at a small comedy club and hires him as his assistant. Ira becomes one of George's only close relationships. The two travel around the country, George hires Ira as his personal assistant and joke writer and opens for him in the big comedy clubs, often meeting with real life comedians who play themselves and talk about the business of comedy.
George reconnects with his ex-fiancĂŠe, Laura (Leslie Mann) who is currently married to Clarke (Eric Bana). Georgeâ˛s physician tells him that the leukemia is in remission. George decides he wants Laura back. Laura invites George and Ira to her house in Marin County while her husband is away on business. George and Ira spend quality time with Laura and her two young daughters. George and Laura sneak off to have sex, but Clarke returns home and there is a huge argument.
The plot of the movie now concerns who Laura will choose, her current husband Clarke whom she suspects has cheated on her (he later confirms he received a happy ending at a massage parlor), or her former boyfriend George (who also cheated on her many times). Ira is not always on George's side in the love triangle, so when it doesn't go George's way in the end, he fires Ira, who then calls George out on having learned nothing from his near-death experience.
Ira returns to his old food-service job. After some time has passed, George attends Ira's stand-up act and sees that his old assistant has become a far more confident performer. The next day, George finds Ira at work and they reconnect as friends, telling each other jokes as equals.

Question: How does Ira quit?

by calling him out from learning nothing from his cancer


A poor emigrant from Central Europe sailing from Hamburg to America is shipwrecked off the coast of England. The residents of nearby villages, at first unaware of the sinking, and hence of the possibility of survivors, regard him as a dangerous tramp and madman. He speaks no English; his strange foreign language frightens them, and they offer him no assistance.
Eventually "Yanko Goorall" (as rendered in English spelling) is given shelter and employment by an eccentric old local, Mr. Swaffer. Yanko learns a little English. He explains that his given name Yanko means "little John" and that he was a mountaineer (a resident of a mountain area â a Goorall), hence his surname. The story's narrator reveals that Yanko hailed from the Carpathian Mountains.
Yanko falls in love with Amy Foster, a servant girl who has shown him some kindness. To the community's disapproval, they marry. The couple live in a cottage given to Yanko by Swaffer for having saved his granddaughter's life. Yanko and Amy have a son whom Amy calls Johnny (after Little John). Amy, a simple woman, is troubled by Yanko's behavior, particularly his trying to teach their son to pray with him in his "disturbing" language.
Several months later Yanko falls severely ill and, suffering from a fever, begins raving in his native language. Amy, frightened, takes their child and flees for her life. Next morning Yanko dies of heart failure. It transpires that he had simply been asking in his native language for water.

Question: Why do the villagers think the emigrant is dangerous?

Because he speaks a strange foreign language.


In October 1973, "Control", head of British intelligence ("the Circus"), sends agent Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general wishing to defect. Prideaux is shot and captured. Amid the international incident that follows, Control and his right-hand man George Smiley are forced into retirement. Control dies of illness.
Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, with Bill Haydon as his deputy, and Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase as key lieutenants. Despite Control and Smiley's misgivings, their successors had already begun a secret operation—"Witchcraft"—to obtain Soviet intelligence, which is being exchanged with the CIA for US intelligence.
Smiley is brought out of retirement by Oliver Lacon, the civil servant in charge of intelligence, to investigate a claim by Ricki Tarr, a British spy, that there has been a long-term mole in a senior role in the Circus, as Control had suspected. Smiley chooses a trustworthy agent, Peter Guillam, and retired Special Branch officer Mendel to help him. He interviews Connie Sachs, who was sacked by Alleline after deducing that Alexei Polyakov, a Soviet cultural attaché in London, was a spy.
Tarr tells Smiley that, on a mission to Istanbul, he had had an affair with Irina, a Soviet agent. She wanted to reveal the name of a mole in the top ranks of the Circus, but when Tarr reported this to London, they ignored him and ordered him straight home, whereas Moscow immediately kidnapped Irina. Tarr concluded that the mole had intercepted his message, and went into hiding, suspected of defecting and murdering the British station chief. Smiley sends Guillam to steal the Circus logbook for the night Tarr called: he finds the pages for that night are cut out, suggesting that Tarr's story is true.
Smiley interviews Prideaux, who after brutal interrogation was exchanged by the Soviets but sacked from the service. Prideaux says the purpose of the mission to Hungary was to get the name of the mole. Control had codenamed the suspects "Tinker" (Alleline), "Tailor" (Haydon), "Soldier" (Bland), "Poorman" (Esterhase), and "Beggarman" (Smiley himself).
Smiley learns that Alleline, Haydon, Bland, and Esterhase have been meeting Polyakov—the "Witchcraft" source—at a safe house, where Polyakov gives them supposedly high-grade Soviet intelligence in exchange for low-grade British material, to help him maintain his cover with the Soviets. However, the mole is passing substantive material, including US intelligence, to Polyakov, his handler, whilst Polyakov's material has just enough substance to persuade the CIA to share information with the British.
Smiley blackmails the location of the safe house out of Esterhase, whose exile status makes him vulnerable to deportation. Smiley then has Tarr appear at the Paris office, implying he knows who the mole is. The mole meets Polyakov at the safe house, where Smiley arrests him: he is Bill Haydon.
The Circus plans to exchange Haydon with the Soviets, but he is killed by Prideaux, who was implied to have been Haydon's lover and betrayed by him in the Budapest incident. Smiley returns to the Circus as its new chief.

Question: What does Smiley send Guillam to steal?


In 19th century Belgium, a boy named Nello becomes an orphan at the age of two when his mother dies in the Ardennes. His grandfather Jehann Daas, who lives in a small village near the city of Antwerp, takes him in.
One day, Nello and Jehann Daas find a dog who was almost beaten to death, and name him Patrasche. Due to the good care of Jehann Daas, the dog recovers, and from then on, Nello and Patrasche are inseparable. Since they are very poor, Nello has to help his grandfather by selling milk. Patrasche helps Nello pull their cart into town each morning.
Nello falls in love with Aloise, the daughter of Nicholas Cogez, a well-off man in the village, but Nicholas doesn't want his daughter to have a poor sweetheart. Although Nello is illiterate, he is very talented in drawing. He enters a junior drawing contest in Antwerp, hoping to win the first prize, 200 francs per year. However, the jury selects somebody else.
Afterwards, he is accused of causing a fire by Nicholas (the fire occurred on his property) and his grandfather dies. His life becomes even more desperate. Having no place to stay, Nello wishes to go to the cathedral of Antwerp (see Rubens' The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent of the Cross), but the exhibition held inside the building is only for paying customers and he's out of money. On the night of Christmas Eve, he and Patrasche go to Antwerp and, by chance, find the door to the church open. The next morning, the boy and his dog are found frozen to death in front of the triptych.

Question: In what job does Nello help his grandfather?


This book focuses on the struggles between the pioneers to establish a new social order now that they have left Basilica. The new society is opposite to that of the previous societies - male dominated instead of female dominated, monogamous and lifelong marriages instead of the yearly contracts of Basilica.
The struggles between the characters ultimately come down to the struggles between Nafai and Elemak, two sons of Volemak. Nafai leads the faction who have faith in the Oversoul, while Elemak leads the faction who want desperately to return to the civilization of doomed Basilica. Both are ostensibly under the leadership of Volemak (and not Rasa, as they had been in the city).
The settlers, after years of traveling, finally arrive in a land lost in ancient times which holds the secret of the Oversoul. Additionally, many children are born, all in their preparation for the ultimate journey to Earth.
The book offers an interesting justification of the social structures of the Hebrew tribes in Genesis, all while the originally powerful female characters gradually succumb to the new hierarchy of "men" and "wives." Only one character - Shedemei, the brilliant geneticist, thinks about this problem.
The focus in on the group dynamics of the new tribe as they journey where the Oversoul guides them.
Prophetic dreams abound, mostly involving giant rats and bats ("diggers" and "angels"). The Oversoul discovers itself.

Question: Who is the leader of the settlers?


Kazan, one quarter wolf and three quarters husky, travels to the Canadian wilderness with his owner Thorpe where they meet man named McCready who Kazan recognizes as someone who abused him in the past. When McCready attacks Thorpe's wife Isobel, Kazan kills McCready and then runs away fearing the harsh punishment for killing a man. He later encounters a wolf pack of which he becomes the new leader, and has a mate, Gray Wolf.
One day the pack comes across a sick, old man, Pierre Radisson, his married daughter Joan and her baby girl. Seeing the woman, Kazan turns against his pack, protecting the family from the other wolves. Eventually the pack, with the exception of Gray Wolf, runs away. Joan and her father take Kazan with them and nurse his wounds. After he has recovered, his new owners leave for Pierre's cabin in Churchill. Gray Wolf follows them at a distance hoping to be reunited with Kazan. Pierre dies on the journey, leaving his daughter, her child and Kazan alone to reach the cabin. That winter Kazan spends the day with Gray Wolf while sleeping at the cabin at night.
That spring Gray Wolf has had three cubs. Kazan begins staying longer with Gray Wolf, even hunting for her. One day, when he returns from one of his hunts, Kazan finds a lynx fighting with Gray Wolf. Kazan attacks the lynx and soon kills it but then discovers his cubs are dead and Gray Wolf is now blind.
Few days later, Joan and her husband are ready to leave. They have decided to take Kazan with them and he is tied up so he can't escape. However, as the family is ready to go, they see Gray Wolf by the river howling to Kazan who immediately runs to her. The pair stay together, narrowly escaping a forest fire that ravages the wilderness. They are then captured by Henry Lottie, a trapper, and his companion, Paul Wayman, a former hunter, now an environmentalist and animal lover. Wayman buys the wolves from Lottie and sets them free.
The wolves return to their old lair where Gray Wolf gives birth to a male cub, Baree. The half wolf-half dog pup who leaves his parents after a few months, ready to survive on his own. A large colony of beavers shows up at the nearby river and begins building a dam despite the wolves' attempts to run them off. One day Kazan accidentally kills his only ally against the intruders, a large river otter, after mistaking her for one of the beavers. Eventually the entire area around the couple's territory is flooded and they are forced to leave. They head north together until are separated by Sandy McTrigger, a gold digger and possible murderer. He captures Kazan with the plan to use him in fights. However, when Kazan and his opponent, half great dane, half mastiff known as Dane, face each other, they silently agree not to fight, thus earning the respect of an old man, Professor McGill, who buys off the two dogs from their owners. McGill and the dogs prepare for their journey to Fond Du Lac and soon leave. Several days later, Mctrigger, who apparently had tracked them down, tries to sneak on them, but is heard and attacked by Kazan. Using the opportunity, Kazan runs away just as McGill shoots Sandy multiple times, thus killing him.
The story continues with Joan and her husband, who have returned to the wild with their daughter. Soon after they see Kazan again away in the distance, who joins them for a moment, only to leave when he hears Gray Wolf howling for him. The book ends with the reunited pair who once again hunts together side by side under the moon.

Question: Why does Wayman buy the wolfs from Lottie?

He is an enviromentalist and animal lover.


Pompeii, A.D. 79. Athenian nobleman Glaucus arrives in the bustling and gaudy Roman town and quickly falls in love with the beautiful Greek Ione. Ione's former guardian, the malevolent Egyptian sorcerer Arbaces, has designs on Ione and sets out to destroy their budding happiness. Arbaces has already ruined Ione's sensitive brother Apaecides by luring him to join the vice-ridden priesthood of Isis.
The blind slave Nydia is rescued from her abusive owners by Glaucus, for whom she secretly pines. Arbaces horrifies Ione by declaring his love for her, and flying into a rage when she refuses him. Glaucus and Apaecides rescue her from his grip, but Arbaces is struck down by an earthquake, a sign of Vesuvius' coming eruption.
Glaucus and Ione exult in their love, much to Nydia's torment, while Apaecides finds a new religion in Christianity.
Nydia unwittingly helps Julia, a rich young woman who has eyes for Glaucus, obtain a love potion from Arbaces to win Glaucus's love. But the love potion is really a poison that will turn Glaucus mad. Nydia steals the potion and administers it; Glaucus drinks only a small amount and begins raving wildly.
Apaecides and Olinthus, an early Christian, determine to publicly reveal the deception of the cult of Isis. Arbaces, recovered from his wounds, overhears and stabs Apaecides to death; he then pins the crime on Glaucus, who has stumbled onto the scene.
Arbaces has himself declared the legal guardian of Ione, who is convinced that Arbaces is her brother's murderer, and imprisons her at his mansion. He also imprisons Nydia, who discovers that there is an eyewitness to the murder who can prove Glaucus's innocence – the priest Calenus, who is yet a third prisoner of Arbaces. She smuggles a letter to Glaucus's friend Sallust, begging him to rescue them.
Glaucus is convicted of murder, Olinthus of heresy, and their sentence is to be fed to wild cats in the amphitheater. All Pompeii gathers in the amphitheater for the bloody gladiatorial games. Just as Glaucus is led into the arena with the lion – who, by a miracle, spares his life and returns to his cage – Sallust bursts into the arena and reveals Arbaces' plot. The crowd demands that Arbaces be thrown to the lion, but it is too late: Vesuvius begins to erupt. Ash and stone rain down, causing mass panic.
Arbaces grabs Ione in the chaos but is killed by a lightning strike. Nydia leads Glaucus, Sallust, and Ione to safety on a ship in the Bay of Naples. The next morning she commits suicide by quietly slipping into the sea; death is preferable to the agony of her unrequited love for Glaucus.
Ten years pass, and Glaucus writes to Sallust, now living in Rome, of his and Ione's happiness in Athens. They have built Nydia a tomb and adopted Christianity.

Question: Who does Arbaces blame for the murder of Apaecides?


On a snowy Christmas night, Tucker and Esther Cobblepot throw their deformed infant child Oswald into Gotham River, fearing he would become a menace to society after attacking their pet cat. His crib floats to an abandoned zoo and is found by a flock of penguins who raise him as one of their own.
33 years later, during the lighting of Gotham City's Christmas tree, a villainous gang of carnival performers stage a riot. While Batman subdues the criminals, corrupt businessman Max Shreck falls through a trapdoor and is brought to the underground lair of the grotesque crime boss known as The Penguin (he is Oswald as an adult). A former sideshow freak, The Penguin explains his desire to become a respected citizen of Gotham and blackmails Shreck into helping him.
Meanwhile, Shreck's secretary, Selina Kyle, inadvertently discovers her boss's plan to illegally monopolize Gotham's supply of electricity. To protect his secrets, Shreck pushes her out of his office window. Falling through several canopies, Selina miraculously survives but lies unconscious in an alley. A group of cats swarm around her, and while attempting to eat her, they revive her, gifting her with eight more lives. Traumatized, Selina develops dissociative identity disorder and, after having a mental breakdown and trashing her apartment, she fashions a black vinyl costume and whip, becoming the formidable Catwoman.
Shreck arranges for one of Penguin's men to kidnap the Mayor's infant son, allowing the Penguin to "rescue" him. As a reward, the Penguin is given access to the Gotham City Archives, where he learns his real name, and that he is the last surviving member of his family. Meanwhile, the Mayor, persuaded by Bruce Wayne, refuses to give Shreck a construction permit for his power plant. The Penguin orders his gang to attack downtown Gotham, ruining the Mayor's reputation and giving Shreck the opportunity to propose Penguin as a replacement. Batman confronts the Penguin, but Catwoman appears while firebombing Shreck's department store, and Penguin escapes. After a fight in which Batman knocks her off a building, Catwoman survives by landing in a truck full of kitty litter.
Catwoman agrees to help Penguin with a plan to ruin Batman's reputation by framing him for the abduction of Gotham's "Ice Princess" beauty queen. While traversing the rooftops to find the Ice Princess, Penguin's goons disassemble the Batmobile and plant a device into the car that will allow Penguin to control it. Distracted by Catwoman, Batman is unable to stop Penguin from murdering the Princess using a swarm of captive bats. When Catwoman rejects the Penguin's amorous advances, he responds by attacking her with his motorized helicopter umbrella. As the umbrella takes her up into the sky, Catwoman narrowly cheats death again as she falls into a rooftop greenhouse. Fleeing from the police, Batman realizes that the Penguin is remotely controlling the Batmobile, taking it on a rampage through Gotham. Batman disables the control device, but not before recording the Penguin's mocking insults about how gullible the people of Gotham are.
At a press conference for Penguin organized by Shreck, Batman broadcasts the recording, destroying the Penguin's public image. Enraged, the Penguin flees to the sewers and orders his gang to kidnap all of the first born sons of Gotham's citizens. At a masquerade ball hosted by Shreck, Bruce and Selina deduce each other's secret identities. The Penguin suddenly invades the party and reveals his intention to drown the kidnapped children, including Shreck's son Chip, in sewage water, prompting Shreck to offer himself instead. Batman defeats the kidnappers, forcing Penguin to unleash an army of penguin soldiers to destroy Gotham with missiles. Piloting the Batboat through the sewers, Batman redirects the penguins to instead fire on Penguin's hideout. The Penguin attacks Batman in a rage, but ends up falling through the ceiling of his lair and into the toxic water.
Catwoman ambushes Shreck in a vengeful attempt to kill him, but Batman stops her and unmasks himself. Before Bruce can reason with her, Shreck shoots him. He shoots Selina until he runs out of bullets, her now having only two lives left. Putting a taser to her lips, she kisses Shreck while grabbing hold of an exposed power cable, causing a fiery explosion. Bruce digs though the rubble but finds only Shreck's charred corpse. Mortally injured, the Penguin tries to take his umbrella to kill Batman, but collapses dead before he can finish. His penguin family carries out a makeshift funeral, pushing his body into the water.
Afterwards, as Alfred drives Bruce home, Bruce spots a shadow outside resembling Catwoman. He finds a stray black cat and decides to take it home. As he leaves, the Bat-Signal lights up in the night sky as Catwoman watches from afar.

Question: How did Catwoman kill Shreck?

She kisses him while holding an exposed power cable, causing an explosion.


The novel's first-person protagonist, an unnamed vagrant with intellectual leanings, probably in his late twenties, wanders the streets of Norway's capital, Kristiania (Oslo), in pursuit of nourishment. Over four episodes he meets a number of more or less mysterious persons, the most notable being Ylajali, a young woman with whom he engages in a mild degree of physical intimacy.
He exhibits a self-created code of chivalry, giving money and clothes to needy children and vagrants, not eating food given to him, and turning himself in for stealing. Essentially self-destructive, he thus falls into traps of his own making, and with a lack of food, warmth and basic comfort, his body turns slowly to ruin. Overwhelmed by hunger, he scrounges for meals, at one point nearly eating his own (rather precious) pencil. His social, physical and mental states are in constant decline. However, he has no antagonistic feelings towards 'society' as such, rather he blames his fate on 'God' or a divine world order. He vows not to succumb to this order and remains 'a foreigner in life', haunted by 'nervousness, by irrational details'.
He experiences a major artistic and financial triumph when he sells a text to a newspaper, but despite this he finds writing increasingly difficult. At one point in the story, he asks to spend a night in a prison cell, posing as a well-to-do journalist who has lost the keys to his apartment. In the morning he cannot bring himself to reveal his poverty or even partake in the free breakfast provided to the homeless. Finally, as the book comes to close, when his existence is at an absolute ebb, he signs on to the crew of a ship leaving the city.

Question: With whom does the young man share intimate moments with?


To Have and to Hold is the story of an English soldier, Ralph Percy, turned Virginian explorer in colonial Jamestown. Ralph buys a wife for himself - a girl named Jocelyn Leigh - little knowing that she is the escaping ward of King James I, fleeing a forced marriage to Lord Carnal. Jocelyn hardly loves Ralph - indeed, she seems to abhor him. Carnal, Jocelyn's husband-to-be, eventually comes to Jamestown, unaware that Ralph Percy and Jocelyn Leigh are man and wife.
Lord Carnal attempts to kidnap Jocelyn several times and eventually follows Ralph, Jocelyn, and their two companions - Jeremy Sparrow, the Separatist minister, and Diccon, Ralph's servant - as they escape from the King's orders to arrest Ralph and carry Jocelyn back to England. The boat they are in, however, crashes on a desert island, but they are accosted by pirates, who, after a short struggle, agree to take Ralph as their captain, after he pretends to be the pirate "Kirby". The pirates gleefully play on with Ralph's masquerade, until he refuses to allow them to rape and pillage those aboard Spanish ships.
The play is up when the pirates see an English ship off the coast of Florida. Ralph refuses to fire upon it, knowing it carries the new Virginian governor, Sir Francis Wyatt, but the pirates open fire, and Jeremy Sparrow, before the English ship can be destroyed, purposefully crashes the ship into a reef. The pirates are all killed, but the Englishmen (and woman) are rescued by the Governor's ship.
Aboard the ship, Ralph is tried for piracy after Lord Carnal tells the Governor that he ordered the destruction of the ship, but Jocelyn, having come to love Ralph, speaks for him. Her words are so persuasive that the Governor believes her and frees Ralph. They return to Virginia, though Ralph is forced to remain in a gaol - King's orders.
Ralph is lured into a trap, though, by Lord Carnal and is subsequently captured by Indians - but not before putting up a fight and seeing Lord Carnal terribly wounded. The brother of Pocahontas, the Indian Nantauquas, rescues him and Diccon, but only to inform them that all the Virginian Indians plan to massacre the Jamestown settlers. As they are on their way back to Jamestown, Diccon is shot and killed by a hostile Indian, and Ralph is left alone to brave his way back. Returning to the colony, he gives his information, only to be told that Jocelyn had made her way to the forest in search of him after his absence was noticed, with Jeremy Sparrow, and that they had not been found. It is also discovered that Lord Carnal has taken poison and will die within a week.
Jamestown is saved, thanks to Ralph's almost-too-late warning, and after things are stabilized, Ralph goes in search of Jocelyn and the minister. After a long and seemingly fruitless search, Nantauquas himself, though he had turned traitor, leads Ralph to where Jocelyn is staying. The two are reunited, and at the end of the story intend to go to England, where Jocelyn's lands have been restored to her and they can finally live in peace.
To Have and to Hold was revised and edited by Josh and Sarah Wean for the four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. It is sold in this edition by the Christian company, Vision Forum Inc.

Question: Why does Jeremy purposefully crash the ship into a reef?

To keep the Governor's ship from being destroyed by the pirates.

So that the English ship is not destroyed.


In 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and poor playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Shakespeare is working on a new comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. Suffering from writer's block, he has barely begun the play, but starts auditioning players. Viola de Lesseps, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who has seen Shakespeare's plays at court, disguises herself as "Thomas Kent" to audition, then runs away. Shakespeare pursues Kent to Viola's house and leaves a note with the nurse, asking Thomas Kent to begin rehearsals at the Rose. He sneaks into the house with the minstrels playing that night at the ball, where her parents are arranging her betrothal to Lord Wessex, an impoverished aristocrat. While dancing with Viola, Shakespeare is struck speechless, and after being forcibly ejected by Wessex, uses Thomas Kent as a go-between to woo her. Wessex also asks Will's name, to which he replies that he is Christopher Marlowe.
When he discovers her true identity, they begin a secret affair. Inspired by her, Shakespeare writes quickly, with help from his friend and rival playwright Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe, completely transforming the play into what will become Romeo and Juliet. Then, Viola is summoned to court to receive approval for her proposed marriage to Lord Wessex. Shakespeare accompanies her, disguised as her female cousin. There, he persuades Wessex to wager ÂŁ50 that a play can capture the true nature of love, the exact amount Shakespeare requires to buy a share in the Chamberlain's Men. Queen Elizabeth I declares that she will judge the matter, when the occasion arises.
When Richard Burbage, owner of the Curtain, finds out that Shakespeare has cheated him out of both money and the play, he goes to the Rose Theatre with his Curtain Theatre Company and starts a brawl. The Rose Theatre company drives Burbage and his company out and then celebrate at the local pub.
Viola is appalled when she learns Shakespeare is married, albeit separated from his wife, and she realises she cannot escape her duty to marry Wessex. Will discovers that Marlowe is dead, and thinks he is to blame. Lord Wessex suspects an affair between Shakespeare and his bride-to-be. Because Wessex thinks that Will is Kit Marlowe, he approves of Kit's death, and tells Viola the news. It is later learned that Marlowe had been killed in an accident. Viola finds out that Will is still alive, and declares her love for him.
When Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels, is informed there is a woman player at The Rose, he closes the theatre for breaking the ban on women. Viola's identity is exposed, leaving them without a stage or lead actor, until Richard Burbage offers them his theatre. Shakespeare takes the role of Romeo, with a boy actor as Juliet. Following her wedding, Viola learns that the play will be performed that day, and runs away to the Curtain. Planning to watch with the crowd, Viola overhears that the boy playing Juliet cannot perform, and offers to replace him. While she plays Juliet to Shakespeare's Romeo, the audience is enthralled, despite the tragic ending, until Master Tilney arrives to arrest everyone for indecency due to Viola's presence.
But the Queen is in attendance and restrains Tilney, instead asserting that Kent's resemblance to a woman is, indeed, remarkable. However, even a queen is powerless to end a lawful marriage, and she orders Kent to "fetch" Viola because she must sail with Wessex to the Colony of Virginia. The Queen also tells Wessex, who followed Viola to the theatre, that Romeo and Juliet has won the bet for Shakespeare, and has Kent deliver his ÂŁ50 with instructions to write something "a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night".
Viola and Shakespeare say their goodbyes, and he vows to immortalise her, as he imagines the beginnings of Twelfth Night, imagining her as a castaway disguised as a man after a voyage to a strange land.After the film's release, certain publications, including Private Eye, noted strong similarities between the film and the 1941 novel No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, which also features Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a subsequent edition of No Bed for Bacon (which traded on the association by declaring itself "A Story of Shakespeare and Lady Viola in Love") Ned Sherrin, Private Eye insider and former writing partner of Brahms', confirmed that he had lent a copy of the novel to Stoppard after he joined the writing team, but that the basic plot of the film had been independently developed by Marc Norman, who was unaware of the earlier work.
The film's plot can claim a tradition in fiction reaching back to Alexandre Duval's "Shakespeare amoureux ou la Piece a l'Etude" (1804), in which Shakespeare falls in love with an actress who is playing Richard III.
The writers of Shakespeare in Love were sued in 1999 by bestselling author Faye Kellerman. She claimed that the plotline was stolen from her 1989 novel The Quality of Mercy, in which Shakespeare romances a Jewish woman who dresses as a man, and attempts to solve a murder. Miramax Films spokesman Andrew Stengel derided the claim, filed in the US District Court six days before the 1999 Academy Awards, as "absurd", and argued that the timing "suggests a publicity stunt".

Question: Who is Shakespeare's friend and rival playwright?

Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe.


The novel opens in a world reduced to a grim struggle for existence after a plague of madness that afflicted individuals at random. Some two years previously, every government in the world was attacked by its own military machinery, which then self-destructed. All civilian air transport was similarly destroyed, along with major cities like San Francisco. After the initial meltdown, people began claiming to be "possessed". They would commit crimes of violence, but afterward they would claim to have had no control over their actions. This leads to superstitions about demonic possession, as well as a novel legal defense.
Chandler is an electronics engineer who is on trial for rape and murder. He claims to have been possessed while committing the crime, but nobody believes him because it took place in a pharmaceuticals plant. These places, along with hospitals and other vital facilities, are believed to have some kind of immunity to the plague. Saved by an apparent episode of possession of the jury in the trial, he is instead exiled from his community with a letter "H", for "Hoaxer", branded on his forehead.
He encounters a cult who use pain to ward off the possession. The members believe that the "flame spirits" cannot abide pain, but a young woman tells Chandler that she is sure the possessors are other human beings, and that one of them is a man she rejected. Soon afterwards the entire cult is wiped out and Chandler, in a state of almost constant possession, is made to bring their sacred text, a copy of The Prophet by Khalil Gibran to Hawaii. On the way he encounters people who, while not always possessed, do what their "execs" tell them for fear of the consequences of disobeying.
In Hawaii Chandler learns that the possessors are indeed people. They wear silver coronets which give them the power using a new technology. Based on what the novel calls "sub-millimeter microwaves" (now known as terahertz radiation), the technology allows people wearing the coronets to locate and take over the bodies of anyone on Earth. Chandler falls under the influence of Rosalie Pan, a former Broadway star who was kidnapped by her ex-lover and eventually allowed to become one of the execs herself. She tries to seduce him into joining her by giving him a taste of the feeling of power.
At the same time, the execs are building a new transmitter on the island of Kauai. While they can go anywhere on Earth with their power, their physical bodies must remain close to the original equipment. With the new equipment they will be able to leave Hawaii and roam at will. Chandler's expertise is needed and he is proposed for election to the elite. If not, once the job is done he will be eliminated. Chandler for his part is beginning to enjoy the benefits of his situation and is a willing helper on the project.
Matters come to a head when Rosalie's lover, who is also the leader of the execs, attempts revenge on Chandler, only to die of a heart attack due to his age and physical deterioration after years of vicarious living in the bodies of others. Chandler obtains his coronet, as well as another tuned to the new equipment, the only such one in existence. He disables the old equipment and uses the new coronet to wipe out the other execs, except for Rosalie. He causes them to commit suicide, one by one, until he is the only one on Earth who has the secret. He thinks that eventually he will stop using it, but decides to keep it, just for now...

Question: What does the "H" placed on Chandler's head stand for?


David is a ten-year-old boy who plays the violin and does not know his last name. He leads an idyllic life in the mountains with his father, until his father becomes gravely ill, forcing them to go down into the valley. With his father's health worsening, they spend the night in a barn. Just before he dies, the father gives David a large number of gold coins, telling him to hide them until they are needed. David plays the violin to soothe his "sleeping father" and is found by Simeon Holly and his wife. Realizing the man is dead, they try to figure out who David is, but all he can tell them is that he is "just David."
David is unable to tell them his last name, his father's name, or if he has any relatives. They find some letters on the dead man, but the signature on it is illegible. The couple reluctantly let him stay with them as he reminds them of their own son, John, whom they no longer speak with. David learns to adjust to live in the village, taking one of his two violins with him wherever he goes and "playing" the world around him, such as playing "the sunset" and "the flowers," and using his music to express his feelings. His innocence and musical skills charm the villagers and change several of their lives, uniting in marriage two childhood sweethearts who had grown apart. He also changes the Hollys, healing Simeon's heart enough that he reconnects with his son and allows him to come visit with his new wife and child.
During the visit, they learn that David's violins are quite valuable. His own is an Amati and his father's, which he had loaned to a blind friend, a Stradivarius. Reading the old letter from David's father, John recognizes the signature and realizes that David's father was a world-famous violinist who had disappeared with his son after his wife's death. David is sent to be reunited with his relatives and to study the violin. He becomes famous and wealthy, but continues to visit the Hollys every year to play for them.

Question: What does David do to help soothe his "sleeping father"?


In 1979, Jimmy Bones (Snoop Dogg) is a numbers runner who is respected and loved in his neighborhood as its respected member and protector. When he is betrayed and brutally murdered by corrupt white cop Lupovich (Michael T. Weiss) and drug pusher Eddie Mack (Ricky Harris), Bones' elegant brownstone building becomes his own tomb, and is closed.
The timeline flashes forward to 2001, where the neighborhood has become a black ghetto and Jimmy's brownstone building is a condemned ruin. Four teens, Patrick (Khalil Kain), his brother Bill (Merwin Mondesir), their white step-sister Tia (Katharine Isabelle) and their best friend Maurice (Sean Amsing), buy the property and they want to renovate it as a nightclub. In the process, Tia finds a black dog who is actually the spiritual manifestation of Jimmy's tortured spirit. As the dog starts to eat, Jimmy is slowly resurrected.
Patrick meets Pearl (Pam Grier), Jimmy's old girlfriend, and her daughter Cynthia (Bianca Lawson). Patrick develops a romance with Cynthia. Patrick wanted to open a nightclub at the old ghetto neighborhood in hopes of making the neighborhood great again, and also to make a profit. While exploring the basement, Patrick, Cynthia, Bill, Tia and Maurice find Jimmy Bones' body and they realize that he was actually murdered. Patrick, Cynthia, Bill, Tia and Maurice decide to keep Jimmy's murder quiet or they won't be able to open the nightclub and they bury the remains.
Later, Jeremiah (Clifton Powell) (who is Patrick and Bill's father as well as Tia's stepfather), finds out about Patrick and the gang's plan to open the club at Bones' old building. He freaks out and demands that Patrick and the others leave the building. Patrick, Bill and Tia refuse his request and open the nightclub, in spite of their father's objections. On opening night Maurice is lured into an upstairs room where he is mauled to death by the spiritual black dog.
Once he is fully resurrected, Jimmy sets the club on fire and is intent on getting revenge on those responsible for his death, those who betrayed him, and anyone who gets in his way. Pearl and her neighbor felt that they should have burned the building down a long time ago. After the incident, Pearl admits to Cynthia that Jimmy Bones is her father, as she had a relationship with him.
Patrick confronts his father Jeremiah and demands to know if he murdered Jimmy Bones 22 years ago. His father admits he betrayed Jimmy Bones to make money to leave the neighborhood. Also, he got fed up living in Bones' shadow and he wanted to be as popular and successful as him. Jeremiah allowed drugs into the neighborhood as long he got paid for it. Later, Eddie Mack is having sex with his white girlfriend Snowflake (Erin Wright). With Mack being one of the people who betrayed him, Jimmy confronts him after murdering Snowflake and stuffing her body in a trash bin. Jimmy decapitates Mack and does the same to Lupovich, but keeps their heads alive to transport their souls.
Pearl, knowing that Jeremiah is next, goes with Cynthia to his house to rescue him. They ending up being too late. Pearl, Cynthia, Patrick, Bill, Tia and Jeremiah's wife Nancy (Lynda Boyd) watch him get dragged off by Jimmy, leaving nothing but a melted hole in the window. Jimmy brings Jeremiah back to the building, along with the heads of Lupovich and Mack. Jimmy sends Lupovich and Mack to hell for all eternity while Jeremiah begs for his life.
Patrick, Cynthia, Bill, and Pearl go underground to find that Jimmy Bones' body has disappeared. Pearl tells them that in order to put Jimmy to rest, they have to destroy the dress she wore the night Jimmy was murdered which was buried alongside him as his blood which splattered onto it still contains his spirit and is the only thing keeping him anchored to the world of the living. As they look for Jimmy, Pearl steps in the elevator which closes and goes up. Meanwhile, Jeremiah asks Jimmy what he wants. He asks Jeremiah if he could give him his life back. When Jeremiah says no, Jimmy sends him to hell for eternity.
Pearl gets off the elevator and walks into a room that is filled with ignited candles. She has a flashback and Jimmy appears, and puts the bloody dress on her. Patrick, Cynthia, and Bill head to the second floor where they see a ghostly Maurice, who leads Bill in the wrong direction where he is captured and killed. Patrick tries to reach him but is too late.
Patrick and Cynthia make their way to the room where Pearl and Jimmy are at. Patrick knows it's a trap. As Cynthia is lured to Pearl and Jimmy, Patrick hears his father's voice in a mirror begging for help. When Patrick hesitates, Jeremiah chokes him. Patrick uses his knife to chop Jeremiah's arm off and he disappears into hell. Patrick goes after Jimmy, who disappears and reappears behind Patrick's back much more demonic-looking. He grabs Patrick by his throat, as Cynthia begs him to let go. Pearl, realizing what is happening, tells Jimmy she loves him before grabbing a candle and setting fire to the dress while still wearing it.
As Jimmy and Pearl both die together, Patrick and Cynthia make their escape, barely making it out before the entire building collapses. Outside, Patrick finds an old picture of Jimmy and Pearl as Jimmy's face turns to him and says "Dog eat dog, boy." Too late, Patrick realizes that as his daughter Cynthia has Jimmy's blood within her, and turns around as Cynthia, now possessed by Jimmy smiles at him and, vomits a mouthful of maggots into his face.

Question: Who kills Maurice?

Spiritual black dog
A spiritual black dog


The poem begins:
When chapman billies leave the street,

And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;

As market days are wearing late,

And folk begin to tak the gate,

While we sit bousing at the nappy,

An' getting fou and unco happy,

We think na on the lang Scots miles,

The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,

That lie between us and our hame,

Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,

Gathering her brows like gathering storm,

Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
After Burns has located us geographically:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,

For honest men and bonnie lasses).
(a quote that gave Ayr United F.C. their nickname "the honest men"), Tam sits and drinks with his friends, and the reader is regaled with a dark prophecy of Tam's wife Kate:
She prophesied that late or soon,

Thou wad be found, deep drown'd in Doon,

Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,

By Alloway's auld, haunted kirk.
Tam's wife, Kate, is portrayed as an authority to be feared. Then:
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,

To think how mony counsels sweet,

How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,

The husband frae the wife despises!
Tam continues to drink and even flirts with the landlady of the pub. Eventually he mounts up and rides off on his grey mare Meg, for his long, dark, lonely ride home. Burns emphasises the spooky character of the Ayrshire countryside Tam has to ride throughâbut of course it is much easier as he is drunk:
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!

What dangers thou canst make us scorn!

Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;

Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!
With the scene set, suddenly: "wow! Tam saw an unco sight!"
The sight he sees is Alloway Kirk, ablaze with light, where a weird hallucinatory dance involving witches and warlocks, open coffins and even the Devil himself is in full swing. The scene is told with grimly enthusiastic gothic attention to detail. Tam manages to watch silently until, the dancing witches having cast off most of their clothes, he is beguiled by one particularly comely female witch, Nannie, whose shirt (cutty-sark) is too small for her. He cannot help shouting out in passion:
Weel done, Cutty-sark!
And in an instant all was dark:
The devil decides to follow Tam, but the evident pride in the ability of his horse is justified as she is able to help him to "win the key-stone o' the brig". (The Devil, witches and warlocks cannot cross running water.)
They only just make it though, as Nannie, first among the "hellish legion" chasing, grabs the horse's tail, which comes off. In fine, tongue-in-cheek moralistic mode, the poem concludes:
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,

Ilk man and mother's son, take heed:

Whene'er to Drink you are inclin'd,

Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,

Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear;

Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare

Question: What is his mare's name?


In Toronto, 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in Sex Bob-Omb, a floundering garage band. To the disapproval of his friends, he is dating Knives Chau, a high school student. Scott meets an American Amazon.ca delivery girl, Ramona Flowers, having first seen her in a dream, and loses interest in Knives. When Sex Bob-Omb plays in a battle of the bands sponsored by record executive G-Man Graves, Scott is attacked by Ramona's ex-boyfriend Matthew Patel. Scott defeats Patel and learns that, in order to date Ramona, he must defeat the remaining six evil exes.
Scott breaks up with Knives, who blames Ramona and swears to win him back. Scott defeats Ramona's second evil ex, Hollywood actor and skateboarder Lucas Lee, by tricking him into performing a dangerous stunt. He defeats her third ex, vegan Todd Ingram, who is dating Scott's ex-girlfriend, Envy Adams, by tricking him into drinking dairy. He defeats Ramona's fourth ex, Roxy Richter, by prodding the spot behind her knee, which Ramona tells him is her weak point.
Scott becomes upset with Ramona's dating history, and Ramona breaks up with him. At the next battle of the bands, Sex Bob-Omb defeats Ramona's fifth and sixth evil exes, twins Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, earning Scott a 1-up. Ramona gets back with her seventh evil ex, Gideon, also known as G-Man Graves, the sponsor of the event. Sex Bob-Omb accept Gideon's record deal, except for Scott, who leaves the band in protest.
Gideon invites Scott to his venue, the Chaos Theater, where Sex Bob-Omb is playing. Resolving to win Ramona back, Scott challenges Gideon to a fight for her affections, earning the "Power of Love" and a sword. Knives fights Ramona over Scott, and Scott accidentally reveals that he dated them concurrently. After Gideon kills Scott, Ramona visits him in limbo and reveals that Gideon has implanted her with a mind control device.
Scott uses his 1-up to restore his life. He makes peace with his friends and challenges Gideon again, this time for himself. He gains the "Power of Self-Respect" and disarms Gideon with the sword it grants him. He apologizes to Ramona and Knives for cheating on them, and Scott and Knives join forces to defeat Gideon.
Free from Gideon's control, Ramona prepares to leave. Knives accepts that her relationship with Scott is over. At her encouragement, he follows Ramona.

Question: What is Roxy Richters weak point?


Hermann, son of the wealthy innkeeper in a small town near Mainz, is sent by his mother to bring clothes and food to the refugees which have set up camp near their town. They have fled their villages on the western side of the Rhine river, now occupied by French revolutionary troops, in order to seek refuge on the eastern side. On his way to the camp, Hermann meets Dorothea, a young maid who assists a woman in her childbed on her flight. Overwhelmed by her courage, compassion, and beauty, Hermann asks Dorothea to distribute his donations among her poor fellow refugees.
Back home, he reveals his affection to his parents. His father brushes away his timid confession, reminding him bluntly that he wants Hermann to choose a wife from a respected local family with a generous dowry. He goes on to express his deep disappointment with Hermann's perceived lack of ambition to move forward in life, and lectures him about how he should become a respected citizen.
After Hermann has left in despair, his mother utters the following timelessly wise and deeply moving verses:
Immer bist du doch, Vater, so ungerecht gegen den Sohn! und So wird am wenigsten dir dein Wunsch des Guten erfüllet. Denn wir können die Kinder nach unserem Sinne nicht formen; So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muß man sie haben und lieben, Sie erziehen aufs beste und jeglichen lassen gewähren. Denn der eine hat die, die anderen andere Gaben; Jeder braucht sie, und jeder ist doch nur auf eigene Weise Gut und glücklich.
Why will you always, father, do our son such injustice? That least of all is the way to bring your wish to fulfillment. We have no power to fashion our children as it suits our will; As they are given by God, so we must have them and love them; teach them as best we can, and let each of them follow his nature. One will have talents of one sort, and different talents another. Every one uses his own; in his own individual fashion, each must be happy and good.
Hermann's mother goes after her son and finally finds him in a far corner of their garden. Having been shaken to tears by his father's harsh words, Hermann tells his mother that he intends to marry Dorothea or else to stay bachelor for the rest of his life. His mother understands the sincerity and depth of his affections and decides to help him obtain his father's permission. They return to Hermann's father, who still discourses with his respected neighbors, the town's pharmacist and the young and wise parish priest. The two friends offer to collect inquiries among the refugees to find out if Dorothea is virtuous and worthy to be Hermann's bride. Moved by his wife's and friends' persuasion, Hermann's father grudgingly promises that he will abide by his two friends' recommendation.

Question: How did Hermann's father want him to choose a wife?

From local wealthy families with generous dowries


The frame story: A young disillusioned Frenchman, René, has joined an Indian tribe and married a woman named Céluta. On a hunting expedition, one moonlit night, René asks Chactas, the old man who adopted him, to relate the story of his life.
At the age of seventeen, the Natchez Chactas loses his father during a battle against the Muscogees. He flees to St Augustine, Florida, where he is raised in the household of the Spaniard Lopez. After 2½ years, he sets out for home, but is captured by the Muscogees and Seminoles. The chief Simagan sentences him to be burnt in their village.
The women take pity on him during the weeks of travel, and each night bring him gifts. Atala, the half-caste Christian daughter of Simagan, tries in vain to help him escape. On arrival at Apalachucla, his bonds are loosed and he is saved from death by her intervention. They run away and roam the wilderness for 27 days before being caught in a huge storm. While they are sheltering, Atala tells Chactas that her father was Lopez, and he realises that she is the daughter of his erstwhile benefactor.
Lightning strikes a tree close by, and they run at random before hearing a church bell. Encountering a dog, they are met by its owner, Père Aubry, and he leads them through the storm to his idyllic mission. Aubry's kindness and force of personality impress Chactas greatly.
Atala falls in love with Chactas, but cannot marry him as she has taken a vow of chastity. In despair she takes poison. Aubry assumes that she is merely ill, but in the presence of Chactas she reveals what she has done, and Chactas is filled with anger until the missionary tells them that in fact Christianity permits the renunciation of vows. They tend her, but she dies, and the day after the funeral, Chactas takes Aubry's advice and leaves the mission.
In an epilogue it is revealed that Aubry was later killed by Cherokees, and that, according to Chactas's granddaughter, neither René nor the aged Chactas survived a massacre during an uprising. The full account of Chactas's wanderings after Atala's death, in Les Natchez, gives a somewhat different version of their fates.

Question: Who was Chactas' father fighting in battle when he died?


Bonsels' original book contains fewer than 200 pages. The storyline is centered on the relation of Maya and her many adventures.
Maya is a bee born in a bee hive during internal unrest: the hive is dividing itself into two new colonies. Maya is raised by her teacher, Mrs. Cassandra. Despite Mrs. Cassandra's warnings, Maya wants to explore the wide world and commits the unforgivable crime of leaving the hive. During her adventures, Maya, now in exile, befriends other insects and braves dangers with them. In the climax of the book, Maya is taken prisoner by hornets, the bees' sworn enemies.
Prisoner of the hornets, Maya learns of a hornet plan to attack her native hive. Maya is faced with the decision to either return to hive and suffer her due punishment, saving the hive, or leaving the plan unannounced, saving herself but destroying the hive. As may be expected, Maya, after severe pondering, makes the decision to return. In the hive, she announces the coming attack and is, totally unexpectedly, pardoned. The forewarned bees triumph over the hornet attack force. Maya, now a heroine of the hive, becomes a teacher, like Mrs. Cassandra and shares her experiences and wisdom with the future generation.

Question: What kind of insect is Maya?