In Romeo and Juliet, why is Romeo banished?

Short Answer: Romeo is banished from Verona because he participates in an altercation involving his family's feud with the Capulets and ends up killing Juliet's cousin, Tybalt.
In act 3, scene 1, Tybalt approaches Romeo and calls him a villain before challenging him to a duel. When Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt, Mercutio defends Romeo by calling Tybalt the "King of Cats" and drawing his sword. While Mercutio and Tybalt are fighting, Romeo intervenes by getting in between the two men, which allows Tybalt to fatally stab Mercutio underneath Romeo's arm. After discovering that Tybalt has killed Mercutio, Romeo seeks revenge and challenges Tybalt to a duel. Romeo ends up killing Tybalt and flees before Prince Escalus arrives at the scene. When Prince Escalus learns about Mercutio and Tybalt's deaths, he banishes Romeo from Verona by saying,

And for that offence Immediately we do exile him [Romeo] hence (Shakespeare, 3.1.148-149).

Instead of being punished by death, Romeo is exiled from the city he grew up in and is forced to flee to Mantua—before he secretly returns to Verona and discovers that Juliet is presumably dead.

Romeo is banished in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet after killing Tybalt in a street duel. In spite of the fact that Tybalt started this duel and killed Mercutio, one of Romeo's dearest friends, in the process, Romeo is the "last man standing" and must bear the responsibility and consequences for the bloodshed. 
At the beginning of the Play, Prince Escalus finds the Capulets and Montagues brawling in the streets and, thus, declares that there will be severe punishment if they are caught fighting again:

By thee, old Capulet, and Montague.
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part you canker'd hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

Thus, when the Prince discovers that violence has once again broken out between the Capulets and Montagues in Act Three, the punishment he hands down to Romeo is actually relatively gentle. Rather than make Romeo pay with his life (as he had previously threatened), the Prince merely exiles Romeo from Verona. This is especially compassionate given the fact that the Prince has lost a relative in the duel, as Mercutio was related to him. 
Alas, for impulsive, stubborn Romeo, this punishment--which will result in him being separated from his new wife--is just as unbearable as death. 

What does Saki make us feel about Conradin in Sredni Vashtar?

By portraying Conradin's aunt as a domineering and suffocating presence in his life, Saki causes us to sympathize with the protagonist. Additionally, since Conradin's life is one of unmitigated "dullness," we are further receptive of his efforts to remedy his dismal situation.

One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things--such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dullness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.

In the story, Saki describes Mrs. De Ropp as insufferably self-righteous. Her only purpose in life seems to be that of depriving Conradin joy.

Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him for his good'' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome.
After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice of his guardian. "It is not good for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,'' she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight.
"What are you keeping in that locked hutch?'' she asked. "I believe it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.''

As can be seen, any innocent and enjoyable pursuit of Conradin's immediately comes under the suspicion of Mrs. De Ropp. Her religion is predicated on maintaining a proper appearance of respectability at all times. As such, any departure from the norm is scrupulously and mercilessly punished.
In the story, Conradin has to hide his "secret and fearful" joys from his guardian. His prized polecat ferret, Sredni Vashtar, is chief among his possessions, and he does everything he can to shield it from Mrs. De Ropp's gaze. During private moments, he uses his imagination to conjure up a fantastic world ordered by a new religion he has created, one predicated on the "fierce impatient side of things."
Thus, from his portrayal of Conradin's cheerless existence, Saki causes us to feel great sympathy towards his protagonist.

What are the literary devices used in the poem "We Wear the Mask"?

There are lots of metaphors in the poem. The eponymous mask is of course a metaphor for the facade that the poet feels he and other African Americans must adopt. The speaker also refers to the "bleeding hearts" that African Americans must hide. This is also, of course, a metaphor. Their hearts are not literally bleeding, but the metaphor helps to convey the pain that they feel.
Another literary device used in the poem is the repetition of the collective pronouns "We" and "our" to refer to African Americans. "We" is repeated seven times throughout the poem, and "our" is repeated five times. The repetition of these collective pronouns emphasizes the number of people who are persecuted and also implies a "them" in opposition to the collective "We."
There is also repetition in the poem of the declaration "We wear the mask." The final time this declaration is repeated, in the final line of the poem, it is also an exclamatory sentence. The repetition, culminating in the exclamatory sentence, implies the speaker's rising anger and frustration. The mask connotes the emotional oppression to which African Americans are subjected, and the speaker is of course angry that he and others should be subjected to such oppression.
The poet's use of rhyme also contributes to the impact of the declaration "We wear the mask" in the final lines of stanzas two and three. These two lines are the only lines in the poem which do not rhyme, and thus these lines—and the connotations associated with the metaphorical mask—are made to stand out.

In the poem "We Wear the Mask," the mask is personified. It becomes an animate being that can "grin" and "lie," as a human can. The mask acquires the qualities of a powerful, human-like being who is able not only to shield people's faces but also to force them into taking actions such as lying or grinning.
Another literary device in this poem is the use of metaphor. The way in which African American people must hide their true feelings in society is compared to a mask. The mask is the way in which Dunbar describes how African Americans have to have negotiate the world.
"The clay . . . beneath our feet" could be an allusion to the Bible, in which there are many references to clay. One reference is "But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand" from Isaiah 64:8. Humans are made, like clay, by God, and the speaker appeals to God for help and relief.

Dunbar's poem "We Wear the Mask" is built around one key literary device: the extended metaphor. This metaphor imagines the face we are forced to present to the world as a "mask" comprised of "grins and lies." Within this central metaphor, there are also other metaphorical elements: for example, Dunbar describes the wearing of this mask as a "debt" which must be paid to society. This debt, like the mask, is metaphorical rather than literal, but both represent the suffering those described in the poem must go through in order to be accepted.
Dunbar also repeats the phrase "We Wear the Mask." This brings a unifying quality to the poem and also emphasizes the continual presence of this mask in our lives, as in the poem. We return over and over to the acknowledgement of this mask, which helps to suggest that the mask cannot simply be donned and forgotten about. Instead, the mask is something the wearer is perpetually aware of.
In the second stanza, we also see an example of a rhetorical question.
In the final stanza, Dunbar uses apostrophe, an address to someone who is not physically present, when he says, "O Christ."

Among the literary devices Dunbar uses in "We Wear the Mask" is metaphor. The speaker declares that "we wear the mask that grins and lies" to say, figuratively, that the group for whom he speaks hide their true feelings and emotions under a facade of agreeableness.
Hyperbole is used when the speaker asserts "with torn and bleeding hearts we smile;" he means that the psychic wounds inflicted on his people have a nearly physical manifestation.
The rhetorical question "why should the world be over-wise, in counting all our tears and sighs?" is meant to suggest that it would give the offenders satisfaction to know how they wound the group the speaker represents. The speaker will not give them that satisfaction.
Apostrophe occurs when the speaker addresses an absent person or abstract idea. The line "O great Christ, our cries/To thee from tortured souls arise" addresses Christ directly in an appeal for his intervention.
Poets sometimes use inversion to change expected word order in phrases or sentences to fit a metrical design or rhyme scheme. Dunbar uses "long the mile" instead of the more usual "the mile [is] long."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44203/we-wear-the-mask

Why was Frederick Douglass not sure when he was born?

Frederick Douglass did not know when he was born because slaves were not told their birth dates.
One of the differences between black children and white children was that white children knew their birth dates and black children did not know theirs.  It was a small measure of inequality that was symbolically meaningful.  It indicated that black children were not valuable enough to know the dates they were born or exactly how old they were. 

I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. (Ch. 1) 

Douglass comments that he never really knew a slave who knew his or her birthday.  They could only tell the time of year in which they were born.  Yet, as a child he wanted to know his birthday, because the white children knew theirs. 

A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. (Ch. 1) 

Even to ask his master his birthday would have been considered inappropriate.  This was “evidence of a restless spirit.”  It annoyed Douglass not to know his exact age.  He was a person, not an animal.  Not telling the slaves their birthdays was another way of subjugating them and keeping them down.
Slaves were not really able to keep accurate records of birth dates among themselves, and it probably was not a priority for them.  They were more interested in surviving than in worrying about things like dates on a calendar.  It was something else that made the whites feel superior.

Who are the main and secondary characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns?

The main characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns are Mariam and Laila. Part One is written from Mariam's point of view, Parts Two and Four are written from Laila's viewpoint, and Part Three alternates between the viewpoints of the two characters.
Mariam is born near Herat in 1959. She is the illegitimate daughter of Jalil, who is wealthy, and Nana, who was a servant in his house. As a child, Mariam lives with her mother in an isolated hut. At the age of fifteen, she is forced to marry Rasheed, a much older man.
Laila is born in Kabul on the night of the coup of April 1978. During her first fourteen years, she spends most of her time with her best friend, Tariq. Soon after the Mujahideen start bombing Kabul, Tariq and his parents flee to Pakistan, Laila's parents are killed, and Laila reluctantly consents to become Rasheed's second wife. She and Mariam eventually form a strong bond.
Rasheed, Tariq, and Jalil are the secondary characters. Jalil, Mariam's father, visits her once a week and treats her with affection throughout her childhood. But he marries her off as soon as she gets in his way. Rasheed, Mariam and Laila's husband, forces them to wear burkas and abuses them whenever they displease him. Tariq, Laila's best friend and childhood sweetheart, returns to Afghanistan to see Laila. The two eventually marry.

How is Romanticism defined in William Wordsworth’s poems “Expostulation and Reply” and “The Tables Turned?”

The Romantic movement in literature was a reaction to classicism, which idealised the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome and promoted the values of logic, objectivity, and emotional restraint, as well as a system of formal rules for creating "art" based heavily on the ideas set forth by Aristotle in his Poetics. The Romantics rejected objectivity in favor of subjectivity, logic in favor of emotion, and rules-based art in favor of individual expression. A key tenet of Romanticism was the innate wisdom of emotions and experiences unfiltered by the intellect. Intuition, they argued, was a powerful teacher, who had been ignored too long by the classicist mindset. By opening oneself up to one's intuition, a person could discover profound truths and create things of lasting beauty.
This is the central argument of William Wordsworth's two poems, "Expostulation and Reply," and the sequel, "The Tables Turned." The poet's friend, Matthew, asks him in the first poem why he is idly daydreaming when he ought to be improving himself by reading.

"Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away?Where are your books?"

Matthew is mildly exasperated by the spectacle of his friend "dreaming his time away" by gazing at the countryside, and remarks:

"You look round on your Mother Earth, As if she for no purpose bore you[.]"

It is the duty of those who have the leisure for education to make good on that leisure and educate themselves as much as possible. This idea goes back to Plato's dialogues, in which the life of the "philosopher" - he who had the time to devote to the pursuit of wisdom - was deemed the happiest life of all. For Wordsworth to be wasting that time and staring into space instead of pursuing wisdom is a dereliction of duty, according to Matthew.
Wordsworth, however, argues that the simple act of "looking round on [his] Mother Earth" is in itself the pursuit of wisdom. All the wisdom of the world is not locked up in libraries, he says; can Matthew truly believe that is the case?

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking?"

Wordsworth espouses the Romantic view that, by looking and listening without attempting to interpret his sensations, he is absorbing a purer form of knowledge than that which is captured in books. After all, he says,

"The eye--it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will.
"Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness."

Later that day, in "The Tables Turned," Wordsworth takes the opportunity to show Matthew what he meant in their earlier exchange. Matthew is back at the house, reading, as he had previously exhorted Wordsworth to do, and the poet urges him to come outside and learn in a different way.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it.


The ideals of the classical world are all well and good, but there is no need to be wedded to them, and indeed, that is a narrow-minded approach to life. The Romantics were excited by the possibilities of exploring the emotional, the subconscious, and the intuitive - the hidden worlds around and within each person that ordinary observational logic bypasses. Birdsong is a beautiful mystery, and that mystery should be embraced, not reduced to a set of dry facts. The Romantics wanted to break through the intellect's stranglehold on human experience, and get to the pure experience itself:

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:-- We murder to dissect.

Wordsworth urges Matthew to come with him and learn in a different school of thought, to open his mind to new ideas, or even to silence his mind and allow his heart to do the thinking. The "spontaneous wisdom" nature inspires in man is not something that can be learned in books. Matthew must "close up those barren leaves" if he is to truly understand what Wordsworth was doing when he sat on the "old grey stone", dreaming his time away. Wordsworth captures a core aspect of Romanticism when he says,

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

The sages had their uses, and the Romantics did not reject the wisdom of the past, but they were much more interested in learning for themselves from the world around them, rather than referring to things learned in previous ages. The natural world is full of "ready wealth" for the open mind that "watches and receives." Come out, Wordsworth says to his friend, and experience this with me.

Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.

In the book Wonder, what are Julian's and Summer's last names?

In the middle grade novel Wonder by author RJ Palacio, Summer and Julian are both students in school with the protagonist Auggie. Summer's last name is Dawson and Julian's last name is Albans.
These two characters could not be more different. Summer Dawson is a good friend to Auggie and a good person in general, whereas Julian Albans could probably be considered the main antagonist of the novel. He is a bully who makes fun of Auggie for his appearance.
Wonder has been so successful that there are now books and short stories expanding the universe. One of these, "The Julian Chapter," is a short story in which Julian Albans is the protagonist, giving readers the chance to see what the world looks like from his perspective.

Summer's last name is Dawson and Julian's is Albans. Summer befriends and treats Auggie well when he arrives at Beecher Prep after having been home schooled, as does a boy named Jack Will. They are both able to see beyond Auggie's facial deformity to the person underneath. Julian, on the other hand, finds Auggie physically repulsive and bullies him. He tries to persuade the other students, especially his own gang, to shun Auggie. Julian refers to Auggie as a freak, and writes cruel notes to him. 
It doesn't seem as if Auggie's experiment in attending school is going so well until the class trip to a nature reserve camp, where kids from another school taunt and attack Auggie. At this point, other classmates beside Jack come to Auggie's defense.