Which plot is the best example of a tragedy?
a. an old man tells his grandson the heartbreaking story of his experiences as a soldier in world war 2.
b. a little girl is lost on the streets of new york city, and her parents work to find her as quickly as possible.
c. the chief of police loses his job and the respect of his family after his lies and criminal connections are exposed.
d. a couple struggles to stay together as their families and careers manage to keep them apart.

Read this excerpt from leo tolstoy's the death of ivan ilyich her attitude towards him and his diseases is still the same just as the doctor had adopted a certain relation to his patient which he could not abandon, so had she formed one towards him—that he was not doing something he ought to do and was himself to blame, and that she reproached him lovingly for this--and she could not now change that attitude. "you see he doesn't listen to me and doesn't take his medicine at the proper time. and above all he lies in a position that is no doubt bad for him.- with his legs up" she described how he made gerasim hold his legs up the doctor smiled with a contemptuous affability that said"what's to be done? these sick people do have foolish fancles of that kind, but we must forgive them they all rose, said good-night and went away when they had gone it seemed to ivan ilyich that he felt better, the falsity had gone with them. but the pain remained--that same pain and that same fear that made everything monotonously alike, nothing harder and nothing easier. everything was worse again minute followed minute and hour followed hour everything remained the same and there was no cessation. and the inevitable end of it all became more and more terrible based on the excerpt, how is praskovya fedorovna a character foil to ivan ilyich? a. she is kind and takes care of ivan, which is why he feels guilty about how he treated her for most of their married life • b. she is vindictive toward ivan while pretending to be worried about him, thus reminding him of how his family has never forgiven him she plays the part of the worried wife without any real feeling, symbolizing the false propriety ivan upheld but now hates c. d. she is young, healthy, and beautiful-everything ivan can never be again and wishes he could return to

Read the excerpt from elie wiesel’s all rivers run to the sea. why were those trains allowed to roll unhindered into poland? why were the tracks leading to birkenau never bombed? i have put these questions to american presidents and generals and to high-ranking soviet officers. since moscow and washington knew what the killers were doing in the death camps, why was nothing done at least to slow down their “production”? that not a single allied military aircraft ever tried to destroy the rail lines converging on auschwitz remains an outrageous enigma to me. birkenau was “processing” ten thousand jews a day. stopping a single convoy for a single night—or even for just a few hours—would have prolonged so many lives. based on the paragraph, the author would most likely agree that it is best to avoid confrontation at all costs. people need to be proactive when they witness an injustice. countries should remain neutral to keep alliances strong. moscow and washington are to be blamed for the holocaust.

What else do you think experts can learn from studying the language of written work? what do you think is the value of studying the language of william shakespeare whose writing is over hundreds of years old?