TASK DEFINITION: You will be given a summary of a story. You need to create a question that can be answered from the story. You can create a question about characters, events, facts and beliefs, etc. Your question should be specific, try not to use pronouns instead of full names. As the stories are sometimes movie plots, they will contain actor names in parentheses. You should not use those names. Only use character names. Try to ask a question about all parts of the plot, not just the beginning.
PROBLEM:  The story centers on two cousins, Dicky and Emmeline Lestrange, who are marooned with a galley cook on an island in the South Pacific following a shipwreck. The galley cook, Paddy Button, assumes responsibility for the children and teaches them how to survive, cautioning them to avoid the "arita" berries, which he calls "the never-wake-up berries."
Two-and-a-half years after the shipwreck, Paddy dies following a drinking binge. The children survive on their resourcefulness and the bounty of their remote paradise. They live in a hut and spend their days fishing, swimming, diving for pearls, and exploring the island.
As the years pass, Dicky and Emmeline grow into physically mature young adults and begin to fall in love. Ignorant of their human sexuality, they do not understand or know how to express their physical attraction to one another. Eventually they consummate their relationship. The author, Henry De Vere Stacpoole, describes their sexual encounter as having been "conducted just as the birds conduct their love affairs. An affair absolutely natural, absolutely blameless, and without sin. It was a marriage according to nature, without feast or guests."
Dicky becomes very attentive toward Emmeline, listening to her stories and bringing her gifts. Over several months they make love often and eventually Emmeline becomes pregnant. The couple does not understand the physical changes happening to Emmeline's body and have no knowledge of childbirth. When the day comes for delivery, Emmeline disappears into the forest and returns with a child. They discover over time that the baby requires a name and they call him Hannah because they have only have ever known an infant called by that name.
Dicky and Emmeline teach Hannah how to swim, fish, throw spears, and play in the mud. They survive a violent tropical cyclone and other natural hazards of island life.
Back in San Francisco, Arthur, father of Dicky and uncle of Emmeline, believes the two are still alive and he is determined to find them; after he recognizes a child's tea set belonging to Emmeline which was retrieved by a whaler on an island. Arthur finds a captain willing to take him to the island and they set out.
One day Dicky, Emmeline, and Hannah row their lifeboat to the place where they had once lived with Paddy as children. Emmeline breaks a branch off the deadly "never-wake-up" berry plant as Dicky cuts bananas on the shore. While in the boat with her son, Emmeline fails to notice that Hannah has tossed one of the oars into the sea. The tide comes in and sweeps the boat into the lagoon, leaving Emmeline and Hannah stranded. As Dicky swims to them, he is pursued by a shark. Emmeline strikes the shark with the remaining oar, allowing Dicky time to climb into the rowboat safely.
Although they are not far from shore, the trio cannot get back without the oars and they are unable to retrieve them from the water because of the shark. The boat is then caught in the current and drifts out to sea, all the while Emmeline still grasps the branch of the arita tree.
Sometime later, Arthur Lestrange's ship comes across the lifeboat and finds the three unconscious but still breathing. The arita branch is now bare but for one berry. Lestrange asks, "Are they dead?" and the captain replies, "No, sir. They are asleep." The ambiguous ending leaves it uncertain whether or not they can be revived.

SOLUTION: How do Dickey and Emmeline show one another they love them?

PROBLEM:  The story concerns two young French women, Louise de Chaulieu (1805 1835) and Ren e de Maucombe (born 1807), who become close friends during their novitiate at the Carmelite convent of Blois. When they leave the convent, however, their lives follow two very different paths. Louise chooses a life of romance, whereas Ren e takes a much more pragmatic approach; but their friendship is preserved through their correspondence, which continues for a dozen years from 1823 through 1835.
Louise is expected to sacrifice herself for her two brothers and take the veil, but the young girl refuses to submit to such a fate. Her dying grandmother intercedes on her behalf and bequeaths her her fortune, thereby rescuing her from the enclosed life of a Carmelite nun and leaving her financially independent. Free to assist her brothers financially without having to sacrifice her own ambitions, Louise settles in Paris and throws herself into a life of Italian operas, masqued balls and romantic intrigues. She falls in love with an unbecoming but noble Spaniard, Felipe H narez, Baron de Macumer. Banished from Spain, he lives incognito in Paris where he is forced to support himself by teaching Spanish. When he regains his fortune and noble standing, he woos Louise with a romantic fervour that finally wins her over. The pair are married in March 1825. They live a life of carefree happiness, but Louise's jealousy embitters him and leads to his physical break-down. He dies in 1829, leaving a grieving widow of twenty-four.
Ren e de Maucombe's attitude to love and life are in marked contrast to those of Louise. When she leaves the convent at Blois Ren e moves to Provence, where she marries an older man of little wealth or standing whom she can hardly be said to love. She bears Louis de L'Estorade three children, and over the course of the next decade she devotes herself body and soul to the happiness of her family. Gradually she grows to love her husband in her own way, and with her encouragement he makes a career for himself in local politics, which culminates in his becoming a peer of France and a grand officer of the Legion of Honour. During this time Ren e is quite scathing in her criticisms of Louise, whom she sees as a selfish and self-indulgent coquette. True happiness for a woman lies in motherhood and devotion to her family.
Meanwhile, four years after the death of Felipe, Louise falls in love again. This time the object of her love is a poor poet and playwright Marie Gaston, who is several years younger than she is. As though taking a leaf out of Ren e's book, Louise sells her Parisian property, moves to a chalet in Ville d'Avray (a small village near Paris) and lives a life of seclusion with her new husband. But Ren e is not fooled by this masquerade. Louise, she warns, is still living a life devoted to selfishness and self-indulgence, while true happiness lies only in self-sacrifice to one's husband and children - Louise remains childless.
After a few years of apparent bliss, Louise detects a change in her husband. He becomes solicitous about the financial success of his plays, and a large sum of money goes missing. Suspecting him of having an expensive mistress, Louise makes enquiries and comes to the shocking conclusion that he has another family in Paris   an Englishwoman known by the name Madame Gaston, and two children, who look remarkably like Marie. Louise confides her feelings of despair to Ren e and announces her determination to commit suicide rather than to submit to such a fate. Ren e's husband makes enquiries and discovers the truth of the situation. Madame Gaston is the widow of Marie's brother. The death of her husband has left her financially destitute and Marie has taken it upon himself to assist her and his two nephews, but he is ashamed to ask his wife for money. Rene  writes to Louise to inform her of the truth and rushes to the chalet, but she is too late. Louise has contracted consumption by lying out in the dew overnight and she dies a few days later.

SOLUTION: How old is Louise when her first husband dies?

PROBLEM:  Froudacity is split into four books, each addressing specific topics that Froude brings. Thomas begins the preface by attacking the overarching claims that Froude uses to argue against self-governance. Thomas ridicules Froude's assertion that if blacks in West Indian countries were given the right to vote, they would elect a candidate that would strip away the rights of whites due to racial animosity. He also attacks the notion that West Indian blacks harbor animosity against whites by pointing out that as many blacks owned slaves as whites, and that most people who were alive during slavery have since died.
In Book I Thomas addresses Froude's claims in the early portions of The English in the West Indies. Froude's tendency to state incorrect assumptions as fact is roundly assaulted. Thomas criticizes Froude for making sweeping generalizations about the condition of blacks on multiple islands without ever talking or interacting with the people he was writing about. Thomas points out that Froude comments extensively on the lifestyles of the natives of Grenada when his only experience among the natives was peering into their houses as he rode past in a carriage. Thomas attacks many other different factual inaccuracies in Froude's work.
In Book II Thomas begins to directly address Froude's criticism of giving colonies self-rule. When Froude claims that leaders of the reform movements "did not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed" Thomas spends over two dozen pages detailing the gross abuses of power and corruption that many of the appointed governors of Trinidad have participated in. Thomas also debunks Froude's claim that the reformers pushed for reform in the hope that they would be elected and allowed to draw a handsome government salary. Thomas also points out that contrary to Froude's claims the reform movement has been active for decades. Thomas finishes the second book by refuting Froude's assertion that West Indian blacks were incredibly well taken care off by "the beneficent despotism of the English Government"
The 3rd book takes up half of Froudacity. It begins with Froude alleging that there are few black intellectuals. Thomas responds by accusing the West Indian governments of suppressing blacks and noting that many black intellectuals sprang up in America shortly after Emancipation because they were integrated into society. Thomas uses the examples of Fredrick Douglass and Chief Justice William Conrad Reeves extensively in his arguments about race and intelligence. Both men are black and highly successful. Thomas uses these men as examples of successful black intellectuals, who succeeded despite racism. Thomas convincingly counters Froude's cheerful view of slavery. Thomas continues to contest Froude's multiple accusations about the results of black ruling over whites and what the ideal governance situation is for the West Indies. When Froude brings up the old stereotypes of blacks being lazy, or being cannibals or devil-worshipers, Thomas quickly counters all of the accusations. Thomas goes on to note the rising prominence of Christianity among blacks, and engages in a discussion on the limits of science and religion.
In the final 4th book, Thomas discusses the history of blacks instead of analyzing The English in the West Indies. Thomas discusses the history of the development slavery in America and in the West Indies. Thomas details how slave owners in the West Indies became god-parents to their slaves through the Catholic Church, and through this process developed personal relationships with slaves devoid of cruelty. The institutions of slavery developed very differently in America and the West Indies. Thomas lists the great accomplishments achieved by the "Negro Race", predicting that these accomplishments will continue growing. Thomas encourages "African descendants now dispersed in various countries of the Western Hemisphere ... at sufficient peace to begin occupying themselves about matters of racial importance".

SOLUTION:
Why were the West Indian blacks well taken care of, accordin to Froude?