Wireless network implementation (Enterprise Network Design (Aston)) Case Study

Wireless network implementation (Enterprise Network Design (Aston)) - Case Study Example There will be a mesh topology setup in the core and distribution layers. Along with the redundant paths there will be redundant hardware in those layers. This will allow for more throughput and fault tolerance. QoS will also be implemented in all layers of the network to improve performance. The current reliability problems are half hardware failure and half over utilization of circuits. With the addition of QoS and redundancy, we can assure that mission critical applications will never fail. Aston is a leading firm in the private sector legal support business. These accounts are served worldwide by their franchise network. As you can tell, Aston is on a mission to keep trucks rolling by creating and delivering the best products and services for customers. The current network design analysis showed us that there are strong areas of the network and many weak areas. The current networks strongest point is in the campus backbone. Currently there is a full mesh between all routers. Because of this setup the backbone is the strongest part of the network. However, the backbone is currently running on 100 Mbps copper which is causing bottlenecks during peak usage. The existing network has far more weak areas then strong ones. We found one of the weakest areas of the network to be in the server farm. ... Also, all connections were made with copper to the campus backbone which limits the speed. Another area of concern is with the building distribution layer. This layer also has no layer 3 capabilities and has no redundant paths. There are multiple switches in the building distribution but in the event of a failure the core will have to reroute all traffic due to lack of appropriate redundancy. Another area that lacks redundancy is the edge distribution module. Currently if the edge distribution router were to fail, all internet and internal communications with other branches would be lost. Along with lack of redundancy, there were many security concerns. Currently there is only one firewall and it is placed between the internet service provider and the edge distribution router. This is a good start to securing the network but there is a lack of intrusion detection which is a concern. Also, the current e-commerce connection is in front of the firewall which provides absolutely no protection to the e-commerce server from the outside world. Finally, the other area of concern is the lack of outside accessibility. Currently there is only one remote access server which accepts incoming modem connections. The current system is not capable of support the very large mobile work force of Aston and it does not support current technology. In order for a remote worker to gain access to the network they have to have a dial up modem and a telephone line. Once the connection is made the speed is slow and the functionality is limited. Along with the lack of speed and functionality, the network is limited on its ability to upgrade to VPN technology. Currently there is only one internet service provider that only provides 3 Mbps which is barely enough

How Abortion Harms Womens Health Essay Example for Free

How Abortion Harms Womens Health Essay Advocates of legalized abortion downplay or deny the health risks associated with abortion. However, the research indicates that abortion isolates women and can often cause physical and psychological suffering. Physical complications Abortion can cause both short-term and long-term physical complications, and can significantly affect a womans ability to have healthy future pregnancies. Physical complications include cervical lacerations and injury, uterine perforations, bleeding, hemorrhage, serious infection, pain, and incomplete abortion.[3] Risks of complications increase with gestational age and are dependent upon the abortion procedure. [4] Long-term physical consequences of abortion include future preterm birth and placenta previa (improper implantation of the placenta) in future pregnancies.[5] Premature delivery is associated with higher rates of cerebral palsy, as well as respiratory, brain, and bowel abnormalities. One recent large-scale evaluation published in Pediatrics, has concluded that preterm birth is the most frequent cause of infant death in the U.S.[6] Pregnancies complicated by placenta previa result in high rates of preterm birth, low birth weight, perinatal death, and maternal morbidity.[7] While the question of whether abortion can increase the risk of breast cancer is hotly debated, a number of scientific studies have indicated that induced abortion can adversely affect a womans future risk of breast cancer. Further, it has been clearly shown that induced abortion in young women causes the loss of a protective effect from a first, full-term pregnancy which when followed by a delay in child bearing, has the net effect of an increased risk for breast cancer.[8] Physical complications from chemical abortion with the drug RU-486 include hemorrhage, infection, and missed ectopic pregnancy (a potentially fatal complication). Since 2000, at least 8 women have died from RU-486 due to hemorrhage and infection.[9] Psychological complications A pro-choice research team in New Zealand, analyzing data from a 25-year period and controlling for multiple factors both pre- and post-abortion, found conclusively that abortion in young women is associated with increased risks of major depression, anxiety disorder, suicidal behaviors, and substance dependence.[10] This is the most comprehensive, long-term study ever conducted on the issue. Other studies also conclude that there is substantial evidence of a causal association between induced abortion and both substance abuse and suicide.[11] A review of over 100 long-term international studies concluded that induced abortion increases risks for mood disorders enough to provoke attempts at self harm.[12] Researchers have also identified a pattern of psychological problems, known collectively as Post- Abortion Syndrome, in which women may experience depression, anxiety, anger, flashbacks, guilt, grief, denial, and relationship problems. Post-Abortion Syndrome has been identified in research as a subset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.[13] Further, studies analyzing the effects of induced abortion in adolescents have shown that those who abort reported more frequent problems sleeping, more frequent marijuana use, and an increased need for psychological counseling, when compared to adolescents who give birth.[14] Moira Gaul is director of womens and reproductive health at the Family Research Council. She has a Master of Public Health degree with an emphasis in maternal and child health. Consequences for women There is extensive evidence of physical, mental and emotional consequences for women and their families when pregnant mothers use abortion to end an inconvenient pregnancy. Major Articles and Books Concerning the Detrimental Effects of Abortion reports that in the short term (eight weeks after the abortion), there are numerous indicators of emotional distress: 44 per cent of women who have abortions complain of nervous disorders, 36 per cent have trouble sleeping, 31 per cent regret their decision to abort and 11 per cent have been prescribed psychotropic drugs. But it is the longer-term problems that bear more scrutiny. Using the most conservative estimate of post-abortion syndrome, or PAS, Dr. Brenda Major in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2000, found 1.6 per cent of women who have an abortion will suffer from PAS, a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder. In Canada, that would mean approximately 50,000 women are suffering emotionally due to their abortions. Dr. Hanna Sà ¶derberg’s studies suggest the number could be closer to 60 per cent. Either way, there are many women with PAS. In Canada, the 1977 Report of the Committee on the Operation of the Abortion Law cited a five-year study in two provinces that found women who had an abortion used medical and psychiatric services much more often than others; in fact, 25 per cent of women who aborted made at least one visit to a psychiatrist compared to just 3 per cent of other women. Alcoholism and drug abuse are higher among women who have abortions than those who don’t. The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology noted in December 2002 that later alcohol and drug use during subsequent pregnancies could place newborn children at higher risk of congenital defects, low birthweight and even death. In all, there are nearly two dozen studies that link abortion to alcohol and drug abuse. Extrapolating from research conducted by Dr. David Reardon of the Elliott Institute, as many as 5,000 Canadian women will â€Å"begin abusing drugs and/or alcohol as a means of dea ling with post-abortion stress.† In 1996, the British Medical Journal reported that the suicide rate for women â€Å"after an abortion was three times the general suicide rate and six times that associated with birth.† This confirmed earlier studies and has been replicated since. Reardon says â€Å"one reason for the strong abortion-suicide link exists in the fact that in many ways, abortion is like suicide. A person who threatens suicide is actually crying out for help. So are women who contemplate abortion. Both are in a state of despair. Both are lonely. Both feel faced by insurmountable odds.† So it is no wonder that abortion does not solve the perceived problem: that of the inconvenient pregnancy. Post-abortive women are more prone to suicide, cigarette smoking, divorce, low self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, eating disorders and reduced maternal bonding with future children, resulting in child neglect or abuse. Women who have had abortions are more likely to be on public assistance, because their pathologies (promiscuity, inability to form healthy relationships, drug and alcohol abuse) are likely to make them single parents. In 2004, Thomas Strahan, a researcher with the Association of Interdisciplinary Research in the United States, found that abortion hurts women economically: â€Å"The repeated utilization of abortion appears to lead not to economic prosperity or social well-being, but to an increasing feminization of poverty.† But post-abortion health problems are not merely emotional. The Elliott Institute has collated the best available data on the physical risk complications of abortion and it reports that â€Å"approximately 10 per cent of women undergoing elect ive abortion will suffer immediate complications, of which approximately one-fifth (2 per cent) are considered life threatening.† The most common immediate major complications include infection, excessive bleeding, embolism, ripping or perforation of the uterus, anesthesia complications, convulsions, hemorrhage, cervical injury and endotoxic shock. Minor complications include infection, bleeding, fever, second-degree burns, chronic abdominal pain, vomiting, gastro-intestinal disturbances and Rh sensitization. In the Canadian context, that means 10,000 women a year suffer complications and 2,000 face potentially life-threatening major complications. Other problems manifest themselves over time. There are more than 30 studies that show a correlation between abortion and breast cancer, with women who had abortions more likely to get breast cancer. Women also face increased risk of cervical, ovarian and liver cancer. The risk for these four cancers are linked to the unnatural disruption of hormonal changes accompanying pregnancy. Untreated cervical damage increases the chances of getting cervical cancer. Between 2 and 3 per cent of all abortion patients suffer perforation of the uterus; this often leads to complications in subsequent pregnancies, the need for a hysterectomy and other complications, including osteoporosis. Smaller cervical lacerations can also cause problems, including cervical incompetence and subsequent labour complications. Abortion also increases the risk of placenta previa in later pregnancies, which is life-threatening to both mother (excessive bleeding) and unborn child (perinatal death), and increases the chance of fetal malformation. Women who have abortions are more than twice as likely to suffer subsequent labour complications, including premature delivery. Pre-term delivery increases the risk of neo-natal death and handicaps. Abortion increases the risk of ectopic pregnancies and pelvic inflammatory disease, both of which can reduce future fertility or threaten the life of the mother. Recent nation-wide data is unavailable in Canada, but Alberta and Nova Scotia statistics indicate that repeat abortions account for about one-third of all procedures. Repeat aborters vastly increase their risk of complications and this has serious consequences for those who routinely utilize abortion as birth control; it also costs the health care system. Perhaps most worrying is that women who have abortions are more likely to die prematurely. Reardon notes, â€Å"Women who abort are approximately four times more likely to die in the following year than women who carry their pregnancies to term† – and that † women who carry to term are only half as likely to die (pre-maturely) as women who were not pregnant.† That includes accidental deaths, suicides and homicides, among other causes. The evidence that abortion harms women – and their loved ones – is overwhelming. But the harm goes beyond individuals. Societal costs No one knows for sure how much abortion costs taxpayers through the country’s socialized health care system. With the exception of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which do not cover the entire cost of abortions committed in private facilities, the provinces pay for abortions in both hospitals and free-standing facilities. LifeCanada estimates that the cost just for the surgical abortion procedures is $80 million (an average of $800 multiplied by 100,000 abortions). Because of under-reporting of abortion, there is reason to believe the cost is actually greater. In 1995, the Library of Parliament Research Branch said determining the cost of abortion is a â€Å"complex and inexact process.† But that is only the surgery. The number of follow-up visits for immediate complications is not made public (if tracked at all) and so those costs are unknowable. There is also the cost of long-term problems including fertility treatments, psychiatry and drug/alcohol treatment. There are other costs, as well; that of missing students, consumers and taxpayers. The loss of 100,000 children every year means smaller classrooms and closed schools. In 2005, People for Education, an advocacy group, reported that the rate of school closures in Ontario has more than doubled in recent years. Between 1986 and 1995, an average of 24 Ontario schools were closed every year, but between 1999 and 2005, it was an average of 52 schools per year. Remarkably, that is despite attracting the bulk of the country’s immigrants. The fact is that Canada is an aging country in which many smaller communities and older neighbourhoods no longer have the children and teens to sustain elementary and high schools. According to the Canadian Council on Learning, â€Å"The steepest declines tend to occur in small, rural and remote school districts.† It cites as an example British Columbia, where 10 school districts have seen their enrolments fall by at least 15 per cent since 200 1, seven of which are rural districts with smaller populations. From 1997-2005, 11 of 13 provinces and territories experienced a drop in enrolment, with six of them seeing declines of at least 10 per cent. The problem is worst in Atlantic Canada. Dr. Gerald Galway of the Faculty of Education at Memorial University in St. John’s gave a presentation to the 2009 Atlantic School Boards Conference entitled, â€Å"Where have all the children gone?† In it, he noted that school enrolment in Atlantic Canada has fallen precipitously over the past several decades. While intra-provincial migration accounts for some decline in population, he mostly blames falling fertility rates. Notably, in Newfoundland, enrolment has declined every year since 1971, except in 1984 (with the introduction of Grade 12). In fact, the school-aged population has been cut in half since 1971, from 160,000 to 80,000. Over the long term, more communities will lose their schools and policy makers will have to make difficult decisions on how to provide quality education in sparsely populated areas. There are also ramifications for public finance. Pierre Fortin, a professor of economics at the Università © du Quà ©bec à   Montrà ©al, says there will be â€Å"a marked deterioration of public finances† because of increased health care costs and pension liabilities as the number of seniors grows rapidly and income tax revenues decrease due to fewer workers. The result is fewer taxpayers supporting more retirees. By 2015, there will be more seniors over 65 than children under 15; it is estimated that by 2030, those over 65 will comprise 25 per cent of the population. According to the 2008 documentary The Cost of Abortion, the cumulative financial loss of nearly 50 million abortions in the United States from 1973-2007 was $37 trillion in GDP over the course of 35 years. That’s lost production and lost consumption due to the 50 million missing children and (later) workers. Assuming that Canada would have suffered a proportionate loss, the Canadian GDP over the past four decades would be in the neighbourhood of $4 trillion – or $100 billion per year. That represents about 7 per cent of the current Canadian economy. In other words, the economic activity of a population not decimated by abortion would be equivalent to more than twice the stimulus package Ottawa announced in January. But after 3.2 million abortions over four decades, the missing children translate into missing economic activity. The cheapening of human life The greatest cost imposed on a society that permits abortion is the devaluing of human life and the diminishment of family life. Abortion does not stalk the nation alone; but rather, as part of the larger culture of death. Since the legalization of abortion, contraception, gay sex and divorce in the 1960s, there has been a decline in marital stability, with growth in sexual activity outside marriage and other sexually deviant behaviour and new assaults on human life. There are more ways to chemically eliminate newly conceived life with the abortifacient morning-after pill and abortion drugs like RU-486. With pregnancy made easily avoidable, is it surprising that courts (and later Parliament) ignored the reproductive role of marriage when they redefined the institution to include same-sex partners? In 2003, the Liberal government passed legislation opening the door to destructive embryonic stem cell research, cloning and other scientific experimentation that treats human life as raw m aterial to be harvested and exploited. If inconvenient human life can be eliminated by mothers and doctors, why not create convenient lives for scientists and other researchers? And lastly – though not yet – is euthanasia. Once the principle is established that inconvenient human beings can be killed, the question becomes who’s next. The answer, if the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Oregon and Washington are harbingers, is the terminally ill, the disabled and the old. Of course, we’ve already had Tracey Latimer and Sue Rodriguez and dozens of others whose names weren’t quite national news. But these are renegades, operating outside the law. Perhaps, though, not for long. Twice in the past four years, Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde has introduced a private member’s bill to legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Public opinion leans toward so-called â€Å"mercy killing.† The principle of eliminating inconvenient people is well established. The great corrupter Abortion corrupts every institution that promotes or even countenances it. Two examples are government (and politics) and the medical profession, although one could also look at the failure of religious leadership, the denigration of the law and so much more. As Fr. Alphonse de Valk noted in his 1979 pamphlet The Worst Law Ever, the medical profession didn’t take long to become fanatical in its support for abortion. In fact, de Valk said â€Å"the one group which obviously has suffered most from the 1969 law is the medical profession.† In the 1960s, the Canadian Medical Association lobbied for widening the abortion law to permit abortions to save the life or protect the health of the mother (albeit with a broad understanding of mental and emotional health). By 1973, it endorsed abortion on demand. Two years later, it amended the Hippocratic Oath to remove the reference against abortifacients that had been in place for 2,500 years. In 1977, it attempted to make abortion referrals mandatory, even in cases in which doctors were morally opposed. That battle continues more than three decades later. Over the past 40 years, medical professionals have been harassed over their opposition to abortion and most medical schools screen applicants to keep pro-lifers out. Nurses have been fired, removed from certain duties and refused work because of their pro-life views, as have pharmacists. In order to make â€Å"choice† available to those seeking abortions, the choice of health care professionals to act according to their consciences has been compromised and even excised. Abortion has also corrupted the political process. Parliament fashioned a dishonest and untenable amendment in 1969 – the therapeutic abortion committees which sanctioned the killing of the unborn. The Supreme Court threw out the minimal restrictions in 1988 and ordered Parliament to write a new abortion law. The Mulroney government twice introduced legislation to address the abortion issue, but the limits were once again giant loopholes that would not have restricted abortion. Since then, abortion has been permitted within the vacuum created by the absence of a law. Politicians are scared of the issue. Many provincial politicians refuse to answer questions about abortion, claiming it is a federal matter (which it is as a matter of criminal law, but not as health policy). Many federal politicians hide behind the false notion that the 1988 Morgentaler decision established a right to abortion. (It did not, with only one of seven justices suggesting such a right.) In the 2000 federal election, then-prime minister Jean Chretien declared that Canada had â€Å"social peace† on the issue of abortion; in reality, it was the silence of timorous politicians enforced by a rigid media censorship of any substantive debate on the topic. That censorship is widespread. Since 1995, British Columbia has had a legislated bubble zone prohibiting any pro-life speech near abortion facilities. In 1994, the Ontario government asked for and received a â€Å"temporary† injunction prohibiting pro-life speech near five abortion mills; that injunction remains in place today. In Quebec, a limited bubble zone is in place in several municipalities. Such censorship has moved to university campuses, where pro-life groups are denied club status and pro-life speakers or demonstrators are prevented from making their presentations. To protect abortion from any criticism or resistance, genuine human rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of conscience, are curbed. Such illiberal and intolerant measures are deemed necessary to defend â€Å"choice.† Conclusion These are but a few of the consequences of a broad abortion licence, a quick overview of the toll of abortion. Sold to a willingly ignorant public as a matter of personal choice, abortion has had terrible consequences for society and, tragically, the women who choose abortion thinking it is a solution to their perceived problems. The enormity of the consequences, one would presume, would lead to a massive re-thinking of unrestricted legal abortion. But instead of either sober reflection or a vigorous debate on abortion’s societal and individual ramifications, there is silence. And more death. And more suffering. Forty more years and millions more deaths are too great a cost for a dearth of necessary leadership to oppose abortion. But someday, these costs and consequences will be too great to ignore. Until then, we will continue to pay in blood, treasure, women’s health and a myriad of other ways. Is Abortion Safe? Psychological Consequences Clinical research provides a growing body of scientific evidence that having an abortion can cause psychological harm to some women. Women who report negative after-effects from abortion know exactly what their problem is, observed psychologist Wanda Franz, Ph.D., in a March 1989 congressional hearing on the impact of abortion. They report horrible nightmares of children calling them from trash cans, of body parts, and blood, Franz told the Congressional panel. When they are reminded of the abortion, Franz testified, the women re-experienced it with terrible psychological pain They feel worthless and victimized because they failed at the most natural of human activities the role of being a mother.[106] The emergence of chemical abortion methods poses a new possibly more devastating psychological threat. Unlike surgical abortions, in which women rarely see the cut up body parts, women having chemical abortions often do see the complete tiny bodies of their unborn children and are even able to distinguish the child’s developing hands, eyes, etc. [107] So traumatic is this for some women that both patients and researchers involved in these studies have recommended that women unprepared for the experience of seeing their aborted children not take the drugs. [108] Long-term psychological implications of this experience have not been studied. Researchers on the after-effects of abortion have identified a pattern of psychological problems known as Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS). Women suffering PAS may experience drug and alcohol abuse, personal relationship disorders, sexual dysfunction, repeated abortions, communications difficulties, damaged self-esteem, and even attempt suicide. Post-Abortion Syndrome appears to be a type of pattern of denial which may last for five to ten years before emotional difficulties surface. [109] Now that some clinicians have established that there is an identifiable patterns to PAS, they face a new challenge. What is still unknown is how widespread psychological problems are among women who have had abortions. A Los Angeles Times survey in 1989 found that 56% of women who had abortions felt guilty about it, and 26% mostly regretted the abortion.[110] Clinicians’ current goal should be to conduct extensive national research studies to obtain data on the psychological after-effects of abortion.[111] With the growing awareness of Post Abortion Syndrome in scholarly and clinical circles, women with PAS can expect to receive a more sensitive appreciation of the suffering that they endure. Fortunately, a growing network of peer support groups of women who have had abortions offers assistance to women who are experiencing emotional difficulties. Many post-abortive women have also been speaking out publicly about their own abortion experiences and the healing process they went through.. Women or family members seeking information about this particular outreach can contact American Victims of Abortion, 419 7th Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, D.C., 20004. Physical Consequences after abortion DEATH: According to the best record based study of deaths following pregnancy and abortion, a 1997 government funded study in Finland, women who abort are approximately four times more likely to die in the following year than women who carry their pregnancies to term. In addition, women who carry to term are only half as likely to die as women who were not pregnant.(16) The Finland researchers found that compared to women who carried to term, women who aborted in the year prior to their deaths were 60 percent more likely to die of natural causes, seven times more likely to die of suicide, four times more likely to die of injuries related to accidents, and 14 times more likely to die from homicide. Researchers believe the higher rate of deaths related to accidents and homicide may be linked to higher rates of suicidal or risk-taking behavior.(16) The leading causes of abortion related maternal deaths within a week of the surgery are hemorrhage, infection, embolism, anesthesia, and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies. Legal abortion is reported as the fifth leading cause of maternal death in the United States, though in fact it is recognized that most abortion related deaths are not officially reported as such.(2)

Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn | Analysis

Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn | Analysis Huckleberry Finn is original in the sense that we can feel the presence of Twains voice, as well as Hucks voice. Throughout the entire book, Huck speaks to us in the colloquial language of his time; which drove me mad. The first chapter of Huck Finn establishes Hucks personality and the current state of his times. He lives in a town where it is quite common to own slaves. This is most obvious reason why the book was banned. Instead of a sequel to the childish Tom Sawyer, it is a novel that deals with the political and social aspects of slavery. It also has gratuitous use of the word nigger. In fact, it occurs 215 times, and is probably the reason why it was banned so quickly. Frankly, I dont think that should be a reason to ban a book, but I think that Mr. Twain went a little overboard. However, it does portray the history of the times, and is done so with brutal honesty. The term was used by both whites and blacks. For whites, it was a term of degradation and inferiority; for blacks , it was probably a term used for identification, or maybe self-loathing. Huckleberry and Tom came into a large sum of money due to their previous adventures. Under the household of the Widow Douglas, they make an effort to civilize Huck. Huck was a country boy, and he appreciated their attempts, but ultimately found civilized life boring. Douglas does put Huck in school, and he begins to adjust to this new life. However, Hucks new life is disrupted by his Father. His Father is everything you wouldnt want in a dad. Self-absorbed, disgusting, and in rags, he is not the kind of father-figure anyone would want. Pap is mad that Huck has learnt to read. This stems from the fact Huck is the first person in the family to do this, and he is mad that his son has gotten an opportunity that never presented itself to Pap. Pap is so interested in Huck because of the amount of money Huck was able to acquire. After the Judge agrees to protect Hucks money, he is promptly sued by Pap. Huck is then kidnapped by Pap and spends time in a cabin in the middle of the woods. Huck begins to miss society, and resents being cooped up. He eventually finds a weakness in the cabins infrastructure, and plans an escape. After sawing his way out of the cabin, he makes it look like robbers ransacked the place, consequently killing Huck. After meeting Jim on the island he has sailed to, they from an alliance produced by one mutual feeling: fear. Jim is a very superstitious person, and Huck makes fun of him for this. Huck places a deceased rattlesnake near Jim when he is sleeping. Other snakes smell the dead rattlesnake, and bite Jim. Jim is ok, but their operation is in danger. After dressing up as a girl, Huck goes into town to ask for information. A woman lets Huck know that they have spotted smoke over their island, and her husband is going to look there that night. Thus, Huck and Jim make a raft and drift downstream for many days. After losing their raft, they steal a raft belonging to thieves. Through all of this, we can see that Huck is open-minded, but still ac ts on impulse. This brief synopsis serves a purpose through all of those chapters, Huck has developed a relationship with Jim. With Jim being a black slave, it sends Huck into emotional turmoil. He comes to question what society has taught him, and whether or not blacks are truly equal, on an intellectual and physical level. He is torn between the options of returning Jim to Miss Watson. Looking at it from a southern way of life, Huck has run off with 800$ of personal property. This perverts Hucks decision making process, and by doing the wrong thing, he has ultimately saved Jim by not turning him in. In a way, society has changed what is morally right to Huck; by doing the wholly unmoral thing of his time, he feels better than doing the other immoral option. After a brief separation from Jim, he learns that he much prefers Jims company than the Grangerfords especially after seeing the brutal gunfight. Jim was able to save the raft from three black slaves because of one reason: he stated that it was his white masters raft. This in itself is a testament to Hucks times. When you are able to threaten other men with the color of someone elses skin, there is something blatantly wrong with that society. Huck and Jim soon have the pleasure of meeting two con artists known in the book as the duke and dauphin (acting under aliases). Although their cons appear comedic on the surface they are a huge threat to Huck and Jim. Knowing all too well that Jim is a runaway slave (despite Hucks best effort) they are able to use this as blackmail. Their first con together is done during a church service, which shows how incredibly immoral the two men are. I began to grow more and more confused as I progress through Huckleberry Finn. No one in the book has a clear definition of right and wrong. A man named Sherburn murders a defenseless drunk because he was insulted. When a mob forms he is able to save himself by giving a speech on human nature. Eventually, the mob regresses. The fact that he, a murderer, is able to talk about human emotion and nature is in itself despicable. Keeping in mind that this speech on morals was given by a killer adds to the confusion of the reader and the Huck. Sherburn attacks the mob mentality and human nature of the common person. However, this human cowardice and mob mentality is what drove Huck and Jim from their home town of St. Petersburg.

Generating Real-Time Visual Meaning for Live Indian Drumming :: Music Rhythm Drums Musical Essays

Generating Real-Time Visual Meaning for Live Indian Drumming Abstract: In this essay, a system developed to generate visual meaning for live performed music is described. Specifically, this system is calibrated to respond to North Indian classical and folk drumming tradition, using custom designed digital musical interfaces, such as the Electronic Tabla and Electronic Dholak. A drum, when struck, does not generate its sound as a record of the force applied, but as an artifact of a physical response to that strike within the artistically controlled conditions of its material state. With the design of the North Indian drum controllers, we developed a physical model for digital audio synthesis to recreate the aural qualities of the drums’ response under the control of the player. From there, we abstracted that concept to develop a dynamically responsive model for real-time rhythmic visual synthesis. In creating a visual experience for North Indian classical music, we sought to create a dynamic visual accompaniment with an appropriate ambience for the patterns and complexities of North Indian drumming. The design process was shaped by the need to react to a series of signals that would be received from the musician through the digitized musical interfaces, while giving a visual performer the ability to modify and shape those reactions over the course of the performance. In contrast to using a prerendered or abstract visualization, we aim to create an audiovisual composition which is both aesthetically compelling and responsive to the conditions of live performance, in addition to providing a meaningful visual context for what the performer is playing. In this essay, we will describe: - Veldt: a custom built application for visual expression of musical performance. - Digital Indian Drums: the Electronic Tabla and Electronic Dholak which digitize gestural information of a live performer. - Rhythmic visualization of our system used in live performances. Veldt Veldt is an application which was designed from the ground up for the purpose of visual expression and performance. It receives MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) and OSC (Open SoundControl)[1] messages from digital musical interfaces and maps them to a system of reactive events in order to generate live visuals, which are rendered real-time using the OpenGL[2] graphics language. Mappings are flexible: sets of mappings may be arranged and modified during the design and rehearsal process, and triggered by control events during different movements of a performance, and arbitrary text, images, video, and geometric models may be used as source material.

Heart of Darkness in the Light of Psychoanalytic Theories Essay

Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his multiple case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control (Guerin 127). One of Freud’s most important contributions to the study of the psyche is his theory of repression: the unconscious mind is a repository of repressed desires, feelings, memories, wishes and instinctual drives; many of which have to do with sexuality and violence. These unconscious wishes, according to Freud, can find expression in dreams because dreams distort the unconscious material and make it appear different from itself and more acceptable to consciousness. They may also appear in other disguised forms, like in language (sometimes called the Freudian slips), in creative art and in neurotic behavior. One of the unconscious desires Freud believed that all human beings supposedly suppress is the childhood desire to displace the parent of the same sex and to take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex. This so-called â€Å"Oedipus Complex,† which all children experience as a rite of passage to adult gender identity, lies at the core of Freud’s sexual theory (Murfin 114-5). A principal element in Freud’s theory is his assignment of the mental processes to three psychic zones: the id, the ego and the superego. The id is the passional, irrational, and unconscious part of the psyche. It is the site of the energy of the mind, energy that Freud characterized as a combination of sexual libido and other instincts, such as aggression, that propel the human organism through life, moving it to grow, develop and eventually to die. That primary process of life is completely irrational, and it cannot distinguish reasonable objects and unreasonable or socially unacceptable ones. Here comes the secondary processes of the mind, lodged in the ego and the superego. The ego, or â€Å"I,† was Freud’s term for the predominantly rational, logical, orderly and conscious part of the psyche; it works on repressing and inhibiting the drives of the id so that they may be released in sane behavioral patterns. And though a large part of the ego is unconscious, it nevertheless includes what we think of as the conscious mind. The superego is a projection of the ego. It is the moral censoring agency; the part that makes moral judgments and the repository of conscience and pride. It brings reason, order and social acceptability to the otherwise uncontrolled and potentially harmful realm of biological impulses (Guerin 128-31). Freud’s theories have launched what is now known as the psychoanalytic approach to literature. Freud was interested in writers, especially those who depended largely on symbols. Such writers tend to tinge their ideas and figures with mystery or ambiguity that only make sense once interpreted, just as the analyst tries to figure out the dreams and bizarre actions that the unconscious mind of a neurotic releases out of repression. A work of literature is thus treated as a fantasy or a dream that Freudian analysis comes to explain the nature of the mind that produced it. The purpose of a work of art is what psychoanalysis has found to be the purpose of the dream: the secret gratification of an infantile and forbidden wish that has been repressed into the unconscious (Wright 765). The literal surface of a work of literature is sometimes called the â€Å"manifest content† and treated as â€Å"manifest dream† or â€Å"dream story. † The psychoanalytic literary critic tries to analyze the latent, underlying content of the work, or the â€Å"dream thought† hidden in the dream story. Freud used the terms â€Å"condensation† and â€Å"displacement† to explain the mental processes that result in the disguise of the wishes and fears in dream stories. In condensation, several wishes, anxieties or persons may be condensed into a single manifestation or image in dream story; in displacement, a thought or a person may be displaced onto the image of another with which or whom there is an extremely loose and arbitrary association that only an analyst can decode. Psychoanalytic critics treat metaphors as if they were dream condensations; they treat metonyms- figures of speech based on weak connections- as if they were dream displacements. Thus, figures of speech in general are treated as aspects that see the light when the writer’s conscious mind resists what the unconscious asks it to depict or describe. Psychoanalytic criticism written before 1950 tended to study the psyche of the individual author. Poems, novels and plays were treated as fantasies that allowed authors to release curbed desires, or to protect themselves  from deep- rooted fears, or both. Later, psychoanalytic critics stopped assuming that artists are borderline neurotics or that the characters they fabricate and the figurative language they use can be analyzed to figure out the dark, hidden fancies in the authors’ minds. So they moved their focus toward the psychology of the reader, and came to understand that artists are skilled creators of works that appeal to the readers’ repressed wishes. As such, psychoanalytic criticism typically attempts to do at least one of the following tasks: study the psychological traits of a writer; provide an analysis of the creative process; or explore the psychological impacts of literature on its readers (Murfin 115-20). Not all psychoanalytic critics, however, are Freudian. Many of them are persuaded by the writings of Carl Gustav Jung whose â€Å"analytical psychology† is different from Freud’s psychoanalysis. Jung had broken with Freud’s emphasis on libidinal drives and had developed a theory of the collective unconscious; although, like Freud, he believed in a personal unconscious as a repository of repressed feelings (Wright 767). The processes of the unconscious psyche, according to Jung, produce images, symbols and myths that belong to the large human culture. He refers to the manifestations of the â€Å"myth-forming† elements as â€Å"motifs,† â€Å"primordial images,† or â€Å"archetypes. † Jung indicated further that the dreams, myths and art all serve as media through which archetypes become accessible to the consciousness. One major contribution is Jung’s theory of individuation which is the process of discovering those aspects of one’s self that make one an individual different from other people. It is, according to Jung, an absolutely essential process if one is to become a balanced individual; he detected an intimate relationship between neurosis and the person’s failure to accept some archetypal features of his unconscious. Individuation is related to three archetypes designated as shadow, persona and anima. These are structural components that human beings have inherited. We encounter their symbolic projections throughout the myths and literatures of humankind. The shadow is the darker side of our unconscious self, the inferior and less pleasing aspects of the personality. The anima is the â€Å"soul-image;† the source of a man’s life force. Jung gives it a feminine designation in the man’s psyche; it is the contra-sexual part that a man carries in his personal and collective unconscious. The persona is the opposite of the anima; it is our social personality and the mediator  between our ego and the external world. A balanced man has a flexible persona that is in harmony with the other components of his psychic makeup (Guerin 178-83). Through the lenses of Jungian psychoanalysis, the literary text is no longer seen as a site where the quelled impulses get through in disguise. Instead, Jung maintains that â€Å"both the individual in dreams and the artist at work will produce archetypal images to compensate for any psychic impoverishment in man and society. â€Å" He untangles texts of literature by a method he calls ?amplification’: the images of the collective unconscious are derived from those of the personal (Wright 767). Despite its monotonous rehearsing of a number of themes, psychoanalytic theory has led to a better understanding of the complexities of the relation between the human being and the artistic creativity. Heart of Darkness in the light of Psychoanalytic theories. Heart of Darkness explores something truer, more fundamental, and distinctly less material than just a personal narrative. It is a night journey into the unconscious, and a confrontation of an entity within the self. Certain circumstances of Marlow’s voyage, looked at in these terms, take on a new importance. The true night journey can occur only in sleep or in a walking dream of a profoundly intuitive mind. Marlow insists on the dreamlike quality of his narrative. â€Å"It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream – making a vein attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation† (Conrad 38). Even before leaving Brussels, Marlow felt as though he â€Å"was about to set off for center of the earth,† not the center of a continent (16). The introspective voyager leaves his familiar rational world, is â€Å"cut off from the comprehension† of his surroundings, his steamer toils â€Å"along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy† (52). As the crisis approaches, the dreamer and his ship moves through a silence that â€Å"seemed unnatural, like a state of trance; then enter a deep fog† (57). The novel penetrates to those areas of darkness and dream – indeed nightmare ? with which Conrad tried to define the substance of the world. It asks questions, destabilizes orthodox assumptions, and sketches an existentially absurd experience. It involves us in dramatic, crucially difficult moral decisions which parallel those of the two central characters, Marlow and Kurtz. Although it was a coincidence that Freud and Conrad were contemporaries, coincidence is reduced when we perceive the â€Å"extraordinary parallelism of their achievements† (Karl 785). At the time when Conrad was developing his concepts about the Congo and political, personal and universal involvement in a nightmarish existence, Freud was fermenting his theories on dreams and the unconscious. Conrad’s novel appeared in 1900, only months before Freud’s book Interpretation of Dreams which formed the manifesto of the psychoanalytic assumptions. Both Conrad and Freud were pioneers in their emphasis over the irrational aspects of man’s behavioral conduct which questioned the traditional analyses. Conrad insightfully stressed the irrationality of politics and its nightmarish character which rests on the neurotic symptoms of the leader, as well as on the collective neurosis of the masses. He also believed in a human behavior that answers the call of inner desires, while justifying itself with accuracy. Both he and Freud dived into the darkness: the darkness enters the human soul when his conscience sleeps or when he is free to yield to the unconscious desires and needs, whether through dreams, as Freud argues, or in actuality through the character of Kurtz and his likes. Dreams become the wish-fulfillments of the masked self. This applies to Marlow; the very qualities in Kurtz that horrify him are those he finds hidden in himself. Kurtz’s insatiable, Nietzchean fascination with power mirrors Marlow’s as well. Kurtz’s ruthless career is every man’s wish-fulfillment (Karl 785-6). In the novel, Conrad draws an image of Africa as the â€Å"other world,† the antithesis of a civilized Europe, a site where man’s accumulated years of education and sophistication are confronted by a striking savagery. The story opens on the River Thames, calm and peaceful. It then moves to the very opposite of the Thames, and takes place on the River Congo. However, It’s not the flagrant difference between the two that perplexes Conrad but the underlying allusion of intimate relationship, of â€Å"common ancestry,† since the Thames was itself a dark place, but one that has managed to civilize, to enlighten itself and the world, and is now living in the light. The peaceful Thames, however, runs the terrible risk of being stirred by its encounter with its â€Å"primordial relative, the Congo;† it would witness the reflection of its own forsaken darkness and would hear the sounds that echo its remote gloomy history. The Thames would fall victim to the ghastly reminiscences of the irrational frenzy of the primitive times (Achebe 262-3). It would be very helpful to quote one of the most interesting and most revealing passages in Heart of Darkness when representatives of Europe in a steamer going down the Congo encounter the denizens of Africa: We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth. [? ] We glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. [? ] They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity ?like yours ? the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. [? ] but if you were man enough you would admit that there was in you just the faintest trace of response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you ? you so remote from the night of first ages ? could comprehend (51-2). Here in lies the meaning of Heart of Darkness that takes us on a journey into the unconscious world of the human beings through the psychoanalytic features inherent in the novel’s â€Å"dream story. † Marlow, a man of discipline and justice, was expecting such values to exist elsewhere. They became a kind of psychological expectations. His great revelation takes place when he discovers that not all men share his belief in an orderly, fundamentally good society. His journey from Brussels to the Congo is full of elements of the absurd, elements that hint at a world that is suddenly irrational and out of focus. In the Congo, the jungle is surrounded by a dangerous feminine aura; the long river is described in â€Å"treacherous, serpentine terms;† everything about the nature conveys a sense of a mysterious and terrifying reality (Karl 786). Marlow is fascinated by the jungle woman – Kurtz’s savage mistress – and her demanding display of sex, by her provocative measured walk. He is also drawn by her surprising sense of reality and her full acceptance of Kurtz with all the savagery he embodies. Her image contradicts with his ideal of womanhood he had known all his life: the girl back in Brussels, his aunt, the naive woman who believed in the Europeans’ grand mission in Africa. Marlow tries to resist the seductive aspect of the nature, much as he shies away from the attraction of power. Sex lies heavily on the story, although Marlow never directly talks about it. The temptation is clear in his fears, in the jungle that conceals the terrors and the calls for orgiastic, uncontrollable sex. In the novel, Kurtz represents Europe; maneuvering for power, searching for advantages; he chose the route of ivory looting. His unquenchable hunger for possession is overwhelming. In Africa, he is free of all human barriers; civilized taboos are down. He is able to gratify all his forbidden desires and dwells on ultimate corruption, debarred of all restraints. This lies at the heart of Marlow’s secret attraction to Kurtz; the latter’s will to brutal, superhuman power. Kurtz has â€Å"risen above the masses ? of natives, station managers, even of directors back in Brussels. He must continue to assert himself, a megalomaniac in search of further power. Marlow has never met anyone like him, [? ]† (Karl 787). One telling part in the novel comes with Kurtz’s death and his double scream â€Å"The horror! The horror! † (Conrad 105). Marlow, out of his deep fascination with Kurtz and his need to believe in a good human nature, attributes a â€Å"Christian† reading to these words. He understands the shriek as a moral victory: at the time of his death, Kurtz has reviewed his life and the corrupt part of him has repented. It’s arguable, though, that Kurtz’s cry might be one of anguish and despair, because he has to die with his work incomplete. In other words, he laments a fate which frustrates his plans. However, Marlow has explained the horror of this experience in human terms necessary to guarantee the flow of life. He protects the lie of Kurtz’s existence in order to preserve his own illusions (Karl 788-9). Hence, we notice that Marlow, throughout his journey, has concealed from himself the reality of his own as well as others’ needs. The jungle is the mask that bars the light of sun and sky. The landscape becomes the repository of our anxieties and the vast protective camouflage that hides our inner fears. It bars the light of our conscience and rational capacities and becomes â€Å"part of the psychological as well as physical landscape† (Karl 788). It runs parallel to our unconscious mind where our repressed desires are hidden. The â€Å"prehistoric earth,† that is still untouched by the hands of civilization, is but our rudimentary soul, in its raw, savage nature, unrefined and free of the conscious disguises. The â€Å"lurking hint of kinship† that the Europeans have felt at their encounter with the Africans is but a hint of deep connection existing between the rational and the irrational, the conscious and the unconscious. The â€Å"black and incomprehensible frenzy† of the strange bodies is a reminder of the uncontrollable libido. This â€Å"wild and passionate uproar† is â€Å"ugly† because the wilderness and passion that nurture our disguised depths are a mass of animalistic drives, and our id that hosts all unfulfilled wishes carries the wildest of motivations. Yet, one cannot but heed â€Å"the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise† for one cannot fully resist the temptation to gratify his impulses and instinctual needs. In Freudian terms, our superego sometimes fails to have full control over its antithesis, the id. The boundaries that separate the unconscious from the conscious are blurred. This terrible â€Å"frenzy† holds a meaning that, even the man who is â€Å"so remote from the night of first ages ? could comprehend†: the refined man is able to understand the noise because it communicates with an inherent ? although masked ? part of his soul. Thus, Africa has become a topology of the mind ? its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, it hues, its wildness ? all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. The darkness of the African continent, of its instinctual, shadowed, primeval underworld establishes a revealing context for an examination of the Jungian concepts in the novel. Marlow’s journey, in Jungian terms, becomes a journey of individuation: a salvation realized through bringing the unconscious urges to consciousness ? a journey which can be contrasted to that of his diabolic double, Kurtz, who undergoes a psychological disintegration into his savage self and slips into â€Å"The horror! The horror! † The shadow in Heart of Darkness is thus personified by Kurtz. Richard Hughs argues that Kurtz’s last words sum up the Jungian insight that â€Å"from the same root that produces wild, untamed, blind instinct there grow up the natural laws and cultural forms that tame and break its pristine power. But when the animal in us is split off from consciousness by being repressed, it may easily burst out in full force, quite unregulated and uncontrolled. An outburst of this sort always ends in catastrophe ? the animal destroys itself† (21). Hughs adds that the novel is composed of two journeys into the hidden self, one is â€Å"horrifying, ending in personality destruction and death;† the other is â€Å"restorative, wisdom-producing, a gateway to wholeness [? ] Conrad has seized on the paradoxical quality of the descent into the unconscious [? ]† (58). For Jung, the integration of the personality is not possible without a full descent into the unconscious and clearly the novel is about the descent into the depths, the underworld, into the very heart of darkness. â€Å"Jung’s awareness that the darkness is part of himself, that to deny the darkness would be self-mutilation, and the awareness is not erased but heightened by a recognition of that dark self: this is Marlow’s discovery† (Hughs 66). Marlow’s journey toward individuation and his encounter with the darkness of his own shadow are set against a backdrop of the personal and collective unconscious. Kurtz is not only the personal shadow of Marlow, but the collective shadow of all Europe and of European imperialism. Throughout the novel there is a dense undergrowth of Congo unconsciousness, as Marlow succinctly states, â€Å"All of Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz† (73). In the midst of this journey of individuation, we encounter Jung’s concept of the anima personified by Kurtz’s wild mistress. She is a reflection of the soul of the wilderness, â€Å"she stood looking at us with a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose† (Conrad 92). She is the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld and the feminine part of every man’s psyche. Hughs calls her â€Å"the grand archetype of the unconscious, consort of the mad Kurtz and the goal of the inner search† (268-9). Conrad’s novel descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern Odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Interestingly, the narrative technique and the inherent symbolism in Heart of Darkness all contribute to the overall dream-like and nightmarish mood of the story. The use of first person narrative was essential so that Conrad could distance himself from the lived experience and for the reader could identify with a common man thrown into a bizarre situation. Lacking Marlow as the narrator, the story would lose its credibility and would appear too distant from the real experience. Through repetition, difference of tone, analogy, duplicating images, doubling of scenes and characters, Conrad could form a shape for the story. He â€Å"used heightening and foreshortening, contrast and comparison to give the novella form;† from the opening scene, when the ancient Romans on the Thames are contrasted with the modern Europeans in the Congo (Karl 789). Marlow’s calm setting on the Nellie contrasts with the alarming Congo riverboat setting. Kurtz’s two fiancees represents two different sets of values, two contradictory cultures. The jungle, as death, is in conflict with the river, as possible relief. The natives’ savagery is set off against the backdrop of the apparently civilized Europeans. The contrast reaches the two central characters as well; Kurtz’s humanitarianism contradicts his own barbarism, Marlow’s middle class sense of English justice is contrasted with the Congo reality. It is also clear in their fluctuating love-hate relationship that pervades the story. The abundance of mechanical and metallic images suggests a sense of human waste and indicates that tough objects have gone beyond flexibility and softness in order to resist the passing of time, so humanity itself must become an object in order to survive. This strong sense of an absurd existence is best represented by the ivory itself. Ivory, the purest demonstration of the color white, stands in stark juxtaposition to the darkness of the jungle. It draws the white men to Africa then turns their minds from building commerce and civilization, to exploitation and madness. Wherever ivory is present, white men plunder, kill, and turn on each other. Conrad uses symbolism to suggest meanings rather than spelling them out directly. The technicalities of his style include a frequent use of alliteration, a reliance on adjectives which emphasize the unfamiliar aspects of Marlow’s experience. Words like â€Å"inscrutable,† â€Å"inconceivable,† â€Å"unspeakable† that describe the oppressive mysteriousness of the Congo are recurrent throughout the novel. The same vocabulary is used to evoke the human depths and the unspeakable potentialities of the man’s soul and to magnify the sense of spiritual horrors (Leavis 246-7). The words and adjectives Conrad applies â€Å"beat upon us, creating drum-like rhythms, entirely appropriate to the thick texture of the jungle† (Karl 789). The darkness of the jungle goes hand in hand with darkness everywhere, alluding at â€Å"the blackness of Conrad’s humor, the despair of his irony† (Karl 789). It is the nightmare’s color: the darkness surrounding Kurtz’s death, his last words, the report by the manager’s boy, the delirious escape from the jungle, the encounter with Kurtz’s fiancee; all such incidents constitute the elements of a nightmarish dream. Even the Russian follower of Kurtz who is dressed in motley seems as a figure from another world. In his ridiculous appearance, he is a perfect symbol of Marlow’s Congo experience (Karl 788-9). In this passage, F. R. Leavis argues that Conrad makes almost every aspect of his novel contribute to its overwhelming impression, one of a strangely insane world and a nightmarish existence: [? ] in terms of things seen and incidents experienced by a main agent in the narrative, and particular contacts and exchanges with other human agents, the overwhelming sinister and fantastic ? atmosphere’ is engendered. Ordinary greed, stupidity, and moral squalor are made to look like behaviour in a lunatic asylum against the vast and oppressive mystery of the surroundings, rendered potently in terms of sensation. This means lunacy, which we are made to feel as at the same time normal and insane, is brought out by contrast with the fantastically secure innocence of the young harlequin-costumed Russian [? ] (246) Using his renowned artistic and literary craftsmanship, Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness that has become, since its publication in 1899, one of the most widely read books written in English. It has also been one of the most analyzed: scores of literary critics, ranging from feminists to Marxists to New Critics, have all tried to construct their own meanings from the pages of the book. The novel does seem to invite a wide variety of interpretations. Looking at it through the lenses of psychoanalytic theories, Heart of Darkness has proven to be a â€Å"masterpiece of concealment† and a metaphor for the theory of the unconscious as a repository of all irrational and repressed wishes. (Karl 788). The journey into the heart of the continent can also be seen as Marlow’s own journey of individuation, self-discovery and self-enlightenment. Bibiography Achebe, Chinua. â€Å"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. † A Practical Reader in Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996. 262-4 Conrad, Joseph. Heart Of Darkness. Beirut: Librairie Du Liban Publishers SAL, 1994. Guerin, Wilfred L. , et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Hewitt, Douglas. â€Å"Conrad: A Reassessment. † World Literature Criticism. Ed. Polly Vedder. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1992. 789-92. Hughs, Richard E. The Lively Image: Four Myths in Literature. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1975. Karl, Frederick R. â€Å"A Reader’s Guide To Joseph Conrad. † World Literature Criticism. Ed. Polly Vedder. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1992. 785-9. Leavis, F. R. â€Å"From The Great Tradition. † A Practical Reader in Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996. 246-7 Mudrick, Marvin. â€Å"The Originality of Conrad. † World Literature Criticism. Ed. PollyVedder. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1992. 782-5. Murfin, Ross C. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1979. Wright, Elizabeth. â€Å"Psychoanalytic Criticism. † Encyclopedia Of Literature And Criticism. 1991 ed. 765-7.

A painted House by John Grisham essays

A painted House by John Grisham essays In his novel A Painted House, John Grisham tells the story of the events of one summer as viewed and interpreted by a young boy, Luke Chandler. The book presents a view of how a group of people interact together: a cotton-growing share-cropping family, the transient workers they hire to help them pick the cotton, and their neighbors. The story delineates the social status and interactions between the various groups: share croppers, "mountain folk" who come down to help with the picking, and itinerant migrant workers from Mexico. In the process, Luke learns to look past surface assumptions about people. This is reflected by the emphasis on the surface appearance of his family's house whether it is painted r In the view of the people who inhabit Grisham's story, a painted house is superior to an unpainted one, and reflects increased status, because a painted house can only be afforded by those who could spend extra money on paint instead of necessities. Luke's grandfather believes that painting one's house is a sign of vanity and a waste of good money, while John's mother has always dreamed of living in a painted house again some day. The reality is somewhere in between: with or without paint, the house is humble, but no one talks about paint's protective factor and that a house whose surface was protected by a good paint job would last longer than one that was not painted, or only painted to improve surface appearance. Luke Chandler has a passion for baseball, and dreams one day of playing professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals, but all baseball is followed closely. In one scene, Luke watches a game between two church congregations, the Methodists and his own Baptist church. In this scene he reflects the types of judgments regarding other people that those around him make: the Methodists should lose not base on their ball-playing ability but because of o...