Harriet Jacob An African American Slave And Feminist

Harriet Jacob: An African American Slave and Feminist â€Å"Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction† (Author). Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is her narrative as a slave who lived in a slave state for twenty-seven years before escaping to live as a free woman in New York (Jacobs preface). Jacobs’ was motivated to write her story by a deep desire to share her experience in an effort to bring to light what slavery really was, a â€Å"deep, and dark, and foul experience that is an abomination† (preface). Like other slave narratives, Jacobs’ work gives a first person account of what it was like to be a slave during this period of American history. Her narrative also details what has otherwise been an untouched part†¦show more content†¦For some, it is better to have never had a child and when a girl child is born, the mother knows that her daughter will have to endure the compounded pain of rape and the loss of her children. Along with losing a child on the auction block, Jacobs also describes the added degradation of slave women being used by their masters. Describing the beauty of a slave girl as her â€Å"greatest curse† because it would bring about the unwanted attentions of the master (38). Jacob’s master Dr. Flint caused her â€Å"days and nights of fear and sorrow† (40). Women often bore children from these unions and these same children were often sold to protect the honor and dignity of the slaveholder s wife, who would otherwise be forced to face the evidence of her husband s infidelity (74). Jacobs’ purpose in writing about her degradation by her lecherous master was not to garner sympathy for herself. As stated in her preface she wanted her story to bring about change and â€Å"to kindle a flame of compassion in your hearts for my sisters who are still in bondage, suffering as I once suffered† (40). She wanted the women up North to understand what it was l ike to be a slave woman in the south so that they in turn could work to end slavery. Jacobs does not just depict theShow MoreRelatedHarriet Jacobs s Death Is Better Than Slavery966 Words   |  4 Pagesinfluential woman of the 19th century, Harriet Jacobs once said, â€Å"Death is better than slavery.†Jacobs describes how cruel it was growing up as a woman in slavery during the antebellum period until they stopped searching for her and she was finally considered herself free. Through the twists and turns of Harriets life to understand how strong of a woman she truly was. Herein will be described the societal, cultural, and moral tasks Jacobs had to endure. Harriet was able to break through the barriersRead MoreHarriet Jacobs’ Fight Against Intolerance713 Words   |  3 Pageson his side; I had determined will. There is might in each† a statement from Harriet Ann Jacobs reflecting her will to overcome the standards of society (97). Harriet Jacobs’ life revolved around slavery from birth to death. Jacobs was a mother of two with determination and insight to make choices to change the way of life for her children. Harriet Jacobs was the first African American women to have her slave narrative published retelling her life story exposing the years she spent escapingRead More Slavery and the Life of Harriet Jacobs Essays1074 Words   |  5 PagesSlavery and the Life of Harriet Jacobs It is well known that slavery was a horrible event in the history of the United States. However, what isnt as well known is the actual severity of slavery. The experiences of slave women presented by Angela Davis and the theories of black women presented by Patricia Hill Collins are evident in the life of Harriet Jacobs and show the severity of slavery for black women. The history of slave women offered by Davis suggests that compulsory labor overshadowedRead MoreHarriet Jacobs Vs. Douglas1263 Words   |  6 Pages1013 D3 25 2/21/2016 Harriet Jacobs vs Fredrick Douglas Slavery was one of the most tragic memories known for in the black race. Slavery is the process at which an African American is purchased by a Caucasian who is used for exhausting labor work such as picking cotton, or tending to house work and being restricted from freedom. All of the slaves were used and abused physically, mentally, and emotionally. In some cases abuse was the death of many of those slaves. The slaves were classified as theRead More Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl Essay1671 Words   |  7 PagesHarriet Jacobs wanted to tell her story, but knew she lacked the skills to write the story herself. She had learned to read while young and enslaved, but, at the time of her escape to the North in 1842, she was not a proficient writer. She worked at it, though, in part by writing letters that were published by the New York Tribune, and with the help of her friend, Amy Post. Her writing skills improved, and by 1858, she had finished the manuscript of her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave GirlRead MoreEssay about Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl1355 Words   |  6 PagesHarriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl The feminist movement sought to gain rights for women. Many feminist during the early nineteenth century fought for the abolition of slavery around the world. The slave narrative became a powerful feminist tool in the nineteenth century. Black and white women are fictionalized and objectified in the slave narrative. White women are idealized as pure, angelic, and chaste while black woman are idealized as exotic and contained an uncontrollableRead MoreIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Feminism Essays1364 Words   |  6 PagesThe feminist movement sought to gain rights for women. Many feminist during the early nineteenth century fought for the abolition of slavery around the world. The slave narrative became a powerful feminist tool in the nineteenth century. Black and white women are fictionalized and objectified in the slave narrative. White women are idealized as pure, angelic, and chaste while black woman are idealized as exotic and contained an uncontrollable, savage sexua lity. Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the LifeRead MoreThe Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs928 Words   |  4 PagesIn her poignant autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs offers the audience to experience slavery through a feminist perspective. Unlike neo-slave narratives, Jacobs uses the pseudonym ‘Linda Brent’ to narrate her first-person account in order to keep her identity clandestine. Located in the Southern part of America, her incidents commence from her sheltered life as a child to her subordination to her mistress upon her mother’s death, and her continuing struggle to liveRead MoreCritical Analysis Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs1355 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs accentuates that the slavery system is evil and no good can be associated with it. Jacobs shows that slavery by its very nature extinguishes the morality and ethical values of slaveholders. Likewise, she highlights on the physical, psychological, health, social, and mental adverse implications of the slavery systems to the victims. Contrary, the seventh Vice-President of the United States of America and longtime Senator John CRead MoreHarriet Jacobs : A Slave For Ten Years1184 Words   |  5 PagesGoodlow Professor Brown Afro-American Literature 28 April 2017 Essay One Harriet Jacobs was a slave for ten years. Then after she began writing in 1853. Jacob s work reflected style, tone, and plot. It has been known as the nostalgic or household novel, prevalent fiction of the mid nineteenth century. It was composed for women that focused on home, family, womanly, unobtrusiveness, and marriage. Jacobs utilized nostalgic fiction to obtain white audiences. Jacob s works typify the strain

Workplace Ethical Delemma - 1279 Words

Workplace Ethical Dilemma Betty Porter BSHS 342 October 17, 2011 Tanisha Laidler Workplace Ethical Dilemma A student goes to college and takes an Ethics course. He or she comes out of the class thinking that he or she will never compromise their ethics for any job. The thought is usually that they will come out and change the world. Then reality strikes once he or she begins looking for a job. Jobs are scare these days, and he or she ends of compromising himself or herself to keep the job they thought they could change the world with. Then when facing a dilemma at work, which he or she never thought he or she would ever have to make, suddenly a test of their ethics happens. According to Hanson (2010), â€Å"ethical dilemmas and choices†¦show more content†¦A teenager who has a gun will feel driven to use the weapon whenever they can, (Child.net, 2011). When explaining this fact to the mother, she does not seem to fear him. I suggested to her that it may not be a safe situation for her, and she must think of her own safety as well as Joe’s safety. If Joe is not around the home with the gun, he cannot hurt anyone with it. I suggested the woman at the very least go home first and search the house herself. She would not do as I suggest. Personally, I feared for the lives of three people in the home. I would not want an illegal weapon in my home and certainly would not want it in the possession of a teenager. This ultimately would make the mother responsible for any crimes committed from an ethical standpoint because she is aware that there may be a gun. Solving the dilemma For this particular problem, I had to let the client go home. The mother insisted that she was not scared of her son and wanted to take him home. I tried everything I could to convince her to let me place the boy somewhere else, but to no avail. I called my supervisor, and she agreed that there was nothing more I could do to keep her from taking Joe home. I asked the police to please patrol the area that night and I asked the physician what he thought of the client’s mental state. Although I did a little screening on the client myself, and did not believe he was experiencing any mental health issues. The only

Constraints Definition and Examples in Rhetoric

In rhetoric, those factors that restrict the persuasive strategies or opportunities available to a speaker or writer. In The Rhetorical Situation (1968), Lloyd Bitzer notes that rhetorical constraints are made up of persons, events, objects, and relations which are part of the [rhetorical] situation because they have the power to constrain decision or action. Sources of constraint include beliefs, attitudes, documents, facts, tradition, image, interests, motives and the like. See Also: Rhetorical SituationAudienceExigencePersuasion Etymology: From the Latin, constrict, constrain. Popularized in rhetorical studies by Lloyd Bitzer in The Rhetorical Situation (Philosophy and Rhetoric, 1968). Examples and Observations: A rhetorical situation is the context a rhetor  enters in order to shape an effective message that can resolve an exigence and reach an intended audience. A rhetorical situation creates a call for change (an exigence), but that change can be brought about only through the use of language, whether visual, written, or spoken text. For instance, by asking a question, your instructor creates a call for change in the classroom. The question just hangs there--until someone provides a fitting response. If the company you work for loses online business because its Web site is outdated, that problem can be resolved only through the appropriate use of text and visuals. Once the fitting response comes into being, the call for change (I need an answer or We need to update our Website) is either partially removed or disappears altogether; then it is satisfied. (Cheryl Glenn, The Harbrace Guide to Writing. Wadsworth, 2009)Working on different target audiences at different times, the activist gro up attempts to chip away at the various supports underlying its opponents position. It makes a series of gradual and small moves [the tactic of incremental erosion] designed to maneuver opponents into a position where they have no more rhetorical options. This is done by establishing rhetorical exigencies--needs, conditions, or demands to which the opposition must respond--while simultaneously establishing rhetorical constraints that limit the strategies available for a response (Bitzer, 1968). The rhetorical exigencies might include the need to produce counter-rhetoric to forestall regulation or to defend challenged actions in public (e.g., by publicizing oil spills or automobile recalls). The rhetorical constraints might include legal or financial limitations on the channels the opponent could use or the language and claims available to be made (e.g., the Federal Trade Commissions regulation of the truth content of advertising).(Elizabeth L. Toth and Robert Lawrence Heath, Rhetori cal and Critical Approaches to Public Relations. Routledge, 1992)

Essay about The Awakening - 1491 Words

The Awakening nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, was written in the late nineteenth century in St. Louis after her husband Oscar died of a severe illness. Her book appeared in 1899, after she was idolized by many novels written by Darwin and Sarah Orne Jewett. Her first attempts at writing were just brief sketches for a local newspaper that was only short descriptions of her life in Louisiana. However, Chopin’s interests had always run along more risky lines, as reflected in her diaries, letters, and fictions. Her most common subject was female subjugation and freedom. When The Awakening appeared, Chopin was severely criticized for depicting a sexualized and independent-thinking woman who questioned†¦show more content†¦In other words, naturalism; which is a literary movement during the turn of the century. In Chopin’s writing, Edna is the main focus of the novel, and her motivations are strongly influenced by her environment, frequently in neg ative ways. She behaves in a certain way because of her environment and the way it has an affect directly on how she viewed the world, herself, and other people. She tries to convey the grim reality of life, often with crime, poverty, and moral vice. Naturalism can easily be the effect on Edna because of the art and the way the ocean has an effect on Edna’s life. The main question on her life is, can Edna do it? Life’s paradoxes are so huge, and Edna’s experiences are so limited, that the question fuels the book tremendously. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The last major theme of this novel was the awakening of sexuality. Edna, during the course of the story, comes to a physical awakening as well. Tragically it is not through someone she loves, and it devastates her. When sexual awakening comes with the object of her desire, Robert, is â€Å"short lived†. The intensity of the feeling is there, and Edna lives to strive it. Edna desires passion, attraction, and excitement in her relationships with men, and a level of mutual understanding in her relationships with women. Neither of these desires for connection is met and is completely obvious throughout the novel. Edna’s desires, once she â€Å"awakens† to them,Show MoreRelatedThe Awakening on Kate Chopins The Awakening1745 Words   |  7 Pages The time period of the 1880s that Kate Chopin lived in influenced her to write The Awakening, a very controversial book because of many new depictions of women introduced in the book. The Awakening is a book about a woman, Edna Pontellier. In the beginning, she is a happy woman with her husband and 2 kids vacationing at Grand Isle. While there, Edna realizes she is in love with Robert Lebrun and that she was just forced into an unloving/dissatisfying marriage with Mr. Pontellier. Robert howeverRead MoreDemoralization In The Awakening1584 Words   |  7 Pagesthem and cause them to lose hope. Kate Chopin uses words like â€Å"depressed† (56), â€Å"hopeless† (56) and â€Å"despondency† (p115) to describe Edna, the heroine, in The Awakening. Coupling this description with Edna taking her life at the end of the novel and Chopin’s own inferred demoralization, due to the almost universal aversion to The Awakening, the natural conclusion is that it is a work of â€Å"great personal demoralization†, (Companion 5) as Michael Levenson states. Levenson suggests most modernist authorsRead MoreFeminism In The Awakening1562 Words   |  7 Pagesprivileges as each other. Basic human rights would give others the notion that this is how all humans should have been treated from the beginning. However, this is far from the truth. Books like The Awakening, give us an inside look at how women were treated around 100 years ago. When Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening, she created a blueprint for how we see modern feminism. Without being obvious, Chopin showed how one woman started to liberate herself from an oppressive society. During the 1800s when the bookRead MoreEssay on The Awakening1610 Words   |  7 Pages In their analytical papers on The Awakening by Kate Chopin, both Elaine Showalter and Elizabeth Le Blanc speak to the importance of homosocial relationship to Edna’s awakenings. They also share the viewpoint that Edna’s return to the sea in the final scene of the book represents Edna being one with her female lover and finding the fulfillment she has been seeking. We see evidence of this idea of the sea as a feminine from Showalter when she tells us that â€Å"As the female body is prone to wetness,Read MoreSymbolism In The Awakening1420 Words   |  6 PagesAnalyzing Chopin’s use of symbolism in â€Å"The Awakening† What would one expect to be the personality of a woman, who was raised in a family of no man dominance in the year of 1800? Kate Chopin was born in Missouri, in 1850 and was one of the five children. At very young age, Kate lost her both sisters and her brother. At age of five, Kate was sent to a Catholic school. Not long after leaving her home, Chopin loses her father. Kate is being sent home from school to live with her mother, grandmotherRead More Essay on The Awakening712 Words   |  3 PagesCritical Views of The Awakening      Ã‚  Ã‚   The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, is full of ideas and understanding about human nature. In Chopins time, writing a story with such great attention to sensual details in both men and women caused skepticism among readers and critics. However, many critics have different views with deeper thought given to The Awakening. Symbolism, the interpretation of Ednas suicide, and awakenings play important roles in the analysis of all critics.    SymbolismRead More The Awakening Essay1091 Words   |  5 Pagesthe fact that an author is able to convey his/her message clearer and include things in the book that cannot be exhibited in a movie. For this reason, the reader of the book is much more effected than the viewer of the film. In the novella, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, there is much more evidence of symbolism as well as deeper meaning than in the movie version of the book, Grand Isle. Chopin conveys her symbolic messages through the main character’s newly acquired ability to swim, through the birdsRead More The Awakening Essay2046 Words   |  9 Pages The Awakening is a story full of symbolism and imagery that can have many different meanings to the many who have read it. I have read several different theories on Kate Chopin’s meaning and though some are vastly different, they all seem to make sense. It has been said that Kate Chopin might have been ambiguous just for this reason. At some point, almost everyone struggles with knowing or not knowing their purpose in life, and therefore it seems, that on some level, most who read the story aboutRead More Essay on The Awakening733 Words   |  3 PagesCriticism of The Awakening      Ã‚   Reading through all of the different criticism of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening has brought about ideas and revelations that I had never considered during my initial reading of the novel.   When I first read the text, I viewed it as a great work of art to be revered.   However, as I read through all of the passages, I began to examine Chopin’s work more critically and to see the weaknesses and strengths of her novel.   Reading through others interpretations of herRead MoreThe movie Awakenings4852 Words   |  20 PagesMeagan McGee Psychology 1300 Awakenings The movie Awakenings starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro portrays the true story of a doctor named Dr. Malcolm Sayer, and the events of the summer of 1969 at a psychiatric hospital in New York. Dr. Malcolm Sayer, who is a research physician, is confronted with a number of patients who had each been afflicted with a devastating disease called Encephalitis Lethargica. The illness killed most of the people who contracted it, but some were left living

An Image of Africa Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ Free Essays

string(78) " of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy\." Achebe, Chinua. â€Å"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness'† Massachusetts Review. 18. We will write a custom essay sample on An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ or any similar topic only for you Order Now 1977. Rpt. in Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, background and Sources Criticism. 1961. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough, London: W. W Norton and Co. , 1988, pp. 251-261 In the fall of 1974 I was walking one day from the English Department at the University of Massachusetts to a parking lot. It was a fine autumn morning such as encouraged friendliness to passing strangers. Brisk youngsters were hurrying in all directions, many of them obviously freshmen in their first flush of enthusiasm. An older man going the same way as I turned and remarked to me how very young they came these days. I agreed. Then he asked me if I was a student too. I said no, I was a teacher. What did I teach? African literature. Now that was funny, he said, because he knew a fellow who taught the same thing, or perhaps it was African history, in a certain Community College not far from here. It always surprised him, he went on to say, because he never had thought of Africa as having that kind of stuff, you know. By this time I was walking much faster. Oh well,† I heard him say finally, behind me: â€Å"I guess I have to take your course to find out. † A few weeks later I received two very touching letters from high school children in Yonkers, New York, who — bless their teacher — had just read Things Fall Apart . One of them was particularly happy to learn about the customs and superstitions of an African tribe. I propose to draw from these rather trivial encounters ra ther heavy conclusions which at first sight might seem somewhat out of proportion to them. But only, I hope, at first sight. The young fellow from Yonkers, perhaps partly on account of his age but I believe also for much deeper and more serious reasons, is obviously unaware that the life of his own tribesmen in Yonkers, New York, is full of odd customs and superstitions and, like everybody else in his culture, imagines that he needs a trip to Africa to encounter those things. The other person being fully my own age could not be excused on the grounds of his years. Ignorance might be a more likely reason; but here again I believe that something more willful than a mere lack of information was at work. For did not that erudite British historian and Regius Professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist? If there is something in these utterances more than youthful inexperience, more than a lack of factual knowledge, what is it? Quite simply it is the desire — one might indeed say the need — in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest. This need is not new; which should relieve us all of considerable responsibility and perhaps make us even willing to look at this phenomenon dispassionately. I have neither the wish nor the competence to embark on the exercise with the tools of the social and biological sciences but more simply in the manner of a novelist responding to one famous book of European fiction: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness , which better than any other work that I know displays that Western desire and need which I have just referred to. Of course there are whole libraries of books devoted to the same purpose but most of them are so obvious and so crude that few people worry about them today. Conrad, on the other hand, is undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction and a good storyteller into the bargain. His contribution therefore falls automatically into a different class — permanent literature — read and taught and constantly evaluated by serious academics. Heart of Darkness is indeed so secure today that a leading Conrad scholar has numbered it â€Å"among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language. I will return to this critical opinion in due course because it may seriously modify my earlier suppositions about who may or may not be guilty in some of the matters I will now raise. Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as â€Å"the other world,† the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man’s vaunted intelligence and re finement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality. The book opens on the River Thames, tranquil, resting, peacefully â€Å"at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks. But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of the Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a River Emeritus. It has rendered no service and enjoys no old-age pension. We are told that â€Å"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world. † Is Conrad saying then that these two rivers are very different, one good, the other bad? Yes, but that is not the real point. It is not the differentness that worries Conrad but the lurking hint of kinship, of common ancestry. For the Thames too â€Å"has been one of the dark places of the earth. It conquered its darkness, of course, and is now in daylight and at peace. But if it were to visit its primordial relative, the Congo, it would run the terr ible risk of hearing grotesque echoes of its own forgotten darkness, and falling victim to an avenging recrudescence of the mindless frenzy of the first beginnings. These suggestive echoes comprise Conrad’s famed evocation of the African atmosphere in Heart of Darkness . In the final consideration his method amounts to no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy. You read "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’" in category "Papers" We can inspect samples of this on pages 36 and 37 of the present edition: a) it was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention and b) The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. Of course there is a judicious change of adjective from time to time, so that instead of inscrutable, for example, you might have unspeakable, even plain mysterious, etc. , etc. The eagle-eyed English critic F. R. Leavis drew attention long ago to Conrad’s â€Å"adjectival insistence upon inexpressible and incomprehensible mystery. That insistence must not be dismissed lightly, as many Conrad critics have tended to do, as a mere stylistic flaw; for it raises serious questions of artistic good faith. When a writer while pretending to record scenes, incidents and their impact is in reality engaged in inducing hypnotic stupor in his readers through a bombardment of emotive words and other forms of trickery much more has to be at sta ke than stylistic felicity. Generally normal readers are well armed to detect and resist such under-hand activity. But Conrad chose his subject well — one which was guaranteed not to put him in conflict with the psychological predisposition of his readers or raise the need for him to contend with their resistance. He chose the role of purveyor of comforting myths. The most interesting and revealing passages in Heart of Darkness are, however, about people. I must crave the indulgence of my reader to quote almost a whole page from about the middle of the stop/when representatives of Europe in a steamer going down the Congo encounter the denizens of Africa. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us — who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign — and no memories. The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly and the men were †¦. No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it — this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. 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. Yes, it was ugly enough, but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a 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. Herein lies the meaning of Heart of Darkness and the fascination it holds over the Western mind: â€Å"What thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity — like yours †¦. Ugly. † Having shown us Africa in the mass, Conrad then zeros in, half a page later, on a specific example, giving us one of his rare descriptions of an African who is not just limbs or rolling eyes: And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity — and he had filed his teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. As everybody knows, Conrad is a romantic on the side. He might not exactly admire savages clapping their hands and stamping their feet but they have at least the merit of being in their place, unlike this dog in a parody of breeches. For Conrad things being in their place is of the utmost importance. â€Å"Fine fellows — cannibals –in their place,† he tells us pointedly. Tragedy begins when things leave their accustomed place, like Europe leaving its safe stronghold between the policeman and the baker to like a peep into the heart of darkness. Before the story likes us into the Congo basin proper we are given this nice little vignette as an example of things in their place: Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks — these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement that was as natural and hue as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at. Towards the end of the story Conrad lavishes a whole page quite unexpectedly on an African woman who has obviously been some kind of mistress to Mr. Kurtz and now presides (if I may be permitted a little liberty) like a formidable mystery over the inexorable imminence of his departure: She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent †¦. She stood looking at us without a stir and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. This Amazon is drawn in considerable detail, albeit of a predictable nature, for two reasons. First, she is in her place and so can win Conrad’s special brand of approval and second, she fulfills a structural requirement of the story: a savage counterpart to the refined, European woman who will step forth to end the story: She came forward all in black with a pale head, floating toward me in the dusk. She was in mourning †¦. She took both my hands in hers and murmured, â€Å"I had heard you were coming. â€Å"†¦ She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. The difference in the attitude of the novelist to these two women is conveyed in too many direct and subfile ways to need elaboration. But perhaps the most significant difference is the one implied in the author’s bestowal of human expression to the one and the withholding of it from the other. It is clearly not part of Conrad’s purpose to confer language on the â€Å"rudimentary souls† of Africa. In place of speech they made â€Å"a violent babble of uncouth sounds. † They â€Å"exchanged short grunting phrases† even among themselves. But most of the time they were too busy with their frenzy. There are two occasions in the book, however, when Conrad departs somewhat from his practice and confers speech, even English speech, on the savages. The first occurs when cannibalism gets the better of them: â€Å"Catch ‘im,† he snapped with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth — â€Å"catch ‘im. Give ‘im to us. † â€Å"To you, eh? † I asked; â€Å"what would you do with them? â€Å"Eat ‘im! † he said curtly. . . . The other occasion was the famous announcement:†Mistah Kurtz — he dead. † At first sight these instances might be mistaken for unexpected acts of generosity from Conrad. In reality they constitute some of his best assaults. In the case of the cannibals the incomprehensible grunts that had thus far served them for speech suddenly proved inadequate for Conrad’s purpose of letting the European glimpse the unspeakable craving in their hearts. Weighing the necessity for consistency in the portrayal of the dumb brutes against the sensational advantages of securing their conviction by clear, unambiguous evidence issuing out of their own mouth Conrad chose the latter. As for the announcement of Mr. Kurtz’s death by the â€Å"insolent black head in the doorway† what better or more appropriate finis could be written to the horror story of that wayward child of civilization who willfully had given his soul to the powers of darkness and â€Å"taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land† than the proclamation of his physical death by the forces he had joined? It might be contended, of course, that the attitude to the African in Heart of Darkness is not Conrad’s but that of his fictional narrator, Marlow, and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed be holding it up to irony and criticism. Certainly Conrad appears to go to considerable pains to set up layers of insulation between himself and the moral universe of his history. He has, for example, a narrator behind a narrator. The primary narrator is Marlow but his account is given to us through the filter of a second, shadowy person. But if Conrad’s intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator his care seems to me totally wasted because he neglects to hint however subtly or tentatively at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters. It would not have been beyond Conrad’s power to make that provision if he had thought it necessary. Marlow seems to me to enjoy Conrad’s complete confidence — a feeling reinforced by the close similarities between their two careers. Marlow comes through to us not only as a witness of truth, but one holding those advanced and humane views appropriate to the English liberal tradition which required all Englishmen of decency to be deeply shocked by atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo of King Leopold of the Belgians or wherever. Thus Marlow is able to toss out such bleeding-heart sentiments as these: They were dying slowly — it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. The kind of liberalism espoused here by Marlow/Conrad touched all the best minds of the age in England, Europe and America. It took different forms in the minds of different people but almost always managed to sidestep the ultimate question of equality between white people and black people. That extraordinary missionary, Albert Schweitzer, who sacrificed brilliant careers in music and theology in Europe for a life of service to Africans in much the same area as Conrad writes about, epitomizes the ambivalence. In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: â€Å"The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother. And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being. Naturally he became a sensation in Europe and America. Pilgrims flocked, and I believe still flock even after he has passed on, to witness the prodigious mir acle in Lamberene, on the edge of the primeval forest. Conrad’s liberalism would not take him quite as far as Schweitzer’s, though. He would not use the word brother however qualified; the farthest he would go was kinship. When Marlow’s African helmsman falls down with a spear in his heart he gives his white master one final disquieting look. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory — like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment. It is important to note that Conrad, careful as ever with his words, is concerned not so much about distant kinship as about someone laying a claim on it. The black man lays a claim on the white man which is well-nigh intolerable. It is the laying of this claim which frightens and at the same time fascinates Conrad, â€Å"†¦ he thought of their humanity — like yours †¦. Ugly. † The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestat ions go completely unremarked. Students of Heart of Darkness will often tell you that Conrad is concerned not so much with Africa as with the deterioration of one European mind caused by solitude and sickness. They will point out to you that Conrad is, if anything, less charitable to the Europeans in the story than he is to the natives, that the point of the story is to ridicule Europe’s civilizing mission in Africa. A Conrad student informed me in Scotland that Africa is merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. Kurtz. Which is partly the point. Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril. Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind? But that is not even the point. The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot. I do not doubt Conrad’s great talents. Even Heart of Darkness has its memorably good passages and moments: The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across tile water to bar the way for our return. Its exploration of the minds of the European characters is often penetrating and full of insight. But all that has been more than fully discussed in the last fifty years. His obvious racism has, however, not been addressed. And it is high time it was! Conrad was born in 1857, the very year in which the first Anglican missionaries were arriving among my own people in Nigeria. It was certainly not his fault that he lived his life at a time when the reputation of the black man was at a particularly low level. But even after due allowances have been made for all the influences of contemporary prejudice on his sensibility there remains still in Conrad’s attitude a residue of antipathy to black people which his peculiar psychology alone can explain. His own account of his first encounter with a black man is very revealing: A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal to the end of my days. Of the nigger I used to dream for years afterwards. Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. Sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting as when he gives us this brief description: A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms. . . . as though we might expect a black figure striding along on black legs to wave white arms! But so unrelenting is Conrad’s obsession. As a matter of interest Conrad gives us in A Personal Record what amounts to a companion piece to the buck nigger of Haiti. At the age of sixteen Conrad encountered his first Englishman in Europe. He calls him â€Å"my unforgettable Englishman† and describes him in the following manner: â€Å"(his) calves exposed to the public gaze . . . dazzled the beholder by the splendor of their marble-like condition and their rich tone of young ivory. . . . The light of a headlong, exalted satisfaction with the world of men. . . illumined his face. . . and triumphant eyes. In passing he cast a glance of kindly curiosity and a friendly gleam of big, sound, shiny teeth. . . his white calves twinkled sturdily. Irrational love and irrational hate jostling together in the heart of that talented, tormented man. But whereas irrational love may at worst engender foolish acts of indiscretion, irrational hate can endanger the life of the community. Naturally Conrad is a dream for psychoanalytic critics. Perhaps the most detailed study of him in this direction is by Bernard C. Meyer, M. D. In his lengthy book Dr. Meyer follows every conceivable lead (and sometimes inconceivable ones) to explain Conrad. As an example he gives us long disquisitions on the significance of hair and hair-cutting in Conrad. And yet not even one word is spared for his attitude to black people. Not even the discussion of Conrad’s antisemitism was enough to spark off in Dr. Meyer’s mind those other dark and explosive thoughts. Which only leads one to surmise that Western psychoanalysts must regard the kind of racism displayed by Conrad absolutely normal despite the profoundly important work done by Frantz Fanon in the psychiatric hospitals of French Algeria. Whatever Conrad’s problems were, you might say he is now safely dead. Quite true. Unfortunately his heart of darkness plagues us still. Which is why an offensive and deplorable book can be described by a serious scholar as â€Å"among the half dozen greatest short novels in the English language. † And why it is today the most commonly prescribed novel in twentieth-century literature courses in English Departments of American universities. There are two probable grounds on which what I have aid so far may be contested. The first is that it is no concern of fiction to please people about whom it is written. I will go along with that. But I am not talking about pleasing people. I am talking about a book which parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies and atrocities in the past and continues to do so in many ways and many places today. I am talking about a story in which the very humanity of black people is called in question. Secondly, I may be challenged on the grounds of actuality. Conrad, after all, did sail down the Congo in 1890 when my own father was still a babe in arms. How could I stand up more than fifty years after his death and purport to contradict him? My answer is that as a sensible man I will not accept just any traveler’s tales solely on the grounds that I have not made the journey myself. I will not trust the evidence even off man’s very eyes when I suspect them to be as jaundiced as Conrad’s. And we also happen to know that Conrad was, in the words of his biographer, Bernard C. Meyer, â€Å"notoriously inaccurate in the rendering of his own history. † But more important by far is the abundant testimony about Conrad’s savages which we could gather if we were so inclined from other sources and which might lead us to think that these people must have had other occupations besides erging into the evil forest or materializing out of it simply to plague Marlow and his dispirited band. For as it happened, soon after Conrad had written his book an event of far greater consequence was taking place in the art world of Europe. This is how Frank Willett, a British art historian, describes it: Gaugin had gone to Tahiti, the most extravagant individual act of turning to a non-European culture in the decades immediately before and after 1900, when European artists were avid for new artistic experiences, but it was only about 1904-5 that African art began to make its distinctive impact. One piece is still identifiable; it is a mask that had been given to Maurice Vlaminck in 1905. He records that Derain was ‘speechless’ and ‘stunned’ when he saw it, bought it from Vlaminck and in turn showed it to Picasso and Matisse, who were also greatly affected by it. Ambroise Vollard then borrowed it and had it cast in bronze. . . The revolution of twentieth century art was under way! The mask in question was made by other savages living just north of Conrad’s River Congo. They have a name too: the Fang people, and are without a doubt among the world’s greatest masters of the sculptured form. The event Frank Willett is referring to marks the beginning of cubism and the infusion of new life into European art, which had run completely out of strength. The point of all this is to suggest that Conrad’s picture of the people of the Congo seems grossly inadequate even at the height of their subjection to the ravages of King Leopold’s lnternational Association for the Civilization of Central Africa. Travelers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves. But even those not blinkered, like Conrad with xenophobia, can be astonishing blind. Let me digress a little here. One of the greatest and most intrepid travelers of all time, Marco Polo, journeyed to the Far East from the Mediterranean in the thirteenth century and spent twenty years in the court of Kublai Khan in China. On his return to Venice he set down in his book entitled Description of the World his impressions of the peoples and places and customs he had seen. But there were at least two extraordinary omissions in his account. He said nothing about the art of printing, unknown as yet in Europe but in full flower in China. He either did not notice it at all or if he did, failed to see what use Europe could possibly have for it. Whatever the reason, Europe had to wait another hundred years for Gutenberg. But even more spectacular was Marco Polo’s omission of any reference to the Great Wall of China nearly 4,000 miles long and already more than 1,000 years old at the time of his visit. Again, he may not have seen it; but the Great Wall of China is the only structure built by man which is visible from the moon! Indeed travelers can be blind. As I said earlier Conrad did not originate the image of Africa which we find in his book. It was and is the dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination and Conrad merely brought the peculiar gifts of his own mind to bear on it. For reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry the West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa. If Europe, advancing in civilization, could cast a backward glance periodically at Africa trapped in primordial barbarity it could say with faith and feeling: There go I but for the grace of God. Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray — a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate. Consequently Africa is something to be avoided just as the picture has to be hidden away to safeguard the man’s jeopardous integrity. Keep away from Africa, or else! Mr. Kurtz of Heart of Darkness should have heeded that warning and the prowling horror in his heart would have kept its place, chained to its lair. But he foolishly exposed himself to the wild irresistible allure of the jungle and lo! he darkness found him out. In my original conception of this essay I had thought to conclude it nicely on an appropriately positive note in which I would suggest from my privileged position in African and Western cultures some advantages the West might derive from Africa once it rid its mind of old prejudices and began to look at Africa not through a haze of distortions and cheap mystifications but qui te simply as a continent of people — not angels, but not rudimentary souls either — just people, often highly gifted people and often strikingly successful in their enterprise with life and society. But as I thought more about the stereotype image, about its grip and pervasiveness, about the willful tenacity with which the West holds it to its heart; when I thought of the West’s television and cinema and newspapers, about books read in its schools and out of school, of churches preaching to empty pews about the need to send help to the heathen in Africa, I realized that no easy optimism was possible. And there was, in any case, something totally wrong in offering bribes to the West in return for its good opinion of Africa. Ultimately the abandonment of unwholesome thoughts must be its own and only reward. Although I have used the word willful a few times here to characterize the West’s view of Africa, it may well be that what is happening at this stage is more akin to reflex action than calculated malice. Which does not make the situation more but less hopeful. The Christian Science Monitor, a paper more enlightened than most, once carried an interesting article written by its Education Editor on the serious psychological and learning problems faced by little children who speak one language at home and then go to school where something else is spoken. It was a wide-ranging article taking in Spanish-speaking children in America, the children of migrant Italian workers in Germany, the quadrilingual phenomenon in Malaysia, and so on. And all this while the article speaks unequivocally about language. But then out of the blue sky comes this: In London there is an enormous immigration of children who speak Indian or Nigerian dialects, or some other native language. I believe that the introduction of dialects which is technically erroneous in the context is almost a reflex action caused by an instinctive desire of the writer to downgrade the discussion to the level of Africa and India. And this is quite comparable to Conrad’s withholding of language from his rudimentary souls. Language is too grand for these chaps; let’s give them dialects! In all this business a lot of violence is inevitably done not only to the image of despised peoples but even to words, the very tools of possible redress. Look at the phrase native language in the Science Monitor excerpt. Surely the only native language possible in London is Cockney English. But our writer means something else — something appropriate to the sounds Indians and Africans make! Although the work of redressing which needs to be done may appear too daunting, I believe it is not one day too soon to begin. Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth. But the victims of racist slander who for centuries have had to live with the inhumanity it makes them heir to have always known better than any casual visitor even when he comes loaded with the gifts of a Conrad. How to cite An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Papers

Australasian Triage Scale-Free-Samples for Students Myassignment

Question: Discuss about the Australasian Triage Scale. Answer: Australasian Triage Scale The Australian Triage Scale or the ATS is a clinical tool which is being used to determine the maximum waiting time that has been implemented for medical assessments and treatment process of a patient. The prime aim of this system is to provide the patients admitted in the emergency departments with priorities regarding their medical condition (Australian College for Emergency Medicine, 2018). This helps the healthcare professionals to conduct proper treatment and patient assessment. This system was developed back in 1980s and was developed due to the chaos developed while an emergency case arrived at hospitals. Therefore ATS was implemented so that the battlefield decision-making process could be easier and efforts to save most of the lives can be taken. However, there are several misconceptions regarding Triage system in healthcare facilities (Chamberlain et al., 2015). Hence, it should be clarified that the ATS system was not developed to move people away of the healthcare facilit y or determine the importance of emergency ward in patient condition. It just determines the priority of a patient while receiving quality care within the healthcare facility. Depending upon the Australasian Triage Scale, there are 5 categories of it the details of which has been presented in the table below. Australasian Triage Scale Category Treatment Acuity Performance indicator threshold ATS 1 Immediate 100% ATS 2 10 minutes 80% ATS 3 30 minutes 75% ATS 4 60 minutes 70% ATS 5 120 minutes 70% According to this above-mentioned table, the ATS condition 1 is the immediate and life threatening condition in which immediate healthcare facility should be provided to the patient. Further simultaneous assessment and treatment becomes compulsory in this condition. On contrary, the category 5 in the ATS scale is the minor chronic situation that can be assessed and treated within two hours of time. Therefore this is the way, the Australasian Triage system helps to define a patient condition and according to that condition immediate or delayed action are against in patient conditions (Australian College for Emergency Medicine, 2018). This assessment generally takes very less time and within 10 minutes it is esteemed to deliver accurate results regarding patient conditions. Further, during clinical urgency, this measure helps to determine complexity, severity, staffing, workload, and the quality of care needed by patient. There are several experiments that have been carried out by the researchers to determine the effectiveness of this scale in determining patient condition. According to Ebrahimi et al., (2015), in a recent study conducted to determine the validity and reliability of this scale, the scale obtained fair to good range in determining the effectiveness of this scale. Further while using the ATS assessment, the Glasgow Coma Scale can also be used in the process so that patients response to a wide array of categories can be assessed. Hence through this process the responsiveness of a serious patient on the different stressful situation can be clearly understood. Therefore, the ATS level 3 and 4 seems equal if the categorical instructions are followed and enhances confusion related to the process. Further, using ATS, level 5 patients are not also identified carefully as minor or less critical symptoms deviate the assessment towards false positives (Hodge et al., 2013). Matts category In the given case study, Matts category will be category 1 of the ATS scale. While driving the quad bike he met an accident and due to which he developed severe leg and head injuries. The right leg x-ray determines that he has a fracture in his right proximal trivia and fibula. As well as, upon reaching the healthcare facility, he has been transferred into emergency department. Further, according to the case study the neurological assessment, he achieves the score of 15 that determines he will require immediate healthcare service to improve his physical condition (Hodge et al., 2013). In the healthcare department, the emergency team has already started preparing the emergency department of the system for Matt as he has the high chance to loss blood from his body due to injuries. Therefore, matt will be provided the category or the immediate healthcare facility as paramedics and healthcare professionals of the emergency department will be working together to improve the patient condit ion (Chamberlain et al., 2015). Further, Matt is suggested to undergo surgery so that the fracture can be reduced using surgery, hence, action should be taken immediately to improve patient condition. Hence, due to the excessive blood loss, multiple severe trauma, and ability to recovery, matt will be designated as the category 1 in the Australasian Triage Scale so that immediate action can be taken against the healthcare condition of Matt. References Australian College for Emergency Medicine. (2018).ACEM - Triage.Acem.org.au. Retrieved 9 April 2018, from https://acem.org.au/Content-Sources/Advancing-Emergency-Medicine/Better-Outcomes-for-Patients/Triage.aspx Chamberlain, D. J., Willis, E., Clark, R., Brideson, G. (2015). Identification of the severe sepsis patient at triage: a prospective analysis of the Australasian Triage Scale.Emerg Med J,32(9), 690-697. Ebrahimi, M., Heydari, A., Mazlom, R., Mirhaghi, A. (2015). The reliability of the Australasian Triage Scale: a meta-analysis.World journal of emergency medicine,6(2), 94. Hodge, A., Hugman, A., Varndell, W., Howes, K. (2013). A review of the quality assurance processes for the Australasian Triage Scale (ATS) and implications for future practice.Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal,16(1), 21-29