Contextual Analysis Essay about The Vietnam in Me

Contextual Analysis about The Vietnam in Me - Essay Example Throughout the narrative, readers are introduced to O’Brien’s lingering feelings of intense despair and sorrow over the fact that the most horrid experience of his life was due to his own personal need to find and secure love. This contextual analysis will analyze how O’Brien used his trip back to Vietnam to discover what imprint his war experience truly left on his heart and if he could ever learn to trust love again. In order to establish the connection between love and Vietnam, this analysis will center on O’Brien’s views on his war experience and their impact on his personal life, his driving need to seek out love and how the guilt over his desire for love led to his contributions as a soldier in Vietnam and continually destroy the author’s chances for true happiness. In beginning this contextual analysis, the first area to analyze is how O’Brien viewed his time as a soldier in Vietnam and how this experience impacted his life. As he began his narrative, O’Brien sets an immediate tone for how he felt about his time in Vietnam. â€Å"On Gator, we used to say, the wind doesn’t blow, it sucks. Maybe that’s what happened - the wind sucked it all away. My life, my virtue† (1). Although O’Brien has obvious despair over the events that unfolded during his time in Vietnam, he was not alone in these feelings. Despite the over two million men who were forcibly deployed to Vietnam through the draft, as well as those who voluntarily enlisted, American society forgot their efforts to further democracy as these men were essentially treated as outcasts upon their return. According to Harvard Sitikoff in â€Å"The Postwar Impact of Vietnam,† the after effects of fighting in Vietnam were more dangerous than being i n the war itself. â€Å"Although most veterans did succeed in making the transition to ordinary civilian life, many did not. More Vietnam veterans committed suicide after the war than had died in it. Even more - perhaps three-quarters

Social media essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Social media - Essay Example This is a key aspect of networking as it allows the sharing of ideas and learnt concepts for the betterment of the society. Social networking has been demonstrated to overlap with academic life in that it creates an opportunity to generate events related to coursework. As such, various stakeholders get to meet and discuss different issues regarding in line with assignments while offering a first-hand interaction with instructors. This serves to revolutionize the learning experience by providing ample support systems in the education sector, which works to improve its quality. Other than keeping in touch with friends, making new ones, and sharing ideas, social networking sites serve as a source of entertainment especially with the integration of online gaming communities. Moreover, social media provides information on the latest occurrences in sports and showbiz through feeds to local news channels. The world’s economy is a significant beneficiary of social media owing to massive marketing strategies employed to capture the attention of users. Social networking in marketing allows organizations to cut back on their costs of advertising and reaching out to potential clients and even reaching new markets. This is because with a tight or non-existent budget whatsoever for marketing, an organization can wage an all-out war on marketing through social networks since it is mostly free. In addition, the rise of social media sites has seen potential employers tear through the sites in search of information on their potential employees. Search engine and social networking sites provide a cheap model for background research where funds can be saved while getting the work done. Social networks also create an efficient platform on which college graduates can market themselves through professional networks. In spite of the positive aspects of social media, lack of moderation often

Principles of Information Security

Principles of Information Security Purpose:In order to protect against accidental or intentional damage or loss of data, interruption of College business, or the compromise of confidential information we must classify data and establish minimum standards and guidelines to ensure a secure system. Effective from: 02/02/17 Scope: This policy must be applied to all of the following: students, faculty, staff, contractors, consultants, temporary employees, guests, volunteers and all other entities or individuals with access to confidential information through the Modern College of Business and Science its affiliates/partners. Responsible Party: Database Department Information Technology Support Department Terms of Reference:Access Any personal inspection or review of the confidential information or a copy of the confidential information, or an oral or written account of such information. Confidential Information Information identified by the applicable laws, regulations or policies as personal information, individually identifiable health information, education records, personally identifiable information, non-public personal data, confidential personal information, or sensitive scientific or sponsored project information. Data Information generated in official College business. Information that is personal to the operator of a system. Disclosure To permit access to or release, transfer, distribute, or otherwise communicate any part of information by any means Incident A possibly reportable episode that may incorporate, however is not restricted to, the accompanying: Attempts to increase unapproved access to frameworks or information; Undesirable disturbances or Denial od Service; An infection spreading; Burglary, abuse or loss of electronic gear containing private data. Unapproved utilization of frameworks for handling or information gathering An office or unit cant dispose of confidential of paper information in a proper manner. Unapproved changes to framework equipment, firmware and programming. Policy Statement: The Modern College of Business and Science must aim towards making a safe environment for all in terms of data confidentiality and personnel. Information Security professionals must employ techniques which can prevent any threat from exploiting any vulnerability as much as possible. Threats could target privacy, reputation and intellectual property along with lots of other data. Data Classification In order for the policy to be entirely effective and be able to know which data protect the data must be classified into 3 categories Category 1 Data that can be freely distributed to the public. Category 2- Internal data only not meant for outsiders. Category 3- Sensitive internal only data that could affect operations if disclosed to public. Category 4- Highly sensitive internal data that could put an organization at financial or legal risk if disclosed to public. Security Prevention Measures Security prevention measures ensure security and prove comfort for the business and also the customers. Prevention measure could consist of many things. Existing Security Measures. Access control which ensure only allowed users granted permission to access the database may do so. This applies to accessing, modifying and viewing the data. Frequent SQL input validation tests are conducted in order to ensure no unauthorized users can access the database. Three separate cloud based servers are available, two of which are for back up purposes this ensures the availability of the data in the case of the intrusion on one of the servers. All servers are backed up daily. Database auditing is frequently conducted. Database log files are frequently checked to observe in case of any malicious activity. All database security is managed by a third party in order to ensure maximum security. In order to avoid Denial of Service (DOS) attacks which could affect the availability the web applications are put on different servers. Role-Based Control is used in order to make sure employees can only retrieve content from the database that they are authenticated and authorized to. Discretionary access control is only permitted to the database department as no other faculty or staff needs access or is permitted to access. Flaws which need reviewed Password policy is not implemented strictly to students which can result in the compromising of an account. Solution: Password Policy MUST be applicable to all therefore, database department must make it mandatory. No honeypotting is available. Solution: The necessary equipment and software should be purchased for this to be done. This will help the College avoid attacks in the case of SQL injection or any other database attack. No digital certificates are utilised when messages are sent across the website. Solution: Create system to have to send digital certificate/signature to ensure a better level of security. No certified security professionals are currently employed. Solution: Raise issue to Human Resources as a matter of concern and seek the hiring of a professional or train existing staff. Lack of awareness among staff and faculty regarding security in general. Solution: Conduct training for faculty and stuff on how to spot basic threat and potential intrusions etc. *After these flaws are fixed, policy MUST be reviewed and updated. iii) Added Policies Conduct penetration testing frequently and Risk Assesment, report must be generated, reviewed by Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Vulnerabilities must be fixed. In the case of an incident CISO must be informed to take necessary action. Any employee failing to do so shall face disciplinary action. Database MUST use views rather than tables no ensure security, all entries must be predefined queries. Database remote access and other distance access must not be enabled by blocking ports such as the telnet port, FTP and others. Database password MUST be updated ever fortnight to ensure security of the password. Password strength policy must be implemented for the database ( min 8 characters, capital small, numerical, special characters). Back Ups must also be done offsite and not only on the cloud. Backing up data of Category 3 4 as mentioned above must also be done on a certain specially encrypted drive and separate from normal back ups. Group Responsibilities All the members of the College are responsible some extent of the security of their own data and other things. Below is what each group of individuals is responsible for. A. Custodians are responsible for: 1. Information Security Procedures Establishment 2. Managing authorizations 3. Recordkeeping. 4. Incident handling and reporting B. Users are responsible for: 1. Abiding the College IT policy 2. Physical security 3. Information storage 4. Information spreading and sending 5. Method of disposal of info and devices 6. Passwords 7. Computer security 8. Remote access 9. Logging off 10. Virus and malicious code protection 11. Backups 12. Incident handling and reporting C. Managers are responsible for: 1. All what users are responsible for 2. All that the custodians are responsible for 3. Sharing responsibility for information security with the employees they supervise 4. Establishing information security procedures 5. Managing authorizations 6. User training and awareness 7. Physical security 8. Incident handling and reporting D. Information Service Providers are responsible for: 1. More extensive information security requirements than individuals 2. Establishing information security procedures 3. Physical security 4. Computer security 5. Network security 6. Access controls 7. Passwords 8. Contingency planning 9. Incident handling and reporting Administrative Responsibilities A. The CISO should always be monitoring the colleges database security system to ensure no flaws or loopholes and should propose tools or mitigation strategies. S/He must do the following: 1. Creating, reviewing, and revising policies, procedures, standards. 2. Ensuring security training and awareness. 3. Overall authority for College networks and systems security. 4. Incident handling, remediation, and reporting. 5. Collaborating with the Office of Internal Audit to ensure policy conformance. Enforcement Implementation The required actions mentioned in the policies and rules must be carried out from the effective mentioned above, those who fail to comply and follow this policy shall face disciplinary action. This policy must be strictly implemented. Principles of Information Security Principles of Information Security Man in the Middle and Man in the Browser Attacks on Financial Institutions. Abstract Four decades ago, what started as a US military research initiative to build network for linking US universities and research centers is now the Internet. Today it has expanded to every corner of the globe (Privgcca, 2016). The number of Internet users has risen from few computer scientists to 3.17 billion users. It has helped in reducing costs of communication as one can easily be in touch and communicate with each other with the help of chatting, email applications and online transactions/payments (Friedman, 2014). It has also helped organizations to offer better customer service, reduce amount of paper work, increase productivity, and enable customers to perform enquiry and transactions anytime and from anywhere. This paper will be focusing on the importance of online banking/transaction security. Introduction Banking organizations have been developing for years in a broad scope and have started to replace more traditional banking techniques in certain fields such as processing cheques, making transactions and money transfers to online, therefore; payment systems are constantly undergoing radical changes. More security measures are present but the users of these systems must also be allowed decent compatibility. Due to the amount of modern day threats these banks have also been facing a vast amount of risk and vulnerability exploitations, banks are usually very concerned about two kind of attacks, man in the middle attack (MITM) and man in the browser attack (MITB). As a result, financial institutions must ensure to provide effective authentication techniques. These two attacks (MITM and MITB) will be the main concentration and the focus of the analysis will on these attacks as well. The Two Common Attacks. The Man in The Middle and Man the Browser are the very predominant attacks in the finance industry. The difficult part is identifying each type of attack and taking precautionary measures from either attack. MITM occurs when a hacker can see and modify the communication between the client and the bank, it makes both parties believe they are directly communicating with each other to deceive but there is usually an attacker eavesdropping. Therefore, this is very common on unsecured and unprotected networks. On the other hand, MITB uses malware to infect a web browser. This is done by the malware exploiting vulnerabilities in the browser security which enables them to modify and manipulate the page. Getting Technical, MITB vs. MITM One of the few important differences between these two attacks is that MITM attacks operate at the network layer whereas MITB operate on the application there, in this case on the web browser. Although MITM attacks remain popular attackers prefer MITB as banks may use sessions IDs to identify MITM attacks. Using session IDs banks can determine whether there has been malicious activity during a transaction and notice the fraudulent attempt and consequently cancel it. By giving the customers device a unique ID, the bank can then use algorithms to analyze and link the multiple user sessions from where they typically perform their banking (Eisen, 2012). MITB attacks are a lot more deceitful, they completely take control over the users website and control the browser while the user thinks everything is normal. The attackers in this scenario alter web views and account balance without the users knowledge. Once the user logs in they can also redirect any sensitive traffic to an attackers sy stem, while keeping the original SSL/TLS protections intact (Trusteer, 2013). MITB People are very commonly exposed to the risk of these attacks due to the browser security problems in the case of MITB browser extensions are frequently the malware which allows the attacker to exploit the vulnerability. Browser extensions are frequently portrayed as useful software which enhance user experience but is malicious software or code. This is known as a Trojan. Browser extensions may be plugins, Browser Helper Objects (BHO), JavaScript and add-on features. The functionality of BHOs is usually to provide add functionality to a browser these could be written by the attacker with programming experience. The problem with BHOs is that they can hide from antivrus this makes them undetectable. In a MITMB attack these are used to change a site, add fields, remove fields. They also can add registries to the system and load at booting (Utakrit, 2009). Grease Monkey is a popular add on for chrome which can allow a user to change the appearance of a website or eliminate ads. This JavaScript is not malicious but it uses the same methodology as the malicious JavaScript applets. The danger of add-ons is that they can easily monitor and retrieve the users information at any time. SSL has been thought of as a solution by some security experts for MITB attacks but even this control has been proven to be ineffective. The reason for this is that the attacker injects or gives the user a Trojan which carries out malicious activities directly inside the browser. Therefore, no suspicious activity is detected. MITM MITM are less common as security professionals have learned ways to mitigate the attacks that use this method. It is also widely known as session hijacking. In this case, the attacker usually seeks vulnerable hotspots or networks. The attacker would usually direct the victim to a fake login page of a website (perhaps a phished paged) and then get the credentials as soon as they are authenticated. The attacker could then simply access the account and withdraw money or make transactions. Security measures such as the OTP are not effective as defense against this attack as the attacker could fraudulently capture the temporary password and forward it on the portal in the 30 60 seconds provided. In this attack the main issue is that the user has no way of being sure or verifying who is asking for information. As a result, two step verification is also considered vulnerable. Protective measures. The security triad which is an important principle to security experts evolves around three elements. C- Confidentiality, this means do not allow unauthorized individuals to access or see data or systems. A- Availability, which means ensure the system/data is available when needed. I- Integrity, if data or a system or in this case a transaction it loses its integrity which means it has been manipulated with. In the case of transactions, Integrity is a very important principle. Banks and financial institutions need to always ensure the integrity is maintained. By doing so, we need to implement controls, also known as countermeasures. User Protection Strategies and Controls MITB In order to minimize these attacks the knowledge has to be known on either side of the equation, the users should be aware as well as the bank. Users can take precaution by installing anti virus, although not entirely effective it does depend on the detection capability and reduces the chances. Secondly, use a hardened browser in a USB drive, this will provide moderate protection. Thirdly, only do online banking with banks who are aware of these kinds of threats and implement countermeasure. Ultimately there is risk in every procedure, unless you are will to completely not use online banking there will always be risks and threats. MITM Mitigation for Banks. MITB As previously mentioned, attackers have also learned how to compromise two step authentication as well the same also applies to captcha and others. The malware can simply wait till the user has authenticated himself. It can also intercept and modify response when using SSL or encryption. Moderate protection could be offered by the bank itself providing clients with Hardened Browsers on USBs containing cryptographic smart tokens for authentication. The hardened browsers are harder to infect. Similarly, OTP token with signature would be effective, the user would have to re-enter the transaction details to the OTP device and then it could generate a signature based on that in that way it would not match if the MITB alters the request, this is also rather inconvenient. Fraud detection based on transaction type and amount is also sometimes effective, in the case of an abnormal transactions some banks call the client to check if it is genuine or not. User profiling could also be used. MITM

Capital Punishment Essay: Controversy Distorts Capital Punishment :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Controversy Distorts Capital Punishment    Is it just me, or have we become totally fixated with the issue of capital punishment? Save abortion, I can't think of a single issue with more passionate advocates on each side. Waiting for the controversy over capital punishment to be resolved is like waiting for Godot.    What amazes me most about all of this passion and fervor is the fact that, on the grand scale of things, it really doesn't make a lick of difference. Oh sure, it matters to the guy who gets the needle in his arm, and it's an issue of concern to the families of his victims, but it doesn't really touch the rest of us one way or the other.    Do proponents of the death penalty really think death is a worse punishment than life in prison? Have you seen the state of our prison system these days? These places are so purgatorial that Dante should be taking notes. I'd say that execution is a merciful and favorable alternative to being incarcerated with this mà ©lange of Darwin's elite. Any sensible person would rather be skewered to death by toothpicks.    The interests of justice aren't perverted just because a murderer spends 40 years dying of dysentery rather than getting a shot of Liquid Plumber in his veins. Either way, the guy's not going to be making the same mistake twice.    On the other hand, opponents of the death penalty make it seem like all we've ever done is execute innocent grandmothers. Of course, there are probably a significant amount of innocent people getting whacked each year by the state. But as I said before, the alternative to dying for something you didn't do is spending the rest of your life as some 7-foot tall Neanderthal's girlfriend.    Critics of the death penalty often claim that it's a racist system, evidenced by the fact that African-Americans make up 12 percent of the general population but 55 percent of death row inmates in Texas. But men only make up 48 percent of the population and they consist of 98.5 percent of the death row population. If we're going to point out the prejudices of the system, sexism seems like a much more plausible complaint.    I'll admit that when you look at the numbers, it certainly looks like a racist system. Capital Punishment Essay: Controversy Distorts Capital Punishment :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics Controversy Distorts Capital Punishment    Is it just me, or have we become totally fixated with the issue of capital punishment? Save abortion, I can't think of a single issue with more passionate advocates on each side. Waiting for the controversy over capital punishment to be resolved is like waiting for Godot.    What amazes me most about all of this passion and fervor is the fact that, on the grand scale of things, it really doesn't make a lick of difference. Oh sure, it matters to the guy who gets the needle in his arm, and it's an issue of concern to the families of his victims, but it doesn't really touch the rest of us one way or the other.    Do proponents of the death penalty really think death is a worse punishment than life in prison? Have you seen the state of our prison system these days? These places are so purgatorial that Dante should be taking notes. I'd say that execution is a merciful and favorable alternative to being incarcerated with this mà ©lange of Darwin's elite. Any sensible person would rather be skewered to death by toothpicks.    The interests of justice aren't perverted just because a murderer spends 40 years dying of dysentery rather than getting a shot of Liquid Plumber in his veins. Either way, the guy's not going to be making the same mistake twice.    On the other hand, opponents of the death penalty make it seem like all we've ever done is execute innocent grandmothers. Of course, there are probably a significant amount of innocent people getting whacked each year by the state. But as I said before, the alternative to dying for something you didn't do is spending the rest of your life as some 7-foot tall Neanderthal's girlfriend.    Critics of the death penalty often claim that it's a racist system, evidenced by the fact that African-Americans make up 12 percent of the general population but 55 percent of death row inmates in Texas. But men only make up 48 percent of the population and they consist of 98.5 percent of the death row population. If we're going to point out the prejudices of the system, sexism seems like a much more plausible complaint.    I'll admit that when you look at the numbers, it certainly looks like a racist system.

Research Is Like Cooking Essay

Research is like cooking isn’t anyone can learn the skills needed for great research, for many college students, cooking is like research in another way, instead of cooking great homemade meals who is sometimes take shortcuts and sell for what is quick easy in familiar, sort of like when we use our old familiar tools like google and Wikipedia for our research. Why do we take shortcuts and settle for males of ramen noodles and pop tarts, there a lot of reasons, sometime were just too busy don’t have enough time to cook a formal meal, sometimes we leave things to the last minute anymore stuck making a meal with whatever we have on hand, with research we found that students advise others students to start early. So that they are stuck writing a research paper with only the resources they can find the night before the papers did many of the same guidelines that apply to cooking apply to doing research, in cooking as in research you have to plan ahead and know what you want to make, good cooking and good research both depend on quality ingredients, to write a great research proposal you will need to find high quality resources and just like you can create a full meal out of only a few ingredients you need a variety of resources to craft a convincing research proposal. Finally just like the best restaurants in the city, such as Altavista or/and Altagracia restaurant make meals that they themselves would want to eat, you will find you do your best research when you pick a topic that you care about, a big part of planning ahead is knowing what you are making, you have to have a recipe, the same is true for writing a research proposal, you have to have a topic in a general plan for what kind of paper you want to write an outline of your research argument can serve as your recipe and it will have the added value of telling you what kinds of resources and ingredients you need to write your proposal. The next step to follow is to go shopping, just like you turn your recipe into a shopping list, you need to turn your research outline into a list of the type of resources you need, by creating a shopping list you are taking control of the kinds of resources that you will use in your research proposal; instead of just settling for what you can find a way you have on hand and remember that the researcher doing is likely to require more than just books, you may need newspaper journal articles or you may want to consult some items in your library. One very important step in both cooking and research is the taste testing stage. Great chefs do lots of taste testing so that they can find just the writing the ingredients, but in the older making you need to do the same for your research, you should plan in looking at plenty of books articles in abstracts before you settle on the resources that you actually need. Now you have your recipe and all the ingredients you need, it is time to create your meal. Remember that a great recipe calls for the chef of mix the ingredients together, just right so that they work together to create the final product, the same is true with the research proposal, you can’t just throw your resources into your paper, you need to suit the size them and relate them to one another and you need you to put your own garnish on your meal, put your own voice in your research proposal, so that is not just a summary of all your sources, if you remember the research is like cooking and then a requires a planning a recipe and great ingredients, you will produce research that is like the equivalent that you do a great meal. Bon appetit The studied topics help me to understand and have a broader idea about what we have to do at the moment to write a research proposal, because de resources used for a good research is not to go at any school and see what happen only, you need to have a preconception about what you are going to do or search, besides that, is important to identify the kind of research are you going to do and all the studied topics give me the stages and the instructions in order to do a good research proposal.

Was Joseph Conrad a Rascist

Is it fair to call Joseph Conrad a Thoroughgoing Racist? To call someone a thoroughgoing racist is to say that they are a person who completely and knowingly considers one race of humans superior to others. This is precisely what Chinua Achebe is accusing Joseph Conrad of. It is Achebe’s opinion that Conrad wrote his ‘Heart of Darkness’ from a racist point of view intentionally to belittle Africa and its people and to raise up Europe and its people. While I agree that Joseph Conrad may have been a racist and that ‘Heart of Darkness’ certainly has racism in it, I believe it unfair to call Conrad a thoroughgoing racist.Conrad is simply a victim of his time, having lived from 1857-1924 when the racism against Africans was widespread, even considered normal. He was not intentionally trying to be racist. â€Å"It is the desire- one might even say the need- of Western psychology to set up Africa as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote a nd vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest† (Achebe, 1). In other words, Europeans want to directly compare Africa to Europe in a way that the ‘darkness’ of Africa makes Europe seem lighter.This shows that Conrad may even not have been racist at all. He could be simply writing a novel that the people wanted at that time. Achebe even briefly states this as a possibility: â€Å"It might be contended†¦ 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† (Achebe, 4). This is my opinion of Conrad. He was not actually a racist. He was a brilliant storyteller of fiction that knew the people who would be reading the book.In that time period, most readers were racist against Africans. That was OK back then. Conrad didnâ€⠄¢t agree with it but he wrote a short novel highlighting it to appease the masses, while subtlety showing how wrong racism is. â€Å"Heat 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 refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality. 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 back to the earliest beginnings of the world. † (Achebe, 2). The Heart of Darkness mentions ‘the race that peopled its banks’ on the River Thames and then later talks about the people who people the banks of the River Congo. â€Å"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 the first ages- could comprehend. Conrad, 153). This passage is a direct comparison of the â€Å"savages† in Africa to the â€Å"civilized† in Europe. Yet there is a connection, a â€Å"kinship,† between these two beings. Conrad knows that Europeans love to view Africans as these uncivilized brutes in order to make themselves look better; but then he slips in that the two peoples are actually of the same heritage, separated only by the flow of time. Africans may appear to be these black monsters incapable of speech, only a dialect of grunting and screaming; but they are actually the just as human as any one else. Conrad later depicts the African savages as ‘dogs’: 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 hot water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity- and he had filed his teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate s haved 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. † (Conrad, 154). This is a very sudden and drastic change from just half of a page earlier when the African savages were â€Å"kin† to the Europeans. Now they’re dogs. Perhaps Conrad really is a thoroughgoing racist. However, one must remember that the Heart of Darkness is a story within a story. It is Conrad writing of a man in London called Marlow who is recounting his experience in Africa on the River Congo.So it is not Conrad who is the racist; his fictional character Marlow is. This is a very different style of storytelling and it is easy to forget whose words we are reading. Sometimes we are reading Conrad’s words when we are on the River Thames; but usually we are reading Marlow’s words. Achebe c ontends, â€Å"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† (Achebe, 4).One of Achebe’s main arguments is that â€Å"art is more than just good sentences; this is what makes this situation tragic. The man [Conrad] is a capable artist and as such I expect better from him. I mean, what is his point in that book [Heart of Darkness]? Art is not intended to put people down. If so, then art would ultimately discredit itself† (Phillips, 1). This statement simply isn’t true. Art is not exclusively a happy thing that only raises people up. There is such a thing as depressing art. The Bluest Eye is a great example of this. It too has tones of racism, being about a girl who hates herself because she is black and therefore ugl y.The ending of that story is very sad and the conflict is not resolved. This means that, according to Achebe, The Bluest Eye does not qualify as art. It’s unfair of Achebe to only accept art that is happy and uplifting. The world is not a happy and uplifting place. There is darkness in the world. Conrad is attempting to point this out in the title alone, Heart of Darkness. He even suggests that London was once one of the dark places of the world. Achebe expects Conrad to be one of the artists who is â€Å"bigger than their times† (Phillips, 5). He says that that is what makes you a great artist.Being ahead of your time is not a requirement of great artistry. That’s not to say that there are no great artists who were ahead of their time; but there are plenty of great artists who weren’t. To be bigger than your time takes a highly innovative and rebellious mind, which is a rare thing. All great innovations are mocked upon first arrival. This is why they ar e called innovations; they go against the norm. One cannot expect a writer in a racist world to right a book that speaks out against racism. That being said, it can be argued that Heart of Darkness does speak out against racism from an ironical standpoint.The overreaching question is, what happens when one group of people, supposedly more humane and civilized than another group, attempts to impose itself upon its inferiors? In such circumstances will there always be an individual who, removed from the shackles of civilized behavior, feels compelled to push at the margins of conventional morality? What happens to this one individual who imagines himself to be released from the moral order of society and therefore free to behave as savagely or decently as he deems fit? How does this man respond to chaos? (Phillips, 4). When considering these questions, I am forced to recall the movie â€Å"Three Kings. † This whole movie seems to be based upon these questions. It takes place in Iraq right at the end of the Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. A group of American soldiers discover a map leading to the Kuwaiti gold stolen by Iraq. One soldier asks â€Å"what is the most important thing in life?†¦ Necessity†¦ As in people do what is most necessary to them at an given moment† (Clooney, Three Kings). This is the answer to Phillips’ question â€Å"how does this man respond to chaos? He does whatever he needs to do, not whatever he wants to do. In Heart of Darkness each man is thrown into his own chaos and they all respond differently, but each man does what he feels is the most necessary. The idea of necessity can be applied to Conrad as well. What was most necessary to a writer living in the early 20th century? For Conrad, it was to stick to the status quo, to write a book that uses Africa as a foil, which portrays Africans as savage beasts. This does not make him a racist, merely a man who is following the trend of society.Assuming that Conrad wasn’t a racist, what if he had written Heart of Darkness without any racism? He would have been mocked, perhaps even cast out or discredited. Today he would be revered as one of the great futuristic minds of his time of course; but he has no way of knowing that. So he took the safe route and wrote Heart of Darkness from a more racist point of view. This does not make Conrad a thoroughgoing racist, as Achebe would accuse him. Arguments could be made either way; that Conrad was racist or that he wasn’t. If he was not a racist at all then that’s the end of it.However, if he was a racist it becomes more complicated. Although due to the time and society in which Conrad was born and raised, his racism is therefore not intentional. He is not a racist in a non-racist society; he is simply another racist just like nearly everyone else. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. â€Å"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’† Massachu setts Review. 18. 1977. Clooney, George, Perf. â€Å"Three Kings† Warner Bros Pictures. 1999. Film. Conrad, Joseph. â€Å"Heart of Darkness† 1902. Phillips, Caryl and Chinua Achebe. Personal Interview. 21 February 2003.