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Duddy hides his insecurities from himself and others. He is afraid to ask his father if his mother had liked him. What does t
Question #3: Duddy hides his insecurities from himself and others. He is afraid to ask his father if his mother had liked him. What does this reveal about Duddy? Why do we often hide our fears?
Two thousand years ago, Jesus had said,”Man does not live by bread alone.” This is true, for other than physiological needs, man also has other basic necessities. As outlined in an article written by Professor A. H. Maslow called “A Theory of Human Motivation”, these basic necessities include a person’s desire for security, love, esteem and self-actualization. Thus, when Duddy hides his fears from others and himself, he is only pursuing a sense of safety, which is one of the human fundamental needs.
A person’s self-projected image is very important. We often hide our own fears because we do not want to acknowledge our dreads. We are afraid that if we show our dreads, our images as great persons will be ruined. People want to feel important, significant and superior; people do not want to feel inferior, subordinate and insignificant. We are afraid that if we concede our fears, others will dismiss us as unimportant. This is even more true for an ambitious young man like Duddy. He springs from humble beginnings, but clearly, he is very eager to become a successful and powerful man. “…his bony cheeks were criss-crossed with scratches as he shaved twice daily in his attempt to encourage a beard.” This clearly indicates to the readers that Duddy wants and tries to be someone that he is not. He wants himself and others to think that he is of great significance. The fact that his friends, family and others reject him make his self-projected image even more preponderant. He must convince himself and others that he is a very important figure and he does this by denying his insecurities.
Duddy is not a very well-liked figure in the novel. He arouses readers’ sympathy because his family and friends do not appreciate him. There is much evidence of this throughout the novel. Perhaps the best illustration of this is when Duddy returns from St. Agathe with six expensive sport shirts for Max as a gift, but only to find out that his father is not interested in the gift. Duddy is not loved in his family, yet he needs love desperately. Since his father, uncle and brother do not love him, his desire for love is projected onto his dead mother. Everyone needs to love and needs to be loved, and it is very reasonable for Duddy to inquire about his mother. But Duddy does not dare to ask his father if his dead mother had liked him because if he exposes his sensitive nature, he will ruin the image that he has been trying to build up for himself. And what if his father tells him that his mother did not like him? He cannot take the risk of losing his image, only to find out that his mother had not liked him. He cannot let his fears be exposed either.
Other than hiding his fears, Duddy also keeps his image by crazily pursuing money. He does this because he does not want his family, friends and all the people around him to despise him. He tries desperately to be “somebody”. Jerry Dingleman, the Boy Wonder comments, “There’s something wrong. A mistake somewhere when a boy your age is already pursuing money like he had a hot poker up his ass.” But the truth is that Duddy is only following one of the human drives. He pursues money for the same reason as he hides his insecurities — to preserve his self-image and to make others think him worthy.
People are often very conscientious about their own images. This is why we curse acquaintances who slander us. We want people to think us great. Trying to be significant is simply one of the human drives. We try to cover all our weaknesses, all our faults and all our fears, because we want to impress others and we want them to think us great. If we say that we do not care what people think of us, we are only lying to ourselves. And Duddy is no different from an ordinary human being. He hides his fears because he must protect his own image. And all of us — perhaps to a lesser extent — is doing the exact same thing.
Female Entrepreneur Interview, Fawzia Al-Nafea
Female Entrepreneur Interview
Student’s Name
Institution
Female Entrepreneur Interview
(Fawzia Al-Nafea)
Fawzia Al-Nafea is one of the many successful beauty pungents, who have made it big in the category of fashion and design. However, there are marks in her strides of achievement that categorically define her as different, as she has achieved outstanding fetes and success that come with praise and admiration in equal measure. Consider, for instance, that she is one of the few designers who have started and operated a successful fashion and design company. Her Al-Nafea company has the outward deceiving look of simplicity, a factor that can hardly define its massive success rates and competitive ability. In my quest to uncover the secrets behind her success, I managed to secure a phone-interview with Fazia, who shared with me her secrets. Below is the conversation that ensued between us, as we hogged between the facts, secrecies, and challenges that so define a woman’s entrepreneurial world.
Me: Hello Fawzia, thanks for taking a break from your busy schedule to take this interview with me, I cannot at the very least express just how greatly touched I am.
Fawzia: You are welcome, I am equally just as glad to be doing this for it is amongst other things, my opportunity to inspire hope into the female world that all things can be achieved.
(At this point, I note her humility, and desire to achieve beyond the ordinary, and realize that is not just defined by her success, but also by her drive)
Me: Oh, and when you say amongst other things, are you implying that this is also a marketing opportunity for your business.
Fawzia: (Laughs slyly) Not really, but to some extent, yes. However I’m inclined to think that the interview is good for both of us, right? (Laughs again)
(Demography)
Me: (I Laugh too, as I try to set the mood right for our interview) I would like to take some demographical information from you, just so to fully introduce you to our readers as we want them to comprehend fully what it is to be you.
Fawzia: It’s alright. If for anything, I couldn’t be an appropriate role model if my personal life remained personal.
Me: Okay thank you for the green light. Out here you are mostly referred to as Fawzia, would you reveal your identity in detail to our readers?
Fawzia: I am Fawzia Al-Nafea, but I am fond of Fawzia, probably because the people I interact with find it shorter and easier to pronounce. Al-Nafea is my surname and makes me more of the mother I am, than a business woman.
Me: And yet it is the name you chose for your company.
Fawzia: (Laughs slyly again) Yes. Because I have every intent to nature and mother fashion talent through my company, in a way, my company is my other family.
Me: Huh! I admire your entrepreneurial aspirations; I really do. How old are you Fawzia?
Fawzia: Oh, I am 56 years old. Don’t be deceived by my looks when you set your eyes upon me. (We both laugh out at the sound of that)
Me: You said Al-Nafea is your surname, are you married?
Fawzia: Oh yeah, to Al-Nafea. He has been the pillar of my life. My husband supports me through every single thing I do. We decide together, act together….ha-ha and live together. He has been my lucky charm.
Me: (Laughing slyly) And he must be lucky to have you too.
Fawzia: (Sounding elated) He says that.
Me: Do you have any kids?
Fawzia: Oh yes, three actually; two boys and one girl.
Me: Congratulations! Would you tell us about them?
Fawzia: (Sounding excited) My first born is a boy, he is 28 years old. My second born is the girl, 25 years old and my last born is also a boy, 22 years old.
Me: What’s your family’s perception of your love of fashion and your entrepreneurial success?
Fawzia: Oh they have been very supportive. My daughter actually sometimes gives me design ideas, and my last born always wants to know if I have implemented the latest marketing technology. They have a drive to see me succeed.
Me: What about your husband and firstborn?
Fawzia: They are supportive in equal measure.
(Business)
Me: Great to know, and about your business, what would you tell us about it? For instance, what is your company’s name, when was it founded and what does it endeavor to do?
Fawzia: My Company, Al-Nafea was in founded in 1980 and specializes in fashion design. We also hold runway shows to showcase our designs that we later air for sale in our boutiques across the country.
Me: Does that mean you only produce for your boutiques?
Fawzia: Oh no. (Laughs encouragingly) We have a long list of clientele whom we tailor for and supply upon request.
Me: How big is the company?
Fawzia: Pretty big actually, but average in industrial standards. We have two huge boutiques each in Al-Khobar and the Manama in which there are an approximated thirty sales persons. We also have close to two hundred tailors for mass productions and three very competent designers. For the modeling events, we have around ten models of our own, three males, and seven females. However, we always have the preference of contracting other modeling companies to assist us in such work. Oh, I should not forget the managerial and financial staff, we are pretty big actually.
Me: What are your annual sales, or how else do you determine your productivity?
Fawzia: Through sales that have also been encouraging since the eighties. Our long list of clientele and marketability has ensured the company an average annual sales of 225, 000 dollars (approximately 925, 000 riyal), which is considered good in the design industry, though we aspire to improve.
(Motivation)
Me: Fawzia, this is interesting. Tell me, what motivated you to start your own company?
Fawzia: I had always loved design over my first profession of teaching and felt the urge to express my talent in an exceptional way. I had the feeling that my designs would not achieve the height and helm I desired if I worked for somebody, so I decided to work for myself. Am lucky I had a supportive husband and some savings to start with.
Me: Does that mean you didn’t start your professional career as a designer.
Fawzia: No, I was a teacher. Though I didn’t, feel the same passion for teaching as I did for the design.
Me: What are the other reasons behind your business idea?
Fawzia: I also had the feeling that it would pay better than teaching, and I had always desired a good and comfortable life.
Me: Does it?
Fawzia: (Laughing) Oh yes it does!
Me: What about your parents or other siblings, did any of them have any entrepreneurial idea?
Fawzia: My dad had a large grocery shop that they jointly ran with my mom. My siblings stuck to their academic aspirations though.
(Business Development)
Me: In taking the first major steps in developing your business, what did you do?
Fawzia: I took a few management and modeling classes to sharpen my vision and capacity to run my business. Then asked my husband for some financial support that I combined with my savings and off I went.
Me: Did you just face everything head on or did you prepare a business plan?
Fawzia: I had a plan that sounded vague to me, so I seek legal expertise and the services of an investment consultant In Saudi.
(Help, Support, and Encouragement)
Me: Apart from your own drive, did anybody play a pivotal role in supporting you to achieve your dreams.
Fawzia: (Sounding enthusiastic) Oh yeah! My husband! He was always there for me emotionally, listened to my problems, provided solutions and even some financial aid. He exceptionally supported me and even introduced to some of his friends and colleagues so that they would become my very first clients.
Me: Oh, he’s such an understanding man.
Fawzia: He is.
Me: What about you, did you belong to any professional network?
Fawzia: I was still young, twenty six. At that age, I was so naive and was concerned much with professional networking. However, my management course pointed out the significance of networking, and I joined one that did not prove so fruitful as I felt that their ideas contradicted my ambitions.
Me: How exactly?
Fawzia: Oh, they would share with me common ideas, yet I wanted to be the difference.
Me: Did you attend any special programs?
Fawzia: Apart from the ones I mentioned earlier? No.
Me: What about government assistance, did you seek any?
Fawzia: No, I was pretty much comfortable with the support I already had and besides, I had also saved to a great capacity.
Me: What could you consider your most important resource at that time?
Fazia: This sounds funny, but my husband, my drive and also the capital.
(Challenges)
Me: And when you finally did manage to launch your business, did you experience any setbacks?
Fawzia: Oh yeah, lots of them actually. I was new and had little experience. I also did not have any well paying clients, and so my company struggled financially. I had to do several free shows to market myself and my products.
Me: Did you consider commercials as a solution?
Fawzia: Yes, I actually had to pull strings to get my shows to TV. I considered that as the most effective commercial I would lay my hands upon.
Me: And when you finally made a breakthrough, what are the biggest challenges you have ever encountered?
Fawzia: Competitions comes up more than often. Some companies have the tendency of stealing designs and improving to win the game of competition. Actually that factor really surprised me, I had not thought anybody would want to not create a design but copy.
Me: Really? How do you cope with that?
Fawzia: (Laughs) We always have a weapon up our sleeves. I always must have a secret design to unleash in the event that my first is stolen.
Me: (Laughing too) You are cunning.
Fawzia: (Laughing too) No, I like to consider myself as smart and prepared.
Me: Did you have any problems with your first interactions with KSA?
Fawzia: Yes I did. The competition increases expenses of operation and loans presented me with extreme challenges. Oft, there was also the varied and contradicting decision made by the Ministry of Labor.
(Advice to Aspiring Entrepreneurs)
Me: What would you tell aspiring entrepreneurs?
Fawzia: I would tell them all that success is not easy. It comes with determined perspiration and patience. Continued hard work is always fruitful.
Me:Once again, thank you for your time Fawzia. I cannot express how grateful I am. I will call on you if there is any need.
Fawzia:You are welcome, I would be more than willing to do this again if need arises.
(I hang the telephone after exchange of the remarks).
The interview with Fazia informed me that achieving entrepreneurial success calls for more than a dream, it is a combination of several factors inclusive of a drive and support (Miner, 1996).
Reference
Miner, J. B. (1996). The 4 routes to entrepreneurial success. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Duchamp, Fountain The Anti-art Nature Of Dada
Duchamp, Fountain: The Anti-art Nature Of Dada
Dada was a movement in art, literature, music, performance and film that was invoked by the advent of World War I. Switzerland, a neutral country, became the refuge of many who objected to the war. In Zurich, 1916, Dada emerged distinctly as an active refusal of and attempt to subvert the prevailing values of the bourgeois society that supported and protected itself with the war. Dada sought to refuse these values in every guise they took, to disrupt them with its violence and rhetoric, to destroy and heal simultaneously. Language was targeted through poetry, periodicals and manifestos, because it was being used to present the unjust as just, illogic as logic. Logic itself was denounced in the contradictory statements and actions of Dadaists, because logic turned young men to cannon fodder. So chance, the logic of nature, was granted equal importance to the cerebral process and played an important role in many manifestations of Dada. Considered a culture’s finest and most distilled product, art was to Dada the greatest illustration and support of the social sickness. Art became the bull’s eye over the bourgeois heart and anti-art, a term said to be coined by Marcel Duchamp in 1914, was the weapon. By disrupting artistic and cultural convention, Dadaists hoped to disrupt the values that had brought about and supported the continuation of the war.
Though Zurich was the birthplace of Dada, New York also became a harbor for European artists seeking shelter from the war. Arriving in New York in 1915, the French artist Marcel Duchamp met Francis Picabia and Man Ray. By 1915 the three men had created a whirlwind of anti-art activities around themselves. Though they never labelled themselves Dada, their motivations paralleled their Zurich counterparts. As Richter recalled, Dada activities in New York “were different, but its participants were playing essentially the same anti-art tune as we were. The notes may have sounded strange, but the music was the same.”
The work most closely associated with anti-art is Duchamp’s Fountain; a urinal signed R. Mutt and positioned so the surface normally mounted on a wall, became its base. Fountain belongs to a broad category of objects called “ready mades”. The ready-mades were mass-produced objects; the selection of which Duchamp claimed in his 1961 “Apropros of ‘Readymades’” was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total lack of good or bad taste. Duchamp made clear his intention of the ready-mades when he stated in Apropos his idea of a ‘reciprocal ready-made’: to use a Rembrandt as an ironing board.
Fountain was a powerful affront to the art world and an inimitable success of anti-art. It violated and reset art boundaries, separating it from other anti-art product which tended to reinterpret existing art forms, relying on the work of past modern art schools such as the Futurists, Cubists and Expressionists.
In 1917 Duchamp submitted Fountain to the newly formed Society of Independent Artists, of which he was a founding member and director. Fountain was rejected for exhibition. George Bellows argued that it was a gross, indecent object, which should not be exhibited due to its base association with bathrooms and excreta. It was also rejected on the grounds that the artist didn’t physically make it and thus its exhibition as an original artwork was unacceptable.
Because Fountain was a functional object, regardless of its positioning, it carried its function with it wherever it went. Because it was a mass-produced object it would be recognized first and foremost in relation to the viewer’s prior experience of it. For at least half the audience, the power of recognition would transform gallery into toilet. Bellows obviously recognized Fountain in this way and engaging with it as a urinal, came to the conclusion that it could not be art. Perhaps in this way Fountain was also interpreted as an insult to the art world. Not only by its function (to accept human waste) but also by its title. Fountain; A point of origin or dissemination; a source.
If Fountain was unacceptable on the basis of it being physically made by the artist then what of all the paintings created with manufactured tubes of paint? Duchamp reasoned that these were “readymades aided” and acts of assemblage. Where other artists took “ready-made” tubes of paint and chose their brushstrokes, Duchamp took representational art to its logical conclusion and his economy of means distilled the idea that art was in the artist crafting the artwork until all that remained was choice. In response to the Society’s rejection of Fountain, Duchamp wrote purportedly in Mutt’s defence, that the mere act of choosing was enough to qualify any object as art. For Duchamp, choice was the essence of the creative act.
In this way Fountain undermined certainty of what constituted an original in the age of mechanical reproduction, at the same time questioning the aesthetic value of an original versus a reproduction. Countless urinals could have been used to deliver the same message as Fountain. This gave artists new authority to decide what art was and demoted the critic from the position of referee.
Duchamp may have had other reasons for signing Fountain R. Mutt but in presenting a machine-made object, lacking uniqueness and signed with a spurious signature, Duchamp generated the idea of art without artist. The signing of a machine-made object was also a mockery of claims to individual creativity.
Where was R. Mutt and what had he produced? Nowhere and nothing, but here was Fountain. This rejection of the art market’s worship in the cult of personality is also the nihilistic conclusion of the concept that the creative act lies in choice. Duchamp even used his signature to this end by signing another artist’s painting hanging in a restaurant he was dining at.
Duchamp invited the public to distinguish between Fountain and the art that Dada saw as drained of energy and imaginative power in service to the bourgeois agenda. Before Dada, Western art was dedicated to the ideal of beauty, the mystique of form and the depiction of the good life. Illusionist and decorative, this art wrapped its audience in a cocoon of passive and thoughtless consumption. Dada was in opposition to this, abandoning aesthetics and refusing to comfort the audience. Duchamp’s iconoclastic vision demanded participation and uphill moral consideration from the viewer. Dada perceived society as using taste and form to create a wall of mirrors to keep the reality of the world out and sought to undo the perversion of art to support this self-occlusion. By choosing mass consumer products arbitrarily, with determination to select objects devoid of taste, Duchamp was attempting to separate art from aesthetics. By extension he was attempting to pry society from its gluttonous and desperate desire to see the surface, rather than the nature of things.
Anti-art challenged art but not as an experiment or tentative fingering of cultural boundaries. It revoked boundaries of art, focused on the cancers that had infected the art of a contagious society and offered back a new art. Anti-art was a tool, a gift as much as a revolt, offering a new way of thinking and feeling through art. Through anti-art, Dada liberated society from a false morality that denied authenticity and was marching towards a greater destruction than Dada could ever be accused of.
Thames and Hudson Ltd, “The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms”, 1984
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Hans Richter. “Dada: Art and Anti-Art”, London, 1961, p.81
Beatrice Wood. “I Shock Myself”, San Francisco, revised, 1988, p.29
William Camfield. “Fountain”, Houston, 1989, p. 32 – 33
Marcel Duchamp. “Apropos of ‘Readymades’”, 1961
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Max Podinski. “The Elegant Pisser: Fountain by “R. Mutt””, Spark-Online, November, 1999 [page 2]
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Timothy Shipe. “Dada Periodicals at Iowa”, April 1987
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Peter Burger. “Theory of Avant-Garde” trans. Michael Shaw, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 51
Jean Neyends. “Will Go Underground: Interview of Marcel Duchamp on the RTBF” trans Sarah Skinner Kilborne, 1965, Tout-Fait, Vol. 2, Issue 4, Jan 2002 [page 2]
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C.W.E Bigsby. “Dada & Surrealism”, London, 1972, p. 11
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