The Artist

Who are the artists of the Floating World? Browsing through the internet I came across the term "Geisha". What's a Geisha you may ask, well they are men, women who for a living train to be entertainers. Meaning they spent every waken moment perfecting their dancing, music and poetry skills. They keep Japanese culture alive and that's what makes Japan so prideful. So why then do we read in Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist Of The Floating World of businessmen and other common folk harbor disdain for an artist?

Ono's own father did not approve his choice of hobby and so tried bashing his dream by saying,
"Artists' live in squalor and poverty. They inhabit a world which gives them every temptation to become weak-willed and depraved. "(46). Why at this given moment? Ono is someone who wants to live his life for himself by escaping into the mystery and fantasy that's art. Maybe Ono's dad knows this but doesn't want his only male son to put the family name in shame by becoming a no-name artist. Imagine how people would treat Ono's family if he painted something so radical and the Japanese didn't like it? Surely they would be shun from society and seen as lowly people.

There's no shame however in being an artist. In fact it's probably the hardest profession there can be because the past, present and future of Japan is in their hands. Ono has so much to offer that what he paints will have an impact in Japanese culture. And as we know he does and because of that he's know reminiscing and thinking of all the people he knew before the war.
We understand that before he could become a "real artist" he worked for a commercial company that made "Japanese Art" .



"Japanese Culture - Geisha." Japan-Zone.com - Japan Travel Guide, Japanese Pop Culture, History, Japanese Girls, Japanese Guys. 1999-. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. .

On "Looking at Women"

How does Scott Russell Sanders use cause and effect analysis to get his perspective across in "Looking at Women"? That's an interesting question, you see, because I don't know. To answer this question you first have to ask, "What is Sanders' purpose/perspective?". Well, Sanders is, in a sense, trying to answer the question of, "How should men look at women?". The problem for readers is that his essay doesn't answer the question with a clear and direct answer, which is okay for such an open ended question. Sanders instead describes how men look at women then answers why they look at women. He also describes what women think of men looking at them and how it further effects their actions. The causes and effects that he provides illustrate the problem that men looking at women are causing women to feel like objects or pieces of meat; makes them what to become like pieces of art or toys for men to play with. Showing the effects of looking at women answers the question of, "How should men look at women?". The rest is up o the readers discretion. If they believe the effects are wrong then they will find the answer to be that men should not look at women the way that they do so now.

Beauty

" It's beauty that's made me so bored I'm sick. It's like a new word that dazzles you the first time. Then you keep repeating it and using it until it's no different for you than words like 'dog,' 'worm,' 'lesson,' and other commonplace expressions. It loses its novelty and appeal. You may even forget its meaning, so that it becomes strange, meaningless word you can't use." (pg. 337)
Newly wed husband clearly has doubts and doesn't believe in love. This passage reminds me of pathos, since it holds lots of description and a nice metaphor, it contributes to the reader's emotions in an odd manner. Mahfouz uses beauty as if it were something boring and uninteresting in the minds of men. This passage shows how something so intoxicating can also bring about boredom and displeasure. It's hard to believe that Yasin would say something like this, since he " inherited" his father's lustful and " midnight amusement" qualities. But it's in my mind, as well as in most, that beauty is just among the first qualities a guy sees in a woman and is enticed by its pleasant and magnificent power to extract the emotions and thoughts of men. Beauty plays a vital role in this novel as we see with Aisha, Khadija, Al-Sayyid Ahamd and Yasin, but also it poisons them. Its wonderful that Mahfouz was capable of playing with his words and causing beauty to play with the emotions of men. In doing so, Mahfouz captivates the reader into thinking that beauty is marvelous and causes a great deal of controversy upon the novel's characters and the readers. Yet, does "beauty" ever get boring and unappealing? According to Yasin and Mahfouz's metaphor he simply states it as if it were a new word. I love that combination. Learning a new word provides a pleasing effect, yet once repeated it also brings about irritation. Think of it as if it were a repeated song over the radio station, getting played multiple times within every tuned-in station. But it's difficult to understand that a married man can find his wife unattractive. It creates a feeling of pity and doubt about how a woman can endure a man that finds her uninteresting. That can be a good reason why Yasin married her. He was so dazed about her "beauty" that that word stuck to his mind and that's the only characteristic that he truly found in her upon marriage. A woman would like to get recognized by other things, but since he was at a stage of lustful and disgusting manners, he only got caught up with what was put in front of his eyes and he fell in love with the appearance of his wife, not for who she was. As a reader, one is blinded by rage and curiosity as to why Yasin is the way he is. Of course he only states it trying no to sound cruel, but it seems that living with a wife and not be able to go out and do mischief when he was single is what leads Yasin to take that course and announce his message to Fahmy.
The passage chooses a metaphorical stance and provides some description, followed by emotions. The metaphor had an impacting effect when announcing that " beauty" was unappealing and that it was a word. But not just any word. A word that only characterizes Zaynab and to which shows that words have a great effect on people. Words convey messages, but here beauty has more emphasis to the things that distract men and to how men see women. They are seen as tools, but beautiful tools, to be fair. Even words like this can provide a certain way of talking, especially in this novel. Using the word beauty provides a good effect on men's wife, but when used to say it to another woman, is very illegal. Basically, this passage shows what Yasin feels and how Fahmy rejects the idea of having a woman be talked of as if she were just a breath of air.

Influencing Zaynab

Throughout the book, we've been faced with women who are continually being oppressed by Ahmad and not allowing them to do simple things like go outside, talk back, or anything else that other women are allowed to do. Now that Yasin is married, his wife, Zaynab, is a new addition to the house. She wasn't raised like Khadijah and Aisha, who are accustomed to the ways of women in Ahmad's house. She was allowed to go out and see the world with her father, Muhammad Iffat. She didn't have to stay cooped up in a house all the time (314). So, it's without question that her moving into this new household is going to be a challenge.
On page 353, we see how Zaynab's character is being molded into that of an “Ahmad-ite” (I like to call the women in his house Ahmad-ites). Yasin was going on about the fact that activist Sa'd was being exiled to Malta and expressing his outrage for it. Zaynab felt like his feelings weren't necessarily backed up by his actions because he was still going to go out and drink that night. She felt if this situation was as serious as Yasin was trying to make it seem, then maybe he would spend a night with her instead of going out and getting drunk. Even though she felt like this, she didn't express her feelings to Yasin. Why couldn't she express this to her husband? Would that have been disrespectful for her to tell her husband to stay in tonight and not go out and drink? I agree that for her to say that in front of the entire family would have been embarrassing, but did she really have to suppress her true feelings? The next paragraph goes,
“She did not utter a word. She was too wise to cast her icy reflections into that fiery stream. Her mother-in-law resembled her in this. Her courage rapidly evaporated when confronted by anger, no matter how trivial. For that reason, she retreated into silence and kept her intense discomfort to herself as she apprehensively followed the raging, unruly conversation (354).”
We see here that Zaynab is becoming more and more like Amina everyday and I don't feel like that's a coincidence. They are all living in the same house and Ahamd's ego won't let a woman in his house even think that she might have a little control. Ahmad's the person who is controlling her and not Yasin, which, theoretically should be his job since he is her husband.
Why is Ahmad taking over so much? Does he not trust Yasin? We have reason to believe that. When Yasin and Zaynab decide to go to Kishkish Bey, Ahmad has a serious problem with it. We already know he wouldn't allow his wife and real daughters to even go out into the outside air, and he meant no less for his daughter-in-law. According to my research, many Muslim families believe in a strong extended family culture. They believe that the best help they can get with newcomers to the family are those in the family themselves. That is, why go outside of the home for help with your family when you can just ask those who are older for help. Professor Ismail Faruqi, author of this articlem writes, “...the nuclear family consisting only of husband, wife and children does not hae the resources, the human resources, the wisdom resources, the friendly resources that the extended family brings to the scene.” This part of their cultures is probably why Ahmad butts into the decision that Yasin and Zaynab make when they go to Kishkish Bey. He feels that it's his duty as father and leader of the home, he has to speak what he feels is necessary so that the women in his home live righteously. When Yasin and Zaynab return home, Ahmad tells her off and makes her feel bad for going out with her husband. He says, “...but there are matters that I cannot be silent about without committing what I consider an unforgivable crime. One of these is for a girl like you to stay out off her house until this hours of the night (313). While I see that this is the nicest we've probably seen Ahmad, I think that this exchange between them made it really hard for Zaynab to continue to be herself. He should have talked to Yasin and allowed him to deal with this situation in a way instead of stepping in and “chastising” her himself. He even says himself, “You're her husband and master. It's up to you to make her see things the way you want” (315). So he should allow him to deal with his wife in a way he sees fit.
But Ahmad's attempted refinery of Zaynab still fell short. When Zaynab found that Yasin had had an affair with a maid, she went crazy. She started yelling and screaming and intended for Ahmad to hear her so he would run to see what was the problem with her (385). It was Zaynab's first intention to not put up with a cheating husband but other people, like her own mother, had given her advice to put up with his affairs because he'd eventually grow out of it (387). But why should she have to wait for her husband to be faithful? He should want to do that because he loves her because she definitely loves him (386).
Basically, we haven't gotten a true sense of who Zaynab really is because she's continually being influenced into being a certain way instead acting on her true emotions. Even other women, like Aisha and Khadijah, are shown more deeply and complex in the book so we can see who they are and what they're like even though they were also always under the scrutiny of their father. Zaynab, on the other hand, is being pushed this and that way in order to become the “perfect” wife for Yasin.

Works Cited 
1.Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy). New York: Anchor, 1990. Print.
2.Role of the Family in the Spread of Islam. Jannah, 23 Feb. 2009. Web. 3 Mar. 2010. .

Yasin's view towards women

Throughout the novel Palace Walk there are moments that show many contrasts among its characters’ beliefs and actions. One of these contradictions is the way the way Yasin reacts versus the way Fahmy reacts when they find out the truth about their father, Al-Sayyid Ahmad. In their eyes their father had always been a proper, honorable, and pious man. However, they then find out that he has been going to parties to sing and drink and has been having affairs with various women. Yasin and Fahmy react very differently when they learn this truth. Fahmy condemns his actions and Yasin praises him. We get a glimpse of what they about their father’s actions on the third and fourth paragraphs on page 271.

The first of these paragraphs show Fahmy’s thoughts. He says, “‘My father doesn’t differ at all from Yasin except in having sunk lower…. There must be something I don’t know… My father hasn’t done anything wrong…. He can’t do anything wrong'" (271). To Fahmy his father was a true hero, so much so that when he learned this he believed it was a lie. When he finally accepted it as the truth the image he had of his father was marred. He no longer regarded him with the same respect and admiration. He believed he was even worse than Yasin. When Fahmy learned this truth he was appalled and condemned his father’s actions.

In the second of these paragraphs we see the way Yasin thinks. He says, “’He sings. So what’s wrong about singing? He gets drunk, and believe me, drinking is even better than eating. He has affairs and so did the Muslim caliphs…. Our father isn’t doing anything sinful'" (271). Yasin always held his father in the highest esteem. However, when he learned about this truth he became even admirable to him. Yasin thought it was great that his father acted the way he did. He thought that there was nothing wrong in having many affairs and objectifying women.

This contrast of what Fahmy thought versus what Yasin thought about their father’s actions is just one example that shows the way Yasin feels about women. Other examples are the way he describes women and how he tried to rape Umm Hanafi. With this last incident we saw what a savage animal he is. His brutal sexual desires are well described here: “He was blinded by lust. What kind of lust was it? A lust kindled by a woman simply because she was a woman, not because of any of her qualities or associations. It was a lust that loved beauty but would not turn away from ugliness. In these crises, everything was equivalent. He was like a dog that eagerly devours whatever scraps it finds" (277). When I saw the way Yasin viewed women as objects I asked myself, why?

After searching for the answer I came to the conclusion that the reason for this could be that Yasin’s mother’s marriage-divorce cycles affected him deeply. In fact, according to the Clinical Psychology of North Central Florida many children will eventually adjust to their parents' divorce, but some could continue to have problems into adulthood. Also boys tend to react to their parents' divorce becoming more aggressive and disobedient. This is the case for Yasin.

After seeing how his mother acted, getting married and divorced incessantly, he began to give marriage little importance. It was no longer a sacred union; it turned be something more like a game in which you played with a toy until you got tired of it. He also began thinking that all women were like his mother. He thought that if you gave them a chance they would all act the way she did. In this way he progressively lost respect for women until he viewed them as objects. He used them, turning to them for entertainment and pleasure while they, along with alcohol, began to be the way he coped with his pain. Because of these things Yasin began being promiscuous and celebrated his father’s promiscuity.

Source Citation

"Effects of Divorce on Children - Clinical Psychology Associates N.C. Florida, P.A." Clinical Psychology Associates of North Central Florida Gainesville Ocala Florida. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.

Ahmad and Women

One of the things that I have noticed in the book is that Ahmad has many affairs with different women, yet he only loves himself. Ahmad looks and treats women as if they were objects. He sees his wife, Amina, as a thing that has no feelings or thoughts. He thinks that Amina’s only purpose or duty is to serve him, obey him, and satisfy any of his needs. Ahmad is a selfish conceited man who only sees women in a lustful way. Mahfouz says, “Despite his great number of amorous adventures, out of all the different varieties of love, al-Sayyid Ahmad had experiences only lust”.(99) For example, when he sees Zubayda he only pays attention to the curves and not to her personality. Ahmad sees Zubayda just as a sex object and that’s the way he sees every other woman in the book. He believes that women are only used for pleasure and that’s why he has never intended to look beyond a body to actually try to fall in love. Ahmad is like an animal who has no senses but is always in heat. He doesn’t think about others but only expects everyone to congratulate him on having such a great sense of humor. Ahmad is conceited and thinks that he is better than any other man. This ego is one of the major reasons why he believes that he can get any woman. As I was reading an article on men stereotypes, I came to the conclusion that Ahamd's ego is what is keeping him away from his family. Ahamd feels that he can't show any type of weakness in front of his family and this then leads him to look for other women so that he won't feel so alone. His ego makes Ahmad always sounds confident. For example, when Zubayda goes to his store he tries to seduce her without any shame. He doesn’t care that he is married or that he is committing a sin, instead he believes he is too great even for God to punish him.

Taylor. "Shattering The Ego and The Manly Man Stereotype". August 12, 2009. March 1, 2010.

Women

“Then, the children arrived, one after the other. In their early days in the world, though, they were tender sprouts unable to dispel her fears or reassure her. On the contrary, her fears were multiplied by her troubled soul’s concern for them and her anxiety that they might be harmed. She would hold them tight, lavish affection on them, and surround them, weather awake or asleep, with a protective shield of Qu’rans suras, amulets, charms, and incantations. True pace of mind she would not achieve until her husband returned from his evening’s entertainment” (3).

This passage really impacted me because its found on the third page of this novel. The author was able to include a lot of things in these few sentences that are fundamental to the whole understanding of the Egyptian culture and this book. Mahfuouz, makes it seem as if women are married young and find themselves serving no purpose until their children are born. He makes me feel that their only purpose in the Egyptian culture is to be a care giver and provide comfort to the family. I believe this was okay back then because times weren’t this different like they are now, and women were only married to procreate and take care of their husbands. I don’t think that women should be treated this way. They need to have their own rights. They need to be free to make their own decisions and not be submissive to their men and wait for them until they “return from their evenings entertainment.” They need to want to be more than just wives. The problem that I see is that Amina doesn’t really know what to do with herself aside from being a mother and a wife and that’s a problem. Women think so little of themselves because the men are much more dominate but don’t realize that they are the ones that do the work. They take care of the entire family and always make sure that the men are ready for whatever they have to do. They should be the ones taking the credit for being the best caretakers. They make things possible they make things happen. I think that he portrayed the women to be so submissive to make us think and debate weather we agree with how this society works. I believe that it must let us explore how we see women as being equal to us now.

Do you think its fair for women to be treated this way during this period?

To have no real authority or rights? To just be mothers and wives?

What Not to Judge

In Palace Walk, the author, Naguib Mahfouz, introduces Egyptian culture to us, the readers, through very descriptive passages, like this one, in the story of a young girl named, Amina. Through the description of her life as a young married woman, we are exposed to the way women were seen in Egypt at that time. Like many primarily Muslim countries, women are seen as having to be submissive and inferior to men. We clearly see examples of this in the relationship of Amina and her husband, Ahmad Abd al-Jawad.

"She returned to the room, closed the door, and pulled a pallet out from under
the bed. She placed it in front of the sofa and sat cross-legged on it. In good
conscience she did not think she had any right to sit beside him. Time passed
without her speaking. She waited until he invited her to speak; then she would"
(9).

Young Amina, having been raised in a culture where women have always been seen as inferior to men, has been serving her husband for a quarter of a century. She has taken good care of her household, her husband, her stepson, Yasin, and her children since the age of 14. As westerners, we might see many objections to this. For example, "why should a young girl be given so much responsibility at such an early age?" or, "why not allow a young person, just because she's a female, choose who she is to marry and how she is to live out her youth?". Although very valid questions, as readers belonging to the western world, we must force ourselves to understand the way of life that women in Egypt had been taught to live.

While reading this, we, as westerners, may find it ridiculous that a woman has to behave in this way, but to people that share the same beliefs find it completely normal. In his book, Mahfouz described how Amina was terrified of being alone when she first married Mr. Ahmad. She was terrified of demons that might have been in her home while she was alone at night and sought a bit of comfort by going from room to room with her maid and attempt to ward off demons. But, he later tells that she gets accustomed to her new life with the help of her husband’s words.
Mahfouz, as Amina's memory of Mr. Amad's words, writes, "'I'm a man. I'm the one who commands and forbids. I will not accept any criticism of my behavior. All I ask of you is to obey me. Don't force me to discipline you" (4). These words were the words that taught Amina to adapt to her new life. For the next quarter of a century, Amina learned to love her new life. Through his writing, Mahfouz tells us that “she even profoundly loved this hour of waiting up…” (5). By saying this, Mahfouz lets the readers know that although a woman’s life in Egypt may seem wrong to some people, it’s completely normal to others and that some women even loved their way of life.

Although the life of a woman may seem slave-like to people like us who were raised with western mindsets, Mahfouz shows us that the way women in Egypt lived was something completely normal to them and something they even grew to love. It isn’t right for people to judge the lifestyles of others because it’s not our place to do so. We need to respect the lifestyles of others and not judge them simply because we grew up accustomed to a different way of life.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12392252@N03/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Love Lost Among the Disrespect

In our in class discussion, we focused a lot on how women are disrespected in the book. We placed much emphasis on how the male figures such as Mr. Ahmad and Yasin are disrespectful with their words and behavior. But I think that in the middle of all the “disrespect,” as we judge it to be, Naguib Mahfouz has placed Kamal, a character that to a certain sense still holds innocence and much love in his heart, in the book to show that there’s another side to the story. There’s a love side. The life of women isn’t only waking up early and serving the men; their lives aren’t all about being disrespected by males because, as the author shows through Kamal, there’s much love for women. Here I’m not talking about a lustful love, but a tender and sincere love from a son.

We get this sense of love for the women from Kamal when the author writes:

The truth was that [Kamal] loved the women’s company with all his heart and did not want to be separated from them even when he was working. Seeing them gave him a pleasure nothing else could equal. He loved his mother more than anything in the world. He could not imagine existing without her even for a moment. Khadija played the role of a second mother in his life... Aisha…loved him deeply, and he reciprocated her love totally. (65)

Through this quote we can see that women are loved so much. Mahfouz makes sure to show that Kamal has such a strong love, not just for his mother, but also for his sisters. Kamal holds a strong affection for these women because they are important in his life.

In class, we touched on how women are submissive and sometimes are degraded by men, but we missed to see really how important women are. Through the quote I mentioned above, I feel like we see women in a different way. Women are very special and essential in the life of males. Kamal loves his mother more than anything else in the world, which makes us see that it’s a pretty strong love. The author says, “He could not imagine existing without her even for a moment” (65). Here we see clearly the importance of women. His mother is so essential to his life that Kamal doesn’t see himself without her. He needs her to live, and that is a very strong statement about the significance of the role women hold in this society. It changes to a certain extent the negative way I thought all males treated women in the book, and the way I viewed the role of women. Women are more than just submissive human beings who should follow commands. They are the heart of men because without women, men can’t live.

I ask you all to rethink the role of women in this book. Is their role just cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the house, or is there a more important role that, we as outsider, can’t understand yet? What is really the significance of women in a males’ life? I think women are essential to men, but what do you think?