Case History #4: Fred

'Slaves of New York'


Case History #4: Fred is a short story about a man named Fred who clearly has a problem. He has an obsession with talking to girls and taking them to shop at Tiffany's, in which he 'buys' them gifts; whatever they want., except he has no money. This is his way of talking to girls and thoroughly enjoys doing it. Some days he is successful and some days he is not, in the story Tama Janowitz explains how Fred was turned down after asking to take one girl shopping, as she says 'buzz off', which does not come surprising as this would be a inevitable response. However, he then asks another girl but adds on to his proposal that he is a millionaire and will buy here whatever she wants. Fred says 'I'm a millionaire and I get a kick out taking young women shopping at Tiffany's.' The way he says he gets a kick out of it, sounds like some sort of crazed fetish that he has, and shockingly the girls response was just,  'okay'.


This part of the story shows the effect money can have on women, this is very stereotypical, yet true among most women, which is kind of sad and degrading when you think about it. The relevance of the shop Tiffany's as is important, as in this period the shop Tiffany's in New York was seen as the aspiring place to shop, where all the high class, wealthy people would go to shop. This reinforces the persuasion to a girl of being offered to buy anything they want from Tiffany's, this is portrayed in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's, in the scene below we see actress Audrey Hepburn eating her breakfast outside Tiffany's, clearly wanting to go in, this reinforces that appeal of being able to shop in Tiffany's, and for the girl that Fred had asked...thinking that she was getting free items from there must have been very appealing.

The following article written by Christina Crapanzano describes this scene in detail, saying how later on in the film this is what the character Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) says; “Well, when I get it, the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany’s. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it. Nothing very bad could happen to you there.” This idealises Tiffany's and extrapolates it wealthy status.






When Fred takes the young girl to Tiffany's she chooses out various items costing thousands of dollars, but when they get to the cashier Fred 'realises' that he has forgot his bank card, 'the girl looked wistful, but she understood completely.' After this encounter Fred was banned from Tiffany's or threat of calling the police, however its disturbing to read how he became aroused by this occurrence and would carry on to perform it. This short story is parallel with the idea that many women are dependent on men, that this girl was happy to take this mans money for no cost, it infers deviance and manipulation just by the words millionaire and Tiffany's.




Many of the short stories in Slaves of New York show how women are subservient or dependent on men, feeling subordinate and less merited. This is also clearly shown in the short story 'Kurt and Natasha, a short relationship, in this story Natasha seems completely controlled by Kurt more so than the manipulation of Fred, she does what ever he asks just like a dog, from cleaning or cooking to sexual needs and empowerment.




http://entertainment.time.com/2010/05/18/field-of-dreams-for-sale-top-10-iconic-movie-locations/slide/tiffanys-co-breakfast-at-tiffanys/