Material Objects

Today’s society is filled with the message that one’s material possessions are equivalent to one’s worth. Everyday we are bombarded with ads that tell us that we are not good enough unless we have expensive cloths, new cars and a big house. The items we buy are as ridiculous as Brittney Spears pregnancy test, which was auctioned off on E-Bay for a mere $5,001. All of these items, disgusting and not, are suppose to enhance our lives in some way and with it you are supposed to be truly happy.

In Salman Rushdie’s novel East, West there is a story called “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers”. We are introduced to an unnamed main character that comes to an auction where Dorothy’s famous slippers, from The Wizard of Oz, will be auctioned off. Ironically this story was written years before the real slippers were auctioned off. Anyhow, the main character believes that by purchasing the ruby slippers, he would win over his love, and cousin Gale. Like modern societies motivations he is looking to make himself more appealing, thinking that the more he has the better he is. At the action there are many people who want the ruby slippers, “bids came in across the video links with Tokyo, Los Angles, Paris and Milan, bids so rapid and of such size” that the narrator claims, “I lost my nerve” (100). The narrator tells us that “the money has become no more than a way of keeping score” (101). This is the way our lives are today in modern society, our possessions that we slave away in order to get, are no more than a way to keep score. We compete against other members of society to “out bid” each other hoping that our bid will be the highest and therefore make us the winner.

          Our narrator realizes how many people want the ruby slippers and drops out of the bidding, “So it is that I drop out of the bidding go home, and fall asleep” (102). It suggests that the narrator has become overwhelmed by the pressure and chaos that surrounds the bidding, there are “explosions in the street outside” which have, “become commonplace” (101). This chaotic world could be compared to our modern society and the chaos that surrounds a trip to the mall; People running about frantically, fighting with each other if both want a specific item when there is only one left. Our narrator tells us that, “I am doing battle with an invisible world of demons and ghosts, and the prize is my lady’s hand” (101). Are these demons and ghost’s the pressure our society puts on us to fit in? And our lady’s hand our reward if we succeeded? But what is success in a world like this, people “may mortgage our homes, sell our children, to have whatever it is we crave” (102). Ultimately there is no success; we are constantly running in place trying to catch up to our fellow bidders. Our narrator has ultimately broken away from the norm when he chooses to go home and fall asleep. He says that when he awakes, “I feel refreshed, and free” (102). He is free of the pressure that surrounds the ruby slippers, the bidders and life in general. He realizes that material objects to not create true happiness and that there will be another action the following week.