How we can not change the world

Hundreds of items have been auctioned off in front of me. I have probably spent twenty Fridays over the years here in Chicos’ auction house. With only a swamp cooler to try and cool the large building one can spend hours there waiting in the sweaty wherehouse for their item to come up for bid. This is nothing to the hell that Salman Rushdie describes “At The Auction of The Ruby Slippers.” Here in what seems like a world on the verge of dest

ruction where anything can go be sold to the highest bidder, even the ruby slippers.

The entire dark and dreary scene is described from the view point of us, which I assume to mean the people of the world. More specifically everyday people, we are allowed to watch as the auction goes on however we cannot hope to have the monetary power to win. This becomes very apparent when Rushdie describes a situation when one of us bumps into a celebrity “When one of us collides with a star’s priceless (and fragile) aura, he or she was instantly knocked to the floor by security team and hustled out to the waiting paddy-wagons.”(p.88) So not only is this story written from the point of view from someone who is lower in society but we can also see that in this place the elite control the security or at the least have more importance. During this section it is interesting to think about who this is actually coming from, does Rushdie really not consider himself a celebrity he had already became famous or infamous at the very least for his popular book the Satanic Verses and the fatwa that followed. I really think he does not, and this section is showing how much he despises the power that celebrities have over society.

There are some sections where it sounds like Rushdie one such section is at the bottom of page eighty nine “We, the public, are easily, and lethally offended. We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground...” Here the tone completely changes and only for this short paragraph. Rushdie seems to be talking to us the reader directly,

and it is hard to tell whether or not he wants to include himself in this group. It almost seems that he was overcome with outrage and decided to put a quick rant in against society’s power and how it is used.

The fact that Rushdie had the fatwa brought against him by the Iranian government before writing this story no doubt influenced it, the entire tone of the story is raging against the fact that money has forced him into hiding. One section that he tells the reader of his situation directly is the section about Gale when she is looking at the astronaut on TV he says “The condemned man on another planet the condemned man on TV.” (p.97)This is a not so subtle hint about his own frustration about going into hiding and having to leave life behind. The astronaut is left on mars to fend for himself just and Rushdie is left to deal with his situation in life, a situation that was brought on by someone else.

Auctions are a great analogy for societies way of getting things done, if someone has unlimited amount of money then they can buy anything they want there it does not matter what they want to do with it. Rushdie in no doubt frustrated with his current situation when he wrote this story. And after reading this I will definitely think about it upon my next trip to the Chico auction house.