If I only had Ruby Red Slippers

Imagine a world where everything was for sale. It would be like ebay on steroids. If you walk down the street and say something, or someone that you liked you could buy it.  About 15 years before the concept of ebay even began, the story, “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers,” was written by Salman Rushdie.  This story embraces the concept that everything is for sale. Some of the items that are for sale in this story are “the Statue of Liberty, Taj Mahal, the Alps, and the Sphinx.”

The story is focused around an auction of the “Ruby Slippers” from the Wizard of Oz and have magical powers. The narrator of the story is a bidder of the slippers.  His hope is that he will win so that he can win back his love, which is also his cousin. When the bidding progresses, the chaos begins to raise up.  The stakes then get too high, and he is forced to give up his dreams and release the hopes of winning back his love. To the narrator, to have the shoes meant that he would have happiness.

This story shows how consumer driver we tend to be.  Now that this story of auctioning and getting whatever you want has become a reality through the internet and ebay, happiness has been sought after even more in the form of materialism.  The narrator comments on his loss and says, “my cousin Gale loses her hold on me in the crucible of the auction, I feel refreshed and free”.  I think this statement captures how much materialism has on our lives, and w don’t realize it until it’s gone.