Ruby Slippers

 

 

Pathetic. 

How else do you describe it when you hear of someone doing all they can to impress someone else as a way of trying to win them back? If the person were in high school you would think of it as being part of high school. But if the person trying to be impressive is considerably older than a high school student you can not help but think something condescending. Like, pathetic…or sad…or get over it, get a life and move on, man!

And that is what I thought when I read about “the Auction of the Ruby Slippers” (p. 85) and why the speaker in the story wanted to buy those ruby slippers so very badly in Salman Rushdie’s novel East, West. The speaker started off by telling why he wanted to buy the slippers and states “my cousin Gale was and is the love of my life” (p. 95) (ew!). He goes into some detail about how they were together and how they broke up, before he tells about seeing Gale at a bar and watching her watch the TV broadcast of the spaceman dying on Mars, singing several different songs including ones from The Wizard of Oz while she cried.

The following day when the Ruby Slippers came up for sale the speaker says, “My plan was simple: I would offer the miracle-shoes to Gale in all humility. If she wished, I would say, she could use them to travel to Mars and bring the spaceman back to Earth” (p. 97). He even goes so far as to imagine himself clicking his heals together three times and saying “There’s no place like home” and winning her back. And though he seems determined not to be out bid, and continues to up the value of his past, present, and future by upping the bid on the slippers, he does eventually lose the ruby slippers to someone else more impressive financially. After which Gale no longer seems to have a hold on him. So he goes home, moves on and finally gets on with his life.

Many teenagers are just like the speaker of this tale. They think that they just need to impress the object of their affection and for them to do that they need money to accomplish their goal. Whether it is to buy a cool car, wear cool clothes or buy mystical ruby slippers, they think that having something of material value is what will win them their “Crush.” But hopefully by the time you reach the speaker’s age you realize that most people don’t care about those kinds of things nearly as much as you originally thought. Or at least I hope you do!