Rose Tinted Goggles

Although I’ve never been to jail and I’ve never been in exile, I do believe that to some degree I understand how these situations must feel. Now don’t get me wrong, I do take this job very seriously, and I understand the importance of the position I am in, but the tediousness nature of this job leads me to feel as if I am in solitary confinement, and my mind often wanders. The smell of chlorine, the ruthless sun, hours on end doing almost nothing, anxiously hoping that although the boredom is agonizing, nothing traumatic will actually happen that I would have to jump to attention to. Unlike Solomon Rushdie I have never been exiled but at times life guarding can come pretty close. And while life guarding, while counting heads, peering down into the dark elusive edges of the pool, and occasionally blowing my whistle and giving some defiant kid a time out, I often ponder many things. Politics, philosophy, our culture in general, and many other petty things. And while mulling all these pertinent issues over in my mind, anxiously scouring the pool, I can’t help but see the crack in my rose tinted goggles, and visions of a less than perfect society and culture begin to flood my mind. Clearly while in exile, Rushdie had a similar experience when he wrote At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers.

             The short story, At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, by Solomon Rushdie, although creative and witty, is saturated with a cynical disdain for western culture, and its often pretentious and superficial sense of values, and acceptable societal behavior. This is clearly due to the state at which Rushdie was in when he wrote this short story. Rushdie was in exile, hiding for his life. Not only condemned by western culture but also condemned by his own. Now I have a feeling he felt quite a bit bitter, but that bitterness prompted him to write a short story that bluntly and creatively shows us the truth about ourselves behind our rose tinted glasses.   

            In the story At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers Rushdie uses fiction and a movie close to our hearts The Wizard of Oz to portray to us what American society is really about. In the beginning of the story Rushdie explains the type of people attending the auction.  The celebrities with their defining auras, collectors, the “memorabilia junkies,” the cult members of the Wizard of Oz, displaced people of all sorts, scientists, behaviorists’ political refugees, and religious fundamentalists.  With each he discusses who they are and their reasons for coming to the auction.  The actors for the wealth and status of the slippers the, orphans hoping they will bring them to family, the scientists to study them. All coming with personal motives.  Throughout the story Rushdie touches on aspects of our society he resents. “Most of us nowadays are sick (87).”  “We the public are easily and lethally offended (89).”  “We revere the ruby slippers because we believe they can make us invulnerable to witches (and there are so many sorcerers pursuing us nowadays) (92).”  In doing so he uses fiction to point out to us our silly behaviors, much like believing in ruby slippers is silly.

            When Rushdie says, “most of us nowadays are sick (87),” he is making reference to our society’s innumerous scapegoats, in the form of treatable “sicknesses.” Rushdie seem to touch on the opinion that we are in an age that blames every failure, and difficulty on some sort of condition. I’m depressed that’s why I can’t hold a job. He’s not a difficult child he just has ADHD. Not that these conditions are legitimate in some cases but in many ways our society has developed a medication for every problem. To Rushdie it seems we have lost the ability to care for ourselves and take responsibility for our actions. When Rushdie point out that the public is “easily and lethally offended,” he is pointing out how self centered our society has come.  In Rushdie’s eyes we have lost the ability to put others first as well as the ability to poke fun at ourselves. We constantly feel as if we are under personal attack and are lethally offended and Rushdie assert that our rage is our “moral high ground” which enables us to inflict devastating wounds on our enemies. This statement not only reflects Rushdie’s disdain for our self centered ways but portrays his bitterness for being kicked out of the country for offending us with his writing. Rushdie also makes a comment about the witches and sorcerers that are after us these days. This I believe is his way of portraying to us the paranoia that seems to clutches us. In this day and age our governments seem to be so afraid of terrorists and attack. The Patriot Act, and the increase of extensive searching of passengers on planes, are results of our paranoia terrorists, Rushdie’s fictional witches and sorcerers. Thou these fears are not uncalled-for, Rushdie must blame the state he was in while writing this story on our terrorist paranoia. Lastly, Rushdie makes many comments throughout the story alluding to the fact that we often look to and idolize the wrong people.  Heroes who drop through the screen and marry fan, the celebrities with their gaudy auras we are not allowed to touch. And symbolically the auctioneers. “It is to the Auctioneers we go to establish the value of our pasts, of our futures, of our lives (101).”        He culminates all these flaws at the end when he says “Thanks to an infinite bounty of the Auctioneers, any of us….. can be a blue-blood; can be as we long to be; and as cowering in our shelters we fear we are not- somebody (103).” In this Rushdie is saying that due to our, excuses, our self centered rage, our self centered paranoia, and our tendency to compare ourselves to and idolize, the wrong people we are blindly content not being our raw selves for fear that, our raw selves, is not something of worth.

             The story of the ruby slippers is the product of a bitter exiled writer. Though it is cynical and whimsical all at once, it does offer some useful insight to our culture. Rushdie creatively portrays to the reader what he believes our society has become. And although I can’t say I completely disagree, I don’t completely agree either, and I don’t take it to heart.  My rose tinted goggles cracked long before Rushdie came around. I have since replaced them, with clear ones. They are neither black nor rose tinted, and they show me the world as it really is, the good and the bad. They let me mull things over and work them out in my own head, so I can come to a conclusion that best fits me, in my state, in my current situation wherever that may be. But every once in awhile, just for good measure, I put on someone else’s goggles, I see what they see. And then I put my goggles back on, with a new perspective; New ideas to mull over. At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, did give me a new perspective, but like I said my rose tinted goggles cracked a long time ago, and I’m not taking anything to heart.