Salman Rushdie's 'At The Auction Of The Ruby Slippers'

551 Words2 Pages

Value is defined as an object or idea that has worth, usefulness, or importance, Often, society creates value for mundane materials or thoughts and assigns them a price, a requirement to receive the object. In “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers” by Salman Rushdie, value is placed upon the magical Ruby Slippers from the film, The Wizard of Oz. The characters in the short story believe that the slippers will return them “home,” wherever that might be. However, the slippers come with an expensive price tag, with bidders being among society’s elite. The narrator, himself a bidder, joins the auction to win the shoes for his past lover , Gale. Although, as the story progresses readers experience the correlations between price and value growing larger, especially before and after the bidding. …show more content…

The slippers are mentioned to be able to travel through time and repair shattered lives. Hundreds come to the auction of the slippers, hoping for some chance at their power. Movie stars, orphans, hoboes, all joining the bidding at a chance to change their lives. The narrator wishes to use the slippers to please his cousin Gale by returning a man from space. Pleasing her has no price, emphasizing the narrator’s enormous value he places on both Gale and the slippers. He secretly strives to use the slippers to win back her love, and would “bid himself” (Rushdie 101) to gain her affections again. At this point in the story, the narrator would do anything to gain the slippers. He sees no differences in the value he places on them and their prices. It is an equivalent exchange for the hopes he puts into the slipper. Their value, the mere possibility of Gale’s love, and their price, possibly millions of dollars, seem

More about Salman Rushdie's 'At The Auction Of The Ruby Slippers'

Open Document