The Decline of the West

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The Decline of the West How lucky we are to be born in the West. How right we are in the west. We really are a role model to other countries, someone to look up to. Isn’t it great how some countries have absolutely nothing? How they struggle to survive while our biggest concern is how to surpass the neighbor who just got a fancier car? Isn’t it just wonderful how the capitalism never stops flourishing? This short story, written by Hanif Kureishi, by any means, definitely shows how important things have become to us, material things, which have come to mean so much to us, that they are no longer just things, but a way of showing affection, a way of bragging and a way of identifying ourselves. This story was first published in 2010; 2 years after the financial crisis - which leads us to the title, “The Decline of the West”. Yet the title is most likely equivocal, actually the financial decline has a quite insignificant role in this story. Our main character, Mike, who has just been fired, is a typical slave of the Western community, he works in order to buy what his colleagues and neighbors have, to satisfy his family. In this fictive world there’re no such values as gratitude, humbleness and family unity left. Mike is a hardworking man, not left with much spare time for his family. Somehow it also seems as if he, not to mention his family, thinks that it’s more important, that he earns enough money to provide them with whatever they desire. It seems as if the family is wealthy: “Situated on the comfortable outskirts of London, their house was narrow with five floors and off-street parking, overlooking a green”, “Mike put his plate on the hyper-shiny elegant dining-room table”. The family has an au pair, a cleaner, Imogen, Mike’s wife, is non-working, but no housewife, Mike’s two sons attend private schools and tons of spare time activities, but still the
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