Analyse af Hanif Kureishis 'The Decline of the West'

In our days, we can easily forget what’s really important in life. The material things have a bigger importance than ever before. The title of this short story is ‘The Decline of the West”, written by Hanif Kureishi, and published in 2010 in Collected Stories. The title refers to the Collapse of Wall Street in 2008, the Collapse had a big influents for many of people all over the world, especially for the Western society in Norh America and Europe.

In this short story, we are introduced to a family who is characterized by this modern western capitalistic society. The story takes place in the upper class society in London. It is concerning the credit crash and is about a fired banker and his spoiled family. The fired banker is Mike, who also is our protagonist of the story and the main character, which the 3rd person narrator is limited to.

Mike work less than twelve hours a day, therefor the au pair has a better relationship with Mike’s family than himself.

Mike believes in that buying martial things for his children, can build a better and a less complicated relationship in the family, so if something ever went wrong in the family, mike just bought something new and then thinks everything’s is fine again. But what he didn’t know was everything actually getting worse. Because of this Mikes two boys Tom and Billy get an unrealistic and superficial relationship to money and not least their father. They would never learn how the society really works. Tom can’t understand the fact that you actually have to work to get what you want. It’s actually also difficult for Mike to know what to do right for his family. And that’s because he doesn’t understand the society function. Mike does become wiser during the story e.g. when he notices Queen Elizabeth II’s smile on a £20 note. It becomes clearer to him that capitalism, materialism and greed are combined. The family has always lived in a five- floor house and doesn’t needed anything accept a good relationship. Mike’s firing means that they cannot live like this any more. Mike already has a debt of almost two-years income. With no income Mike knows by time they will have to move out. Instead of telling the truth about the firing, Mike ends up fighting with his oldest son Tom. Tom didn’t turn off his video games and Imogen calls Mike a “ridiculous foolish man”. Afterwards pushing Tom to the ground. Mike doesn’t know how to handle the whole situation and already in a lot of debt, then promises Imogen a new laptop, a printer, and the newest iPod ironically. He even says that everyone should have what they want. Right after this whole scene Mikes other son Billy asks him for a guitar. The only ting Mike wants is to get money enough to stay in the house and not disappoint his family, but the sons don’t even respect their father. Because they are used to getting anything they want, so they haven’t even noticed how much Mike actually have work just so they could have everything they want, any time they want it. Right after the discussion between Mike and his family, suddenly all the lights in the house goes out, all electronic devices stop, and in this moment reality reallu hits him. As that point Mike gets a break from the “martial world”. There is just dark and that gives Mike a feeling of not having anything at all. On his way to the basement where the fuses are, he fall down the stairs and in one second he just thought of letting go and leave this world. But after a moment all the lights in the house lit up again, and he were in the exact same terrible situation as before.