Analyse af Hanif Kureishis 'The Decline of the West'

I am going to write an essay in which I will analyze and interpret Hanif Kureishi’s short story “The Decline of the West”. In my essay I will be focusing on the short story’s point of view and on the title.

“The Decline of the West” is a short story written by Hanif Kureishi in 2010. It deals with the modern western capitalistic society and it’s affections on family life and structure. The story questions ethic aspects of capitalism. The story is set in the upper class society in London. It is concerning the credit crash and is about a fired banker and his spoiled, demanding family. Our protagonist of the story is Mike who is our mentioned banker arrives home after a terrific day. He has been fired from his job and doesn’t know how to explain it to his wife and sons. He is used to work 12 hours at a day and therefore has a complicated relationship to his family as he rarely sees them. Mike has a debt worth around two year’s income, which makes the firing a severe blow. This factor makes it even harder to tell the family about his new status as an unemployed. Instead of telling the truth Mike ends up fighting with his oldest son Tom for him not turning off his video games and Imogen for pushing Tom to the ground afterwards. Imogen over reacts and calls Mike a “ridiculous, foolish man”.