Can too much be a bad thing...

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.  -Lenny Bruce Many writers use satire as a form of humor but also to get there point across. Today the most recognizable form of satire would have to be by Steven Colbaret. His television show displays satire in a good way. He is always using funny ways to tell the truth or show a side of something. It always ends up making people laugh. Sometimes many short story riders use satire to show the reader something. We call these parables and they are sometimes used to teach a moral or spiritual lesson.

In Salman Rushdie’s book of short stories, East, West his short story The Prophet’s Hair shows satire. In the short a family develops misfortune after the father, Hashim, finds a sacred object. He soon becomes obsessed and anamered by this object. The object is a beautiful  silver vial that holds a strand of the prophet Muhammad’s hair. Even though he knows that it was stolen and that people are now looking for it he decides to keep it. Towards the end of the story the family has been torn apart by this strand of hair.

The reason as to why this strand of hair caused conflict to this family is anyone’s guess. I feel that the cause was because the father became obsessed with this strand of hair. He became religious and made his family pray everyday. This was out of character of him because he "was fond of pointing out that while he was not a godly man he set great store by ‘living honorably in the world’" (Pg. 41). The family didn’t want to do this and this caused conflict between them.  Through all of this the family felt as though the hair was “persecuting them”. (50)

I think Rushdie uses the misfortune of the family as satire.  I feel that he is some what making fun of people that put all of they’re faith into a small inanimate object, like a strand of hair. He shows the reader that sometimes however good something maybe there can still be a negative to it. Yes maybe this strand of hair is good and if it were part of your religion you could worship it but too much of one thing can be bad. Hashim became obsessed and I think in his obsession he forgot what was so good about this strand of hair.

Rushdie’s satire is rather refreshing. It is nice to read something and not have to hear all of the politically correct stuff. I enjoyed reading this short story by Rushdie because I felt like I got a lot out of it.