Objects and Greed

I remember when I was about 7 I receive my first allowance from my mom for cleaning my bedroom. An entire $5. I was very excited about the money and felt that I needed to share my new wealth with as many people as possible. I took the money to school with me the next day to show off to a couple friends. My show and tell eventually turned into bragging endlessly about my money. Everyone I kept showing the money to became increasingly annoyed with me. One of my friends finally told me that she did not want to sit with me at lunch if I kept telling her about my $5.

I was immediately reminded of my allowance story while I was reading the short story The Prophet’s Hair by Salman Rushdie. In the story the character Hashim finds a silver vial containing a single strand of human hair. Hashim is convinced that the hair belongs to the Prophet Muhammad and decides to keep his findings a secret. Hashim takes the vial home and sits in a room for hours staring at the hair. Upon leaving the room Hashim unleashes a wrath upon his family. “…and then the explosion did indeed take place. In horrified silence, his children heard their father turn upon his wife, and reveal to her that for many years their marriage had been the worst of his afflictions…he revealed to his family the existence of a mistress; he informed them also of his regular visits to paid women…Then he turned upon his children, screaming at Atta for his lack of academic ability…and accusing his daughter of lasciviousness…” Hashim’s family is in disbelief, they have never seen this side of him. From this point Hashim turns a dark corner, he enforces many rules and begins to abuse his family members.

The rest of the story is a downward spiral. Hashim’s daughter hires a thief to steal the hair, the robbery goes terribly wrong and Hashim ends up killing his daughter by mistake and then kills himself. I think that Hashim believes that he comes into such a great power that it causes him to become greedy and that greed turns into a wrath against his family. I think Hashim obviously lets the symbol of the hair over take him and this leads to his eventual demise.

While my allowance story is not nearly as severe as Rushdie’s story, I can see how it is possible to let a material object get the best of you. I didn’t mean to annoy my friends that day at school but I enjoyed the initial attention I got from classmates so I continued to brag about my money.