Pope in a Snow Globe?

During this past summer, I had the pleasure to travel to Rome and see, for myself, the Vatican.  For years I have always heard about this enormous and scared place full of people and prayer.  Never had I ever been near something that made me feel so small.  The tall pillars towered over me as I walked through the Vatican church.  The colossal building gave the sense of sacredness; holy ground. I was absolutely astonished by the architecture, the design...and the gift shops? Wait.  Am I missing something? Last time I was in a church there were no gift shops outside promoting the Catholic faith.  Ironic. You go to a place where you believe you will find peace and a place to pray and you’re still able to find an area where shopoholics can buy a figures of the pope in a snow globe (oh yes, they do exist).  I know that God probably has a sense of humor, but I’m not too sure if He’s really appreciating the small little gift shops around the Vatican. 

But isn’t life like that?  The song “Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette comes to my mind when ironic events happen.  Obviously nothing to the extreme like getting in an airplane and it crashes (as the song says), but little things.  Things like studying for a test and then finding out the next day that it was cancelled or going 15 miles over the speed limit for the first time and getting pulled over.     

Same as in the short story, The Prophet’s Hair written by Salman Rushdie, we find ironical and satirical events happen to a certain family.  We find a moneylender by the name of Hashism who stubbles upon a silver vile while boating.  In the silver vile there is something very precious and sacred: a strand of the Prophet Muhammad’s hair.  The man takes the vile back to his home and suddenly he becomes a new person, but not in a good way. His actions, words and the physical abuse endangers his family to the point where they have no other choice than to get ride of the vile.  The wife flees to the city to find a robber who can steal the vile from their home; ridding them of the curse that has been placed on their house. The night of the robbery, the son dies a quick death and the daughter ends up being accidentally killed by her father.  The father, seeing that he murdered his daughter, takes his own life.  After the night of the robbery, the wife ends up going insane and is placed in an insane asylum.  Once the robber figures out about the hair and after he experienced the death of the three family members, he informed his blind wife that he was going to be leaving for awhile until things settled down.  The police soon found out about the thief, shot him, and retrieved the hair.  At the end of this story, the only person that benefits from the whole situation was the robber’s wife who gained her sight back once her husband left.

When looking closely at this story, it is easy to see the satire that is within it.  For Rushdie to take a simple man and have his life change for the worse within hours just by finding this scared hair is very ironic.  Relics are usually seen as being pure, full of goodness and often bring people together.  They usually represent the person that they are from and often are given an appearance of grace.  Rushdie somehow switched the role of the relic.  Instead of the object being full of goodness, the hair brought tragedy, pain, and greed.  “…that evening, their mother attempted to calm Hashim down, he struck her on the face with an open hand.  Atta leapt to his mother’s defense and he, too, was sent flying” (47).  Physical and emotionally abuse was brought onto the family where before, there never was any. 

Towards the end of the story, it is easy to see how the relic has torn the family apart and has caused them great tragedy.  During the robbery, three people die and one becomes insane.  I find it very interesting how Rushdie can take a story about a relic and turn it upside-down.  He gives the reader the impression that not everything is as it seems.  He shows the reader that even though the moneylender had something holy, he did not use it properly and in the end tragedy struck.  Rushdie also illustrates how powerful greed is.  The moneylender never let anyone see or touch the relic; he felt that it was his.  He let greed take over therefore leading to his death as well as his family.  I find it ironic that the only person who “benefits” from this whole situation is the robber’s wife.  After her husband left she gained her sight back.  Yet instead of being able to see everything good in the world, she is now forced to see everything evil and is able to experience her husband’s death.

I believe that Rushdie used satire as a tool to show his audience what greed and power can do to a person.  Even though the satire that he uses isn’t a “funny” kind like we would find in a Might Python or Mel Brooke’s movie, but it is one that gets the point across.  It makes you look at the bigger picture and gives you a better understanding of the story.