Capitalism In Hanif Kureishi's The Decline Of The West

Michael Novak once said, "Capitalism must be infused by that humble gift of love called caritas". Historically, capitalism has been criticized a lot. Some criticize capitalism for religious reasons; others criticize it for its lack of justice. Money is a dominant factor in most people's lives in this day and age, no matter where they come from. Should money and materialistic amenities really hold such a big place in our hearts and lives? This is what Hanif Kureishi portrays in his short story “The Decline of the West”, which deals with the ethic aspects of capitalism.

The story takes place in the outskirts of London. Almost the entire story takes place in the family’s luxurious five-floor house, although it starts out with the main character

The narrator of the story is non-omniscient, but also limited because we, as readers, do not know anything about the other people in the story’s thoughts, and this results in us sympathizing with Mike.

Other than Mike and Imogen, there are two characters involved in the story, Tom and Bill, who are both subordinate characters, and they are the sons of Mike and Imogen. At some point in the story Mike’s son, Tom, asks his father “what have you ever done for me?” the son is talking about how Mike always give them materialistic amenities, and that he never does anything for them out of love or affection. These kids simply do not have a father-role in their

The first sentence of the short story is “The tube journey had been one of the most desolate Mike had endured”, and in a tube journey there is often some sort of claustrophobic atmosphere. There is also a lot of foreshadowing in the first couple of sentences of the story. The fact that the author wants to tell us that Mike is going to go through a ‘journey’, and a journey is often interpreted as a ‘journey through life’, and as readers we will be expecting that there will happen a change in the plot. We are also told, that this journey is the most desolate that Mike has endured, and this loneliness that Mike is experiencing tells us something about his mental state. He is feeling lonely, because he has suffered from lack of love throughout his life. There is a dramatic change in the scenery and atmosphere of the story, when Mike chooses to go down to the basement of his house, because the whole style in which the story is written, changes. There is also some symbolism in this, because when someone goes down into their basement, that is the lowest they can go. We can say about Mike, that he has “hit rock bottom”. There is a fake-ness, to some extent, portrayed in this short story. This is very evident on the first page of the story where the author describes the house as having a “hyper-shiny elegant dining room table”. This shows us that this family looks perfect, if you look at them from the