The Wretched Stone

Television

The Wretched Stone

Chris van alls burg, USA (1949)

The story explores the unfortunate condition brought by television set in our life metaphorically. Stone found in the island is nothing but TV set people become just like animals (apes) due to TV. Out creativity culture etc will be destroyed due to TV. So we have to eschew TV as far as we can.

Four levels of meanings 

Literal comprehension: After completing all its preparation a big cargo ship Rita Anne started her Voyage with fine environment. Every present crew were enjoying by reading books storytelling, etc. After four weeks they reached to an island which was very strange because there were no fruits in the plants, there was no sign of human life. There was bad smelling air and bitter water falling from fountains. They found a strange stone with shining one side that was giving light from there. They kept the stone in the ship and started their further journey. When crews were free they used to watch it. All sailors forgot their jobs and duties and rarely spoke each other. They always sat in front of the stone. They started to walk like animal, didn't understand the language spoken by the captain. The captain made a secret plan to throw the stone in to the see. Soon a storm occurred where captain alone was controlling the ship. Other crews were busy in watching TV (Stone). Later the captain changes them by playing music, reading books and telling stories. The ones who could read changed faster than who couldn't later all were rescued by another ship.

Interpretation: This metaphorical story might be telling many things. Here the stone, ape stands for modern non-creative people. According to the writer being crazy to TV, People are careless to their responsibilities and duties. Watching TV is non-productive and uncreative work. There can be other ways to get entertainment like reading, singing story telling etc. We must be dutiful and punctual to get success in our life. Again the story might also try to tell us that we give less focus to our other important works while watching TV. TV itself is the cause of change in our good manners and attitudes. The title "The Wretched Stone" indicates the stone that gives lot of tensions and problems. This means people get more problems than benefits in watching TV. As we are away from the TV, we can be more creative, mannered and real human beings.

Critical Thinking: After reading this story I became so much disagree with the ideas given as the negative aspects of TV in total. Modern science and technological inventions have made our life facilitated and comfortable. Among them TV is one most useful tool. As it is given in this story TV is the not really so useless. We can know about the world, new inventions, knowledge skills and so much ideas using TV. We can world in front of TV set. How can any person become ape watching TV? Can we really become careless and duty-free watching TV? Can we reject the number of information and knowledge we get from TV? No doubt TV itself is not bad if we use it selectively and appropriately. There are many more advantages along with few disadvantages of using TV.

Assimilation: The story influenced me a lot. When we see the misusages of TV in our daily life, we can see similar situation. School children become crazy to non-creative programs. They should be interested about study. Most of housewives normally watch TV and kill their important time without any creative work. No doubt, if we can't use TV properly, we can be meaningless and non-creative like the apes. The metaphorical presentation of TV as a stone made me to be careful in watching TV to find whether it has destroyed me or given creativity.