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.