The Telephone by Anwar Accawi
In Anwar F. Accawi's short story, "The Telephone," The village of Magdaluna was overcome by the telephone. Magdaluna was a simple town. The villagers did not have much, and technology was very new to them. They judged time by certain events that happened. For example, an earthquake, or the birth of an important person would be sufficient to get a feel time concepts. The children would play in the streets and run errands for the grown-ups for small sums of money. Accawi grew up in this town and he was content with his life. Change would surely be a bad thing to him because he had fun without all the advantages of technology. He assumed everyone else was happy as well. However, when the telephone came, it changed their lives forever. The telephone brought so many opportunities for the villagers. The whole village would sit by the phone and wait for it to ring and bring them news, and opportunities to make money. The people of Magdaluna almost started worshiping the phone. The congregations around the phone grew larger and larger. People would receive job opportunities and leave the village. This was upsetting to many people of Magdaluna, especially Accawi. It was disturbing their way of livin
g, and taking them away from a life that they enjoyed. Accawi states in his short story that the telephone was bad. I agree with this statement to an extent. The telephone had a bad impact on the village, in that they were torn apart from each other, and changed a way of living that was truly unique. A way of living in which time did not matter and where there were hardly any worries. Before the telephone the places where everyone socialized and relaxed were always bustling with people. Now that there was a telephone, everyone huddled around it, waiting for his or her opportunity of a lifetime. Im Kaleem, for example, was a woman who pleased the men of the town. She was the "town whore," if you will. Her house was somewhere that all the men could go and just play cards, drink, have a good time and be relieved of all the stress from the day. Her house was always full of men just having a good time and fulfilling their sexual desires with Im. Now that the telephone was around, people stopped going to Im Kaleem's house. They spent all their time sitting by the phone. This was harmful for the town and its community. It tore people away from each other. Also, for Accawi, the telephone was "bad news." He had a little business of running errands for the older men. He would sit outside of Im Kaleem's house and wait for a man to call to him so he could run errands for him. The men would pay him a small amount of money each time. In this sense, the telephone was "bad news." Although Accawi may have enjoyed living the simple life, he was brought an opportunity of a lifetime because of the telephone. While the telephone brought much grief to the to
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1127
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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