Essay – Time and Distance Overcome
The human has been created by nature to be a curious creature. By following our instincts the human has been able to discovering all sorts of new technologies and therefore it has been a phenomenon in the modern world, as we know it today. Alexander Graham Bell, who lived in the 18th century, invented in 1876 the first telephone ever sawn. But like every other inventions he had to overcome some obstacles before the phone became accepted.

The story of the telephone is described in the text “Time and Distance Overcome” by Eula Biss, written in 2008. Today we could not imagine a world without telephones, but it was a completely different story in 1876 when Bell invented the telephone. “The idea on which the telephone depended, (...) seemed far more unlikely than the idea that the human voice could be transmitted through a wire”. In the beginning you could see the telephone demonstrated by Bell in a church for twenty-five cents, and quickly thereafter the telephone became a plaything for the rich people. But in 1889 The New York Times was reporting a “War on Telephone Poles” where “homeowners and business owners were sawing them down”, and judges found people who had sawed the poles down, “not guilty of malicious mischief”. Not only were people not interested in the idea, they went to extreme lengths in order to prevent telephone poles from being erected e.g. defending their sidewalks with rifles. The war continued but worse had yet to come. The telephone poles were now being used to hang black people, and “from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century black men were lynched for crimes real and imagined”. The lynching happened everywhere in the US, and the bodies hung like flags in the still air. Biss takes the story to another level, by informing us of this horrifying background of something we today consider peaceful and necessary, the telephone. So while the invention of the telephone is amazing, the horrifying consequences of this invention should be enough for us to understand that sometimes the world is not ready for something as life changing as that. We might have been better off without it, at least for several years.
The composition of the text is very striking, because it is divided into sections of different content. In the beginning we are presented with the telephone’s general background story. The next section is a little darker, because Biss informs us of the people’s hatred towards the telephone poles and the extremes they would go to in order to maintain an undisturbed landscape. Until now, Biss has been easing us into the story, because the next section gets even darker, seeing as the main theme is about how the Negroes were killed (lynched) from the telephone poles. This is the section that makes you start thinking about the cruelty in the world, because even though we have known that the Negroes were not accepted in the US at the time, the lengths that people would go to for their believes is extremely horrifying. The last section is rounding the story off, with a little reminder that nothing remains unrepentant, which stands in deep contrast to the message delivered in the last sections.
But why is it important to know the story of the telephone? It cannot be to inform us of the cruelty and hostility the Negroes faced in the US at the time, because that is common knowledge. Looking at the final paragraph, Eula Biss is actually saying that when you are young, you are seeing the world with brand new eyes and therefore everything is innocent and beautiful:”I believed that the arc and swoop of the telephone wires along the roadways were beautiful. I believed that the telephone poles, with their glass transformers catching the evening sun, were glorious”. But as you grow older, your view of the world changes. As an adult, Eula Biss is not seeing the wires as beautiful anymore and herein lies the authors main point, which is to make us readers understand, that what may seem like a good idea at the time, may not be in the long run. The author goes from thinking “that the telephone itself was a miracle”, as a child, to understanding that nothing remains unrepentant as an adult. “But nothing, I would like to think, remains unrepentant”. Biss wants us to remember that even though the telephone poles were used for lynching and resembles a crucifix, it may still repent its sins. Considering that another great scientist, Albert Einstein, worried that his inventions would cause people harm puts this into perspective. We cannot always have the foresight to imagine the consequences of our discoveries and inventions, which is why we are allowed to repent our actions.
Eula Biss is using a fantastic technique to engage the reader, because as you read, the story captivates and engulf you. Lines saying that “Postcards of lynchings were sent out as greetings and warnings until 1908, when the Postmaster General declared them unmailable.“This is the barbecue we had last night,” reads one”, are so horrifying to imagine that you must read on. We want to know more about these absurdities, and using pathos to appeal to our feelings is a great way to capture the reader’s attention. Logos is also frequently used, because it appeals to our common sense by using facts and statistics, and seeing as the whole text is a retelling of certain events, it holds a certain amount of truth. Ethos is the author’s way of seeming believable to the reader. We can trust an author with a high ethos, but seeing as Biss is only using ethos in the final part of the text, because we are shown Biss’ point of view on the matter, we can say this text is based on logos and pathos.
I can conclude that our world has seen wonders and horrors trough out time. Time and distance are hard to overcome, but Bell lived his life believing in his invention and was able to complete the first call from New York to San Francisco which required 14,000 miles of copper wire and 130,000 telephone poles. Bell created a miracle and even if these poles are not innocent today, you just have to ask yourself, what remains innocent? People are allowed to repent one’s sins, so why should that not be apply to a telephone pole too. As the text says,” some green telephone poles grew small leafy branches”.Miracles happen, and had Bell not invented the telephone we would not be able to communicate with people around the globe. Were the consequences worth it?