Telephony in A Gun for Sale and Vile Bodies Anonymous College

In Graham Greene’s A Gun for Sale and Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, the authors explore the consequences of the new technology of the telephone. Both books describe how telephones are a form of miscommunication, accidental and intended, due to the absence of physical presence and body language. Telephones are a vehicle for untrue feelings to be conveyed and for true feelings to disintegrate through the act of speaking through a wire. Based on the novels, all numbers prove to be wrong numbers because the messages are never properly conveyed to the intended recipient or telephones are conveniently used to communicate lies. The narrative advantages of a telephone are quickened dialogue and a focus on actual words being spoken, ripping away the extra forms of communication. In the novels, the telephone alters human behavior by influencing characters to lie, because the telephone made it convenient to lie. In addition, it makes gender relations difficult and unfeeling because so much of communication in gender relations is physical.

Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies demonstrates how telephones can be used to purposely miscommunicate. In her article, “The End of the Party”, Marius Hentea describes “The lower classes are represented by a...