Misplaced Trust in "I Only Came to Use the Phone" and "Rewind"

Despite being truthful and sincere in their relationships, the two wives, Maria and Lora in I only came to use the phone and Rewind stories respectively share common predicaments of misplaced trust on their husbands; both Maria and Lora think that their husbands care for them, but they are proved wrong when things turn to be the unexpected. The two stories depict the concept of misplaced trust, and this can be seen through the experience of the two wives, and the experience they undergo with their husbands. In both I only came to use the phone and Rewind characters have been depicted as being vulnerable to trust issue and through this they encounter the predicaments that befall them in an attempt to create trust in their relationships. In this paper, I will analyze the concept of misplaced trust based on the two short stories I only came to use the phone by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Rewind by Scott Baker.

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Both Maria and Lora in the two short stories are victims of their actions of misplaced trust. The story of Maria in I only came to use the phone clearly depicts the concept of misplaced trust after she left to Zaragoza. Maria trusted everyone around her until it landed her in a mental institution. This is first seen in her disappearance when she went to visit her relatives in Zaragoza. After getting rained on terribly, the bus driver shows her some compassion and care and decides to give her a ride. Maria does not ask questions, and she enters the bus and meets this military woman who also shows her comfort by giving her a blanket to help her get some warmth. Maria trusts the woman until she realizes that she has reached the unknown place, and the woman leaves her there. Still she does not see something wrong with the place they are left in; she keeps on asking for a phone. Although, her actions of giving in to the request of the nurses in the facility might be explained by the fact that she was sedated, and so she was not herself, but it can also be justified by her misplaced trust in the first place when entered the bus that led to her capture.

Again, in Rewind, Scott presents the character, Lora, who also has the problem of misplaced trust with her husband. Lora for long has trusted her husband Garion, and she has been giving in to his convincing stories although, he annoys her every time. The two couple are always involved in a fight and sometimes for petty reasons. For example, Lora explains her worry about their relationship with Garion that they are not the way they used to be (Baker:1). She recalls about the last real fight they had almost three months ago about the failure of a Kickstarter that left them in a quarrel (Baker:1). Loras predicaments befell her because she cared for someone who never cared for her. Garion only realized that the situation was getting worse, and that is why he tried to give in to flutter Lora with his charming words as he always does when they fight. just like Maria in I only came to use the phone, Lora finds herself in a difficult situation where she is forced to make a decision that she knows might impact her negatively. She knows that if she lets Garion go and she loves him, she might not be able to take the post-traumatic depression that might come as a result of the breakup. This is the reason she tries to talk things over with Garion at least if they could make things up. As Lora explains her experience with Garion has not been a good one. For example, the author describes how they used to be as couple that bickered and tossed around insults like they were tissues (Baker: 1).

Just like Lora in her solitary life, Maria also finds herself in a solitary situation at the sanitarium and with the hope that she could reach her husband who as the author depicts had some other thoughts about her whereabouts. Marias husband, Sartuno the magician still hold the perception that Maria might have left him the way she left some other three men in five years as explained through the flashback in the story (Marquez: 1063). Sartuno fearing that he might have been deserted by Maria, he tries a little search for her from her relatives in Zaragoza, and after he is told that she left some time ago, he become convinced that Maria has deserted her like other two men that were abandoned in the past five years. As the author depicts in the story, Maria continued to hold on to her husband even risking her life to escape from the institution where she almost broke her leg after jumping from the window of her room. The author depicts how Maria held on to her husband as the husband was busy reminiscing over the past suspicious experience of Maria and a young man at the party who assisted her with light. Although she never even saw the man, Sartuno thought that something was developing between the two. This suspicion is further intensified when the two couple meets again with the young man later, and he greets them in a manner that leaves Sartuno worried. As the narrator explains, the way he kissed her and the way she kissed her back, struck Sartuno with suspicion (Marquez: 1064). Lora in the story Rewind also shares the same predicaments like Maria. Loras case is no difference to that of Maria because they both find themselves in desperate situations that they hoped that their loved ones would have assisted them to find a solution. The two wives as depicted in the two stories misplaced their trust on people who never showed any gratefulness to the trust. Loras husband has taken her emotions for granted, and this annoys her. Although, she tries to make things right with her husband she ends up failing after everything she says to Garion prove to be a joke to him. Maria also finds herself holding onto someone who does not care about her. Although Sartuno tries to search for her after she went missing, the story depicts that it is not a sincere search. Sartuno wanted Maria because she assisted him in his performance but it was not something beyond that because even after she found Maria held captive in the mental facility, he goes out and marries another woman and goes back to his country. The author has tried to depict the unappreciative character of the husband in this case.

In conclusion, Maria and Loras cases have revealed the misplaced trust in the two relationships. Despite their dedication to the relationships, their husbands do not appreciate their efforts and every one of them tried to find a reason to cause conflict between them. as we have discussed in this paper, the authors of the two stories have managed to depict the concept of misplaced trust through the characters like Maria, Lora and their husbands, Sartuno and Garion respectively.

Work cited

Baker, Scott, Rewind, 2015, 1-2.

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Bon Voyage, Mr. President and Other Stories. Translated by Edith Grossman. Penguin Books, 1995.