Decayed Teeth

The text “Decayed Teeth” features in B.Ed. 1^st Year’s General English book (Tribhuvan University). It is a non-fictional writing by Khalil Gibran, taken from his Thoughts and Meditations.

The Summary of the Text

The writer makes his argument through the use of an analogy. [Analogy is a comparison made to illustrate a concept by showing how two different things are similar.] He says that he had a decayed tooth in his mouth which troubled him a lot, particularly, during nights when the severe pain robbed him of sound sleep. He went to a dentist for the treatment. The dentist suggested a cure and scraped the rotten part and filled the gap with gold filling. However, after a week, the pain returned; the disease had not been cured yet. Enraged, he went to another dentist and instructed him to extract his rotten tooth. After the tooth was extracted, he felt relieved and thus got a lasting solution to his problem.

In the same way, the writer says that in the mouth of Syria, there are several decayed teeth, and since the dentists, that is, reformers of the society are only trying to treat the problem by introducing reforms, the country’s problems have persisted. In order to have a lasting solution, the writer argues, the troubling elements should be completely removed from the society. Thus, the writer speaks for radical change.