The Pencil..still remember this story??

The Pencil is written by Ali Majod, who is a graduate from the University of Malaya in the year of 1978 illustrates aptly the axiom that not only should justice be done but it should also be seen to be done. This is explored through the perception of a child on the one hand, and the adult world on the other. The former is represented by Zahid and the latter by Mr Jamal and Mr Berahim, the school principal. Zahid and Dolah quarrel over a pencil. Mr. Jamal asked them to come up front to see him. Dolah accused Zahid steals his pencil. Mr Jamal's pronouncement that Dolah is the rightful owner of the pencil is based on the evidence produced by Dolah as the pencil has Dolah's initial on it. Mr. Jamal believed him and punished Zahid. Weeks before that, Zahid saw the pencil in a bookstore. He liked the pencil very much and he did asked money from his grandmother so he can buy the pencil. Grandmother asked him to work with his Uncle Teh instead. He bought the pencil and treasured it very much. A few days after that, the pencil disappeared. It turned out Dolah have the same pencil, only the paint was scrapped off. Zahid interrogated Dolah about the pencil and did waited for Dolah in the bush after school to ambush Dolah. He then hit Dolah. Zahid found the pencil in Dolah's bag and broke it into pieces. He ran home. He did not come to school for three days after that. He was down with fever. After that, he became a little monster.

He disturbed other children. He bought a pocketknife and destroyed the nature table in the
classroom. He slashed Dolah's hand. Zahid was called into the Principal's office. Mr. Berahim, the
principal, asked Zahid why he do all the bad things. Zahid told him everything. Dolah admitted
that he stole Zahid's pencil and accused Zahid instead. Mr. Berahim told Mr. Jamal about Zahid's
father. Mr. Jamal now understand why Zahid became very naughty. Mr. Berahim gave Zahid
two new pencils. He was very happy and gave one pencil to Dolah. Obviously, this short story portrays the norm behaviour of schoolchildren or early teenagers in our country. The deed of taken others’ property could be said to be as the usual things that they do. It does not mean that they like to steal, but actually, the feelings of can not stand looking at others’ luxury drives them to do the deed. Actually, it reminds us about our good-old school days. Same goes to the teacher who punished his student without doing further interrogation. He did not give the chances to Zahid to talk and give explanation on what he had done. He even did not question himself about why do Zahid seems do not satisfied with Dolah. In these situation, may be we can say that these kind of early teenagers are still immature and could not be able to think wisely as adult do and the reality of teacher who have the authority in making decision. We would like to claim that this story is actually trying to celebrate the Malaysian culture by emerging the kind of experiences that usually happen among our citizen if we look at it from the positive side. We might think that the persona includes the negative elements as the representative of our culture, but it is a norm and it’s happen in the reality world. We could deal it as a positive attribute for us to analyze the things that we do in our daily life and we can fix it if we want. As we get through to the story and analyze every inch of the meanings that the persona is trying to convey, we may understand our culture better.