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1. Children may fail to understand when an adult is in danger.
2. Children may have difficulty sharing the perspective of another person.
3. Even in their later years, people may have trouble forgiving
themselves for bad things they did when they were young.
4. Within groups, people may engage in conduct that is wilder,
stranger, or more uncivilized than their usual behavior when alone.
5. People project their fears or suspicions onto others, even those
who do not actually pose a threat on them.
6. We should be more compassionate toward people who are trapped.
7. People need to see one another’s faces if they are to trust one
another.
8. When dealing with an adult, even a helpless one, children may have
in their minds images of parental authority that affect how they treat the
person.
9. The psychological reality of children and adults is a deep well
within themselves that they cannot see into.
10. Children are capable of conspiring with one another against the
adult world.
When I
read the short story ,“The Man in the Well” by Ira Sher, I was completely
horrified and livid. An innocent group of children who play “hide and go
seek”(116) and go to the “movie theatre”(118) turn evil when they let a
helpless man die in the well. I was not as angry once I realized that possibly
the children did not understand how much danger this man was really in. They
knew that the man could die of starvation or dehydration, which is the reason
that they brought him “bread”(117),”fruit”(117), and “a plastic jug of water”.
However, when the man continues to ask the children “Do you think it will
rain?”(117), they respond with a simple “no”(117) without giving it another
thought. They did not comprehend that if it rained than the well would fill up
and the man would drown.
It is also possible that the children
could not see the situation through the man’s point of view. Maybe the children
did not understand that he really was stuck down there. They would each go to
their homes and go to sleep in their comfy beds while the man would have to
sleep on the dirty, concrete floor of the well. They would each get to eat
breakfast with their loving family while the man would have to eat whatever was
thrown at him by himself. It is hard even as an adult to see situations from
another person’s point of view, it must be close to impossible as a child.
You can tell that the speaker of this
story will never forget about what happened at that well, and may even have
trouble forgiving herself about it when she is older. The last line of “The Man
in the Well” is “I will never go back”(120). I have experience with this theme
containing my step-sister. When we were much younger, we would compete in
everything together; grades, gymnastics, diving ect. I would always win first
place and my step-sister would always come in second. I continued to boast and
brag about my accomplishments while I was unintentionally putting my
step-sister down. I didn’t learn until recently how much this hurt and upset
her. I made her feel like she was not good enough, which is why she quit sports
and went to drama, an activity without placing or winners. Although she loves
drama and it was good for her, I have trouble forgiving myself for putting her
though that.
It was
strange and uncivilized that these children did not help the man in the well.
This may be because they were in a group. If any of these children found the
man in the well while they were alone I am sure that the child would have
gotten help for the man. The speakers says in the beginning of the story that
“everyone, like myself, was probably on the verge of fetching a rope, or asking
where we could find a ladder, but then we looked around at each other and it
was decided.”(116) It wasn’t until after the group looked at each other that
they decided not to help the man. This relates to the novel “Lord of the Flies”
in which many boys were left on an island by themselves after a plane crash.
They were all very civilized boys until they got into a group together and
became wild and crazy.
When the
man in the well learned the names of each of the children, they all became
terrified. The speaker says, “I felt the water clouding my eyes, and I wanted
to throw stones, dirt, down the well to crush out his voice”(120). The man in
the well could have done nothing to any of the children; but they each
projected their fears and suspicions on to him.
“We should be more compassionate to people
who are trapped”. I wanted to scream this at the children the entire time I
read the story. These children were the man’s only hope for surviving and all
they could think about was how hot they were or how they were scared of the man
finding out who they were. They should care more that it is an actual human
being down in the well and he needs help. I believe in karma, what comes around
goes around, in the good and the bad. Everyone will be trapped sometime in
their life and will need help, if you help them than you will be helped.
The children may have felt that they could
not trust this man because they did not know what he looked like, they could
not see his face. This could be why they kept asking him so many questions
including “What’s your name?”(118). They
were trying to find out more about the guy so that they could paint a mental
picture. This thinking could have come up because in the world today people who
try to cover their face are usually trying to do something bad. For example,
people who rob banks use masks and people trying to abduct other people use the
internet to cover up who they realty are.
It is
possible that the children get angry with all adults when they are angry with
their parents. Maybe the children’s parents yelled at them recently, or their
teacher gave them detention, or the lunch lady wouldn’t let them get seconds;
they are trying to get back at the adult figures in their life by keeping the
man in the well. This could be considered stereotypical, which is present in
many peoples minds. For example, when an Asian cut my grandpa off the other day
he assumed that all Asians are bad drivers. This would be incorrect thinking.
All people drive differently and it is not based upon the person’s background.
It may
be that the story of “The Man in the Well” is a metaphor for how children and
adults really are. They have trouble communicating with each other. It seems
that adults have trouble telling children the truth, which may not be the best
thing. If the man had told the children the truth of who he was, how he got down
there, and why he wanted to get out then they would have had more reason to
help him. Also, if he had explained how necessary it was for him to get out as
quick as possible because he could die than the children would understand and
get him out. Adults feel they are protecting their children when they don’t
tell them the truth when they get laid off, get a divorce, or what sex is. In
some cases it might be, but if children are treated with respect and honesty
than they will display the same to others.
The
children in the story were very capable of conspiring with each other against
the adult world. As a large group, they decided to let the man stay in the
well. Although adults have much power over children, the children moved past
the norm and gained control of the man. The man was in the hands of the
children and the children liked it.
