The short story, “The Man in the Well” written by Ira
Sher tells of a memory from his childhood.
While playing with a group of friends, cries of help were heard coming
from a nearby well. For days they anonymously
communicated with the “man in the well,” who begged the children to tell their
parents and to get help. It seemed that
as a group the children collectively decided not to tell anyone else about the
man, and only aided him by smuggling food from dinner to bring him the next
day. They never learned much about the
man, not even his name, and the only information they shared with him were
their first names.
Order of importance in possible themes for "The Man
in the Well"
1. Within groups, people may engage in conduct that is
wilder, stranger, or more uncivilized than their unusual behavior when alone
2. Even in their later years, people may have trouble
forgiving themselves for bad things they did when they were young.
3. Children are capable of conspiring with on another
against the adult world.
4. 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.
5. People need to
see one another’s faces if they are to trust one another.
6. Children may fail to understand when an adult is in
danger.
7. Children may have difficulty sharing the perspective of
another person.
8. We should be more compassionate toward people who are
trapped.
9. People project their fears or suspicions onto others,
even those who do not actually pose a threat to them.
10. The psychological reality of children and adults is a
deep well within themselves that they cannot see into.
Many themes can be taken from this short story, the first
and main theme being, “Even in their later years, people may have trouble
forgiving themselves for bad things they did when they were young.” This theme stands out most because
considering that the author is writing this story as a memory of his childhood,
now being an adult, it is obvious that
he has not come to terms with the decisions he and his peers made at the time
to not help the man in the well. Even
though he tries to convince himself what they did was right, the emotions put
into the story and little details of how the man spoke showed otherwise. Especially the fact that he remembers the
sound of the rain that night, and thinking how he would never go back to the
well in his life, shows he did not completely come to terms with the actions he
made as a child.
The next theme I found most important and relevant to
this story was, “Within groups, people may engage in conduct that is wilder,
stranger, or more uncivilized than their usual behavior when alone.” Sometimes when people are surrounded by their
peers, what they feel is right or the most moral thing to do it taken away by
wanting to follow the group and not stand out.
The narrator admits this to be true when he says, “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.” If each of those kids were
alone when they found the man in the well the chances that they would have gone
to get help was probably much higher, but as a group their personal beliefs
were compromised.
Tying into the previous theme, “Children are capable of
conspiring with one another against the adult world,” applies to “The Man in
the Well” because the children, for the most part, stayed together as a group
in their decisions not to help the man.
The story may have ended differently if it was another child, or a
friend stuck in the well rather than an adult.
“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.” This theme stuck
out to me especially in regard to narrator of the story because on several
occasions the mother is mentioned crying at night. It can be assumed that she was fighting with
the father, who the narrator may have related to the man in the well.
The next three themes that are relatable are, “People
need to see one another’s faces if they are to trust one another,” “Children
may have difficulty sharing the perspective of another person,” and “Children
may fail to understand when an adult is in danger.” If the children were able to see the man
stuck in the bottom of the dark well, they would have been able to see that he genuinely
needed their help, and if they could have seen his face when he pleaded with
them it would have been much harder to ignore in getting him help. This connects to children not being able to
understand when an adult is in danger, and children may have difficulty sharing
the perspective of another person. If
the children were a few years older they would have been more likely to understand
what serious conditions the man was in, and how serious it was that the children
knew about him and did nothing to save his life. Also their age makes it harder
to image what it would be like to be in the position of being stuck in a well.
We should be more compassionate toward people who are
trapped, is a theme that I think is very obvious in the sense that its morally
correct to help anyone if they are trapped in any way.
The last two themes, “People project their fears or
suspicions onto others, even those who do not actually pose a threat to them”
and “the psychological reality of children and adults is a deep well within
themselves that they cannot see into” serve the least amount of importance to
this short story. I don’t feel that the
children felt threatened by the man in the well and I don’t think there was any
psychological reason deep within the children when they did nothing to help
him.
In conclusion the most important themes of, “The Man in
the Well” are that sometimes self-forgiveness may never come even with age,
being a part of a group can lead one to take part in activities that are not
always in line with their personal beliefs, and when put together children can
conspire against adults.
