Theme for "The Man in the Well"

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.