Have you ever tried walking into a community and feeling different, most likely apart and isolated from the people living in there? Have you ever realized how it is to live a life that is founded on doubt and distrust? While the saying “no man is an island’ continues to echo to remind the society of what is meant by fellowship and being there for the people who might need the help. Nevertheless, in reality, such concept of fellowship has already gone awry, especially at the point where people have learned how to live with themselves as much as they have learned not to put their trust on anyone else.
In the story The Man in the Well, a contrast on how humans likely define the connection they have with other individuals. Showing the irony of the situation through utilizing the age and mental distance between adults and children, the story intends to distinctively create a picture that creates a distinct notion especially directed towards pointing out how even innocence cannot contain the idea of strange connections with people and how such connection is at times impossible to establish among individuals set to have been separated by values, morals and personal beliefs.
The story’s plot revolves around the man who was gasping for his life in the well. He seemingly needed help and attention, and the children were the only ones around to give such attention to him. However, the children had something else in mind besides the idea of actually helping the individual. Instead of getting help from their parents as the man has directed them, the children instead gave food and sustenance to the man, as if keeping him alive. Asking him questions while they feed their curiosity is somewhat something that the children thought was more exciting than actually telling their parents what was happening. To this the man could be quoted saying "Why didn't you tell anyone?"(120).
The first encounter of the children with the man in the in the well feel a little spark of hope. The idea of getting the attention of children and having them do particular things out of compassion and trust is almost always compelling especially when it comes to maintaining the solidity of the things that are likely innocent and clear of issue. Practically, children are viewed to have something else other than partiality among the people living around them. This is why the expectation that the man on the well have on the children was specifically well-accounted for. However, the reaction of the children was rather unexpected. Perhaps young as they are, their curiosity could be realized as somewhat regular from children. But the way they mandated the situation and managed how they kept the life of the man alive amidst his miseries is somewhat surprising. It was as if the children knew they could help, but they did otherwise and somehow chose to feed their curiosity instead of giving attention to what the man actually needs and what they could actually do to completely help him.
The story further continues in heightening the misery of the man in the well as he decides to try to understand what the children are planning to do about his situation. Considerably, his understanding of the children’s place and attention to the situation kept him awake especially on the reality that he will never get the help he wanted from them. Practically, the children in the story redefined the idea of helping; something that is most reflective of what is happening in the society today, where people help in the way that they want and not necessarily on the way that they are supposed to.
As the man in the well realizes his hopelessness in the case, he becomes more concerned in getting the attention of someone new or somehow someone else to take the option of giving attention to his actual needs. He knew he needed to get the children realize of the situation through scaring them off. He then talked to them and gradually made them feel eerie and uncomfortable. Notably, because of this matter pushed the children away and made it easier for them to decide to stay away from the man and later on leave him alone in the well. To this, the children response to this saying "but he wasn't going to help us now" (120); as of saying that they are not going to be able to get anything from him, hence there is no sense in helping him anymore. There was no sign that someone else did find the man and gave attention to his needs; somehow, the sad ending of the story does provide a distinct wakeup call to the members of the society today especially on how they intend to address issues of human rights and human justice.
The ethos of this story is dependent on the capacity of the readers to relate to the situation of the man in the well and that of the position of the children in the picture. Relatively, it could be understood that the capacity of the readers to place who the characters in the story is an important part of the character representation strategy that the author wanted to adapt in relation to how she wants to present her message to the readers. Understandably, it could be realized that the readers’ vision of the society and the people living in it plays a great part in interpreting the ethos of this story as the valuable point that makes the narrative a worthy presentation of what is meant by the author when she uses two of the most compelling characters that could identify with what the society is dealing with at present. The separation of age gap between the children and the man in the well was rather effective in pointing out the distinct differences humans may have among themselves. While age may be one element alone, it cannot be denied that it causes people to be more concerned about different matters in their lives separately thus making a distinct impact on how they think and how they perceive on life and the different factors making it up.
In this narrative, it is safe to say that each character represent a particular group of individuals in the society. The man in the well may seemingly represent the individuals who are dealing with the different problems in the world, those who may be considered to be likely hopeless and helpless as they desire to be more capable of facing the issues that surround their lives. Notably, it could be realized that this status in the society makes them vulnerable to anyone who may seem to have the rightful capacity to help them out from their misery. This is what the author wants to send out to her audience; that like the man in the well, people at present are suffering different levels of hardships causing them to almost lose hope especially when it comes to making a distinct impact on how the world sees their situation and supposedly decide to help them out. Putting the man in the well makes the supposed interpretation rather affective and appealing to the emotional value that the character is supposed to give life to.
Thinking that a man is fighting for his survival having his hands to be the only connection he has to life, the readers are supposed to feel the hardship of the situation and the challenge of holding on to that single source of hope that he needs to be able to see things differently. Understandably, it could be realized that the world takes different steps towards realizing the facts that surround the society at present. While some actually see the situation, some just accept such matters to be a regular part of modern living. It is sometimes hard to understand that there are those individuals who are able to accept the fact that there are things that cannot be changed anymore thus should be accepted as somewhat part of a regular process of living. This way, sometimes, even the most compelling situations become a background, part of the regular matters that are accepted as necessarily part of what was accepted as somewhat common to the society.
People are compelled to see matters as they are suggested to see them; the society accepts the situations based on how they are trained to accept situations that they see every day. The world is full of different problems, but there are those who simply are hammered by life’s challenges the most and are likely having the hardest times getting up once again. The extreme representation of these individuals in the being of the man in the well is directly appealing especially to those who may have a hard time realizing how hard it is for one to hang with a sheer source of hope. His situation, with his whole body hanging in the power of his hands to hold on to such hope of survival is but right in determining the course of living of those who are faced with the most detrimental situations in life at present.
On the other hand, the children represent a particular group of individuals in the society. Most of the time, they provide a distinct picture of the general condition of the heart of the society when it comes to dealing with the most demeaning situations in life. People may want to help those in need, but only on the limits that they wish to help them with. This indicates that their condition of helping lies on the idea of having the desire to share what they have, but only on their own discretion. There are values that they want to preserve, and somehow, preserving those values would mean setting aside the needs of others. The idea of living for one’s own survival has killed the concept of helping others fully at their time of need.
The world today thrives within the contrast of lives that people share with each other. The supposed balance between morality and the acceptability of matters as they happen due to the adjustments that the world takes into account has become a common culture. This is what the narrative on The Man in the Well tries to send out as a message, hopefully waking up the sense of the readers to see the reality and act upon it and not resolve matters through patches of make-believe solutions.
Work Cited
The man in the well: Summary. http://aprilhongkonglife.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/summary-of-the-man-in-the-well/. (Retrieved on October 4, 2014).
