The Man in the Well

After reading the short story “The Man in the Well” by Ira Sher, it was easy to see the long lasting, almost traumatizing effect that the experience had on the narrator. The story has many statements that I have put into order based on their legitimacy to the theme.

1)   Within Groups, people may engage in conduct that is wilder, stranger or more uncivilized than when alone. (Given that the group is engaging in similar behavior)

2)   People project their fears or suspicions onto others, even those who don’t actually pose a threat to them.

3)   Even in their later years, people may have trouble forgiving themselves for bad things they did when they were young.

4)   People project their fears or suspicions onto others, even those who don’t actually pose a threat to them.

5)   When dealing with an adult, even a hopeless one, children may have in their minds images of parental authority that affect how they treat the person.

6)   Children may have difficulty sharing the perspective of another person.

7)   Children may fail to understand when an adult is in danger.

8)   Children are capable of conspiring with one another against the adult world

9)   The psychological reality of children and adults is a deep well within themselves that they cannot see into.

10)         People need to see on another’s faces to trust one another

11)          We should be more compassionate to a person that’s trapped.

At first it seems that the story focuses primarily on the feelings of guilt and sympathy, but I felt that there was an underlying theme that served as a somewhat of a social commentary. By combining statements 1 and 2, for example, “Groups of people will project their fears into those who don’t actually pose a threat and spread them to others, causing them to engage in uncivilized conduct,” you can easily explain almost all atrocities and genocides that have occurred in human history. These children represent society and the man they fear represents the countless scapegoats that have suffered throughout history. This is why I see “social influence” as the main theme. Fear is a disease. When people spread their fear everyone seems to stop caring for others and only for themselves. What’s pathetic about the human race is that this can occur in both a group of young, naïve kids who don’t know any better, and a group of learned, supposedly mature politicians. Fear is what caused these kids to panic in the way they did. The lack of sympathy felt for the man in the well had stuck with the narrator forever and left the well as a terrible memory. It is very unlikely that the authors focus is to bring sympathy to “those who are trapped”, but rather to show the causes of carelessness and selfishness. Society constantly changes our views and influences our actions. It is far too often that these changes are based off of fear.