Journal #8

It’s hard for me to say which work we have read is my favorite. I have liked most of them, but I guess I would say my favorite narrative was “The Man in the Well.” I enjoyed it the most because the story caught me off guard. We had been reading all of these historical and very serious works and this narrative was almost a comic relief for me.

I found the story to be disturbing; I kept wondering what the heck was going on. I thought for sure I would get to the end, and it would be about something completely different then the literal meaning I was getting from it. What I loved is that there wasn’t; the story ended just as odd as it started.

The other thing that I enjoyed about “The Man in the Well” is that it was from a child’s perspective. The story seemed to be simple because it was from a child’s mind that didn’t fully understand what was going on. The simplicity of the child’s point of view contrasts with the seriousness of the content.

I’m not a fan of history, and especially not a fan of historical writing. I am a very creative person and enjoy abstract concepts and thoughts. When reading a historical, non-fiction work, the creativity is kind of nonexistent. This work, to me, was by far the most creative.

I also really enjoy horror and thriller films and this book seemed like something out of a twisted thriller about a future group of serial killers. I might be taking it a little far, but I am taking a class about serial killers this quarter.

Finally, I think this work was my favorite because, with one of our main topic being forgiveness, it was different then all the others in that aspect. In this story the main character feels bad for what him and the children did, but he also doesn’t feel solely responsible. He doesn’t see to feel the need to ask for forgiveness, but he still feels some guilt for what he, and his friends, did. His way of dealing with the guilt is to just flat out ignore it. This aspect of forgiveness was not really shown in any of the other works, which makes it even more interesting.

Overall, I enjoyed the perspective, content, and form in which it was written. It was also easy to read and short, which didn’t hurt either.

Morgan McMahan