Living at the Bottom of the Well
A
few days ago, I had mentioned in class that the story of Jack in Room reminded
me eerily of a Chinese idiom I've heard before. The idiom is 井底之蛙, which
translates to "Frog at the bottom of the well." The story behind the
idiom is that there's a frog who lives happily at the bottom of a
well. He has no idea what’s outside of that well because the well is all
he's ever known. When he hears about the sky, he believes the sky is this
strange circle above him emitting light (which is just the opening at the
top of the well). One day, a turtle comes along and tells him about the great
wide world, and the beautiful blue ocean. The frog becomes embarrassed
when he realizes he’s been living in such a small sheltered world and all he's
known is a lie.
The
idiom is used in a negative way to describe those that are too caught up in
their own ideas to see the bigger picture of a situation and the larger
world around them. In many ways, Jack is the frog at the bottom of the
well in Room, unable to grasp the concept that there's a whole
lot more to the world than a 11x11 room filled with a single bed, bath,
kitchen, TV, and other basic necessities of life. Just like the frog in the
idiom, Jack has been happily residing in Room since that's all he's ever known.
Ma has kept him from realizing the horrific situation they're in and how
limited they've been confined to Room.
Knowing
the better option in a situation and having it stripped away from you has
always been significantly harder than having dealt with the worse option all
your life. Ma was once a carefree 19-year-old out in the world doing what she
pleased, so it's no surprise she'd take the imprisonment in Room much worse
than Jack would. He's grown quite accustomed to being confined to Room since
that's all he's ever known. As Jack slowly becomes more used to the
outside world and all it has to offer, he’ll begin to realize just how much he’s
been missing out on.
Wow nice post I think this idiom is very applicable to Jack's situation. We have seen recently how Jack has been trying to adapt to living outside of Room and I do not think he is doing very well. He is still super dependent on Ma, and doesn't like to go outside. At some point he is going to have to learn to live more independently and change his view of the world (preferably soon while he is still plastic).
ReplyDeleteSuper interesting! You used the word "embarrassed" in your retelling of the story and this sent me on my own little thought spiral because I have been thinking as we read about Jack's concept of shame. We clearly see Ma be worried and ashamed about her own parenting choices because of how quickly she defends them when challenged (which she has every right to do) but we don't see this same response in Jack for most things because he doesn't know what he should be ashamed about or why he should be ashamed. For example, the way that Jack scoots down the stairs is kind of "embarrassing" but we don't see Jack feel this way. As ma says , he's doing it his own way. Jack is catching on to conventions of life really quickly but I'm glad that he hasn't been infected with shame yet.
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