Comparative Essay Sample: The Man in the Well and Cheboygan Day

All good stories have a good theme, either sending a message about following a crowd or some other topic. However, to develop a theme, authors tend to base their moral of the story on character development or on consequences for the actions of characters. With the stories, “The Man in the Well '' and “Cheboygan Day '', comparisons on how authors develop a theme, will be addressed.

To begin, In the story, “Man in The Well”, the author develops their theme through character development, they do this by altering the personalities of characters the more the reader reads. To explain, when reading further in the story, the characters seem to grow more and more distant with each other, with only the idea of protecting themselves. In the beginning of the story, character depth is shown when the children come together to decide not to help the man, ”I don’t remember if we told ourselves a reason why we couldn’t help him, but we had decided then”. Further down the story goes even more in depth about the children as a collective, ”I don’t think anyone smiled at how easy it was to deceive him — this was too important.” This piece of evidence marks the beginning of the theme development, it creates character development when showing the children’s clear motives. In the climax of the story, the theme is nearly developed, when one the children lose their anonymity and betrays the others, “Aaron didn’t look at Arthur, or anyone, and then he began giving all of our names, one at a time. We all watched him, trembling, our faces, the faces I had seen pasted on the spectators in the freak tent when the circus had come to town.” The climax goes on to reveal the theme by showing how the characters grew and changed throughout the story from actions, dialogue, and how the character relationships change. The theme for the Man in the Well is, how the brain works with others to create decisions, and how the brain conforms to others with the need to protect themselves.

Additionally, In the following story,” Cheboygan day”, the author goes on to develop a theme through character development, when multiple characters conform to each other becoming more and more ill-mannered towards a single character showing individualism. Similarly to the first text, the author develops the theme through character development, and how those characters switch up their personalities. This text states that, “Gossip was a life force in Kookaburra”. When the text blatantly says this, it provides development to the theme by creating a background for the readers to understand the moral of the story. Further into the story, the author creates character depth surrounding the first piece of evidence, “ I knew Tommy was aware of the eyes. He started laughing his nervous hyena laugh. “Um, sure I do, Owen,” he said, eyes darting around the SAC. Then he spun his index finger around next to his head, the universal gesture for “kooky.” Character development for Tommy shows his change in personality to conform to gossip, this creates more background depth for the theme. At the end of the story the theme is revealed to be, “ Gossip can mendaciously characterize others as good or evil. 

Comparing how both authors go about developing a theme, they both go on to reveal their theme through character development. From the first text, we can see this through the children becoming more and more manipulative and inconsiderate,with only the intentions of attempting to keep their anonymity.  The development of characters in this story creates background for the theme, which sends a lesson on how the brain will work with others to create decisions, and how the brain conforms to others with the need to protect themselves. In Addition, with the text,” Cheboygan Day”, character development can be seen, when the students as a collective become more and more viscous to Adele, even if some characters know that she isn’t in the wrong, while becoming more and more devoted to the ideology of her twin brother. This development also creates background to reveal the theme of how detrimental gossip can be.

WIth the two stories, “The Man in The Well” and “Cheboygan Day”, it can be shown how authors develop a theme. When interpreting both authors, they both go on to use character development to develop a theme about following a crowd to be accepted. This indicates that authors tend to base their moral of the story on character development or on consequences for the actions of characters. Thus, it can be said that both authors from  “The Man in The Well” and “Cheboygan Day”, develop a theme very similarly.