Well Water

"Well Water" by Randall Jarrell (p.62)

What struck me in this poem was it's very modest subject matter. It depicts the tedium of everyday life. The image created by the comparison of the man pumping the water to a squirrel in a wheel seemed to create the feeling for the mundane nature of living and working in the day to day life. But this poem goes deeper than the simple description of a tedious day. It seems to allude to how in spite of haveing to deal with tedious activities in life, hard work will bear fruit, and the struggle will not be in vain. Just as how the repetitive and tiring work of pumping water, is rewarded by cool refreshing water, working hard work in general will result in achieving a final goal. In the line "and yet somtimes the wheel turns of its own weight" it refers to the experience that I'm sure many have experience that when people build up momentum and keep doing what they are doing, even if it is difficult, people get used to the difficult, and the work seems to do itself.

The poem beautifully captures the lifelong struggle, and eventual fruitation of the labor of man kind, in a simple comparison to a person running a pump on a hot day. This simplicity was captivating and it managed to express the feeling of tedium very well when for example in the second to third lines the author used a repition of words to express the repetitious nature of the tasks being performed. This poem which starts out on a rather somber note, finishes with a positive outlook that peoples lives are not spent in vain.