There is an ancient Indian story about a frog that lived in a well – Kūpamaṇḍūka – and for this frog the small well was all that was the case, it was the whole of the frog’s world. When a visiting frog told of the vast size of the ocean, much greater than the little well, the frog in the well dismissed the story as a lie. What the frog in the well did not know first-hand, the frog in the well could not conceive. It is a good story, with plenty of contemporary resonance.
We might describe the frog in the well as being provincial, meaning that it exhibited the character, and in particular the narrowness of view, that is associated with those who inhabit the provinces and lack the polish and sophistication of those who live in the metropole. Along with conflict between the generations, this is one of literature’s great themes: the resistance of those who know very little of the world to the wisdom of those who know much more, and of the comfort that is to be had in living in a small well-like world in which everything is fixed and familiar. Several books that I have recently read play with this theme, of the clash between those who are – or, at least, who think they are – sophisticated and cosmopolitan, and those who are – knowingly or not – determinedly narrow and unpolished.
Continue reading “Frog in a well”