The Hurt Man by Wendell Berry - Essay

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The Hurt Man - by Wendell Berry Revelation - sometimes you experience remarkable things in life which imprint themselves your mind forever. Revelations give an insight and these events try to give us the true meaning of life. Suddenly they appear. Or maybe they will never appear. These are unique moments where the revelation changes your life and turns you into a new person. Are revelations really that important to a person? And when does it happen - and why does it happen? Mat Feltner is a five year old kid who lives in a little town, Port William, with his mother and father, Nancy and Ben. He is a blessing to their family because he is the only child in this family who still lives. Two sisters and one brother have left the family which causes big sorrow to especially the mother who constantly has worn black clothes since their death. Sometimes he strays around in the town, being places where there are different sorts of activity. More or less willingly the parents are letting him go these places - but especially on Saturdays they keep an eye on him because the town can be dangerous as well with all the horses running in the roads, and on these Saturdays the town is dangerous due to people’s drinking. But still Nancy knows that overprotection isn’t the way to do it: “She knew that the world was risky and that she must risk her surving child to it as she had risked the others, and when the time came she straightforwardly did so”. And this is where the hurt man appears: misunderstandings when people are drinking can be dangerous, and trouble appears from one moment to another. It is not surprising to the mother or Mat that those things happen. It seems like it isn’t rare that people in this town fight when they’ve got a drink or two. At least they are not surprised . Nothing yet surprises Mat - not even when the mother puts down her work and leads the hurt
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