Stuck in a well: A short cultural history
Now that the dramatic, round-the-clock rescue of 33 Chilean miners has finally come to a close, it's worth asking: "Why do we love a story about people in holes?" Call it the "Timmy in a Well trope" -- in news, as in entertainment, we are riveted by people stuck underground.
"I suppose there are mythic elements at work here," says author Melissa Faye Green, who wrote "Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster." "These are men who learned something about the beyond. They have literally been buried alive."
There is something uniquely modern about it, too. The first television news event to captivate all of America in real time was about Kathy Fiscus, who fell into an abandoned water well. Stan Chambers of KTLA in Los Angeles covered the story for 27 hours until a doctor was lowered into the well to find her dead from suffocation....
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"I suppose there are mythic elements at work here," says author Melissa Faye Green, who wrote "Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster." "These are men who learned something about the beyond. They have literally been buried alive."
There is something uniquely modern about it, too. The first television news event to captivate all of America in real time was about Kathy Fiscus, who fell into an abandoned water well. Stan Chambers of KTLA in Los Angeles covered the story for 27 hours until a doctor was lowered into the well to find her dead from suffocation....