The Hurt Man
The short story ”The Hurt Man” is written by Wendell Barry back in 2003 and features the 5-year old Mat Feltner, who lives with his parents in the tough environment of a small American town called Port William in the late 1880’s. The story deals with a number of essential themes such as loss, love and the transition from childhood to growing up and becoming aware of the world that surrounds you. Simultaneously, the story deals with themes that are more closely related to the particular time and environment such as for instance the sex roles and the widespread violence of that time.
The narrative voice is a third person narrator whose omniscience is restricted to Mat’s. The noteworthy thing about the narrator’s role is the retrospective light in which the story is told. The narrator is looking back on the events and is thereby able to let the reader in on things that have yet not occurred. An example is when Mat’s coming wife Margaret, who Mat finds no interest in at this point, is introduced: “she would begin to matter to him a great deal in a dozen of years, and after that she would matter to him all his life”. The fact that the narrator is able to give away this kind of inside knowledge lets the reader reflect upon the current events in the light of future events and thereby reach a greater understanding of that which takes place in the story.
The setting of the story plays a decisive role as well. As stated initially, Mat grows up in a tough setting where most disputes are settled with violence; a town in which the “proof of mortality would be given in blood”. One should note the usage of the word mortality, as the issue of mortality becomes an essential part of the story from almost the beginning as it is told how Mat has three deceased siblings resting at the town’s graveyard. Their headstones are an immortal proof of the tough life of Port William.
In the beginning of the story Mat is yet not fully aware of the meaning of life and death, but as the story develops he reaches a turning point in his understanding of these issues. Namely Mat’s mother Nancy turns out to play an important role to both the general story and to Mat’s development. She is described as “a woman of good practical sense and strong cheerfulness”. The fact that she is referred to as having good practical sense is a reference to her position in the house and in the American society at that time; it is her job to take care of the house and to make all the ends meet. At the same time the “strong cheerfulness” is a proof that even though she feels a grief for her lost children, she has not given up on life – despite the tough living conditions, she comes off as a strong and happy person. In an extract from the book “Men of the West” by Cathy Lucetti a contrary view on the women living at that time is expressed by the historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, who stated that women are “childlike beings, easily bewildered, with brains too small to understand complex thoughts”. Nancy is a clear proof that the frontier woman is nothing like that. A woman like Nancy living in an environment like Port William has got to be strong.
The main event of the story occurs on a hot Saturday afternoon. This Saturday there has been a fight in the town and Mat’s mother lets a man, who has been hurt in the brutal settlement, into their house. He is bleeding heavily and Mat’s mother is desperately trying to help him by washing his wounds and letting him know that everything will be all right. This nursing behavior and the sudden concern for an unfamiliar man do not seem to surprise Mat. He is well familiar with the tender and caring nature of his mother. What really takes Mat by surprise is that which he sees in her face and eyes: “What he saw in her face would remain with him forever. It was pity, but it was more than that. It was a hurt love that seemed to include entirely the hurt man. It included him and disregarded everything else.” It is a sign of an unreserved love for those in need of it – for the hurt. It is an understanding of a belief that you should help people, even those unfamiliar to you, when they are in distress. After losing three children of her own, Mat’s mother knows everything about pain and grief, which motivates her to help others. It is at this very moment that Mat reaches a revelation: “Loss came into his mind then and he knew what he was years away from telling, even from thinking: that his mother’s grief was real; that her children in their graves once had been alive”. Even though Mat is not yet old enough to fully understand it; he feels it. It is almost as if he was touched by a higher power; as an epiphany. In this very moment Mat becomes aware of life and death and the fatal distinction between the two vital entities. In that way, Mat’s mother becomes a catalyst for Mat’s transition from an unknowing child to becoming aware of the world that surrounds him and all the pain and misery, which exists here, but also the unreserved love that this new state of awareness brings along with it.
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The story about Mat and his confrontation with the hurt man, his mother’s unrestricted love and the sorrows of life can in many ways be described as an epiphany in the meaning of a life-changing experience. The episode is an eye-opener to Mat, who for the first time seems to understand the grief his mother has felt in all those years for the loss of her children. At the same times it leads him to understand why one would care for and even love another person; knowing that one day that person will not be around no more. That both life and death are inevitable parts of our existence. The following example from the text clearly shows how this episode came to affect the rest of Mat’s life: “After that [the episode], her losses would be his”. From this day and on the sorrows of his mother would matter to him as well. He suddenly understands why her mother cares so much for other people and also why he cares so much for his own mother. To see someone you love or care for feel grief can be as painful to you as it can to that person. The episode is also a confirmation that in life losses will come; everyone will, at one point or another, experience what it means to lose someone, and this revelation – this epiphany – follows Mat throughout his life: “From that day, whatever happened, there was a knowledge in Mat that was unsurprised and at last comforted, until he was old, until he was gone”. This is Mat’s epiphany.

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[ 1 ]. (L. 5-7) Barry, Wendell: ”The Hurt Man”, 2003
[ 2 ]. (L. 18-19) Barry, Wendell: ”The Hurt Man”, 2003
[ 3 ]. Lucetti, Cathy: “Men of the west. Life on the American frontier”, 2004
[ 4 ]. (L. 7-8) IBID
[ 5 ]. (L. 118-120) Barry, Wendell: ”The Hurt Man”, 2003
[ 6 ]. (L. 127-129) IBID