Muddy Road-W. Somerset Maugham 2/6

A short, yet very effective and well devoloped short story; "Muddy Road" written by W. Somerset Maugham is an intriguing story of conflict and imbalance. Maughham tells a story of Tanzan and Ekido; two monks traveling together. As they're walking together in the rain, down a muddy road, they run into a girl who is hesitant or "unable" to walk across the mud. Tanzan picks the girl up and carries her to the other side of the mud. This event effects the other monk, Ekido, in an odd way that creates the imbalance in the story. The imbalance seems to be between Tanzan and Ekido but later it's obvious that the imbalance is actually an internal imbalance within Ekido himself. Ekido does not speak to Tanzan until later that night when he says to Tanzan, "We monks don't go near females...especially not young and lovely ones. It is dancgerous. Why did you do that?". Tanzan replies to Ekido by saying, "I left the girl there...Are you still carrying her?"
I really enjoyed this story. It had an effect on me that was much deeper than just what is shown on the surface of this story. At first, the story can be seen only as the difficulties and conflicts of being a monk and not being aloud certain "normal" human desires. However, after looking deeper and further into the meaning of this story, it turns out that it's a very important and symbol story. The reason it effected me so much is that I saw it as an overrall story about not being able to let go of ones feelings, desires, decisions, or regrets. It's natural for humans to dwell on things and unless they teach themselves to do otherwise, some people can become obsessed with holding onto things and analzying every little choice they make. Thoughts like this can keep someone from living their lives and functioning "normally". In this story, Ekido is unable to let go of the feelings and desires that the "lovely girl" had raised in him. Therefore he was unable to speak to Tanzan and instead of realizing his own faults, he put his blaim on Tanzan, who had done nothing wrong. Unlike Ekido, Tanzan was able to make a decision and then move on normally with his life.