Ignorance is Power
Despite being published in 1963 in New Zealand, "The Reservoir" proved to be surprisingly relevant to the state of American society six decades later. One theme that the story illustrates most effectively is that ignorance is power. While "knowledge is power" is the more familiar assertion, the opposite is perhaps even more true. The narrator observes in the first paragraph that they know nothing about modern art but are quite familiar with the statue of a soldier commemorating the manipulatively useful concept of patriotism. Denying opportunities for the children of the village to learn anything factual about the reservoir is a metaphor for controlling the masses through enforced ignorance. An explosion of movements to ban books in school libraries and deny educators the right to teach unpleasant truths about history erupted across much of America in the 2020s. This socio-political phenomenon reflects how the desire to gain power by engineering ignorance is still very much a useful means of exerting control and authority.
Generating Fear
One of the most effective means of blocking access to the acquisition of knowledge is the generation of baseless fear. The adults expend great energy generating a sense of fear of the reservoir among the children as a means of controlling their desire to learn more about it. The kids must decide whether their curiosity about the unknown or their fear of the unknown is a more powerful motivating force. This theme explores a universal aspect of humanity. The decision to make the trek to the reservoir to see for themselves what it actually is fills the kids with trepidation that is based entirely on unfounded and irrational fears generated by adults rather than any actual logical critical thinking. This is the power of manipulating actions by generating fear because eventually the fear no longer needs to be rational.
Curiosity
The very last scene of the story has the kids returning home safely from their trek to see the reservoir for themselves and confronting their parents. The mother worries about whether they went near the reservoir. The father issues a vague threat of unpleasant consequences should he ever catch them going near the reservoir. The narrator extrapolates from this discourse that neither parent has ever actually seen the reservoir for themselves as he and the other kids have just done. If they had actually seen it for themselves, they would have known there was nothing at all to fear. The kids have overcome the irrational fear instilled in them all their short lives and have attempted to pierce the shroud of ignorance to see for themselves just what the reservoir actually is. That they went there and made it back without incident is an illustration of another powerful theme fueling the story: curiosity has been the driving influence through history which has successfully overcome fear and ignorance.
