"From beneath the mouth of the fountain stretched a queue of weirdly dissimilar objects, over a hundred feet in length. There were old baskets, frying pans, big stones, earthenware jugs; and each object represented the place in line of a family . . . Now the trenches were dried out and filled with refuse, old rags and bits of paper, and the skeletons of rats, decomposing in the sun." (46)
I have been extremely thirsty with no water; every summer I hike a section of the Appalachian Trail, and, two years ago I was hiking a stretch of the trail in Virginia where all of the springs were marked as contaminated. I had half a bottle of water and 10 miles to hike to the next possible water source. This was in late June in 90+ degree temperatures. The effect was more psychological than physical; my thirst seemed to take on a new dimension because I had no way to slake it. Once my water was gone, I compulsively tried to drink every last drop of moisture from my Nalgene.
It is important to understand how merciless the French are in dealing with the strike. While they want to avoid violence, they are fine with cutting off food and water supplies. They don't even consider addressing the workers' demands. The French administrator Dejean seems to be the clear antagonist in this story.
I don't think Dejean thinks of the Senegalese people as humans, he views them like work animals with no value or feelings beyond their capabilities, he has a "if they can't preform why should I reward them with food and water?" mentality. You would have to be a pretty awful person to see a family dying of starvation and thirst and deprive them of their lives, so Dejean decides not to view them as humans.
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