Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Man I Killed #1

Why is Tim so distressed by killing this man?
Posted by at

12 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 11, 2009 at 9:46 PM

    I wonder if Tim saw himself in the man he killed. When you can relate to someone or something it makes it more human to you and harder to cause harm. I feel like he saw a lot of himself in the man he killed and that is why he was able to create such a detailed story of the dead mans life and why he was so distraught about killing him.

    ReplyDelete
  2. gabrielasedovaNovember 11, 2009 at 10:18 PM

    I agree with the first comment. O'Brien pictures having a lot of common with the man he killed. His guilt is devastating to him, so he killed reproduction of himself. Doing so, he stares directly into the face of his own morality and tries to sympathize with it. Supposedly, O'Brien is student himself, just like the death man, pretending to be looking forward to serve the country. The author imagines his own death.

    ReplyDelete
  3. xiao-liNovember 12, 2009 at 8:36 PM

    I agree with the comments above. O’Brien had lot of common with the dead soldier. After O’Brien killed the men he was moving around the dead body and imagination about the dead men’s life before he was an army. He imaged the dead soldier’s career, love life and school. O’Brien may see the same situation as the dead soldier; if he would die in the army he would never see his family again. He thought his life would be different if he wasn’t an army. After killed the men that made O’Brien changed his mind about the future and he felt hopefulness. I think these are the reasons why O’Brien distressed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. raisinsklNovember 12, 2009 at 8:50 PM

    Tim distressed by killing the young man, because he carried the soldier’s greatest fear like every other had – the fear of blushing (killed innocent man). I also agree what BLogstalker said, because Tim probably kept questioning himself: “What had brought him and other soldiers to the war in the first place, nothing positive but the blush of dishonor.” At the same time, he pictured himself as the dead young man he killed,; he is afraid of, one day he might end up like that young man. Especially, when Tim noticed that “the dead young man seemed to be staring in some distant object beyond the bell-shaped flower along the trail. (pg 538)”, Time might felt more discomfort. The dead young man started at the flower symbolized he hoped for better live as beautiful as the flower; because he did not want to remain shameful his live again, so did Tim.

    ReplyDelete
  5. GwenNovember 12, 2009 at 10:55 PM

    I agree with all of the posts above. Tim even noticed that his fingernails were clean. He concluded from that observation that the soldier had just entered the war. He realized that this dead man, just like him, had a whole life ahead of him. They both seemed to be young, which means that they both had their whole lives in front of them. However, Tim ruined the dead man's chance; he was the one that took away his possibilities of having any life at all.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kok YingNovember 13, 2009 at 12:08 AM

    I think Tim thinks too much. In the beginning, he tries to keep some distance of that incident in order to relieve pain. However, he links himself to that killed man according to similar physical characteristics. Furthermore, he imagines that killed man is a replica of him. In addition, he imagines the whole story of that man's life. He keeps sticking on that man. As a result, he still worries about his guilty.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anya liuNovember 13, 2009 at 1:11 AM

    as the background Mr.Freeman posted. the story happened during The Vietnam War. A lot of American people didn't understand and opposed the war. probably Tim was one of them, he was obliged to fight with the Vietnamese. so when he killed the man, he felt that he killed a innocent
    young man, but not a enemy. That is the reason why he so distressed by killing this man.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ivory LeeNovember 13, 2009 at 12:17 PM

    Tim was distressed by killing this man, because he want to us know the process of killing the man during the War. He want to point out the war is cruel; I agree with Blogstalker said, Tim talks about “when we relate to something it makes more human and harder to cause harm”. We have not choice, killing the man who is butterfly on his chin,and have a narrow waist. The man who was killed didn’t do anything wrong,; however, during the war he must be kill in order to win in the war.

    ReplyDelete
  9. J. KongNovember 13, 2009 at 1:25 PM

    I concur with everyone before me, great comments everyone. Tim becomes emotionally distressed because he felt a deep sense of longing for this person. To take someone's life will follow that person forever, and in Tim's case, he goes on to imagine the person he killed. The person he killed was nothing more than a man who had aspirations of becoming a scholar, and the war was a hindrance to that young man from attaining his dreams, but as a citizen of Nam, he had no choice but to comply and show patriotism to his fellow people. Even so, a life taken by someone can make a person become cynic and distressed. Tim did his job for his country at the expense of his personal feelings.

    ReplyDelete
  10. JosephNovember 13, 2009 at 9:18 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. JosephNovember 13, 2009 at 9:20 PM

    Because he kills a man, he is so distressed by killing the man. The murder he did makes him feel guilty and the guilty he feels makes him so distressed. Tim was a kind of newly-enlisted soldier so he does not have many experience of war and killing people, and he does not really understand the nature of war. And the man he killed looks very week and poor. His waist is narrow and he has bony legs. He guesses that the man he killed is weak, kind-hearted, and like a scholar. He feels the sympathy for the man he killed as a person who was weak, naive, and sincerely living for his dream, not as an enemy.

    ReplyDelete
  12. karen-zhongNovember 13, 2009 at 10:34 PM

    Without a war, the narrator would not kill the French soldier Duval, the French soldier would not died by the narrator’s hand; however, they were actually struggle in the war, so either of them had to die. I thought the narrator understood this rule, but as a human being, he could not accept he killed a man through detachment; he may think the French soldier was similar to him-- he also has parents and wife; so, he was so distraught and felt very sorry for them because he killed their son, also as a husband.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)