Should a person feel guilty for surviving a tragedy? In the book, The Seventh Man, by Haruki Murakami, a man is talking about a dramatic event that happened to him as a child. He and his friend K were hit by a tsunami and only the man survived. He felt guilty because he thought he could save K. The Seventh Man shouldn’t feel guilty because he was just a kid at the time, K put himself at risk, and accidents happen.
The Seventh Man shouldn’t feel guilty because he was only ten years old at that time. A child is not mature enough to know what to do when an accident happens. The brain is not developed enough at that age to handle tragedies. According to The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, a child's brain develops reasoning closer to adulthood, “ However, the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later. This part of the brain is still changing and maturing well into adulthood “ ( aacp.org). Some people might say he was old enough to help his friend but a ten year old is not capable of knowing the exact right thing to do.
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The Seventh Man felt an earthquake and ran to safety but K didn’t because he was focused on something he found. When K realized what happened and that he should run to safety it was too late because the tsunami was already on its way. For example, in the story, The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt, it talks about how soldiers know the risk of their choices when they go into service. We make decisions every day knowing that there could be a negative consequence. Opposition might say that the boy should’ve been looking out for K, but the Seventh Man tried calling out to K to get his