Guilt In The Seventh Man

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war ~John Adams~

K.’s death was unnecessary. It shouldn’t have happened. The guilt the Seventh Man feels is unbearable. ”The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami is a perfect insight into the mind of survivors. It is about an unknown man who telling his life story of when he was young. His best friend, K., was killed but a giant wave and the Seventh Man feels responsible.He tells us how much the guilt of K.’s death consumed his life. He blames himself constantly for K’s death even though he shouldn’t. The Seventh Man must exonerate himself so he can continue his own life.

Survivor guilt is a special sort of remorse. The Seventh Man feels that he is somehow responsible for the death of K. and blames himself

How he had missed such an earth-shaking sound, I don’t know. This may seem odd, but it might have been a sound that only I could hear…(Murakami, The Seventh Man, paragraph 29). The only thing that saved the Seventh Man was the feeling that something was wrong. An unheard sound, to all but him. He ran like any sane person would do. You can look back and count the time he had, and maybe he did have time. You can’t hold this against him, though. You can’t blame yourself for what you could have done, or what you should have done. At some point, you need to look back and realise you can’t change the past. You just have to make sure you do better in the

Not that you could really call it a life. He lived tormented and constantly in fear. He dreaded anything to do with his past. He needs to move on with his life and finally forget his nightmares. “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”(J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). This quote is from neither the book or an online source. It does, I believe, help us to understand the Seventh Man. He was so caught up in the nightmares, he forgot K.’s true nature and misjudged him for 40 years. He has to release himself from the grasp of culpability and live for