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Guilt In The Seventh Man

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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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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Maybe he got into a fight so serious and he is murdered, nobody knows. However, the sight of this carcass or the possible imagination of what happened to him left one honest impression or virtue in the life of the narrator. The narrator begins to realize how imprudent and irresponsible he is. At one point he contemplates suicide, but realizes “the dead man is the only person on the planet worse off than I was,” he said (Boyle, 693). The narrator’s experience tonight proves that his careless actions will place him in a position that will likely end up destroying him.

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“We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun”-william glasser Background information/summary; the 7th man has gone through many struggles, but this one focuses on losing his best friend, and debating whether he should forgive himself or not. Thesis statement (aka claim): the narrator of the 7th man should forgive himself for his failure to save k. He didn’t have enough time to save k, as it says “he didn’t hear the rumbling. ”-page 138, the 7th man. When it says that, it means that k did not seem to hear the loud rumbling and the wave was very quick.

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Another death in his life did not help with his friend committing suicide while wearing his clothes. This caused the seemingly once distance death of his brother back into his head along with the death of his friend.

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The young boy "blamed himself" (162) for the death of Kiowa. On the night that Kiowa was killed the young boy was talking to Kiowa and eventaully took out a "flashlight" (163) and pointed it at a picture of his girlfriend to show Kiowa what she looked like. Moments after he shined the flashlight on the picture the field around them "exploded" (163). When the field exploded the young boy heard a scream and instanlty knew it was "Kiowa" (163). Realizing that one of his good friend's death was his fault mentally killed the man.

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1.Guilt is one of the worst things accompanied by death. Guilt plays a huge role throughout the novel. In war, men are constantly dying and these men all become best friends with one another. For example, Norman Bowker felt a tremendous amount of quilt towards the death of Kiowa.

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When the reader hears this man’s story and how it affected his life it just proves to us that no one should have to live with survivor's guilt. For if they do they go living there life being numb on the outside but tormented mentally. Survivor’s guilt is what happened to the seventh man and he should have forgiven himself instead of distancing himself. Initially the seventh man tells his story. When he lost his best friend K. we saw him box up his emotions, childhood, and freedom.

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In addition, K.’s own parents “never chided [him] for having taken their son down to the shore in the midst of a typhoon” (Murakami 140). If K.’s own parents could forgive the narrator, then he should not have to torture himself over this unlucky incident. Everyone has forgiven the narrator but himself; therefore, he should be able to forgive himself

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In today’s society, people believe in many superstition. But in order to fully understand superstitions one must learn the roots of superstition and where it came from. The roots of superstition come from the Elizabethan era in Britain. We as people have a tendency to overlook how things came about. We also must learn in steps, or a process what made superstition such a huge component of how people lived in the Elizabethan era.

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This sentence makes me ponder upon what will happen next and why Eric Seven think he has relived this. Thus, making this story more intriguing, personally, I believe

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The foremost reason The Seventh Man should forgive himself is that K.’s death was not his fault. In the type of survivor 's guilt The Seventh Man has he has created delusions that he could have saved his friend K. “Hurry K.! Get out of there! The wave is coming!”

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I think that because in the story “The seventh Man” Paragraph 22 page 136 it states “K saw me walking down the road and come outside” also “Without a word he came along with me. He had a little white dog that followed after us” K followed him down there it was not the seventh man's choice for him to go down there with him. K followed the author down to the beach. It was not that author's choice that K

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The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for

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is absorbed by one final feeling: “It was as if the shame would outlive him” (178). Many interpretations may arise from the question around Joseph K.’s “shame.” The novel begins with a clear statement of his innocence: “Somebody must have made a false accusation against Josef K., for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong” (1). This suggests that it is during the stream of his trial that Joseph K becomes guilty, therefore resulting in his shame. The reason for his arrest inevitably appears as a mystery.

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