The Man I Killed By Tim O Brien

In “The Man I Killed,” Tim O’Brien portrays a vivid story on how war affects individuals. Tim, Azar, and Kiowa are all at the Vietnam war in 1990 together fighting. Tim killed a man with a grenade and he feels deeply upset about the matter, while Azar shows no sympathy for the dead man whatsoever. Kiowa is the neutral man of the situation, trying to comfort and justify the death of the man because it was Tim’s job to protect his men. The story is told from the perspective of the protagonist, while O’Brien uses a sufficient amount of imagery throughout the reading to show the amount of guilt he has obtained from killing a man. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped

He made up stories about the guy he killed, but that only made him feel more guilt. “…the man I killed would have listened to stories about the heroic Trung sisters and Tran Hung Dao’s famous rout of the Mongols…He would have been taught that to defend the land…” (53). Throughout the story Kiowa and Azar tried getting Tim to talk about the situation they were in, but all he did was imagine stories about the dead man to himself. Constantly making up stories, Tim thinks to himself, “…despite his family’s poverty, the man I killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics” (55). Tim never spoke to his peers about the killing, he only made up scenarios and thought to himself about what he had done. Every single time Kiowa attempted to get Tim to talk, Tim made up more characteristics and stories about the dead man. The way Tim communicated was extremely minimal; the stories he made up about the dead man only brought on more

Throughout the story, he is constantly talking to Tim about what he had done. “The guy was dead the second he stepped on the trail. Understand me? We all had him zeroed. A good kill…” (55). Kiowa justifies Tim’s killing of the man throughout the entire reading because that was their job during the war. Constantly, Kiowa is consistently ensuring Tim about the decision he had to make. “No sweat, man. What else could you do?” (53). Although Tim rarely responded to Kiowa because he was so distraught, Kiowa never gave up on communicating to him, and that says a lot about his mindset. “So listen, you best pull your shit together. Can’t just sit here all day” (55). In this sentence, Kiowa is showing how extremely realistic he is by communicating to Tim that he needs to move on from the death. Kiowa is reassuring Tim that there was nothing else he could have done to prevent the death of the