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The Burning Monk Analysis

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The Burning Monk 1963 Malcolm Browne Context “I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think… As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him”. –David Halberstam People of the town were made aware that something important was going to happen on that day. A large group of Buddhist monks arrived at this busy street in Saigon, where one monk, Thich Quang Duc, emerged from the car that is …show more content…

The issue of the Buddhist was growing in tension and the discontent of the people was increasing with every event that occurred in order to suppress the Buddhist religion. The self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc was a shocking revelation to the people of South Vietnam and then to the people of the rest of the world because of the photographs by Malcolm Browne, especially this one. One could say that the meaning and intentions behind the actions of this monk were not fully explained or perhaps that some of the story was let out. One can easily conclude that this monk did what he did because his religion and because he believed that in order to save his religion, he had to become a martyr. The Buddhist monks live by strict rules of peace and non-violence so people really need to understand how far they were pushed in order to do something like this in order to prove a point to the public and make a

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