The Day I Strategically Killed A Little Boy Analysis

As Plautus once said, “ Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.” Guilt stays with a person for as long as they live and never leaves, even if it was an accident. Throughout both of these stories, The Day I accidentally Killed a Little Boy and Guilty as Not Charged, the main characters, Darin Strauss and Maryanne Grey, both express feelings of extreme guilt that they can’t seem to cope with. They try to help cope with their guilt and express their feelings of heartbreak by writing these stories. In Guilty as Not Charged Darin Strauss, the author, tells his account of the story by using anecdotes, ethos, pathos, and a little bit of figurative language. The story, The Day I Accidentally Killed a Little Boy is told from

The authors use pathos so we can feel what they felt during that time in their lives, it makes us have a deeper connection with the story and the families, friends, and bystanders in it. In both of the stories Darin Strauss and Maryann Grey say that they are living for two people. While Celine’s mother was speaking to Darin she told him,” I want you to remember something. Whatever you do in your life, you have to live it twice as well… because you are living for two people now. Can you promise me?” (370). Darin had to make a sentimental promise to Celine’s mother that will live with him forever. He now has to live a life suitable for two people, whereas most people have a hard time living a life acceptable for one person. He has all this pressure on him that he can’t mess up his life because if he does he ruins the life of Celine and her family. Celine’s mother could have just said that he has to live a healthy and strong life, but instead she made Celine’s life and Darin’s life one. It made me think about how I’m living my life, if it’s acceptable for God, if He would be happy with the way I’m living the one life I get to have. Maryann Grey also states,” He lived with me ..I often refer to this little boy, Brian, as my ghost, because he became a part of me” (8). This quote is very similar to the one Darin

Darin uses metaphors to help emphasize his guilt and how he feels. He says,” Having acknowledged my own sensuality and drama, and knowing the girls were still watching, I dropped to my knees and covered my head with my hands, fingers between the ears and temples, like a man winning the US open”(367). He uses this simile to express his feeling of extreme regret and heartache. He doesn’t care who’s watching him, he wishes that he could take back what has happened. He also uses the metaphor,” One old man looked at me like he wanted to kill me with his bare hands”(370). Darin wasn’t the only one who was upset with what he had done. This made him feel an abundant amount of guilt and sadness, which made the acceptance process, of what he had done, much tougher. In both stories, the whole article is a anecdote. They are many short stories throughout their lives combined into a larger narrative. Both of them talk about the experience, then how they lived their lives after. To sum it all up, Darin uses metaphors and similes to help express the amount of agony he was feeling and both use anecdotes as a healing