The Seventh Man Sparknotes

One of the many scientific wonders of the mind is the psychological phenomenon of survivor guilt. (B)Furthermore demonstrated in a short story “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami, the narrator of this story tells a traumatic story from his past about his experiences with survivors guilt and a fatal natural disaster; He experienced witnessing his best friend, K., engulfed in the wave of a tsunami that ended up taking his life. However, in the short story the narrator admitted that he possibly could have taken action to save K.’s life, but he was too young and in instinctive shock. (C) Nevertheless, the narrator of “The Seventh Man” should forgive himself for his failure to save K. because he was in the state of flight shock from fear, and “agent-regret”

(EL)With the question being if the narrator should forgive himself as well as his case being with agent-regret, being not morally responsible is the keyword; his thinking nearly purely irrationally and not rationally, and logically, he is not at fault for his failure.(AN/T) That is why the narrator of “The Seventh Man '' should forgive himself, as forgiving yourself is all mental strength, and not being morally responsible proves he should give himself

(CON) As in the story, the narrator desribes the thought process behind his decisions and what was rummaging through his mind at the time. (EV). The narrator reflects his thoughts on the series of events, by recalling what he felt he could have done by, “I told myself to run over to K., grab hold of him, and get out of there. It was the only thing to do. I knew that the wave was coming, and K. didn’t know. As clearly as I knew what I ought to be doing, I found myself running the other way” (Murakami 30). (EL) While in theory this could be true, the narrator of “The Seventh Man '' ultimately was too young to make life-or-death decisions such as saving someone from death, and his instincts at ten years old when experiencing a scary situation is to run away;(CON) as well as it is not the narrators fault that K. could not see the wave coming, and K. voluntarily went with the narrator to the beach in the first place.(EV) Succeeding the narrator's ability to get K.’s attention in the first place, he eventually ‘got his voice back’ and made another attempt to yell for K., “‘Hurry, K.! Get out of there! The wave is coming!’ This time my voice worked fine…and now, finally, K. heard my shouting and looked up” (Murakami 31) We are actively told that he in fact made another attempt to get