Monday, January 25, 2010

The Man I Killed

"The Man I Killed" was a really important chapter and emotional one as well in my opinion. The feeling of killing someone is something that i can't even imagine no matter how well O'Brien explains it. It's a burden that one has to carry for the rest of his life. Killing someone for something that they had nothing to do with is pretty hard to deal with. O'Brien imagines what kind of life the young boy had-he wonders if he was maybe a scholar, or maybe hated politics and was teased through out his life for being soft. I like the insight of what war was like and how a person killed by a grenade looked like.

11 comments:

  1. I thought it was important too how Tim described in the book how the guilt has stayed with him ever since the war. He said somedays he doesn't blame himself and other days it's all he can think of. It's really sad, I also can't imagine living my life in guilt like that for as long as I live.

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  2. This was one of my favorite chapters too. The way the author reflected and shared his insight about the man's life made this very powerful.

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  3. I couldn't imagine killing a person either. He does have to deal with it forever. In the book, his daughter asks him if he ever had to kill. It is sad.

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  4. I agree when you do a mistake it haunts you back in life.

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  5. this is one of my favourite chapters too. I wonder why he particularly tell us about this one man he killed because I think he must have killed more than one person in the entire war.

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  6. i agree that the young boy life is over. and too young to go war and handle all the stress.

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  7. We can never comprehend the burden of killing someone. Tim does his best to explain the emotions that he had at the time and even later when his daughter asks about it. He made the man he killed more personal for us. Tim asked questions about the man to show his emotional attachment and sorrow for someone niether him or us knew.

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  8. i really liked this chapter too, because the author detailed on what it's like to kill a man. But it is very hard to imagine on what it feels like to kill somebody and the fact that you have to live it thoughout your like.

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  9. I agree with you on this chapter..i wrote about it too. But yes, I think it was a very emotional chapter because it kind of backfired the whole war persona of it being a good thing to kill your enemy. Tim however, reacted the opposite as he told of himself remembering this boys face, his death and how he never really wanted to fight in the war but did it for honor. It very moving and you know the author feels the same way because he refers back to it in many other chapters

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  10. I do agree. No one can imagine how they would feel after killing someone or even watch someone being killed. I feel the way he tries to explain his emotions do not compare to how he actually felt. There is no way to express though emotions, the guilt, the shame. My boyfriend, whom is in the army currently stationed in Iraq told me once that no one should have to see that, yet it bring you back to reality, which is needed at times.

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  11. I know what you mean of not able to comprehend the killing of someone but I believe since we've never being in the war, we must at least give those men our respect for their courage

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