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Haruki Murakami's The Seventh Man

Decent Essays

Many people debate whether The Seventh Man should forgive himself for not rescuing K. Like Judy Belmont said, “Forgive yourself for not having the foresight to see what now seems so obvious in hindsight.” In “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami, The Seventh Man lived his life isolated from the things that made him happy because of the guilt he felt. The Seventh Man should forgive himself because of many reasons. There are multipule reasons why he should not feel responsible for the death of his best friend K. As a consequence of witnessing K’s death, he lived many years in sufferment. In paragraph 47 he said,” This is probably why I never married. I didn’t want to wake someone slkeeping next to me with my screams in the middle of the night. …show more content…

One of the reasons why people might say this is because when K. was stretching his hand toward him he didn’t make an effort to get ahold it it and at least try to save K. Instead he thought about himself only and ran away toward a safer place. Although yes he didn’t help K, but would it really be worth it if the wave already had K? The only difference it woudve made was that they both would’ve died. The wave already had K in its traps so eitherway K would’ve died. People should understand that everyone makes mistakes and just because someone made a mistake it doesn’t mean that they have to be pointed at or feel guilty for the rest of their life. K suffered a lot because of his mental conditions, he was bullied and couldn’t live peacefully. K was resting after the wave took him and it wouldn’t be fair that K rested peacefully while The Seventh Man lived a miserable life. He said, “As he lay there in the tip of the wave, surely k had not been looking at me with hatred or resentment; he had not been trying to take me away from him. And that terrible grin he had fixed me with: that, too, could have ben an accident of angle or light and shadow, not a conscious act on K’s part. He had probably already lost consciousness, or perhaps he had been giving me a gentle smile of eternal parting.” This shows that K was already happy that he was getting to go to a more

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