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Survival Guilt Short Story

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“The rumbling had stopped…finally, K. heard my shouting and looked up. But it was too late. A wave like a huge snake with its head held high, poised to strike, was racing towards the shore”.(Murakami, 138). This life or death experience was shared between two friends in the middle of a typhoon. While they were exploring the damage of the outside, a huge wave came upon them. This resulted in a life being lost and a friend hurting, feeling responsible for what had happened. However, whenever you are in nature, you never have complete control. Nobody should ever take the blame for a survival accident when in reality they did nothing wrong. Since nature can never be fully controlled, The narrator of this survival story should forgive himself for his failure to save K. …show more content…

There have been many stories that have been told that tell about a failure to save someone's life. One of these stories is mentioned in the short story of, “The Moral Logic of Survival Guilt”. This story shares, “In war, standing here rather then there can save your life but cost a buddy his. It’s flukish luck, but you feel responsible” (Sherman, 153). This shows that just like in the narrator's story, that it is complete luck for who survives and who doesn't. In all reality, that big wave probably should've hit the narrator too, but it didn’t. Another example to show why the narrator must forgive himself for not saving K’s life is talked about in a radio broadcast. This broadcast talks about how neighbors must be there for each other during hard times. This overall showed that a community after hard times must work together to heal the

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