The Seventh Man Analysis

but he was not listening. K. was too caught up in looking at something that he blocked out the rest of the world. The seventh man continued yelling to K. but still could not get K.'s attention. K. is the one who is at fault in this situation he is the one who did not pay attention. The seventh man tried his hardest to get K. to listen to him. But he wouldn't

In Haruki Murakami’s short story, “The Seventh Man”, the narrator is a man that retells how a killer wave swept away his childhood friend, “K”, that had deleterious effects on the narrator. However the narrator is able to face his fear later in life rather than running away from it. By using figurative language such as, pathos and imagery Murakami is able to illustrate his theme, turning your back on fear, is more frightening than fear itself.

Survivor's guilt occurs when one blames themself for not saving another in a life or death experience. “The guilt begins an endless loop of counterfactuals-thoughts out could have or should have done otherwise, though in fact you did nothing wrong.” (Sherman, 153). What the Seventh Man feels throughout Murakami’s story is guilt for surviving when K. did not. Even if the narrator couldn’t have helped K. anymore than what he accomplished by calling out to him. “‘I’m getting out of here!’ I yelled to K. … my voice did not seem to reach him. He might have been so absorbed in whatever it was he had found that my call made no impression on him. K. was like that.” (Murakami, 137). K. wouldn’t have been able to be saved because even just calling to him

Do you think Jon Krakauer’s guilt is caused by his survival, or because he felt he was selfish, and didn’t attempt to save others on Mount Everest? Explain your reasoning.

After I read the story The Seventh Man I have determined that the narrator should no longer feel guilt for not retrieving his best friend K. My reasons to support my claim are because most people in survival situations try to save themselves before others. The other logic that supports this is he might not of made it in time if he saved his friend.

When K and The Seventh Man went down to the beach, they should have known what they were getting themselves into. Down on the beach it was windy and it was hard to hear over the waves, so when The Seventh Man tried to call out to K, he didn’t hear him. “I was sure I had yelled loud enough, but my voice did not seem to have reached him.”(Murakami, 137) Also adding to this, K should have been watching

A tumultuous typhoon surges towards you. You are standing still with your best friend and his dog when this occurs. What do you do? Your natural instinct is to run. Therefore, you try to get your friend’s attention and warn him. Unfortunately, he is so mesmerized with the surroundings and is unable to hear you. Suddenly you start to panic as the typhoon gets closer and decide you must run away to survive this ordeal. However, what about your best friend and his dog? Every man for himself? Would you forgive yourself for leaving your best friend behind in order to save yourself? The narrator from “The Seventh Man” experiences this horrific event and lives to tell the story. Surprisingly, the narrator does not forgive himself for almost forty years after the incident. Some readers believe he should forgive himself sooner. On the other hand, others say he does not deserve forgiveness due to leaving his best friend behind. The majority of readers would agree that the man absolutely should forgive himself. Many would argue the reasons for forgiveness are he was young when the event occurred, spent the next forty years blaming himself for his friend’s death, and his friend would not want him to punish himself.

The reason he or she may think this is, because the narrator had a chance to go and rescue K. from the wave but instead chose not to. Referring to lines 30-34, “I told myself to run over to K., grab hold of him, and get out of there… I found myself running the other way…” the seventh man possibly could’ve got himself and K. away from the wave safely. However, my position is stronger because if the seventh man ran back and grabbed K. they probably wouldn’t have made out of their alive. Also, if you were in his position and didn’t know how to face this type of fear, what would you do? Most fearful and situations produce unexpected reactions and you don’t realize what you've done till after you've done

I believe The Seventh Man should’ve at least tried to save K. He had enough time to run up to him grab him by the arm and pull him out of the way. If he didn’t just freeze and watch it all K could still be alive today. The Seventh Man had to live with the thought that he was the reason K died. In my opinion it’s not his fault but he could’ve tried to prevent it before it even happened.

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. I had never seen anything like it in my life. It had to be as tall as a three-storey building. Soundlessly (in my memory, at least, the image is soundless), it rose up behind K. to block out the sky. K. looked at me for a few seconds, uncomprehending. Then, as if sensing something, he turned towards the wave. He tried to run, but now there was no time to run. In the next instant, the wave had swallowed him.” (Paragraph 31, ‘The Seventh Man’). The guilt consumed the Seventh Man as fast as the wave had consumed his best friend, K. The events of this disaster ate away at the Seventh Man until nothing was left. He blamed himself for not saving K. The Seventh Man had to leave his childhood town to escape the nightmares, but even then they stayed with him. “I couldn’t go on living in sight of the beach where K. had been swept away, and my nightmares wouldn’t stop. If I didn’t get out of there, I’d go crazy. My parents understood and made arrangements for me to live elsewhere.” (Paragraph 45, ‘The Seventh Man’). This survivor guilt stayed with this man for many decades. It ruined his life, he couldn’t go near any bodies of water, he never settled down with anyone despite loving many women. “This is probably why I never married. I didn’t want to wake someone sleeping next to

The Seventh Man should forgive himself for not saving his childhood friend. The Seventh Man was very young when he experienced this trauma. He was only ten years old when he had to survive

The narrator of “The Seventh Man” should forgive himself for his failure to save K. because anyone in that type of situation would be terrified of being swallowed in by the wave. He knew what was right in his head but he couldn’t bring himself to put himself in front of the face of danger. A few reasons as to why I believe he should forgive himself are as follows; Although it wasn’t K.’s fault that he was hit by the wave, He should have been more aware of his surroundings because he did know that there has recently been a storm. He also shouldn’t blame himself because even though he knew he should’ve saved K. he was scared and couldn’t control his own actions, He ran away from the wave instead of towards it to save K. Any rational person would’ve

Should the narrator of “The Seventh Man” forgive himself for his failure to save K? I have come to the decision that I feel that the narrator should most definitely forgive himself. One of the main reasons for this opinion is for one, he was a scared young child at the time. Another reason is it was so long ago, that he has suffered enough. In the following paragraphs I will back these statements up.

In the story, “The Seventh Man” discuss an argumentative concept on the idea of if the Seventh Man should forgive himself from saving K. The Seventh man was in a situation where K was in a wave while running in shock he knew he could not save K. After this situation, the Seventh man suffered many tragic events on the idea of K’s death. He believed that he could have saved K and it has haunted him throughout most of the story. He contemplates whether it was his fault of letting K die, but I believe that he should not think that he is accountable about for K’s death.

The Seventh man's instincts made him disappear. He was so petrified and frozen in shock. He tried to call for K and warn him, but unfortunately K did not hear the seventh mans calls. The only thing that the narrator could do was run away from the ocean. It states that “As clearly as I knew what I ought to be doing, I found myself running the other way-running full speed towards the dyke, alone. What made me do this, I’m sure, was fear, a fear so overpowering it took my voice and set my legs to running on their own” (Murakami, 138). After this occurs, the Seventh Man goes on to explain how once he was safe, he realized what happened. Once more he calls to K. and K. finally hears him, but it is too late. With no effort at all K. is swept away. This explains why the narrator couldn’t decide on what to