In life, we are faced with many tough choices. Some of the choices that we make can change our life forever. In the story The Seventh Man by Haruki Murakami, The Seventh Man’s best friend K dies during a tsunami. The Seventh Man believes that he could have saved K from the monstrous wave that killed him, so he lives for decades punishing himself by never returning to his hometown, not marrying, and having a bland social life. He was dealing with countless emotions and thoughts during this time, so it’s improbable that he could have rescued K successfully. 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
I believe that the narrator of “The Seventh Man” should forgive himself for his failure to save his best friend K. it wasn't his fault that his best friend didn't see the wave and didn't move on time. So why would he feel bad about it?
It is simple to argue that the Seventh Man should not forgive himself for failing to save K. One may assert that the narrator could have physically warned K. by giving him a slight shove or patting him on the back. Although this is logical, if one were to literally put him or herself in the Seventh Man’s situation, he or she would recognize the overwhelming amount of thoughts running through his head in the moment. In “The Key to Disaster Survival? Friends and Neighbors,” Shankar Vedantam reports about a 2004
The seventh man struggled his whole life with irrational survivor guilt. The definition of survivor guilt is “one feels guilty despite the fact they did nothing wrong”. The seventh man did not make k follow him and he can not control the wave. The seventh man said that “i know the truth i know that i could have saved k”. How could he have saved him it was a typhoon and also K was never mad at him.
This quote shows that if the seventh man had tried to go back for K, then he would have died too. The seventh man should also forgive himself because he cannot control a natural event. In the article “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” there is an example of an old army captain’s soldier dying. The soldier was killed in a bar fight. Captain Bonenberger felt guilty because he was not there to save him.
“Don’t waste the life I’d sacrificed my own for on feeling bad about yourself. We might as well have both lost our lives at this rate. Go see the things I never got to see. Do the things I never got to do. Life is spent in hesitation and fear is no life at all.” is something along the lines of how I think K would have felt about the situation, given the personality described. In “The Seventh Man”, a short story by Haruki Murakami, the seventh man tells a story about a natural disaster he survived: in which his best friend did not. He summarizes this event and reminisces on how he could have saved K; that is followed by a third person point of view describing the effects this survivor’s guilt has had on the seventh man. Despite his failure to save his best friend, should he forgive himself? The answer is a clear, and obvious yes because by never forgiving himself, not only is he hurting himself and allowing K to die in vain, but he also spreads pain to those who love him like friends, family, and acquaintances. I’m sure by that present point in time; K, his parents, K’s parents, and everyone but himself had succumbed to forgiveness. The only one left to move on is the seventh man himself.
Should The narrator from “The Seventh Man” Forgive Himself The narrator from “The Seventh Man” should forgive himself. I’ll explain why in this 4 paragraph essay. To introduce the reasons I'll list them off. One his guilt is one many feels and will haunt him for the rest of his life unless he puts his guilt to rest.
A handful of people will agree that the Seventh Man left K. intentionally and let him die. For example, (evidence). Thus, what killed K. was the “wave like a huge snake with its held wanted him to die” (138). Furthermore, it was impossible for the narrator to save K. because he was “ten yards” away from him. Therefore, if he tried to run up to him and save him both of them could’ve died. In addition, although, the narrator failed on saving K., he was traumatized and had a difficulty moving on with his life. For example, “I was burning with fever, and my mind was clouded… been asleep for three days… vomited several times, and had bouts of delirium… in my dreams, K. would hop out of his capsule in the wave and grab my waist to drag me inside him...I never married… never went to swim in a pool… wouldn’t go near deep rivers or lakes…” (139-141). Others might conclude that the seventh man deserves everything he’s been through. However, this proves that the Seventh Man was miserable and couldn’t live life to the fullest because of the
The narrator of “The Seventh Man” should seek forgiveness in himself. Not only is forgiving yourself an essential thing that keeps our lives going, but in his circumstances, there wasn’t much more to do to help his friend.
The Seventh man should not forgive himself for not saving K. My point of view is supported by “The Cost of Survival” by Theo Tucker. For example, “People who take extreme risks should pay for their rescue operation” (127). Meaning, when the man says “Child though I was, I had grown up on the shore and knew how frightening the ocean
In The Seventh Man by Haruki Murakami, the main character is unhappy due to his fate. For example, a quote from the story that shows this is “One year, in September, a huge typhoon hit our area. The radio said it was going to be the worst in ten years. The schools were closed, and all the shops in town lowered their shutters in preparation for the storm”(Murakami). There was a typhoon is heading for the main character's city.
Should the narrator of “The Seventh Man’ forgive himself for his failure of saving K?
the narrator it was not at all his fault that K had died. He should have been able to forgive himself. A great story to source is “The Moral Logic of Survivor's Guilt.”The story explains what survivor guilt is. “The classic scenario is not so much one of good luck (as in survivors guilt), but of bad luck, typically having to do with accidents where again, there is little or no culpability for the harms caused”(Sherman 154). In the narrator of “The seventh man” case K had tragically died in a typhoon. He felt that it was his fault that K had been swallowed when in reality, if he had tried to save K he would have died himself. There was no way he could have saved K. The narrator should be able to forgive himself for not running after K. It was an accident, peer bad timing though he feels as if it was his fault. Even though the narrator of the story had watched K die, he should have been able to forgive himself because of the simple fact that it was not his
In “The Key to Disaster Survival? Friends and Neighbors,” Shankar Vedantam reports about a 2004 tsunami in which fishing boats were distributed. He says, “Fishermen who used to work together now became competitors. Trust broke down. Fights broke out.” (Vedantam 3). This situation accurately describes how one might change when trying to save or help oneself. People tend to forget about others and fend for themselves first. Consequently, the Seventh Man might have wanted to help, but he knew his life was at stake.
The narrator of “The Seventh Man,” by Haruki Murakami, struggles with the guilt of not being able to save his best friend from a horrendous wave for most of his life. His sleep is ridden with nightmares, and he chooses to never find love, so his future partner wouldn’t have to deal the constant burden of the Seventh Man’s fears. Although the Seventh Man feels strongly at fault for the death of his best friend, K, he should not blame himself for the tragic events that occured, because there was no way to prevent what happened.
“The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami is a passage where a man tells a story of how his friend, K., lost his life in a hurricane, causing the narrator to have to face his fear of water later in his life. The Seventh Man gave context of how his friend had gotten swept up into a wave in the eye of a hurricane. When K. didn’t hear the man calling out to him, the man blamed himself for his friends death. After his dreadful experience, the Seventh man was constantly followed by the thought of K., how he died, and how he could have stopped it. The Sevenths Man's feelings could be considered to be survivors guilt. The fact that The Seventh Man tried to save his friend but couldn’t shows why he should forgive himself for K,’s death.