Reading #7, Question #2

[Natese]

When Tim O'Brien kills the young man, he stares at him continuously
and studies his every body part, how it's positioned, and the defect
of the limb. Why do you think O'Brien imagines the life of the killed
Vietnamese soldier and repeats it so many times in his head?

[Conley]

What a great question Natese. I believe O'Brien imagines the
Vietnamese soldier's life in a way that relates to his. He pictures
the soldier being intelligent and not wanting to go to war just like
O'Brien, who was smart and wanted to continue his education instead of
going to war. O'Brien did not want to fight in the war and he also
knew he was a not a soldier; he worried he was going to die young and
not to be able to accomplish any goals of going to college and living
a long life. O'Brien wanted to flee to Canada to escape from the draft
so he would not fight in the war but did not want to be called a
coward. He depicts the Vietamese soldier as not wanting to fight in
the war but felt pressured by his father and uncles. The soldier
wanted to avoid the war to but felt similar pressures to O'Brien; "He
imagined covering his head and lying in a deep hole and closing his
eyes and not moving until the war was over" (O'Brien 127). As O'Brien
stares at the man he killed, he imagines a soldier that had a very
similar life to his, making him feel horrible for taking the life of a
man that was innocent.

[Nojai]

I agree with Jacob, I do believe that O'Brien imagines the young man's
life with a connection to his own. "He liked books...he wanted someday
to be a teacher of mathematics" (125), similar to O'Brien he wanted to
be involved in other affairs rather than the war. I believe that he
repeats it so many times in his head because he ended a young man's
life who, like himself, didn't want to be there but had no other
choice. I also believe that he repeats it so many times because he
didn't want to be in the war killing and taking others' lives. Azar
adding fuel to the fire by emphasizing on how O'Brien "scrambled his
[the boys] sorry self" (125). I think that he was so descriptive of
what he had done because it was his first killing and he realized how
quickly anothers' life had been taken away under his control. He
finally experienced war at his own fingertips by killing another.
O'Brien realizes that his responsibilty had to be carried out even
though he didn't want to. He realizes that the young soldier would
have been killed if not by him then by one of his partners.

On Feb 12, 10:42 pm, Natese <lovebur...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jarrett Talley]

You both have made good points; I believe O’Brien felt bad not for
killing an innocent man, but just for killing someone in general. The
man that O'Brien killed was by no means innocent; he had a gun and
would have killed an American if O’Brien hadn't killed him. Kiowa
tried to comfort O’Brien by saying, "The guy wasn't Heidi---- he had a
weapon" (O'Brien 126). No one knows what would have happened if
‘"Brien had not killed the young man, he may have killed O'Brien and
half of his unit. But O'Brien still can not bring himself to see that.
All he can see is a young man that he believes did not want to be in
the war and did not want to fight. I believe that he thinks the boy
was much like him, not wanting to be a part of the war, but was forced
to take part. He continuously played the boy's like over and over
because he believed that the boy and him were very much the same.

[Casey]

This is a great question Natese because I was wondering why he did
that too. I think he repeats this story he has come up with to remind
him of what he has done. He creates this life to make the man seem
innocent. The man seems to represent the guilt that O'Brien feels from
being in the war, not just from killing this men, but from all the
other men he has killed.He repeats over and over, "One eye was shut.
the other was a star-shaped hole" (O'Brien 124), as if to remind
himself of what he did to the face of "his smooth skin" (O'Brien 121).
The innocence that O'brien gives this man will make him seem like he's
not an enemy, but a civilian. O' Brien will forever remember the
aspiring mathmatician he killed at such a young age.

[Lindsey]

Casey has some strong points, and I agree with her statement that "he
repeats the story he has come up with to remind him of what he has
done". Obviously, he doesn't know this man from Adam and just makes
up an off the wall story about his life. While I agree with Casey, I
also think he feels so bad because he puts himself in this man's
shoes. When O'Brian kills the man he comes to the realization that
this could be him one day. In O'Brian's story, he refers to the man
he killed by saying "Beyond anything else, he was afraid of disgracing
himself, and therefore his family and village" (O'Brian 127) and this
reminds me of how O'Brian himself felt about the war. O'Brian studies
this man so hard because he feels as though he could be looking at
himself minutes, hours, days, or months from this point being in the
same position and is scared about it. In my opinion, O'Brian is
bringing out his true thoughts and feelings through telling this
totally made up story about some random man he killed.

[Andre]

I'll have to side with Jarrett on this one. I believe O'Brien felt
guilty for killing someone; taking a life just isn't in his nature. He
isn't a true soldier, "I was no soldier.... I didn't know a rifle
from a slingshot," therefore he did not know what it was like to kill
a man ( O'Brien 41). This ideology is shared between O'Brien and the
guy he killed. Neither man fit the bill for a soldier, " He was not a
soldier. He was not a fighter. He liked books. He wanted to someday be
a teacher of mathematics" (125).
be involved in other affairs rather than the war. In her above post
Nojai makes a great point," he ended a young man's life who, like
himself, didn't want to be there but had no other choice" (Nojai).
O'brien feels like he killed one of "his own kind," in a sense that he
was similar to the man he killed. O'Brien's guilt is what causes him
to continuously replay the event in such great detail.

[Kevin]

I agree with Jarrett and Andre because the man's nature is similar to
O'Brien's. After examining the chapter more closely I found more
similarities between O'Brien and the man he killed. They don't want to
go to war to begin with and only go because they have to. Also, both
have a wife or girlfriend they met in college and deeply care about.
So in a way it's like O'Brien is seeing a reflection of himself in the
man he kills. He regrets taking the man's life because of how the man
may have had more of a future than just war. "Even now I haven't
finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I
don't," (O'Brien 134). By seeing himself, the effect is more
devastating than it would have been if he hadn't thought about the
man's features and life so much.

> > > aspiring mathmatician he killed at such a young age.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Megan]

Great question Natese; I commented on the repetition O'Brien used
while reading this chapter. I think O'Brien fabricates the story of
the man's life to make the Vietnamese man seem even more real. This is
O'Brien's first kill and first real experience of the war. He makes
the man's life similar to his own because reality is setting in; that
dead guy on the ground could be him. He stares at the "slim, dead,
almost dainty young man of about twenty" on the ground; "one eye was
shut. The other was a star-shaped hole" (O'Brien 130). The imagine of
the soldier stays in O'Brien's mind and taunts him. He visions this
soldier exactly like himself; he pictures him innocent. O'Brien feels
guily and scared of what happened and what is coming.

On Feb 15, 7:29 pm, Andre <amea...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Zoe Kopin]

Although I agree with Jarrett about O'Brien's guilt, I also
believe that the story he made up about the man's life had another
purpose. In the war, American soldiers killed the enemy without a
second thought. The Vietnamese they killed were nameless faces and
they all began to blur together. I believe that O'Brien begins to
feel a sort of guilt for this, so in his mind he gives a life to the
man he has just killed. I also agree with Nojai that O'Brien is
attempting to relate to the man, probably to lessen his guilt.
O'Brien says that the man "...would have been taught that to defend
the land was a man's highest duty and highest privelage. He had
accepted this" (O'Brien 125). This is also what American soldiers
were taught during Vietnam. They did whatever they were told, without
question. By relating to the man, O'Brien can make the connection
that the man would have killed him if it was what he was told to do.
This takes the burden off of O'Brien's shoulders by making him feel
that the man would have killed him had he been given the chance.

> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Andre]

I'd like to add that I think the kill is tougher on O'Brien as opposed
to other soldiers who kill. The man O'Brien kills wasn't a threat at
the time, the situation wolff haber been different if they were in a
fire fight. In addition I believe the greatest effect made on O'Brien
was the fact that he was so close to body after he kill him. He had a
lot of time the results of his actions first-hand.

[John]

I agree with the fact that O'Brien puts a story behind the man he kill
because he is trying to divert his fear but i also believe that this
is the way that O'Brien heals his mental state after he has
encountered an unpleasant situation. O'Brien examines the body
closely and tries to put facts to the body language of the thin man,
when O'Brien starts to talk about the story behind this man it
symbolizes the start of a long healing process. O'Brien starts to
relate to himself after a moment "He was not a fighter" (O'Brien 125),
"He had no stomach for violence" (O'Brien 127) and pushes the idea
that if the man had killed him he would have felt the same way that
O'Brien did now.

[Madison Stanley]

I agree with Jarrett about the quilt factor of the whole situation.
O'Brien was not mentally prepared to kill a man and so his first major
killing was a traumatic experience for him. He obsesses over the man
whose life he ended and can not pull himself away from the dead man's
body, engraving the pictures into his mind. He is in such a state of
shock over what he has done that he is literally unable to pull
himself away from that man and his story, which is why he imagines the
dead man's life. Later in life his quilt brings him back to those
images, but it is not just the quilt that haunts him. O'Brien is also
haunted by the brutal images themselves that he indirectly imprinted
into his brain after the incident. Images that he studied so profusely
that he will never be able to erase just because of the true horror of
them. He is haunted by the awfulness of the images that he can not
forget.
O'Brien battles his own brain immediately after killing the
Vietnamese man, as he tries to reason with his actions and what should
or should not have happened. As he attempts to reason with himself, he
obsesses over the death of the soldier and engulfs himself in the
story of the dead man he never knew. He unintentionally closes himself
off to the world as he obsesses over the dead man. Even when Kiowa
tried to comfort O'Brien, it was as if he could not get through to the
man, he was so lost inside his own thoughts. "Now one eye was a star.
"You okay?" Kiowa said. The body lay almost entirely in
shade" (O'Brien 129). Kiowa was unable to communicate with O'Brien as
he memorized each body part of his victim. It was O'Brien's intense
concentration that led to his inability to stop looking and thinking
about what he had done and to think about what had happened for the
rest of his life.

[Katelin]

I agree with Jarett and Andre. I believe that O'Brien did feel guilty
for killing the man because he continuously examines the man's body
and replays the images over and over in his head, "His one eye was
shut and the other was a star-shaped hole" (O'Brien 126). He keeps
these images in his head to remind himself of what could happen to
him. The man didn't ever want to kill anyone and would run away if he
could, just like O'Brien would have. I think that the man reflects
O'Brien himself in quite a few ways: both of the men had different
plans for their lives rather than going to war " He was not a soldier.

He was not a fighter. He liked books. He wanted to someday be a

teacher of mathematics" (O'Brien 125). The mirror image of himself
made O'Brien uneasy and he realized that the man did not deserve to
die nor did he deserve to go into war.