He pictures his victim’s whole life, and imagines he was a young student that had just entered the university in Saigon in 1964, avoided politics, didn’t like to fight, and just hoped the Americans would go away. Though out the whole story, O’Brien both, consolidates and tortures himself, by picturing the life of this young dead soldier. He imagines it in such a way, that the Vietnamese soldier ends up being very similar to himself, and by relating to his victim this way, O’Brien grapples with and tries to understand the unpredictability of his own mortality, and is better aware of the horrible nature of the killing. He contemplates the fact of life and death. How the death of this poor soldier will not change one thing and life will go on, leaving him in the past, making his death look irrelevant and
He pictures his victim’s whole life, and imagines he was a young student that had just entered the university in Saigon in 1964, avoided politics, didn’t like to fight, and just hoped the Americans would go away. Though out the whole story, O’Brien both, consolidates and tortures himself, by picturing the life of this young dead soldier. He imagines it in such a way, that the Vietnamese soldier ends up being very similar to himself, and by relating to his victim this way, O’Brien grapples with and tries to understand the unpredictability of his own mortality, and is better aware of the horrible nature of the killing. He contemplates the fact of life and death. How the death of this poor soldier will not change one thing and life will go on, leaving him in the past, making his death look irrelevant and