In the story ”The Man I Killed” Tim O’Brien describes a Viet Cong soldier he killed during the Vietnam War. In 1968 Tim O’Brien was drafted into the army. Many years after the war ended O’Brien still finds himself obsessing over the young man he killed one night in My Khe. On this particular night O’Brien saw a young man carrying a gun and as a reacting he threw a grenade towards the man without really thinking. When O’Brien grasped what had happened it was too late. He felt guilt and even many years after he still felt this guilt.
In the short story ”Ambush” O’Brien’s daughter, Kathleen, wonders why her father writes war stories. She asks if he has ever killed anyone and O’Brien decides to tell her that he hasn’t. He thinks that he might tell her the truth when she gets older if she ask the question again because then perhaps she will understand. But he hopes that day never arrives.
“The Man I Killed” begins with the morbid physical details about the Viet Cong soldier who he killed. This includes descriptions of his injuries; he is described as “a slim, dead, almost dainty young man”1. After killing the soldier O’Brien describes a conversation with two fellow soldiers, Azar and Kiowa. Azar congratulates O’Brien of killing the young soldier and doesn’t see or at least chooses to ignore the pain and guilt O’Brien shows. Kiowa is kinder and more patient with O’Brien, he says “You feel terrible, I know that (...) Okay, maybe I don’t know”2 so it is only to a certain degree that he can relate to O’Brian. Kiowa seems more interested in trying to convince O’Brien that the killing is no big deal rather than helping him work out his emotions. In the end Kiowa is trying to get O’Brien to talk but he remains silent. No measure of companionship can make-up for the harsh reality of life and death, and the moral consequence of what O’Brien has done. His fellow soldiers can’t help console him with his guilt. Throughout the story the star-shaped wound on the young man’s eye is mentioned several times. It might symbolize the hope the soldier saw ahead in his future. He is now dead because he didn’t see the danger in his present situation. The blue flowers and the butterfly fluttering around is a contrast to the dead man and symbolizes that life goes on despite such a terrible tragedy. The theme of the story is guilt, betrayal and loss of faith, which O’Brian also says all his books are about in general sense and – “Vietnam is an example. I mean you go over there with all these naïve ideas, believing in country and your president and your fellow man, and you find yourself disillusioned in important ways…And that’s my terrain as a writer, that sense of loss…”3
O’Brien imagines and almost contemplates the life story of the young man. Inherently this imagination is from the perspective of O’Brien who has no knowledge about the young man. Great details are given about the young man’s life. He imagines the year of birth of the young man, coinciding with his own. He imagines that like himself the soldier was a scholar who felt an obligation to do his duty and defend his country. O’Brien tortures himself by fantasies of sharing several characteristics with the dead soldier. By doing so I believe he finds it easier to relate to his victim. By doing so the life he took will be remembered and thereby have some sense of meaning. O’Brien fells a lot of guilt over killing him; he feeds his guilt by imagining that the man he killed was in the prime of his life and was someone who wrote romantic poems and had fallen in love with a classmate. Doing so he can more easily identify with the Viet Cong solider. O’Brien creates a fictitious but strong bond with the soldier. There are several similarities between O’Brien in the short story and the author. Both were unwilling to participate in the war. Instead of deserting to Canada they defended their country with naive ideals. Although the author never admits of killing anyone in the war he surely must’ve experienced great human losses. By doing so I believe O’Brien lose his faith in the ideals and are left to live his life with consequences of his actions.
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