The Man

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Guilt is an emotion that greatly affects the mindset of the individual and can cause adverse effects to the body. When someone feels guilt they continue to constantly ponder over the memory that occurred to cause the emotion. In Tim O’Brien’s younger days he spent most of his time practicing magic tricks and hanging out at the public library. According to Patrick Smith, “O’Brien was more cut out for the literary life than for the games that his peers played” (3). O’Brien graduated from Harvard University and was on his way to receive his Ph.D., but unfortunately his draft notice for the U.S Army put that to a stop. In “The Man I Killed” Tim O’Brien vividly describes the emotions he feels towards the guilt of killing someone. The literary techniques he uses such as point of view, imagery, and descriptive diction helps to demonstrate his own guilt and provides with details of his overwhelming feelings.
Tim O’Brien uses imagery to describe how his grenade killed a young Vietnam soldier. The gruesome description of the death of the young boy set the tone for the rest of the story. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was undamaged, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that killed him”(O’Brien 535). The word choice he uses helps to paint the gruesome imagery of his guilt. Phrases like “his jaw was in his throat” and “ the blood there was thick” helps to depict how horrid his guilt looks and portrays his overwhelming sorrow about the body. Tim describes the dead soldiers life to illustrate the common potential that war obliterates. He uses in-depth imagery to imagine a life story of the man...

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...at Kiowa is feeling in response to how O’Brien is acting. Kiowa understands that as a soldier in this war, it is either you kill or you be killed. This mindset is what Tim seems to be lacking which his causing his great guilt.
In this story, Tim is portrayed as someone who is in great remorse for the man he killed. O’Brien uses many literary devices to explain the guilt that he is feeling as well as further illustrate the gruesome act that he committed. O’Brien uses imagery and diction to portray the horrid act towards the reader and to allow to understand the remorse he is feeling. He also uses point of view to contrast the ideals and character between him and his counterparts, Kiowa and Azar. In all, O’Brien tries convey his overwhelming emotions towards killing a man and explain that he feels remorse towards killing someone regardless of whom that person is.

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