PRESENTATION OUTLINE
The Man I Killed starts out with a physical description of a soldier who had been killed. It then goes in to educated guesses about his personality and life before the war. O'Brien talks about how he thought that the man he killed probably wasn't much if a soldier, and not even a communist at that. The man he killed was weak and scared, and not in good health either. He was probably studying to be a mathematician and married. But he as thrown into the war, and now he's dead. Tim feels terrible about killing him, but the other men don't. Kiowa believed "he was dead the second he stepped on the trail." But O'Brien keeps staring at the dead body because he feels so bad. He eventually had to get up and move on after a few minutes of staring, but he would never talk about it.
Man vs. Himself. O'Briens guilt, can't get over it, won't even talk to anyone else.
Kiowa, dead guy, Azar, Tim
guilt. O'Brien is guilty for killing this man for many reasons. He was weak and sick, and probably never wanted to be in the war to begin with. This dead man was probably the on in to war because his other career didn't work out, and he though he was shaming his family. This now deceased man probably had a wife he would go back to after the war was over but now he was dead. O'Brien's guilt is obvious throughout the chapter as he keeps thinking back to all of this, and how he won't stop staring at the dead body. He's so guilty, he can't even talk to anyone else about it.
" I'll tell you the straight truth, the guy was dead the second he stepped on the trail." ( pg 129)- Kiowa
Kiowa believes that this soldier Tim killed would not have escaped his death. He was bound to die as soon as he joined the army and as soon as he came down the trail. Everyone in the unit had their weapons pointed at him and the squad would've fired.There was no way out for this young man.That is what Kiowa believes.
