The Seventh Man Essay

On paper, survivor guilt seems to be a completely irrational concept. Why should you feel guilty if someone died and you survived if you had absolutely nothing to do with that person’s death, or if you tried to save someone’s life but you physically couldn’t? Without context, it almost seems silly. However, in the real world, people will form strong emotional bonds with each other and will feel responsible for their friends and family if all goes wrong, even if you had nothing to do with what has occurred. Similarly, if someone you have strong emotional connections to dies from an incident and you do, the resulting regret, grief, and guilt is known as survivor guilt. In “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami, a tsunami strikes the narrator’s hometown, during which he and his friend K., while in the tranquil eye of the storm, go to the beach they spend lots of time together to assess the damage from the first half of the storm. While there, a loud noise is heard by the narrator, and sees a gargantuan wave speeding toward the shore, and tries to pry K. out of the path of destruction, alas, he was too invested in an object upon the sand. The narrator speeds away from the wave in an attempt to save his own life, and soon sees K. inside the second wave after being swept away in the first. Throughout the rest of the narrator’s life, he deals with horrible nightmares and a guilty conscience as a consequence of his traumatic childhood event and tries to rid

The narrator for the seventh man should forgive himself for not being able to save K because he did everything he could do to try to save him but he would not listen. In the story the seventh man a huge typhoon strikes the beach with a big boom while the narrator and his friend K were investigating the previous damage from the past wind and rain. The narrator heard the big booms and tried to warn his friend K but he just couldn't K was too interested in whatever he was looking at that he did not hear the yelling or the loud booms.

The narrator of “The Seventh Man” should seek forgiveness in himself. Not only is forgiving yourself an essential thing that keeps our lives going, but in his circumstances, there wasn’t much more to do to help his friend.

In The seventh most important thing by Shelley Pearsall, Arthur T.Owens throws a brick at a local man that collects rubbish. Arthur and his sister always call him junk man, although they would later find out that his name is actually James hampton. After getting out of juvie, arthur has a long nerve wracking time in court to decide his punishment for throwing a brick at junk man. Instead of being sentenced to more time in juvie, junk man offers an alternative, he is sentenced to one hundred twenty hours of community service… working for him. He would pay off those hours every Saturday. “ One kid. One crime. One chance to make things right.”

The human tendency is to feel guilt after a great tragedy, and so in turn humans will feel survivor’s guilt. Good people will naturally put more blame on themselves even if they had done nothing wrong or all that they could to help. In the editorial “The Moral Logic of Survivor’s Guilt” by Nancy Sherman, the author gives many examples of good people feeling survivor's

“In war, standing here rather than there can save your life but cost a buddy his. It’s flukish luck, but you feel responsible.” (Sherman 153). In “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt,” Nancy Sherman uses this quote to explain the basis of survivor guilt in war. In “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami, the narrator failed to save his closest friend from a wave. As Sherman said in her quote, people often feel guilty when they survive a situation that others didn’t. The narrator’s situation in “The Seventh Man” is a perfect example of this. Despite his failure to save K., the narrator should still forgive himself.

“Don’t waste the life I’d sacrificed my own for on feeling bad about yourself. We might as well have both lost our lives at this rate. Go see the things I never got to see. Do the things I never got to do.  Life is spent in hesitation and fear is no life at all.” is something along the lines of how I think K would have felt about the situation, given the personality described. In “The Seventh Man”, a short story by Haruki Murakami, the seventh man tells a story about a natural disaster he survived: in which his best friend did not. He summarizes this event and reminisces on how he could have saved K; that is followed by a third person point of view describing the effects this survivor’s guilt has had on the seventh man. Despite his failure to save his best friend, should he forgive himself? The answer is a clear, and obvious yes because by never forgiving himself, not only is he hurting himself and allowing K to die in vain, but he also spreads pain to those who love him like friends, family, and acquaintances. I’m sure by that present point in time; K, his parents, K’s parents, and everyone but himself had succumbed to forgiveness. The only one left to move on is the seventh man himself.

There are many situations in which people feel like they’re at fault for the death of a loved one, or a good friend. Many of these cases, to this day, involve soldiers who have seen the terrors and tragedies of war, and have watched their companions get killed in the line of fire, while they survived. In the story, “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt,” the author, Nancy Sherman, talks about what survivor guilt is, and why some people suffer from it. “The guilt begins an endless loop of counterfactuals- thoughts that you could have or should have done otherwise, though in fact, you did nothing wrong.” (Sherman, 153) Sherman’s statement relates back to “The Seventh Man,” and how the narrator feels guilty for not saving K. even though there was nothing that could’ve been done to help. The Seventh Man has thoughts about what he could have done, and different things he could have said to save K. but in the end, he feels guilty for nothing.

A handful of people will agree that the Seventh Man left K. intentionally and let him die. For example, (evidence). Thus, what killed K. was the “wave like a huge snake with its held wanted him to die” (138). Furthermore, it was impossible for the narrator to save K. because he was “ten yards” away from him. Therefore, if he tried to run up to him and save him both of them could’ve died. In addition, although, the narrator failed on saving K., he was traumatized and had a difficulty moving on with his life. For example, “I was burning with fever, and my mind was clouded… been asleep for three days… vomited several times, and had bouts of delirium… in my dreams, K. would hop out of his capsule in the wave and grab my waist to drag me inside him...I never married… never went to swim in a pool… wouldn’t go near deep rivers or lakes…” (139-141). Others might conclude that the seventh man deserves everything he’s been through. However, this proves that the Seventh Man was miserable and couldn’t live life to the fullest because of the

Should the narrator of “The Seventh Man’ forgive himself for his failure of saving K?

The seventh man should forgive himself because if K was alive he wouldn't want the seventh man to be mad and hate himself. K would want the Seventh Man to forgive himself for his mistake. The Seventh Man did yell for K to move but K did not hear him and as a result he was eaten by a wave. Perhaps the seventh man should have tried to grab K, but he was really far out at the beach and he was probably worried that he would end up getting eaten by the wave just like K was another reason the Seventh Man should forgive himself is because he didn't create the wave to get K.

In the documentary series, Seven Up, a group of seven year olds, from Great Britain, give self-reports, in a longitudinal study, every seven years, about various topics in their lives. The type of observation being used is structured. The same participants are being used, and know they are being observed and out of all the characters, I focused on, Suzy Lusk.

Regretful, ashamed, and sorry. Feeling responsible for a specified wrongdoing. Guilt. Have you ever felt guilty? Do you ever blame yourself, or wish you could turn back time to change just the smallest of details, knowing that your life will be so much better because of it? Yes or no, or whatever your answer may be, many people, and many characters have. The Book Thief is a prime example in which many of its characters experience guilt. They blame themselves for the fact that someone died while they are still alive, yet they find many ways to deal with this guilt. Throughout The Book Thief, the author demonstrates how survivor’s guilt continues to provide motivation for the characters to alter their lives in many ways.

“...we often take responsibility in a way that goes beyond what we can reasonably be held responsible for.”(Sherman 154). Philosophers explain survivor guilt using the preceding terms as an internal conflict between two important characters. The foregoing quote from “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” defends the claim that the narrator of “The Seventh Man” should forgive himself for his failure to save K.