The Man I Killed, Field Trip, and The Lives of the Dead were all important chapters. These chapters portrayed the author’s, Tim O’Brien, true feelings about life, death, and war; and how they all correlate with each other. Through sharing his experience of killing a man, taking a field trip to revisit a fallen soldier, and realizing that people live after they die, the novel’s message transforms into something completely different. Tim O’Brien goes from a story about war to a story about the memories, adversity, and emotion that comes with being a soldier and everyday citizen.
In the chapter The Man I Killed, Tim O’Brien completely loses focus of himself after taking the life of another man. O’Brien is in so much shock that he stops talking to one of the soldiers he is closest with, Kiowa, and shuts everyone out. While isolating himself from everything around him, he imagines the life that the boy probably had before he killed him. He imagines that the boy could have been a scholar, had a wife, and more than likely wasn’t a communist who did not want to fight. I that O’Brien isolating himself and imagining a life for the man he killed was almost a form of closure and forgiveness for what he had done. …show more content…
In this chapter, O’Brien revisits Vietnam almost twenty years after the death of his dear friend, Kiowa. At this point in the novel, O’Brien has so much guilt stored within him and going to visit the site where Kiowa had died was a way for him to release all the guilt he had been carrying around. Another significant part in this chapter is O’Brien brings his ten year old daughter, Kathleen, along with him. I feel like O’Brien bringing his daughter along with him was a way of trying to share his experiences of the war with her, but ultimately Kathleen does not take any appreciation for what he is trying to
In the chapter The Man I Killed, Tim O’Brien completely loses focus of himself after taking the life of another man. O’Brien is in so much shock that he stops talking to one of the soldiers he is closest with, Kiowa, and shuts everyone out. While isolating himself from everything around him, he imagines the life that the boy probably had before he killed him. He imagines that the boy could have been a scholar, had a wife, and more than likely wasn’t a communist who did not want to fight. I that O’Brien isolating himself and imagining a life for the man he killed was almost a form of closure and forgiveness for what he had done. …show more content…
In this chapter, O’Brien revisits Vietnam almost twenty years after the death of his dear friend, Kiowa. At this point in the novel, O’Brien has so much guilt stored within him and going to visit the site where Kiowa had died was a way for him to release all the guilt he had been carrying around. Another significant part in this chapter is O’Brien brings his ten year old daughter, Kathleen, along with him. I feel like O’Brien bringing his daughter along with him was a way of trying to share his experiences of the war with her, but ultimately Kathleen does not take any appreciation for what he is trying to