In “The Seventh Man”, the narrator fails to save his best friend K. He lived with his failure for the rest of his life. The topic of this essay is if he should forgive himself for not being able to save K. I believe, he should, he really wasn’t going to have any way to save him and get out of the wave alive, at least on the both of them. In any case, his instincts told him to get out of the danger zone, since he was going to take on the wave directly. There might have been a ten percent chance that he could have saved him, but as soon as he came in contact with K, it would have become a five percent. He should not live with his shame, and his guilt, the only guilt he should have is going into the harbor in the first place.
“The Seventh Man” tells the story of how the narrator is in the middle of a Typhoon, and he is with his best friend K in the eye of the storm. He decides to take the calmness to go to the bay, where he discovers the sea is not there, they go further into the floor of the sea, they begin to explore when the narrator hears a loud noise. When the second noise was heard, he sees as a huge wave is approaching in the horizon. He immediately gets out of the way, but K, having sustain issues, just stands there. He looks back at K, and tells him to get out of the way, but K just stays there, he thinks about helping and getting them both to safety. He thinks about it, but then sees the wave and how close and quick it’s approaching, and he decides to leave. He leaves and has a clear image of K looking at him with a threatening look, and he lives with that look, that moment in general, for most, if not all of his life.
The narrator in the story has dreams most nights of his life from there on of that moment. He sees K looking back at him with his menacing look, which immediately wakes him up sweaty and most time screaming. He thinks about what he could’ve done, more than what he did, he saved himself, but left K to die. At this point, K is dead, without anyone finding his body, and the narrator’s main reason for leaving his home town, was to try and get away of the site. He believed he could get away of the same everyday dreams if he got as far away from the town as possible. It didn’t work of course, since the guilt kept traumatizing him, and the dreams only got worst. Reliving an event like that every day, is relieving seeing your best friend die in front of you every day, and it all extends from guilt.
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The topic is if I think that the narrator should forgive himself. I honestly don’t know, but if I was to choose by looking at the other stories, “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt”, which is the big one, and “The Key to Disaster Survival”, which also helps out, I would say yes. I strongly believe he should if I was to pick one, since it was really not his fault. Like I stated before, his foolish act was going down to the sea when he didn’t see the water, that caused them immediate danger. But when you put the pieces down, he couldn’t have done anything to save K. If he was to actually go back to help him, he would have most likely perished along with him. I would forgive myself to think that he ignored his instincts and actually looked back to face death and try to at least call K. That alone was an act of true bravery. He really shouldn’t feel guilt for something he didn’t cause, since K decided to go with him, no one had forced him.
The true question of the topic is if the narrator should forgive himself, I believe he should. It is stated in the story that K has had his own mental problems, that alone spoke out in why he couldn’t be saved. If he had reason, then he would have immediately run away as soon as he saw the huge wave. The narrator saw him smiling back, that just said that he was prepared to have all the wave could give. The narrator was suffering more than K ever did, he felt guilt that I believe he should have, or probably did overcome. He most likely did when he went back to the site, to face K where he had died, but new deep within that he tried to help, but in the end, his instincts told him there was no way he could run back, get K, actually get him to mover, which is a big factor not stated in the story, and get him out of the was. He was taking in too much throughout the years, and he should prepare himself to live a happy life in all the years to come.
He really doesn’t have any reason to not forgive himself. The only thing he really pays attention to is the statement, not the fact, that K was reaching out to him inside the wave. He doesn’t like the fact he died at a young age, and that his body decomposed at the bottomed of the ocean. He doesn’t understand that there might have been a reason why his instincts told him to run instead of going back. It might have been to survive to remember K’s name, to tell his story. Or maybe just because his instincts told him that’s what K would have wanted, maybe K standing there ready to meet death is what he wanted. That is my argument, there isn’t enough evidence to tell why he shouldn’t forgive himself.
