The Seventh Man Critical Analysis

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Imagine being lost within yourself after being a witness of losing someone close to you. What is this, you might ask? Well this is when a person you have worked with or were partners with and you were there to experience their death, this is called survivor guilt. While reading “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami you can tell the seventh man feels survival guilt not with a worker or partner but his best friend, after a horrible wave hits. Should the Seventh Man be forgiven and move on with his life?
My position stands to were I believe the Seventh Man should not have to feel survivor guilt anymore, he should no longer suffer as you see he says ( “I was not afraid. No, not at all. There was no longer anything for me to fear. Those days were
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Soldiers often carry this burden home—survivor guilt being perhaps the kind most familiar to us.” ( Nancy Sherman, The Moral Logic Of Survivor Guilt, paragraph 2) my people indeed take on their survivor guilt with them as long as they live. Some may say that that means the Seventh Man should keep feeling survivor guilt, since he just happened to stand there while K. was out in the water. The Seventh Man could have possibly done something even bigger for K. he would have ran towards him to take him with him. Was he being selfish not going after his best friend K.? He was not sure enough to go out in the water and save him. The Seventh Man should feel guilt since he was able to run towards K. and get him out of the water before the wave had taken him away. He did start feeling guilt since he says “ And in the crest, inside it’s cruel, transparent tongue, what I saw was K.” (Haruki Murakami, The Seventh Man, paragraph 36). The Seventh Man did and should keep feeling guilt, more specific survivor guilt for the going out to save K..
Although some people may say the Seventh Man should keep on feeling survivor guilt I say that he should no longer suffer. “What Prior feels are feelings of guilt, and not simply regret that things didn't work out differently.” (Nancy Sherman, The Moral Logic Of Survivor Guilt, paragraph 13) this makes a strong statement towards my point the Seventh Man did feel regret for many and many years, it was finally