The story "The Man I Killed" seems to trace back
the cause of Tim O'Brien's PTSD. The
title of the story is self-explanatory; it is about a man Tim O'Brien kills in
action. He begins the story by describing the dead body of the man.
O'Brien describes the man's "jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and
teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped
hole" (O'Brien, 118). This is obviously a gruesome sight to see, and
O'Brien is just sitting by the body staring at it. He then begins
to make up a back-story for this man he just killed. There is no
way he knew anything about the man he killed but he begins to
make up his life story. "He had been born, maybe, in 1964 in the
village of My Khe near the central coastline of Quang Ngai Province, where his
parents farmed and where his family had lived for several centuries...He was
not a communist. He was a citizen and a soldier." (O'Brien, 119). O'Brien
seems to be making this man more human, where in war the enemy
is dehumanized in order for soldiers to want to kill. O'Brien is
not used to killing; this is possibly his first kill of the war. He
cannot believe he has the power to end a complete stranger's life.
The entire situation has him in shock. There are also some signs of PTSD that
start to become evident in the way Tim O’Brien tells the story. He keeps
repeating himself, especially in describing the dead body. The imagery of the
eye that’s a “star-shaped hole” really stays with him. He repeats this four
times in the short six page story. He also keeps running over the dead mans
imaginary life story in his head. This cyclical thought cycle is commonly
associated with PTSD.
I had not thought about the power O'Brien must be feeling after he has killed the vietnamese soldier. If indeed that was his first kill, then before this point he probably had not thought that he even had the ability or will to kill someone else let alone the power to end someone else's life. That being said however, the vietnamese soldier was in many ways a sitting duck; he was alone and up against an entire group of american troops. If O'Brien had not killed him, one of his comrades would have. So the guilt O'Brien feels probably also stems from this vietnamese soldier being an easy target.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting how you say that in war the opposition is dehumanized. I think what we see here is that no matter how much you are trained or brainwashed to believe that it is okay to kill for a greater moral purpose, it is still impossible to deny our human social instincts to want to know more about someone and still recognize the value of their life. This sobering moment where he is staring at the first man he has ever killed makes him see the humanity in the opposition. This internal conflict between what he has been trained to do and his emotions are probably what trigger the trauma that can later lead to PTSD.
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