The Man I Killed Literary Analysis

A Soldier’s State of Mind The Vietnam War was the first war in which the United States Government did not have the support of American citizens. The lack of backing from the inhabitants of America forced the government to draft hundreds of thousands of men into war. Critical author, Andrew Bacevich, condemned the draft as being “as much an object of protest as the conflict itself” because it initiated the start of the Anti-War Movement (1 Bacevich). The movement created a version of society that did not see the men that fought for their country as heroes but rather as killers taking part in a pointless war. When the draftees returned home they were not welcomed with open arms and were left to deal with the emotional trauma they suffered overseas
Tim O’Brien’s use of imagery in “The Man I Killed” can be compared to that purpose of imagery. In “The Man I Killed” character O’Brien explicitly describes the images that cross his mind as he stares down at the man he might have killed. He goes from describing the man’s injuries with graphic detail to then immediately taking note of a “butterfly making its way along the young man’s forehead” creating a contrast between gore and beauty (121). O’Brien includes the beauty amidst the gore not to confuse the reader but show how little this man’s death impacted the world. This man died but life is going to continue on just as butterflies will continue to fly. The reader must be able to recognize that although O’Brien goes to great lengths to describe the man he does not include the emotional effect this man’s death had on O’Brien himself. His lack of imagery regarding his emotional response to the death of this stranger shows that he believes that, as a soldier, his feelings have little importance when compared to the monumental influence the war will have on the world. The dead man can be seen as a symbol of O’Brien as O’Brien describes the man as he would describe himself. He notes that the man is most likely nothing more than “a citizen and a soldier”, a hard worker but not somebody important to society (119). This helps the
After many years of suffering alone he turned to writing to express the trauma he went through. Although his stories are fiction the emotions he aims to provoke from readers mirrors the emotions he felt overseas. His use of metafiction and imagery forces readers to question the purpose of O’Brien’s writing eventually leading to them feeling as O’Brien felt. O’Brien was once asked to define his relationship between the happening truth and the story truth and his response explains his why he writes stating that “there is a truth as we live it; there is a truth as we tell it” and while he considers both to be valid he would rather feel as one felt in the moment than to just listen to a story (1