"The Man I Killed" - Rob

In “The Man I Killed”, O’ Brian tells of his first experience of taking a life in the war. He and the soldiers around him all share different reactions to the killing. Azar is ecstatic about the action. To him, the disproportioned state the victim was left in after the grenade ended his day is like a trophy. Kiowa is level headed about the matter and insists on convincing O’ Brien that the kill was justified and nothing to fret over. O’ Brien on the other hand is in shock. He silently stares at the dead man, frozen on the outside while exploding like his victim within. He creates a back-story for the man he killed. Kiowa generalizes the man just claiming he had a gun, this is war, and he was dead no matter what. But Tim cannot let it slide. He gives the man characteristics that mirror his own in the fact that he claims the man is not a soldier. He decides the man is a scholar, a weaker man, and not a follower of the war, yet felt the need to live up to the standards set on him as a man and fight in the war out of embarrassment not to. O’ Brien probably feels the need to justify what he has done by giving this man a story. He tortures himself by dwelling on the life he took but fills the void of wondering who he was by creating the life he had. O’ Brien placed himself into the story of this man. That part he placed into that man died with him in the jungle.