Guilt In The Seventh Man

Guilt has been an emotion most people can’t control. The main character in the short story “ The Seventh Man” is introduced to this guilt when his best friend dies in a catastrophic event. Surviving terrible events when your loved ones don’t can bring a lot of weight onto your shoulders. Once you accept the fact that you really couldn’t have done anything, and forgive yourself, your life from there on out will change forever. Learn to forgive yourself, because in the end of it all, that’s what gets you through the suffering. Feeling guilty may be reasonable under the right circumstances. The Seventh Man’s circumstances when he was young were pretty acceptable. When he was young his best friend, K. , was playing on a beach in a terrible hurricane. Fear arose upon The Seventh Man and instead of saving his friend, he ran to save himself. He had more than enough time to grab K. and save him. “ What made me do this, I’m sure, was fear, a fear so overpowering it took my voice away and set my legs to running on their own,” ( Murakami, pg 138). This shows that The Seventh Man was afraid; so afraid that his natural reaction was to run. He didn’t even acknowledge the fact that K. was still playing in the sand. He didn’t even try to save him until it was

K. was a small town boy who had done nothing wrong to the world. He spoke out of the beauty from his tiny paintings and he was also elegant with the paintbrush. The Seventh Man loved that about his best friend. It was almost forty years after K. got swallowed up by the colossal wave, and the Seventh Man still hasn’t forgiven himself. “ As I leafed through the bundle, I found myself steeped in warm memories.The deep feelings of the boy K. were there in his pictures- the way his eyes were opened on the world,” (Murakami , pg. 142). The Seventh Man eventually forgives himself for not saving his friend and his survivor guilt was no