Copy of The Man I Killed_ humanizing the enemy (2)

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University of Texas *

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2000

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Arts Humanities

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Oct 30, 2023

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The Man I Killed, A Humanitarian Depiction of a Feared Enemy Group work: Generate a list of all of the items the dead soldier was carrying at the time of his death. Be alert here, as “to carry” includes both concrete and abstract nouns (tangibles and intangibles). Concrete: Black shirt, black pajama pants, a gray ammunition belt, a gold ring, rubber sandals, pouch of rice, a comb, a fingernail clipper, a few soiled piasters, a snapshot of a young woman, Abstract: fear of death, shame of cowardice, the knowledge of his eventual death List the “facts” O’Brien delivers to present the history and culture of the dead soldier. He was born in 1946 in My Khe in Quang Ngai Province. He was not a Communist. His parents farmed and fought for independence. He was a scholar with poor health and he hoped he would never have to fight. He loved math. He feared performing badly in battle. He was mocked for his appearance, but he never wanted to fight anyone, which made him ashamed. He was afraid of disgracing himself. He attended classes in Saigon, where he studied math. He wrote romantic poems and he knew the war would kill him. He fell in love with a girl and they exchanged rings. He returned with his new wife to My Khe where he was drafted and knew he would be killed. Write a thesis detailing O’Brien’s rhetorical purpose in the chapter. That is, write a statement, attributed something to O’Brien, that explains what the big idea of the chapter is. What does he want us to understand? Why? How does he do this? O’Brien humanizes the man he killed through careful description to fully convey the weight of killing a human being, not just an enemy soldier. Independent work: Write a paragraph that analyzes the chapter. That is, defend your statement by showing how, in the text, O’Brien delivers that idea to his audience. Your response must include thesis and at least two blended quotes from the chapter as support for your ideas, and your analysis of how all of this demonstrates O’Brien’s purpose. Through careful description, O’Brien conveys the idea and importance of killing a human being, not just an enemy soldier. Analyzing the life of the man grounds the narrator into reality, which is necessary due to the initial inability to process the killing of a complex and unique individual. Descriptions such as “He loved mathematics” (The Things They Carried, 121) almost parallel the descriptions given at a funeral, in which distinct characteristics and loved qualities are recognized. Sympathy and other complex emotions are also built up through exploring the hardships of the dead man’s life, including his lack of ability to stomach violence and his childhood in which he was “made fun of his smooth skin and his love for mathematics” (The Things They Carried, 121). The narrator didn’t have any disdain or hatred towards the man he killed, he was just obliged to kill him due to the war, yet it put a weight on his mind.

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