How does the perspective of the narrator change the story? What do you think the author is trying to convey with this?
In the chapter "The Man I Killed", O'Brien tells us about the first time he killed someone in combat. The majority of the chapter consists of O'Brien staring at the corpse, describing in detail the way his mangled body looks, and describing in even greater detail the life of the man he killed. O'Brien had no way of knowing anything about the man's life, and yet he created a complex backstory, from his childhood, through adolescence, to college, to when he joined the war. He explained the thoughts and beliefs of the man, the things he was interested in. "He had been born, maybe, in 1946 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, and where, during the time of the French, his father and two uncles and many neighbors had joined in the struggle for independence (O'Brien 119). I think that by giving us this perspective, O'Brien was trying to show us how he couldn't simply kill a man and walk away, he had to know the man. He wouldn't settle for just assuming the man he killed was bad, because he knew that that wasn't usually the case.
The Vietnam War was a war "nobody wanted a part of." O'Brien didn't want to go to war in the first place, but went anyway. Not everyone killed or involved in the war was bad, and I think O'Brien wanted think he was doing good for killing people because that's what he was told to do, yet not everyone was a bad as they say they are. People have their own lives, hardships, and family. I feel O'Brien was attempting to put himself in other people's shoes. Maybe the people he was fighting against in the war felt the same way about not wanting to be there? He just wanted to get a better understanding of the people he was dealing with. -Sydney Derrow
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