Ch. 12: The Man I Killed

[Saffron]

Ch. 12: The Man I Killed

Please use this thread for discussing this chapter.

[realiz]

This chapter was very interesting in the way it was written. The title, The man I killed, I think is repeated three times through this short chapter and is the only time the word 'I' is used. O'Brien uses an interesting style of first person narration where we can feel the distance of Tim from the scene. The narration almost becomes 3rd-person-omnicent feeling with only the occasional, perhaps, before discription of the slayed enemies past, his dreams, his fears and his hopes.
All the diologue is this story is one sided with comments made to Tim, but no response in thought or word. It is very effective. Tim is telling the story, yet he is not there.

I have to skip to the next chapter and discuss it here as well because they are the same story told again in first person but a totally different style and feel. The story in this chapter is introduced as Tim's daughter asks him if he has ever killed anyone. It is interesting to have these two 'versions' of the story, yet first person narration is used in both. In this second one we find out what Tim felt, what he thought, why he did what he did, what he saw, and yet I think we feel more emotion in the first telling.

I think I am going to read these two chapters to my daughter who is studying creative writing.

[WildCityWoman]

I like the way he imagined the man he killed to be.

I believed his life just as he'd written it, simply because he did write it.