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The Man I Killed By Tip Ibrien Analysis

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Are you really stuck with quilt forever if you kill someone? This is a question some may ask. Some people have been faced or will be faced with some type of decision, and what they choose to do with that decision may decide the guilt they may have. The people who ask them self this question the most are the ones who defend our country, a soldier. Tim O 'Brien uses imagery and repetition in both “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush” to reveal that once a soldier kills someone, even if it was “a good kill”, the soldier will be stuck with quilt forever.
In “The Man I Killed” O’Brien uses repetition of imagery to convey the feelings of guilt he has by forcing himself to continuously stare at the corpse of the dead man, whom he had just killed. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped …show more content…

In “Ambush” O’Brien conveys his everlasting guilt by stating “I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty.” O’Brien also says “It was not a matter of live or die. There was no real peril. Almost certainly the young man would have passed by. And it will always be that way.” This quote is also showing O 'Brien 's intentions about not wanting to be in the war. Even though it was a soldier O 'Brien killed, he will always think of the man as being a regular man.
Throughout “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush” we are shown through Tim O’Brien’s first hand experience the regret soldiers can feel both immediately after the war and also many years later, reminding us that quilt is forever. The soldiers who fight for our country have hardship forever after being in the war and killing someone. The guilt the soldiers have is everlasting even if they try to forget it, but it will always be there. The soldiers in every war will have particular times of the war that will be on constant replay in their mind, and they will never let the quilt they

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