The Seventh Man by Haruki Murakami

John Barrymore once said, “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” This quote describes what takes place in “The Seventh Man,” but the narrator’s regrets take the place of his dreams at a young age of ten. “The Seventh Man,” by Haruki Murakami describes a tragedy that takes place in the narrator’s life. Him and his best friend, K. decide to go near the ocean after a typhoon has slowed down. As the weather gets worse, the narrator tries to get K.’s attention, but when it finally does, it is too late. He witnesses K. dying and being taken by a huge wave. He lives the rest of his life through regret and nightmares and is never the same after this tragedy. In "The Seventh Man," the narrator is never able to fulfill a normal life due to the regret that he allows to overtake him; he leaves his hometown, his parents, and chooses to be alone due to a terrible tragedy.

A week after witnessing his friend being taken by the wave, after finally waking up from shock, the narrator already feels the regret and blames himself. He says, “But I knew the truth. I knew that I could have saved K. if I had tried” (Murakami 10). He starts feeling regret very

He talks about two different scenarios of nightmares he has when he tries to sleep. He describes a nightmare by saying, “And when I managed to sleep, it was there in my dreams—except that, in my dreams, K. would hop out of his capsule in the wave and grab my wrist to drag me back inside with him” (Murakami 10). His regret leads to the nightmares he faces, which will later lead to other challenges in his life. The second scenario of nightmares is of someone grabbing him by the ankle, happening to be K., who is smiling while looking at him. He then drowns after swallowing water. Both nightmares are due to regret and continue to haunt him. The narrator is haunted by regret and sorrow in the form of his friend and will never fulfill a normal life due to