The Seventh Man by Haruki Murakami Literary Analysis Essay Sample

Sometimes fear takes a hold of a person and does not let go. In the Seventh Man, fear took a hold of the narrator, which resulted in the death of his best friend. This event left him with a life filled with guilt. The narrator should forgive himself for his failure to save K.. when he was just a child.

In paragraph 27 the narrator talks about his youth, “... I had grown up on the shore and knew how frightening the ocean could be—the savagery with which it could strike unannounced.” The narrator had gone out during the eye of the storm and his friend joined him on his own accord. The narrator made sure to stay back away from the shoreline because he knew that the ocean could get dangerous at any second. His friend decided to go up to the shoreline and play in the sand. K. was not able to see the wave and the narrator tried to warn him, but fear had taken control of his voice. By the time that he was able to call out the wave had already stolen his friend. It is not the narrator’s fault that K. went out to the shoreline. Therefore, the narrator should not blame himself for the death of K.

The last paragraph reads, “Oh, the fear is there, all right. It comes to us in many forms at different times and overwhelms us. But the most frightening thing we can do at such times is to turn our backs on it, to close our eyes. For then we take the most precious thing inside us and surrender it to something else.” You see, this is what happened to the narrator when a wave took a hold of K.. The narrator and K. had been close friends for a long portion of their lives. They did almost everything together, but that one stormy night changed both of their lives forever. This event happened when the narrator was just a child, but it affected him for most of his life. Fear had stopped the narrator from calling out, and from that point on fear had taken control of his life.The narrator blamed himself for the death even though the death was not his fault. He should not be blamed for an event that happened when he was a fear filled child.

A quote by Joshua Guillary says this, “When you do something accidentally, don’t feel guilty. That’s why they call it an accident. ” This is what the narrator was not able to understand until he was a lot older in life. He did almost anything he could to run from the traumatic event because he felt guilty for the death of his friend. When the narrator went back to his hometown, after years of running away, he found watercolors that K. had painted. These paintings became a sort of therapy for the narrator, and he overcame the fear that was put into him. Another quote by Joyce Meyers says, “When we face our fears, we can find our freedom.” The narrator was finally able to go back and visit the ocean where K.. died without being filled with guilt. He faced his fear and he was set free of the chains that were holding him down. The narrator was finally able to forgive himself because he realized that it was an accident, and it was not his fault. He should forgive himself because what happens happens and you can not go back in life to fix it. You can only go forward. 

Some people argue that the narrator could have called out to save K., but fear stopped him from doing so. Sometimes fear takes hold of a person and does not allow them to think straight. In paragraph five the narrator says this about the wave, “… it swallowed everything that mattered most to me and swept it off to another world. I took years to find it again and to recover from the experience…” This shows that the narrator was able to take back what fear had stolen. He was able to come to peace with the event in the end, and that is all that matters. 

In the end, the narrator should forgive himself for fear was the real reason for K.’s death. We are told that accidents happen, and there is nothing that you can do about them. In the narrator’s instance his friend died because of an accident, and he should not be blamed for an accident that happened in his youth. He should not blame himself for a death that was not his fault.

Work Cited

Hayes, Helen. “Quotes about Childhood fears (30 quotes).” Quote Master, https://www.quotemaster.org/childhood+fears. Accessed 24 January 2022.