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    The Seventh Man

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    Gui Green
    The story follows a man struggling with traumatic memories from childhood. As a boy, he lost his friend in a powerful typhoon wave. For years, he was afraid to face the ocean, which symbolized his pain. However, he eventually realizes he must honor his friend by confronting his fears. He returns to the beach after many years and finds the waves now seem gentle. Stepping into them, he surrenders the past and achieves inner peace. The story examines overcoming fear through facing difficult memories and experiences.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    The Seventh Man

    Uploaded by

    Gui Green
    730 views3 pages
    The story follows a man struggling with traumatic memories from childhood. As a boy, he lost his friend in a powerful typhoon wave. For years, he was afraid to face the ocean, which symbolized his pain. However, he eventually realizes he must honor his friend by confronting his fears. He returns to the beach after many years and finds the waves now seem gentle. Stepping into them, he surrenders the past and achieves inner peace. The story examines overcoming fear through facing difficult memories and experiences.

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    The story follows a man struggling with traumatic memories from childhood. As a boy, he lost his friend in a powerful typhoon wave. For years, he was afraid to face the ocean, which symbolized his pain. However, he eventually realizes he must honor his friend by confronting his fears. He returns to the beach after many years and finds the waves now seem gentle. Stepping into them, he surrenders the past and achieves inner peace. The story examines overcoming fear through facing difficult memories and experiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    730 views3 pages

    The Seventh Man

    Uploaded by

    Gui Green
    The story follows a man struggling with traumatic memories from childhood. As a boy, he lost his friend in a powerful typhoon wave. For years, he was afraid to face the ocean, which symbolized his pain. However, he eventually realizes he must honor his friend by confronting his fears. He returns to the beach after many years and finds the waves now seem gentle. Stepping into them, he surrenders the past and achieves inner peace. The story examines overcoming fear through facing difficult memories and experiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    The Seventh Man

    "The seventh man" illustrates the struggle of a man trying to get over traumatic
    events that he experienced in childhood. As a kid, he lost his friend in a typhoon
    wave that came and swept his companion away. Using writing techniques like
    imagery, similies, and personification, the author brings to life the images of the
    past. The symbolism of water plays a significant role in the story in how it is both
    a symbol of pain, as well as a symbol of rest. After losing the friend he had, the
    waves were described almost like they were living creatures that saw the man
    and wanted to pull him in and destroy him. He stayed away because he was afraid
    of being reminded of his past. On the other hand, once he grew older, he realized
    he had to face his fear and honor his friend. Back on the beach after many years
    he takes a look at the waves and they seem gentle and they lap peacefully. As
    he’s stepping into them he surrenders the past and finds peace within himself. In
    a way, the water helped him know that the worst was over, and he can move on.

    Point of View:
    The narrator of the story is the main character at the same time so all we know is what he can
    tell us. we might believe him or not, but we can only be inside his head and know what he
    knows.

    The Seventh man is a straight forward first person story. This creates a better bonding between
    narrator and reader, or as in the story, listener. We understand his feelings and conflicts.

    Theme

    The main theme of the story is "Fear"

    We can separate this concept in:

    Consequences of giving up to fear

    There is always hope to overcome it

    Lessons we learn from the process.


    Just as the narrator does in the story, we all have had rough experiences in our life and we
    might have been turning our backs to reality but in the end we are only in peace and free when
    we face what is troubling us.

    Falling Action:

    After the main character is rescued from the beach and he regains consciousness he is shaken
    by guilt and suffers nightmares that forces him to move leave the town.

    He can't swim or get close to big pools of water because of the inner conflict and has a sad life.

    Literary Elements
    Flashback - In "The Seventh Man," almost the entire story is told from a flashback. The
    flashback tells the entire story of what happened to the narrator, and his friend, K. "I grew up in
    a seaside town in the province of S." (Murakami 2)

    Tone - The tone of "The Seventh Man" is eerie, and depressing; then, it turns into a calmer tone
    at the end. "He paused. "It just barely missed me, but in my place it swallowed everything that
    mattered most to me and swept it off to another world." (1) This quote creates an eerie feeling
    in the beginning of the story. Then, as the story continues, the narrator overcomes his guilt, and
    becomes relieved.

    Foreshadowing - The author uses foreshadowing various times throughout the story to hint at
    what is going to happen. "Just after noon the color of the sky began to change all of a sudden.
    There was something strange and unreal about it." (3) This hints that something is going to
    happen during the typhoon.

    Point of View - The point of view at the beginning and end of the story is second person.
    However, the story switches to a first person point of view. "Ever since I could remember, my
    best friend was a boy I'll call K." (2)

    Personification - The author uses personification to describe the typhoon that hit his
    neighborhood. "The storm's great "eye" seemed to be up there, fixing its cold stare on all of us
    below" (4)
    Metaphor - A metaphor in "The Seventh Man" is when the seventh man compares the wave to
    a giant. “A strange wave. An absolute giant.” (1)

    Symbolism - The wave in this story could resemble guilt at first, and then in the end, it could
    symbolize his acceptance. "...The same waves that had washed up on the beach when I was a
    boy were now fondly washing my feet..." (17)

    Simile - A simile in this story is whenever the author compares the debris on the beach to a
    candy store. "...Unusual bottles, broken crates with foreign writing on them, and other, less
    recognizable items: it was like a big candy store." (6)

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