Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Even Now I Haven't Finished Sorting It Out.

If you didn't notice, Kiowa is always the one who comforts Tim after he kills a man. (Well, at least in the two cases described in this book.)

"Kiowa tried to tell me that the man would've died anyway. He told me that it was a good kill, that I was a soldier and this was a war, that I should shape up and stop staring and ask myself what the dead man would've done if things were reversed" (page 127).

From the way Tim describes Kiowa and his family, I know he is a nice guy, who in any other situation, wouldn't want to hurt anyone. He respects life, but knows he doesn't have time to get all worked up about lives lost, especially the enemy. But I find it ironic/foreshadowish that in the very next chapter, Tim reveals how Kiowa died in Vietnam. I don't know if he meant anything by that..

He could just be reinforcing the point I already made.. I think he really wants us to know that all life is important to him. And even though Kiowa tried to help him move on from the people he killed, it still meant something. He still felt they deserved a moment of his time.. I guess. Because then, when Kiowa dies, everyone is thinking about him and how much he meant to everyone. He got that moment of time. His death was a bigger deal than a death of the enemy.. but Tim didn't want to treat it that way.


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