The Man I Killed

The visual imagery in this chapter kind of disturbed me, and also confused me a little bit.
This chapter starts with the explicit visual description of what is assumed to be the man "he" killed, narrated by Tim O'Brien. It tells how his jaw was in his throat, how his one eye was shut and the other eye was a star-shaped hole (this was the imagery that confused me. I couldn't imagine a hole being shaped like a star by mere accident, so I'm sure this didn't have the desired effect on me.). It describes the miniscule details, like his earlobes and fingernails. Then it lapses into a description of what his life might have been like, what his interests might have been. Then it flashes to the same descriptions of his body again, emphasizing how his jaw was in his throat and that star-shaped hole where his eye should have been. It repeats this pattern, with some dialogue by Anzar and Kiowa, and the repetition of how the dead man looks, still talking about the star-shaped hole where his eye should be.

I like that Tim O'Brien had remorse over killing somebody, and thought about him as having an outside life and loves and interests and fears and little idiosyncrasies that everyone has. If we had everyone think about everyone they're killing in the war and how they're people too, we could probably avoid war as a whole.