In sudden moments of peril judgment can often be clouded by survival instincts. In “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami, the narrator is driven by this fear instinct that led to the death of his best friend K. The narrator should forgive himself because he is not at fault for the death of K. due to unexplainable obstructions, primal instinct, and to keep his own life. The situation where the narrator and his friend were placed in was indeed voluntary, they did go down to the beach while safely in the eye of the storm. The narrator also did acknowledge the presence of abnormally large waves. The narrator actually did go and attempt to inform K. of the rapidly approaching wave but his voice was lost and distorted. Since his voice couldn’t reach K. in time he was forced to sprint to the dyke, purely driven by fear, watching his best friend being engulfed by the giant wave. But of course, there are also different decisions and routes the narrator chosen in this particular outcome that would’ve had arguably different results in this scenario. One might argue that the narrator himself was acting selfish or cowardly. However, this is not the case. The narrator describes his fear as “...totally groundless…” and that he knew subconsciously “...the waves were alive…” and they were trying to grab him. It is extremely doubtful that a person wouldn’t run away from this description, let alone a child like himself in a typhoon. Even say he was one of the people, here is no
