O'Brien wrote this chapter about a man named Norman Bowker. He wrote a letter to O'Brien about one of his books, complaining that it did not tell the real story. That letter inspired the writing of that chapter. Three years after it was written, Bowker killed himself.
The chapter is about Bowker's thoughts and imaginary conversations that had to do with his cowardly behavior that resulted in the death of a fellow soldier. In the next chapter, on page 154, O'Brien tells us that "he did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own." I don't quite get why O'Brien would add that part to the story. If Bowker was heroic that night, why would O'Brien write otherwise?
I'm going to hypothesize as to why he did so.
When O'Brien said that he didn't freeze up, he also mentioned that he has "avoided thinking about his death and his complicity in it." Bowker talked a lot about how Kiowa's death was his fault, even though it was obvious that it wasn't his fault. O'Brien is going through the same thing. Though O'Brien had no effect on Bowker's inevitable death, he feels like he did. That chapter allowed O'Brien to respect and honor Bowker while expressing his own feelings.
Yes!!! Thank you for this because I thought it was pointless for O'Brien to spend a whole chapter on how Bowker felt Kiowa's death was his fault only to say later that he had nothing to do with it. Now it makes sense-- O'Brien is using Bowker as an expression of his own feeling of complicity.
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I never thought of it that way. Nice.
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