Our Narrator
What is the tragedy that forever changed his life?
His childhood best friend, K., got swept away by a wave.
What is the name of our narrator's childhood best friend?
K.
What is a flashback?
A sudden, vivid memory that pops up during a story to show something that happened earlier.
Provides context for what is happening in the present time.
an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.
Hallucination
What do K.'s paintings represent to the seventh man?
Warm childhood memories; friendship; innocence
Why does our narrator feel so guilty about what happened to K.?
He felt like he could have saved him.
What happened to K.?
He was taken away by a wave during a typhoon.
What is a flashforward?
A jump in time where the audience sees the future and possible events that will happen before going back to the present time.
Very great or intense
Profound
What kind of literary device is used when our narrator says that the wave that scooped K. up was "a tongue"?
Metaphor
Personification
Understatement
Personification
Why does the seventh man move to Nagano?
He wanted to forget the memories and nightmares of K.'s death.
What was the mistake about K. that our narrator thought for 40 years?
He thought that K.'s face was one of hatred instead of him being at peace.
What is a frame story?
There is an overarching outer story that surrounds and sets up the story/stories.
The outer framework to inner stories.
feeling or showing a total loss of hope, having an urgent and extreme need for something, or taking dangerous risks because a situation is so bad
Desperate
What does the wave symbolize for the seventh man?
His fear
Why was our narrator named the seventh man?
He was the seventh person to go in the group.
What happened to the seventh man when he looked at K.'s paintings after all these years?
He is reminded of the warm memories that he shared with K.
What is the non-linear plot form that our story is set in?
A frame story.
a warning in advance
Premonition
What Non-Linear plot development set-up is "The Seventh Man"?
Frame Story
What does the narrator is more afraid of than fear itself?
Giving in to fear.
How does the narrator finally let go of the darkness and guilt that he felt after what happened to K.?
By facing his fear and visiting the place where the tragedy happened.
What is "in medias res" mean?
Means “in the middle of things”.
A technique that begins the story in the middle of the conflict instead of at the beginning.
in a state of fascination or wonder
What was the name of the Province where our narrator grew up?
S. Province