page 155[Milkman speaking] "You? You're going to kill people?"[Guitar speaking] "Not people. White people."..."Why don't you just hunt down the ones who did the killing? Why kill innocent people? Why not just those who did it?""It doesn't matter who did it. Each and every one of them could do it. So you just get any one of them. There are no innocent white people, because every one of them is a potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one. You think Hitler surprised them? You think just because they went to war they thought he was a freak? Hitler's the most natural white man in the world. He killed Jews and Gypsies because he didn't have us. Can you see those Klansmen shocked by him? No, you can't."
Comments:At first I couldn't believe Guitar was capable of killing his best friend Milkman and Pilate. Then I re-read the book and re-read this passage. I think Morrison was showing that his thought process naturally went from justifying the killing of the "other" to killing the "us." Morrison's point here is that once you think it's ok to kill people, before long you'll think it's ok to kill people B, C, D, and so on. There is no justification in murder. (posted by an unknown blogger)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Guitar and Milkman have two different views on Guitar killing innocent white people. Guitar thinks that all white people are bad and are “potential nigger-killers”. Milkman man does not agree with this at all he thinks they should go after the ones who actually comitted the murder of the black people. What guitar doesn’t understand is that he is just giving the white people who do kill blacks a reason to kill them. If they keep killing innocent whites then they are just going to anger them even more. In a way he is responsible for some of the deaths of the black people. He should have realized that what he is doing isn’t the right thing. Milkman cannot believe that his own friend is a killer. I was also very surprised when Guitar killed his best friend Milkman. Guitar killed the only person who really understood him and he will never have anyone like that again. Guitar soon came to think that the whites aren’t the only ones who are bad. He also started thinking that there are some blacks that are not doing the right thing and they should be removed. I think that Guitar got so blood thirsty and just wanted continue to kill. So, he would search for irrational reasons to do just that and he ended up killing his own friend. The only person he had to connect with in the world.
Killing anyone is never justifiable. This passage shows that even though Milkman has a more rational approach to the subject, Guitar has become fanatical. He thinks it's okay to kill innocent whites if they kill innocent blacks. This in itself justifies nothing, and in my opinion, it proves that Guitar has been changed drastically by his work with The Days. When I read this passage, I had to re-read it a few times to understand exactly Guitar's standpoint. I began to feel as if he had been brainwashed. We see things like this in past history and in real life every day, and I believe this was Morrison's purpose. One example is any type of religious fanaticism, practiced by people who kill for an irrational cause. Killing is never justifiable in any situation, and one can see here with his dogmatic assessment that Guitar has changed for the worse.
I don't think it is ever justifiable to kill someone unless it is an extreme circumstance but never someone who is innocent. Guitar sees murder as not as ending someone's life but as if its a math equation. If he takes someones life after someone takes a black person's life then he is balancing the equation in his eyes. His motives are just and his anger is well deserved but that doesn't give him the right to end an innocent person's life. If he see people as a way to balance the equation what is stopping him from trying to tip the scale his way by killing more white people then is necessary in the eyes' of the days. Killing in the way that he does still does not earn respect for the black race and may make people mad or turn people into racists because of his actions. I believe his actions had a negative impact on the black's situation in the book and to better the black race I believe if you truly want to better your race you have to be the better man which is by not retaliating and you earn respect in this way.
Milkman does not agree with Guitar's reasoning for killing white people. He thinks that Guitar should only go after the people that murder black people. I do not think killing people is justified. Once Guitar started killing people he thought it was okay to murder someone who has done something bad. Guitar ended up killing his own friend because he disagreed with him. This shows how much Guitar has changed.
Post a Comment