Bloody Constellations

"The star shaped hole was red and yellow. The yellow part seemed to be getting wider, spreading out at the center of the star." In describing the boy he killed Tim O'Brien returns again and again to the vivid imagery of the missing eye. It's an oddly specific shape and I began to think why the repetition? Why focus on the eye so much? I believe that that face is what truly sets us apart in our humanity. A body is there to make the head ambulatory, a face makes us stand out in a crowd. I imagine that it would be easier to dehumanize a severed limb or dismembered parts of a torso. Things that do not resemble a human being are merely objects, with no indication of the soul that is kept within. In dwelling on the star shaped eye Tim O'Brien is faced with the fact that he has killed another human being. His face, damaged. His eye, once an indication of life and a bright future, forever blighted. The eye becomes a symbol of the boy's death, and Tim O'Brien imagines all that the eye might have seen had he lived. All that the eye had already seen in the past.