The Railway Man

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This report will be discussing “The Railway Man”. It is an autobiography of Eric Lomax and was published in 1995. Eric Lomax grew up with a passion for steam trains, and in one of life’s cruel ironies, when he is taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore in 1942 is sent to work on the Burma-Siam railway.He was subjected to dreadful torturers as a prisoner of war which then haunted him throughout his later life and became another obsession to find one particular torturer for his revenge. The extract describes the long awaited meeting between Eric Lomax and the man he originally sought for revenge, and also how his feelings have changed towards his torturer. The extract from The Railway Man is very powerful, emotional and hard hitting. The Railway Man ought to be about forgiveness and reconciliation simply accepted and lived out. This extract, however, deals with the fact that forgiveness and reconciliation is complicated. Lomax had become consumed by the psychological trauma of his torture and Mr. Nagase was a demon that haunted his dreams, but likewise Mr. Nagase was haunted by his part in the torture and the need to somehow atone for it. They both came to a point of some kind of forgiveness, but that didn’t erase the pain of the past that Lomax felt, or the need to apologise for Japanese cruelty that Mr. Nagase felt. Eric Lomax mentions his ‘Sutherland tartan tie’ as a way of showing his Scottish roots and that it is an important part of his heritage. The fact that he was dressed ‘rather formally’ was Lomax’s way of showing Mr. Nagase he can no longer be intimidated by him and also a way of showing how well he has succeeded in his life despite everything that happened in the past when he was a prisoner of war. The fact that Lomax addresses that it would probably be the only tie for miles around adds to the impression that he is trying to make upon Nagase. The
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