I Am Pilgrim

Throughout the text, Murdoch ponders the nature of heroism and righteous acts, prompting questions about who deserves to be labeled a hero. Ultimately, Hayes establishes that heroism, especially in the landscape of the George W. Bush administration’s global war on terror, has many manifestations.

When Murdoch is commended by the president for killing his mentor, he notes in passing that the letter refers to him as a “hero” and then calls it “the other word he had used” (30). This desire for distance establishes that he is more haunted than celebratory, unable to look at his mentor’s death as a sign of progress. Whisperer, Murdoch’s mentor, expresses similar doubts about his own career, wondering if his sacrifice of a personal life was truly worth the costs.

Tellingly, others consider Murdoch’s chief adversary, al-Nassouri, a “hero of the Afghan war” (141), underlining that notions of valor also depend on one’s perspective. This, along with the biographical overlaps between Murdoch and al-Nassouri, invites the reader into a world of ambiguity. Hayes suggests later that the two men recognize this in one another, as Murdoch reflects that “it was only their enemies who knew what it was really like on the front line” (580).