Mortality and Death Quotes in The Bourne Identity

The death of decent men matters when they are killed by indecent men. Indecent men killed by decent men, though… that's fuzzier moral territory in the book. How do you think the book deals with this problem? Also: who decides what's decent and what isn't?

There's an echo here of Robert Oppenheimer, who worked on the atomic bomb, quoting the Bhagavad Gita when he saw the first nuclear explosion: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. "Bourne isn't a nuclear bomb, though. He's understandably upset, because he's found out that he's an assassin—but sheesh, he's killed lots of people already in the book; it's not like a little blood should make him squeamish. Really, the problem seems to be less that he's "death" than that he's found out he's kind of a bad guy.

This is the last moment of David Abbott, the Silent Monk. It's a gallant gesture in the face of death. Are we emotionally affected by this scene? It can be tough to get to know Abbott as a character—he gives a lot of exposition, and he's definitely a professional, but we don't really know him on an intimate level. Maybe this goes against the novel's emphasis on professionalism. Being professional is something, but it doesn't actually make you a real, live character.