On the Rainy River Essay example

In this chapter he faces the splitting conflict between the guilt of avoiding the war and the guilt of killing other humans, resulting in him to feel like a coward in both decisions. Due to his fear of the law, he chose to go to war, because he knew societal pressures controlled a moral influence that overpowered his own aversion to the war. At the end he says, “I was a coward. I went to the war,” (O’Brien 61) indicating that because of the guilt and rejection he would face if he didn’t go to the war, he made the decision even though he thought it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Tim O’Brien’s moral dilemma arose when the draft notice arrived. Upon the arrival of his draft notice, he believed that the government picked the wrong person, as he was not fit for the war. Through his details of his job

Furthermore, O’Brien himself admits he went to war not out of courage, but out of embarrassment and cowardice. In the chapter “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien received a draft letter for the Vietnam War. He was in shock, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, to everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. A mistake, maybe—a foul up in the paperwork. I was no soldier… I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity, then to numbness” (41-42). Obviously, O’Brien did not want to go to war. However, he was

The short story “On The Rainy River” is written through the perspective of O’Brien in present day and as a young faced with a draft notice for Vietnam War. In “On The Rainy River,” O’brien portrays the importance of bravery in an individual through the use of symbolism, powerful tone, and reflective point of view.

In the chapter “Rainy River” O’Brien addresses the theme of storytelling and memory. In “Rainy River” O’Brien is trying to decide whether to go to war or to go and escape to Canada. He chose to go to war but he feels as though he's choosing for his country and not for himself. He felt like he had no option, no choice and his future was already set. “I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to be narrowing as if they were hurling down a huge black funnel, the world squeezing in tight” (O’Brien 41). He didn't agree with the reasons for the war, and he did not want to go. The choices between war and living his life were close. He tells the story to portray his feelings to the war, he knows he's not cut out for the war. He felt as though he would be letting his country down by not going. Looking back onto his decision through memories he knows how hard the decision wah but he's glad he made it because he felt like he helped the country in a big

In the essay O'Brien is faced with a conflict, a moral dilemma. He had to decide whether he was either going to go to the war and fight or was he going to run away and avoid the draft. The relationship he had with Berdahl was not of friends or even regular acquaintances. Rather they were

In Tim O’Brien’s fictional narrative “On the Rainy River,” the narrator faces the dilemma of avoiding the draft or submitting and going to Vietnam, a common predicament that many men faced after receiving draft cards for the Vietnam War. O’Brien displays the thought process of the narrator as he makes a decision, and near the beginning, the narrator describes certain qualities that he believes make him “too good for [that] war”(2). He lists off achievements like “president of the student body” and “full-ride scholarship,” arguing for the idea that he is “above” going to war(O’Brien 2). Through explaining what the narrator believes to be superior traits, the reader might begin to ask, “What types of people actually went to the war?” If the narrator feels that he was above going to Vietnam, there must be some preconceived notion of who was expected to serve. After seeing how the narrator reacted to his call to battle, a question is left of whether the draft was fair in relation to social classes.

In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. Tim O’ Brien uses a psychological approach to tell his sorrows, and some happiness from his stories from the war. Each part, each story is supposed to represent a deeper meaning on how O’Brien dealt, and will deal with his past. In war, a way to

He chose war and went home. “I feared war, yes, but I also feared exile”(O’Brien 42). O’Brien considered himself a coward because he chose war, but above all, he feared that his family would dishonor him. He was embarrassed not to go to war and ended up putting others’ morals before his own.

In the book, O'Brien touched on what he as a writer and participant in the Vietnam War sometimes perceived in different ways and what actually happened. Overall he was looking at the "story truth" verses the "happening truth." When something happened within a war, such as a soldier dying, the truth was at many times exaggerated. You tell the story once, and the next time you add one little detail thus exaggerating the story over time. What happens is that when you are in the moment, things happen so fast. When you sit back and think upon it though, things go slower in your mind and you start to think something more of what actually happened.

Browker seems to look up to his father, who served in WWII and decides to go to Vietnam in hopes of returning as a hero with medals which would make his father proud. On the contrary, there are those who feel the government has infringed upon their First Amendment right (freedom of speech) by drafting them into a war. O’Brien has similar feelings which he expresses, “If you support the war, if you think it’s worth the price, that’s fine, but you have to put your own precious blood on the line,” (O’Brien 45). O’Brien then proceeds to share his personal story; he testifies of the radical measures he takes under the burden of the draft. The war is asking too much of him, he has a full-ride scholarship to Harvard! His whole life still lies ahead of him but now the door of death is unlocked and beginning to creak open. Like a thief in the night he attempts to steal away to Canada as his way of coping with this hardship of uncertainty that looms before him. O’Brien even turns this scenario over to his readers asking them what they would feel or do as their fragile life dangles by a thread.  In the end O’Brien relents and bowing to the draft he goes because he is afraid of being called a coward for the rest of his life.

O’Brien gains a new perspective on his experiences in Vietnam when he thinks about how he should relay the story of the man he killed to his impressionable young daughter.

O’Brien’s story about getting drafted to serve in the Army at the tender age of twenty-one made me sympathize but that doesn’t mean I particularly like his decision at the end of the chapter. He said it himself, he took a mild stand against the Vietnam War and was going to Harvard soon; he was too smart for it because unlike every other student drafted he had an actual future. When the young student thought about crossing the border into Canada to avoid the draft he chickened out of it, even though he went there and spent weeks building up the courage to do it. To me it seemed like his fear of losing respectability and being ridiculed were greater than his fear for his own life. If I were somehow in this particular situation I wouldn’t have

To begin with, O’Brien becomes a victim of the war after he is shot. “It’s not a movie and you aren’t a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait” (O'Brien 236). As he feels his life slipping away, he isn’t content with dying from a shot in the rear. It wouldn’t have been a heroic death saving a comrade, it would have been a pitiful death. He was powerless and his only hope was for the medic, Jorgenson, to get the balls to save him. His

How maybe he was a scholar and maybe his parents were farmers.  Then O'Brien goes on to talk of maybe why this young man was in the army, and maybe why he was fighting;  these are something’s that are taught in the schools.  O'Brien states that the man may have joined because he was struggling for independence, juts like all the people that were fighting with him.  Maybe this man had been taught from the beginning that to defend the land was a mans highest duty and privilege.  Then on the other hand maybe he was not a good fighter, and maybe in poor health but had been told to fight and could not ask any questions.  These reasons are all reasons that are taught in textbooks; they go along with the idea of the draft.  Some people go fight because they want to and others go because they are told they have to. How do you tell these people apart in the heat of battle or when they are dead?  The way that O'Brien starts to describe the young man as someone who was small and frail, and maybe had plans for a bright future puts sorrow in the readers heart, in that all his plans can not happen for him or maybe the family that is longing for his return.  It also shows the regret that maybe going on in the killers’ mind.  For O'Brien to be writing on how this young mans life has come to a sudden end and his plans for the future is over is intriguing.  Then to add to that he had the story written through the eyes of the soldier that ended this young mans life.  The