Tim O Brien On The Rainy River Summary

O’Brien always questioned the idea of “enemies”. Throughout the book he questioned in many ways and asked why were they enemies. What have they done to make them enemies, he sought for answers to his questions and eventually justified them by “if I don't kill them then they will kill me”.He was afraid of both killing, and dying but he knew that if he didn’t kill then he himself would be dead. These experiences and suppression of ideas are what led O’Brien’s to write The Things They Carried. In real life, Tim O'Brien feared the war and wrote this book to persuade others and to plant an idea in their head about the horrors that they should not want to suffer. Tim portrays his fear of the war by sharing his experiences as stories. Tim portrays many of his fears

O’Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the story to let you experience what the war felt like for him. When him and his fellow soldiers would sit around the campfire telling stories some where obviously made up for entertainment while others actually were authentic. This is how you have to view the book as like you are there with the troops listening to these war stories and deciding for yourself whether or not you believe them. The underlying theme isn’t really the vietnam war in itself, its the act of storytelling.

Courage, one word with many meanings. When thinking about courage, we think of someone who takes a particular action in doing something they are afraid of or someone who has gone through hard, painful things but still manages to come off strong. O’Brien gives the word courage a whole new meaning, in the beginning, O’Brien admits that he is too smart and too compassionate to go to war, this is when he chooses to go off to Canada. Showing us that he has self-courage as he was walking away from something he did not want to do. Later on in the story “On The Rainy River” we can see how O’Brien defines it. He tells us that he understood what he should not do and what he would do. “I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my

After being drafted, several thoughts came to his mind. O’ Brien thought about how his life will be if he goes to war. He states, “I imagined myself dead. I imagined myself doing things I could not do- charging and enemy position, taking aim at another human being” (44). It seems that O’Brien thought about his principles and morals as a human being. He believes killing innocent people was not a heroic act; it was an act of shame. On the other hand, he clarifies that not all wars are negative, “There were occasions, when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve it ends” (44). He considered to fight only in the cases were war is necessary to achieve a significant purpose. O’Brien uses examples of Hitler, referring him as an evil and one of the reasons he would have validated a war, and even joined the military if it were necessary. Yet, he does not want to play hero in a war that had not sense. For that reason, he decided to run away from his draft.

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

In the memoir The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the chapter titled: On the Rainy River has a central idea of resentment, embarrassment and eventual acceptance to change. The author creates this central idea with the use of a regretful tone, man vs society conflict, and dreary imagery. The theme of this chapter contributes to O’Brien’s intentions for the book because it demonstrates the struggle, shame, and or confusion each man drafted into the war experienced.

The Vietnam War had a life changing effect on the soldiers, including O 'Brien. They came into the war as boys as young as seventeen and left either in body bags made of their own poncho or they came out alive. But were they ever really alive? No, they had their innocence ripped out. They weren 't young boys anymore. Their young selves were killed out in that jungle and all that was left was a carcass of gruesome memories of the tragedy of war, the deaths of their fellow soldiers. They changed as people. O 'Brien came into the war as a young man against war. A young soul believing that the Vietnam War was wrong and there was no need for fighting or killing. However, toward the end of the book he tells us the story of how he got revenge on a fellow soldier. This soldier, while in the middle of war, took too long in treating O 'Brien for a bullet wound and also should have treated him for shock. O 'Brien almost dies on the field but fortunately

Significance: This quote describes the entire style in which the book is written. Tim O’ Brien writes the novel as though it is a memoir, but this isn’t the case. In the copyright information, readers learn that most of the events, with a few small exceptions, were fabricated. Once the reader knows this fact, there is bound to be a curiosity of which portions of the book are actually based on O’ Brien’s life. This quote looks at the “fictional” Tim O’Brien’s view of war stories. He says that memory doesn’t always serve a person well when

“In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen....The angles of vision are skewed" (71). What O’Brien thought seemed to have happened therefore becomes his truth.

He calls himself a coward for going to war which sounds very weird. The quote means it is very hard to be brave during a war like Vietnam. Since the author turned in to a coward right when he was on the edge of the border, this quote relates well to this story.

The whole time during this book O'Brien is talking about him thinking about how the war isn't right, how he shouldn't be in Vietnam, how the US shouldn't be in Vietnam, but, he cannot

This certainly comes out in the fragging incident, when the squad kills Lieutenant Sidney Martin. But there's something more. Another time, O'Brien was quoted as saying, "My concerns have to do with the abstractions: ... How does one do right in an evil situation?" (Bates 263). That is the big question, of course, that this novel deals with. See, the point that O'Brien is making is not that war is an evil situation. He's trying to take that for granted and move beyond. Now that you've got this evil situation, what do you do?

Ultimately, this novel is not about Vietnam--in fact, it is not about war at all. It is about the narrator 's attempt to find a place where the erosion of time will have no effect. By working through the "threads" of this novel, O 'Brien 's intentions become obvious: He is fighting to preserve the physical against deterioration, and by extension, to preserve life by immortalizing it in fiction. He is not writing as a result of neurosis or as a form of therapy; he does this since

“It was a kind of schizophrenia. A moral split. I couldn’t make up my mind” (O’Brien). The short story On the Rainy River by Tim O’Brien, follows the personal battle of the author on his decision to either fight in a war he did not want to take part in, or run away, which would result in societal ridicule. The feeling of doubt is a universal sentiment that shakes the minds of many, and chiefs various outcomes.

In every story, at least one of the characters show progression and development of their character. At the beginning of the book, Tim O’Brien is against the war. [S] He wasn't built for the war but he wanted to be. [CD] In the Rainy River, O’Brien flees to Canada in an attempt to escape the war he was drafted for. He views Canada as safety. O’Brien is turning his back on his country. O’Brien admits that he was ashamed of doing this because it was not his right thing to do. At the end of this chapter, O’Brien states how he is a coward because he ends up going to the war but one may argue he was the opposite. Doing something considered as being a coward could also be viewed as being brave because O’Brien is being honest. [CX] Courage is being aware of why you do what you do. So, even though him fleeing can be seen as him being weak or scared, it can also be viewed as having the courage to not