Tim O Brien's On The Rainy River

America is well known and hated across the globe for its involvement in foreign conflicts and affairs. The self proclaimed police of the world, America often goes too far when it comes to its involvement overseas. Many times the outcomes of these conflicts is overlooked and the effect it will have on america and other countries. Often times the American news media and politicians will claim that America 's goal is to bring freedom and liberty to other countries. However, this is a ploy to get the public on board and in reality war is used to make politicians and corporations richer. Tim O’Brien experienced this firsthand when he was shipped off to Vietnam in 1969. When he came back he finished his education at Harvard and was inspired to write a memoir about his experiences. “If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home” tells his story as a foot soldier and the effects it had on himself and other soldiers physically, emotionally, and mentally. The books starts with O’Brien as a child playing war games and then moves to when he was drafted. In the bootcamp O’Brien had contemplated deserting but ultimately decided not to so that his family would not be disgraced. He was then sent off to Vietnam where he was placed in the Alpha company. O’Brien talks about things like his involvement in ambushes to his interactions with locals. With this piece O’Brien was trying to show the horrors of war and and how it affected the soldiers sent to fight in

He states that “[He] would go to war- [He] would kill and maybe die- because [He] was embarrassed” (O’Brien 57). He soon realized that he should have escaped when he had the chance because it was better than experiencing the horrors and traumatic experiences that soldiers go through. Sometimes what society thinks can get the best of you and lead you to do things that are against your beliefs and morals. This is what Tim is trying to say through the book to the readers who might find themselves in similar situations.

With this part of the story, O’Brien is able to inject the theme of shame motivating the characters in the book. This chapter is about how the author, who is also the narrator, is drafted for the war. He runs away to the border between Canada and the United States, he stays in a motel with an old man for about a week and finds that he should go to war for his country. In the beginning it was about shame, he didn’t want to look like a coward because in truth he was scared. He was afraid to face the pressures of war, the humiliation and the fact of losing “everything”. This man was an average person who lived an average life with no problems, until he got the notice about the war, which caused the shame and fear of being seen as a bad person to come out.

Tim O’Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota on October 1, 1946 (Glerean). He spent his childhood growing up in Worthington, Minnesota. Worthington is a small town in the southern part of Minnesota. Tim’s father was an insurance salesman and participated in World War II as a sailor (Glerean). Tim’s mother was an elementary school teacher. Tim had an all-American childhood. He loved learning magic tricks, playing baseball, and reading books. He attended Macalester College and graduated in 1968 with a degree in political science (Tim O’Brien). Around the same time he received his diploma, Tim also received an unexpected and unwanted piece of paper: a draft notice (Glerean). O’Brien was against war, but despite this fact he went overseas to fight for America. He felt pressure from both his family and his country to fight in the war. O’Brien went to Vietnam despite his negative attitude toward the conflict. O’Brien fought in the Vietnam War from, 1969 to 1970. “He served in the 3rd Platoon; Company A, 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry

“If I truly believe the war is wrong, is it then also wrong to go off and kill people? If I do that, what will happen to my soul?” (pg 60). Tim O 'Brien is an American man who was drafted into the Vietnam War. O 'Brien is not a violent man and struggles because he believes that the war is wrong. He debates whether or not he should go to war or move to Canada to avoid the draft. Tim O 'Brien decides to join the army. O 'Brien uses his personal experiences as a foot soldier in the Vietnam War to convey his possible bias perspective that the Vietnam War was a waste of people 's lives and a shameful venture for the United States.

Tim says he wants to run away from the war in fear of breaking his morals. He feels that the war goes against everything that he stands for, “If you support a war, if you think its worth the price, that’s fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line” (O’Brien 2). Tim does not think he should have to fight in a war that he is against. Even though Tim seems to live by his morals, some of his actions are ironic. Tim is a pacifist, yet he watches pigs get killed everyday. He works in a slaughterhouse, taking out the blot clots from dead pigs by shooting the carcass with a water gun. For someone who doesn’t believe in fighting or killing, his job is pretty gruesome. Tim has an internal struggle deciding whether or not to go to the war, “My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame.” (6). Tim knows that if he does not go to the war he will feel guilty. He will not be able to handle the amount of “shame” he would feel if he ran away. The “shame” he talks about comes from, “All those eyes on me---the town, the whole universe---and I couldn’t risk the embarrassment. It was as if there were an audience to my life” (10). Tim thinks that other people will judge him for not going to the war. The pressure of having his family and friends disapprove of his actions is what

In war, is freedom more valuable than life? For example, at the time of the Revolutionary War, people had to choose between liberty or life. When the colonies decided to break away from the tyrannical rule of King George the Third, sides had to be chosen. The Patriots, who wanted independence, fought for justice and liberation while the Loyalists wished to stand with Britain. Some chose not to stand on either side and remained neutral. Through threats and violent attacks, people were forced to choose a side. In the novel My Brother Sam Is Dead, it describes the different viewpoints and decisions of a character who decides to stay neutral in the war. The ironic deaths of Ned, Life, and Sam induces Tim to be neutral in the war.

     Tim O’Brien is drafted one month after graduating from Macalester College to fight a war he hated. Tim O’Brien believed he was above the war, and as a result pursued the alternative of escaping across the border to Canada. This understandable act is what Tim O’Brien considers an

TR- Sams selfish ways caused Tim to be neutral. QI- “...I am going to fight to keep my country free” (21)... “How could I not go when all of my friends were going?” (58) F- Sam showed no interest in his brother. He wanted to fight for freedom because his friends were doing it. He thought it’d be a daring experience even though he doesn’t understand how life works yet. I- Sams decision not only affects his life, but Tim’s life as well. Timmy had always looked up to Sam but this time Tim was not convinced his brothers choice was beneficial. G- Tim finally noticed the true colors of war, and came to a conclusion that if losing his life for others, or “freedom” was a fifty-fifty chance why risk it. He had already lost his father and brother, why would he put himself in the same situation other than teaming

Without his reputation, without everything he had worked to build for years through studying and good grades, he would be useless. O’ Brien continues “I would go to war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to (O’Brien 45).” Tim had spent his entire life being a ‘good guy’, ‘perfect’ even and when he was confronted with the decision to run away to Canada, he couldn’t because of that mentality. He had always followed the rules and done the right things and this ends up hurting him the most in the end. His heart tells him to go to Canada, but his instinct tells him to go to war.

In addition, despite John telling Owen “I can’t do it,” (Irving 508), Owen comforts him enough to go through with it simply by saying “DON’T BE AFRAID,” (Irving 508). Although Owen’s method of evading the war was extreme, Owen was able to give John the push he needed to admit that he did not want to fight in Vietnam. Elroy gave Tim a similar push by taking him out on the water. Tim admits “My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war” (O’Brien 54). Tim knew that his place was in Vietnam, but didn’t have the courage to confront his doubts. Elroy gives Tim the opportunity he needs to come to terms with his anxiety and Tim expresses this when he says “I’ll never be certain, of course, but I think he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself” (O’Brien

Tim starts the novel out with all the objects that the men carry, he ends the novel with all the burdens that he carries after the war. All men carried the weight of their objects, along with the memories each object carried. Although Tim never comes out and directly say what he carries, throughout the novel he shares stories that bring him guilt, sorrow and anger, which ultimately indirectly shows the readers what he carried. All of Tim’s emotional burdens are intensified by the fact that he did not want to be involved in the war to begin with, his young age and the fact that he is extremely inexperienced. He did not want to kill. From the beginning, Tim used explicit details to show what the experience was like for the scared men. Post war, all the men coped differently, Tim wrote to cope with the emotional burdens. Everyone of the chapters tells a story about either love, loss, fear, anger and guilt. He entered the war a scared young man, afraid to bring disappointment and disapproval to his family's name and left war a guilt ridden middle aged man, afraid to think about what he experienced, until Norman Bowker suggested he write about his stories and share them with the

He believes that their is a possibility that people are needlessly dying for a war that doesn’t make any sense. This makes him an outsider in his hometown because the way that he views this war is vastly different from his home town. Tim doesn’t get the sense of pride in his country for joining the war like his community does, and he asks questions about the war that he feels that his community won’t ask because of their patriotism, and viewing the war as something to be proud of.

He was there for Tim when he was at his most desperate times. Tim was reverted back into a child at that specific, where Elroy knew, he purposely didn’t ask Tim anything regarding why was here, since any words that he says might force Tim away. “He didn’t’ ask me why I was here.” Instead he brings him to the border toward Canada, where he intentionally forces Tim to make the decision towards his dilemma. At that time, Tim realize he has a “moral freeze” where the “waves of sadness came onto me.” He thought his chest was “broken into pieces” showing that his idealistic views had been broken, where he is now faced with the reality of his life. He questions the reader “What would you do? Would you have jumped?’” in order to bring the reader into the story to enhance the dilemma he was facing. During his dilemma, he begins to hallucinate the entire institution in front of him. He imagined his past when he was “the seven year old pretending to be Lone Ranger, the twelve year old picking his outfit for grad.” He destroys his memories of the past and his future self “I saw my wife and my unborn daughter, as well as my two sons.” Once he destroys both of them, all he has left was emptiness, where he drowns and dies emotionally, leaving only a shell. “I drowned.” In his vision, he also saw “his parents, his past girlfriends, the girl who died from brain cancer, and the boy with no arms or legs.” These are the relationships that he severs for a full escape towards Canada, where he once mentioned in the beginning “Once someone’s dead, you can’t make it undead.” This symbolizes that once he dies from drowning in his emotions, he cannot be resurrected, unlike the common hero archetype. Tim was morally broken in the end, where he gave into the pressure of following the expectations of his illusions where he states “I went to war. I

Every standard and regulation an American abides by is influenced by their fellow citizens. The basic human nature of a person propels them to conform to the lifestyle of others. This concept is present within Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience in which he explains that even the most “successfully men can be imposed on [...] for their own advantage.” Thoreau implies that when a person is exposed to others of high authority or legitimacy, they develop the desire to act like and feel acceptance from said persons. As Mark Twain illustrates in his essay “Corn-pone Opinions”, people base their standards of ideals on “a matter of association and sympathy, not reasoning and examination.” Thus as humans rely heavily on