In the chapter “On the Rainy River,” Tim O’Brien, the author and the narrator, tells of his emotional journey towards making a life altering decision. He has everything promising laid out in front of him, yet it all comes crashing down when he receives a draft notice detailing his quick departure for the Vietnam War. Because of his differing opinions on the conflict at hand, O’Brien realizes that he is about to make a decision that will change the rest of his life: he can either fight in a war that he does not agree with or cowardly flee to Canada as a “safe haven.” The author soon recognizes that he does not have a choice in the matter, he never really did. O’Brien would go and fight, but in hindsight, he would realize that this was a mistake—a cowardly, guilt-ridden mistake.
Through the use of stream of consciousness, the reader quickly empathized with O’Brien’s situation but not with his character. His reasons for not wanting to go to the war were purely selfish. “[He] was too good” to go fight for his country and put his life on hold for a cause he did not believe in; “[He] was above it.” The reader begins to lose respect for O’Brien early on as he describes himself as being “too smart, too compassionate, too everything.” As the narrator decides he must leave his small town and get away in order to make his decision, he finds himself at a fishing lodge on the Rainy River located on the Minnesota, Canada border, a setting very symbolic of his situation. The river lies right in the middle of two different worlds—two different decisions. One way, Minnesota, would be his decision to follow through with the draft notice and go to war, and the other way, Canada, would be his decision to cowardly run from his problems. O’Brien spends a few days with the owner of the lodge, Elroy Berdahl, who seems to be more like God than an actual person. He was able to take one look at O’Brien and “went right to the heart of things.” Elroy knew what he was going through without any sort of explanation, and somehow he provided the guidance that O’Brien was seeking so fervently. Within a few days, he “understood that [he] would not do what [he] should do. He would go against everything he believed in, “[he] would go to war—[he] would kill and maybe die—because [he] was too embarrassed not to.”
The Essay on Civil War Men Fight General
Killer Angels Paper The Human Factor in the American Civil War Michael Shaara s fictional novel, The Killer Angels, is based on the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. The novel allows the reader to recognize the heart and courage of the more than two million men that fought in the war. Shaara focuses the reader to better understand the reason why these men fight and the meaning of the ...
The reader wants to lose respect for him because of his selfish reasons, yet still has a hard time doing so. O’Brien evokes emotions in the reader by simply changing the narration to second person and asking questions that cause the reader to think what their reaction to the situation would be. “You’re twenty-one years old, you’re scared, and there’s a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do?” O’Brien effectively takes the reader and forces them to empathize with him. This causes the reader’s view of him to begin to change. The reader wants to loathe him for not being able to stand up for what he believes in, yet if put in the same situation they would quickly find out that the decision is not as simple as it appears.
O’Brien’s journey and conflict of heart comes to a sad end when he states that “[He] was a coward. [He] went to war.” This is a very paradoxical statement because it seems as though he would have been a coward for not going to war, yet what made him a coward was not being able to hold strong to his principles. He knew that he should have run, but for some reason something kept pushing him to fight. That force was shame. “Hot, stupid shame.” He explained that yes, he did fear the war, but he mostly feared exile from those he loved if he chose not to fight. He did not want to walk away from everyone he loved and everything he had built up, but he knew if he did not then everyone would label him as a “treasonous pussy.” O’Brien’s conflict grew to the point that he had internal arguments against those close-minded people in his town. He would yell at them and try to get them to understand where he was coming from, but when the fantasy disputes would come to an end, he knew he would never have the courage to actually do such a thing. He finally faced himself, his heart, his future, his family, and the people in his town and cowardly escaped to the jungles of Vietnam to fight a war he did not even understand.
The Term Paper on Three Paradigms of Cold War
In the history of human societies, I would venture, the term paradigm must take on a slightly di? erent meaning, closer, in fact, to how the term was generally used before Kuhn’s work in the early ???? s. For our purpose, I want to look at paradigms as patterns of interpretation, which may possibly exist side by side, but which each signify a particular * Stuart L. Bernath Memorial Lecture ...
When placed in a trying situation, it is easy for one to lose their morals and principles, to do things they would not normally do. Mankind believes that they are strong enough—passionate enough—to face any trial with utter invincibility, yet when faced with challenges, we continue to fail time after time. O’Brien admits his disloyalty to his beliefs and speaks of himself as a coward for fighting in a war he did not agree with. Mankind will continually do whatever it takes in order to keep the approval of society and those around them before they will stand firm in what they really believe in.
