On The Rainy River

1. Cyprus International University
Institute of Graduate Research and Sciences
ELL509 Short Story Analysis
On the Rainy River
(Short Story by Tim O’Brien)
Presenter:
Mohammad Faisal (21814715)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. B. Muhammadzadeh

2. Summary of The Story
Tim's draft notice will change his life forever causing his future
to be written out for him. He eventually breaks and flees to
Canada following his instincts. At Tip Top Lodges, he encounters
Erloy Berdhal, and Lodges with him for 6 days, but only as an
escape to figure out his life. The silence between them signifies
the choice between war and life. On the last day Erloy rows him
to the shores of Canada enabling Tim to make a decision. Pictures
and memories of his life pass before him and he eventually
decided to conquer his fear and head off towards war.

3. - Truth & Storytelling
- Shamefulness & Embarrassment
- Fear of being looked down upon
- Desertion & Guilt
- Loneliness & Isolation
- Courage & Cowardice
- Morality
Story Themes:

4. Truth & Storytelling
"... trying to push it away, and so by this act of remembrance, by
putting the facts down on paper, I'm hoping to relieve at least some
if the pressure on my dreams. Still, it's a hard story to tell." (37)
"Most of this I've never told before, or at least hinted at, but what I
have never told is the full truth. How I cracked" (43)
O'Brien emphasizes on the fact that it is embarrassing to him and
displays it as a confession, so we as readers can conclude that it is
true, because you can't confess something false.

5. Shamefulness & Embarrassment
"This is one story I've never told before... I've always thought, would
only cause embarrassment...For more than twenty years I've had to
live with it, feeling the shame, trying to push it away" (37)
" What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid
shame...I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the
right thing" (49)

6. " I feared losing the respect of my parents. I feared the law. I feared ridicule and
censure...My hometown was a conservative little spot on the prairie, a place
where tradition counted, and it was easy to imagine people sitting around a table
down at the old Gobbler Cafe on Main Street, coffee cups poised, the
conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O'Brien kid, the damned sissy had
taken off to Canada." (43)
He didn't just fear the thought of not being good enough, but the fear of being
looked down upon for not going to war, fear of loosing the respect of the people
he cares about the most.
Fear of being looked down upon

7. Desertion & Guilt
"Run, I'd think. Then I'd think, Impossible. Then a second later I'd
think, Run" (42)
" I drove north... A giddy feeling, in a way, except there was the
dreamy edge of impossibility to it- like running a dead-end maze-
no way out- it couldn't come to a happy conclusion and yet i was
doing it anyway because it was all I could think of to do. It was
pure flight, fast and mindless. I had no plan" (44-45)
"In part, no doubt, it was my own sense of guilt, but even so I'm
absolutely certain that the old man took one look and went right
to the heart of things- a kid in trouble" (46)

8. Loneliness & Isolation
"I felt isolated; I spent a lot of time alone. And there
was also that draft notice tucked away in my wallet"
(41)
"I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to
be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black
tunnel, the whole world squeezing in tight" (41)
The draft notice that was tucked away in his pocket is like his
guilty conscience, he knows he has to go in order to please
people around him but he knows war is not right for him. At
this point he feels very alone because he knows he will be
judged if he doesn't go.

9. Courage and Cowardice
"Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities... It
dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage;
it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward" (38)
"I would not be brave. That old image of myself as a hero, as a
man of conscience and courage, all that was a threadbare pipe
dream"(55)
"... then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again.
I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to
the war" (58)

10. Everyone wants to think that they would do the
courageous thing when something happens, but
O'Brien eventually figures out that he couldn't
do the brave act and feels like a coward, due to
the dream of being courageous as a far off
distant dream
Courage and Cowardice

11. Morality
"It was a moral split. I couldn't make up my mind. I feared the
war, yes, but I also feared exile. I was afraid of walking away
from my own life, my friends and my family, my whole history,
everything that mattered to me" (42)
Connects with the point made from loneliness and isolation. He
fears being the odd one out. The only reason he went to the war
was to please his parents and everyone around him. Later in this
chapter he tells us readers that the war was not right for him and
that staying home was the right thing to do.

12. About his decision to go to Vietnam. Would you call it
a) a good moral decision
b) an example of erroneous conscience
c) a sin
d) something else

13. Thank You!