Making Choices in “On the Rainy River” from "The Things They Carried"

In the chapter “On The Rainy River” in the novel, The Things They Carried, the narra- tor Tim O’Brien delineates himself as a smart, promising man who has big dreams. But O’Brien’s dreams are crushed when he receives a draft notice to Vietnam; he finds himself plotting an escape plan from the Vietnam War. O’Brien uses repetition of the phrase “I remember”, to not only prove his feelings and consequences of his coura- geous acts, but also the phrase “I remember” is used to show the major events that lead O’Brien to the war.

O’Brien is not a coward for going to war; he is courageous because of his fear of being called a coward. The first time O’Brien introduces the phrase “I remember” (39) is when he receives a draft notice; he describes the event: It was a humid afternoon, I remember, cloudy and very quiet, and I’d just come home from a round of golf… I remember opening up the letter, scanning the first few lines, feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes.

I remember a sound in my head. I wasn’t thinking, just a silent howl (39).

O’Brien describes this memory as a visceral feeling. O’Brien begins to process his feelings and gather his thoughts when he isolates himself from people, at one point during work (cutting open pig carcasses and washing the insides) O’Brien feels a rup- ture in his chest, making him go home covered in pig’s blood.

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The rupture inside O’Brien’s chest is his breaking point; he could not handle another horrible feeling upon receiving the draft notice. O’Brien’s final decision on attempting to escape the draft by going to Canada occurs right after going home from work: “I remember tak- ing a hot shower. I remember packing a suitcase and carrying it out to the kitchen, standing very still for a few minutes, looking carefully at the familiar objects all around me” (44). O’Brien begins to think of his own morals and his community’s re- action on his escape, what would be said of his actions.

O’Brien leaves his home town and ends up at the Tip Top Lodge resort, west of the rainy river, separating Minnesota from Canada. Elroy Berdahl an eighty-one-year-old man working at Tip Top Lodge, looks at O’Brien and goes to the heart of things and sees a kid in trouble when O’Brien knocks on his door. Elroy gives O’Brien keys for a room and they both spend six days at the resort even though tourist season is over. During O’Brien’s trip, his choice on running away from home is beating him up dur- ing the trip: “I couldn’t tell up from down, I was just falling, and late in the night id lie there watching bizarre pictures spin through my head. Getting chased by the border patrol…my home town draft board and the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Po- lice” (48).

O’Brien’s conscience is telling him to run, but a “powerful force” was pushing him toward the war, he goes through entire days without being able to sleep and sit still in addition on being dizzy. On the last full sixth day, Elroy took O’Brien upstream the river to go fishing, it was happening as if Elroy was helping him face re- ality; to make him vigilant of his surrounding’s as he chose a life for himself.

O’Brien had the courage to leave his home town in attempt to escape the draft but had a moral freeze: he could not decide, he couldn’t act, he couldn’t comport him- self. He tried to pull himself together by thinking of avoiding the war, but he couldn’t, he tried really hard not think of his community calling him a pussy, traitor and dis- grace. O’Brien had courage to go to war, although he was a coward for attempting to escape the draft and not do what society expects of drafted soldiers. O’Brien’s courage came from within because he wanted people to think highly of him, not be embar- rassed by escaping being called a disgrace. The choices that O’Brien made are caused by fear, the consequences of him attempting the escape, show one’s ability of failing when not thinking things through.