ON the rainy river

A detailed Summary of ON the rainy river


When a Man’s Dignity Controls His Life

Future, past, and present friends standing along the shore with shouting enemies and fate. These are some of the images seen by Tim in Tim O’Brien’s “On the Rainy River”. The character has a vivid hallucination that encompasses all of his rivaling thoughts about going to war. The hallucination describes all of the reasons Tim feels embarrassed. He is embarrassed to go to war because he thinks war is somewhat barbaric and below his level of thinking. On the other hand, he will feel like a coward if he runs away from his country when it calls upon him for help. Ultimately, he is embarrassed of his uncontrolled embarrassment that forced him to go to war.

During the hallucination, Tim sees many things that he has loved in his past. “Hot dogs and popcorn, stad


Regretful and truly ashamed, that is how Tim finds himself. He let his visions become reality and control his actions. He let his dignity force him to fight the war. At the time, he felt better about going to the war, but in the end it was what truly embarrassed him. “I was a coward, I went to the war” (page 563).

When Tim is initially notified of his draft, he is scared and angry. “If they need fresh bodies, why not draft some back-to-the-Stone-Age hawk? Or some dumb jingo in his hard hat and Bomb Hanoi button” (page 552). He did not think that well educated men should be sent off to fight and die for something they do not even care about. In his mind, war was for the savages who wanted to fight it, and not for anybody else. Embarrassment is a natural reaction when one is made to do something they feel is unj

Some common words found in the essay are:
Bomb Hanoi, Rainy River, Rainy River”, Life Future, page 562, Tim O’Brien’s, page 562 people, 562 people, war hallucination, tim feels, war war, fight war, people meet,

Approximate Word count = 572
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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