On the Rainy River starts with Tim O’Brien saying that he has never told anybody this story before. It then goes to his past, just after graduating from college and now living with his parents he got his draft notice. During the summer he works at a meatpacking plant cleaning clots from slaughtered pigs. When he is not working he is thinking about his option to dodge the draft by going to Canada. One day he leaves his job and goes home packs his clothes and starts to drive north toward Canada. He ends up at Tip Top Lodge which is a little place located at Rainy River. Just beyond the river lays Canada. Tim finds Elroy Berdahl, the old man running the lodge. Elroy allows him to stay in one of the cabins. Tim stays there for six days. Their day consist of doing chores, hiking, playing scrabble and other things. They never discuss the draft. Tim thinks Elroy already knows why he is there and just gives him his space. Tim takes these six days to keep thinking about the war and what he is going to do. On the sixth day Elroy takes him fishing on the river. Elroy takes them twenty yards of the shore of Canada. Tim knows this is his chance to jump off the boat and swim to the shore. He takes his time thinking about everything and how this is the moment he must choose what he is going to do. After a while Elroy takes the boat back to Minnesota with Tim still in the boat. The next morning Tim leaves and goes back home and then off to war.
In this chapter of the book is about Tim’s battle with the choice of going to war or going to Canada. He meets an old man at a lodge where he stays for about week. Tim says this man saved his life. In his head the reasons to go to war are all peer pressure. He doesn’t want to be called a pussy or known as the guy who ran away. In his heart though all he wants to do is run away to avoid fighting a war he doesn’t agree with. I think he sees Elroy as the only person who supports the way his heart feels. Elroy does not pass judgment on Tim and gives him the option to go to Canada. In the end Tim himself says he couldn’t be brave, he couldn’t live with the judgment of others if he would have dodged the draft. He lost and now has to go to war. The whole chapter is just a metaphor for making a decision in which one option is the one you don’t want to do but your expected to do and to listen to your heart and forget what other people think.
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