Summary vs. Anaylsis

Summary vs. Analysis Blog Post
“On The Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien

Summary- “On the Rainy River” started out with Tim talking about himself being a twenty-one year old in 1968 just graduated college and had a full ride scholarship to a University when they were drafting men for war and he receives his letter. He spoke of his family, his life, and his job. The day that he got his draft letter, he went into a downward mind spiral of his life and how he was not ready to go to war. He spends a few days contemplating running to the Canada border so he doesn’t have to go to war, but he doesn’t want to hurt his family either. A couple of days go by and he spends some time talking about his job at the pig plant. He goes into great detail of his emotions and thoughts towards war and his life he is trying to live.
He then suddenly gets a weird feeling in his stomach, leaves his job, packs his bags, and drives towards Canada. He spends a couple days driving then comes to some cabins and decides to stop there. He meets a man that runs the place that has a silent, but comforting array about him. He spends the next six days with this man at the cabins and while going through the roller coaster of emotions and thoughts about his home and the war, he is pondering the thoughts of the man at the cabins. He wanders each day if the man knows why he is there or what he is really doing. He has thoughts of why the man is so quite in his routine. At the end of his six days the gentleman takes him out on the lake for some fishing, but takes him about twenty miles from the border and he then goes into a mind spin about his life and everyone in it and what he needs to do to make his life right.
Analysis- “On the Rainy River” Tim O’Brien has the biggest decision to make in his life. He is completely opposed to the war and doesn’t want to go, but he also doesn’t want to feel the shame from his family and friends. He takes himself on a mind journey of what he needs to do in his life. The guilt that O’Brien has became heavy on his shoulders and he has to decide. In the end of the story though it leads the reader to an openness of questions to what he feels. The reader is lost in to his thoughts of doing the right thing. In the lines “He was a witness, like God, or like the gods, who look on in absolute silence as we live our lives, as we make our choices or fail to make them.”(O’Brien 57), O’Brien is stating that we as people are watching as if we know what to do, but don’t react to it. He makes his decision to do off to the war.
http://www.lzsally.com/popage.html