Reading for Truth in "On the Rainy River"

Though our class discussion on Tuesday about academic preconceptions had seemingly nothing to do with “The Things They Carried,” it really got me thinking about the chapter “On the Rainy River.” Though the chapter as a whole may not be true, O’brien’s circumstances prior to being drafted were: he did go to Macalester, and he did end up doing graduate studies at Harvard after the war. Macalester is an elite institution similar to Hamilton, and O’brien had many of the same preconceptions that Hamilton students hold about liberalism and the importance of academia. As he puts it, the entirety of his war experience prior to being drafted was “almost entirely an intellectual activity” (39). O’brien, of course, did not expect to drafted, and the chapter boils down to his one basic question about his circumstances: why me?

            “On the Rain River” is perfect exemplification of O’brien’s point in the book as a whole because he tries to get the reader to feel exactly what he felt upon being drafted through a lie. The circumstances of the story are truthful, but we cannot be sure of the existence of the Tip Top Lodge, or if O’brien ever drove north towards Canada at all. We as readers must therefore search for what is important rather than what is true. Canada was easily accessible to him, and whether he drove north or not, he did certainly feel the social pressure of his entire town bearing down on him. This pressure was very real to O’brien, both at the time when he was drafted and when he wrote the book. The story about the boat and the lodge and Elroy just sets the stage for the final passage when he finally caves in and goes to war. He may not have even shed a tear, but it demonstrates how he felt about the situation: “I was a coward. I went to war” (58).