The irony lies in the idea that Tim O'Brien is a coward for fighting. Usually, those who attend war are considered heroes, brave men that fight for their country, but O'Brien classifies himself, in this quote, as "a coward" because he participates in the war. These sentences finalize the chapter "On the Rainy River" and for me, they are of vital importance because they have an ironic meaning. ".and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. He decides to die at war and be considered a hero than not die in it and be considered a coward, which incites reflection in us readers and makes us think: "could we consider Tim O'Brien's actions, a young boy's actions, true acts of cowardice?"Ĩ). In it we see how the conscience beats the narrator and how he cannot stand the probable mockery of those who would have judge him if he didn't attend war. This quote is an emphasis to the greatest burdens of a soldier: "the fear of blushing" and "the fear of embarrassment." It summarizes how they rule a person's life, even one that doesn't truly believe in the war, simply because of the terror of what other's might think of your actions. ".I would go to the war - I would kill and maybe die - because I was embarrassed not so. We understand how this "tough-guy" fantasy dissolves when we are presented with a cruel reality, as war is, one that comes with hard decisions and thus hard consequences, and we realize that it takes even more courage to follow a dream than to assist a war.ħ). We readers are confronted with a vulnerable character, one that accepts defeat, and specifically in this quote, accepts the fact that the "macho-man" posture all humans claim having is just a fake attempt to cover our sensible and childish side, the one who is scared of dying, the one who is scared of becoming a murderer. In this quote, the narrator explains why he hasn't told this story before and it is because of his inability to decide, because of his " paralysis", as he calls it, of not being capable of saying "I'm not going to the war because I'm scared and I don't want to die." This fragment belongs to the climax of the chapter as it is the section where the narrator realizes he would not do the right thing. I would not swim from my hometown and my country and my life. That's part of it, no doubt, but what embarrasses me much more, and always will, is the paralysis that took my heart.I would not do what I should do. It's not just the embarrassment of the tears. "Now, perhaps, you can understand why I've never told this story before. war) that are presented in this quote.Ħ). Nevertheless, he is ashamed, deep inside, of thinking the way he does (the Vietnamese War is absurd) and thus he often, in this chapter, is attacked by his conscience, who acts as the force that pulls him back to the war through the "fear of embarrassment", and it is this conscience that tells him that it is wrong to flee the war for the coward reason that he doesn't want to die in it. O'Brien claims that he is "ashamed to be doing the right thing." But what does this "right thing" mean ? Well, for him it symbolizes, not being part of something he doesn't understand. However, the author also exposes us, in this quote, to the fear of blushing and the power of conscience. We feel his fear, a sense of sickness, of going to war and dying there, and we are exposed to his rage for having been chosen as a possible soldier. On his journey, he stops by a lodge where he meets a man that he claims "saved his life." He stays in the lodge for six days where we readers are exposed to his mind and ideas. This quote belongs to the section of the book where the young Tim O'Brien decides to leave his hometown and travel down to Canada to escape the war. I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing." (pg. Hot, stupid shame.I was ashamed to be there at the Tip Top Lodge. "What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame.
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