"On the Rainy River" is a short story written by Tim O'Brien, through imagery and symbolism, explores the power of imagination and how it can shape an individual's willingness to embrace or reject an uncertain future. The story follows the narrator, a young man named Tim, as he grapples with the decision of whether to flee to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Through the use of imagery and symbolism, O'Brien illustrates the ways in which Tim's imagination both helps and hinders his ability to come to terms with his uncertain future. In the beginning of the story, the narrator can be described as a pacifist: someone who does not believe in war, someone who rather talk through each other’s differences without resorting nor believing that violence is the answer. This idea was supported through the description of the narrator as he question the exact reason why war should be wage, what started it?, “I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law…Who started it, and when, and why?...It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why.” Which was …show more content…
Through his journey he came upon “cabins clustered on a peninsula that jutted northward into the Rainy River,” There he met the owner of the Tip Top Lodge: Elroy Berdahl. When he meets the old man on the rainy river, he is able to use his imagination to visualize a life in which he does not go to war. He sees himself living in Canada, working as a journalist and building a happy life with his own family. This visualization helps to give Tim hope and a sense of purpose, and it allows him to see that there may be other paths available to him besides the one he has always assumed he would follow. However, He experienced “moral freeze: [he] couldn’t decide, [he] couldn’t act, [he] couldn’t comport [himself] with even a pretense of modest human