On The Rainy River Summary

Imagine a situation where an individual is forced to make a decisive decision to protect one’s life from potential death. To what extent will the individual go to protect one’s life? Is there even a certainty that their life is in danger? In the short story, “On the Rainy River”, Tim O’Brien suggests that when an individual is forced to face the element of uncertainty within their futures, their imagining of such futures, driven by emotions to fight or flee, results in the creation of positive and negative futures. The conception of such futures leads to an internal moral conflict where one compares and weighs the consequences of their depicted futures. Conflicted with their multiple impending fates, the individual has a choice to either embrace their uncertain fate, knowing they cannot prevent such, or reject their uncertain destiny, becoming negligent toward the possibilities of what is to come.

The conception of such leads to an internal moral conflict where one compares and weighs the consequences of their fates. Conflicted with multiple impending fates, the individual has a choice to either embrace their uncertain fate, knowing they cannot prevent such, or reject their uncertain destiny, becoming negligent toward the possibilities of what is to come. When an individual is tasked with dealing with a future in which their lives are on the line, they will undergo the depiction of many futures. The result of which, will prompt the individual to either accept their fates, knowing that their fates are not preventable, or, challenge their futures, leading to the neglecting of what lies within the uncertain future; the futures born from ones