In Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried, is a chapter called On the Rainy River. It was the summer if 1968 and Tim was working in a pig slaughter house in his hometown of Worthington, Minnesota. That summer he received his draft notice and new that he had to get away. He had to find somewhere to run to, Canada. Tim drove north until he landed at an old fishing lodge. There he spent night and day with a man he hardly knew. There at the lake he began to understand. There he knew he couldn’t run anymore. He knew that he would have to answer that letter.

My analysis of this story is that Tim O’Brien is very insecure and cannot make his own decisions. He was bossed around from his father all his life. As he grew into a young man he wasn’t sure what direction to take. “At dinner that night my father asked what my plans were nothing” (O’Brien 49). Tim was a lost young boy: In the evening I’d sometimes borrow my father’s car and drive aimlessly around town, feeling sorry for myself, thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter (O’Brien 41).

Works Cited

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston New York: Mariner Books, 1990. Print