In life, we have certain situations that are beyond our control. However, the choices that we are able to make on the forefront of these situations determine the rest of our journey. Therefore, it’s the ability of choice that develops our life – but how are we able to discern the right one?
That’s what leads us to “a moral freeze” or an inability to make a definite decision. What if we do, or what if don’t? Or as Shakespeare puts it, “To be or not to be, that’s the question.” We will never know the right answer, but literature is one of the only means to be able to explore this sense of moral confusion.
“On the Rainy River,” is a short story by Tim O’Brien, which explores a young man’s story on choosing between being drafted into the Vietnam War or fleeing to Canada to evade it. His conviction wants him “to make a break for it.” He feared being in a war that he did not believe in, and he could not “chose his own wars.” At the climax, he comes just feet away from the shoreline of Canada on the Rainy River, but he ultimately cannot make the move to go to the other side. The author ends the story on the lack of courage the narrator had, he “was a coward. [He] went to war,” and telling the story untimely 35 years later. The sense of a lack of courage and moral paralysis that the narrator faces, is exactly what models real-world dilemmas today – the conflict between doubts and convictions, and the strength of emotional courage in determining decisions.
The powerful quotes in the book really allowed the readers to explore this journey alongside the narrator. Having said this, here are a couple of key quotations apart of understanding the story:
- “The only certainty that summer was moral confusion “
- “an ordinary kid with all the ordinary dreams and ambitions, and all I wanted was to live the life I was born to”
- “My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame.”
- “My whole life seemed to spill out into the river, swirling away from me, everything I had ever been or ever wanted to be.”
- “I saw faces from my distant past and distant future. I tried to will myself overboard. I did try. It just wasn’t possible”
- “I would go to war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to.”
- “look on in absolute silence as we live our lives, as we make our choices or fail to make them.”
- I survived but it wasn’t a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to war.
As you reflect on these moments, I would like to leave you with one last quotation for understanding the “moral freeze” or “paralysis of the heart” that comes in these situations. The author does this by trying to pull the audience into the story, “Would you jump?” I will leave you to think what your choice would be.
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