Another River, Another Town Book Review Another River, Another Town, by John P. Irwin, is a book about a teenage tank gunner in the end years of World War II. He learns to grow up real quick during his first experience with war. He went in wanting to be a hero, he left happy to be alive. From the book’s beginning, Irwin reveals himself to be self-deprecating, honest and quite detailed in his recollection of his service. His book describes the relations among the five-man crew, the agony of having a tank shot out from underneath them, and the daily drudgery in going from town to town, river to river, bridge to bridge. With the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, there was a great demand on the United States Army for replacements in the European Theater of Operations. Irwin finished his initial training in Fort Knox and then was shipped off to France. He was immediately put in charge as a ranking soldier. Irwin was instructed to join the 3rd Armored Division, but his crew gets lost and end up in a German occupied town. Luckily for them, the Germans wanted to surrender. In addition to the killing and destruction on the battlefield, Irwin and his …show more content…
Another River, Another Town is presented as a scary adventure on a grand scale. There is an element of sadness knowing that Irwin was but one of many who were forced to grow up under such dire circumstances; he survived the experience, but a good many did not. The message that the author was trying to show is, what it is like to be a 17 year old thrown into combat. The author states there is confusion, fear, horror, shock, disgust of war, but those emotions are simply stated rather than putting you in the mind of these citizen-soldiers. The focus of the author was to describe how it was as a teenager being told to kill in order to survive, and I think he did a good job trying to get his point
This connects to the theme by showing age can have an impact on somebody. As I kept reading, in the middle of the book RIchard Perry and his other soldier and friends who were older, began to get injured and killed in action from the war. Another quote from the book shows that Richard was happy that he hasn’t severly injured anyone or killed anyone else, “I’m not a killer,” I said. He looked at me and smiled. I hated him saying that.
When Charley joined the First Minnesota Volunteers he along with many others wanted to help support his country during war. Everyone from the Union and the Confederacy thought that the war would be over soon but sadly they were wrong. The war that Charley had just joined would be bloodiest American war yet. Charley found out in this book that war changes people and that it is often not what people make it out to be.
The speaker in the poem “Prelude to Jumping in the River” by Katia Grubisic, uses his observations of a man preparing to jump into a river as a metaphor for making important decisions. The speaker presents instances of metaphor in the moments before the jump, the unpredictable outcome of the jump, and in the possibility of missing the jump. When the speaker witnesses a man standing at the edge of a river preparing to jump he reflects on how “the mental preparation takes some time” (4-5). Comparably, careful thought and anticipation are also involved when approaching significant decisions. Certainly, the speaker’s observation addresses how responsibly handling a major decision is a lengthy process that requires careful consideration.
Overall, this article helped me reflect on the novel’s theme and gain understanding of the author’s
O’Brien presents a variety of stories to present the complexity of war. “On The Rainy River” is a pre-war
Reader Response of “On the Rainy River” The short story “On the Rainy River” by Tim O 'Brien explains to the audience that all men are influenced to go into war, and that they should hide the fears and emotions that they may have along the journey. Throughout the short story the author explains his journey and opens up about his emotions when he was sent to war. Being the audience of this short story explains to you what every man must go through if they were to be sent to war.
The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for
Regret is a powerful emotion that has the ability to scar someone for the rest of their life. Moments of regret can come from relationships, self-made decisions and life changing events. The idea of regret also applies to “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh and “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien. Although these two literary pieces are very different in many ways, both authors describe the experience of the Vietnam War as a time of regretful decisions that negatively impacted people of both the American side and the Vietnamese side. Both authors tell a story about a character that recalls of flashbacks of the war, where they grieve over the past decisions that have affected them for the rest of their life.
This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.
How it was shaped: Tim allowed the draft of the Vietnam war and societal pressures get to the best of him and he slowly tore himself apart, he started off as a confident incorrigible man. His morals later then became corrupted, he gave into the pressures, his self proclaimed Lone Ranger status had been infected and debunked by his end decision of serving in the Vietnam war. Thesis: In the story, On the Rainy River, the author, Tim O’Brien demonstrates that an individual allows societal pressures and expectations to override their core values, morals, and beliefs; peer pressure forces individuals to put their beliefs aside so they can fit in with everyone else. The narrator, Tim O’Brien faces a similar situation when he get’s drafted for the Vietnam War.
How he hated being drafted and how badly he wanted to run away. He tells how he took time to himself to decide whether or not he was going to run away and risk being caught and imprisoned or go join the army and risk dying over in Vietnam. He states at the end, “ I passed through twins with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward.
‘’I was a coward. I went to the war’’ Pg187. In the short story, ‘’On The Rainy River’’ by Tim O’Brien, The protagonist faces a difficult life decision, he did not want to conform to society the way others wanted him to. He wanted to keep his personal beliefs. Tim O’Brien does not want to conform no matter how vital it is that he should.
The author compares the soldiers because he wants the readers
The older man 's behavior contrasts with that of the persona who is young and has barely experienced life. Whereas the speaker is eager to discover life and have new experiences to escape her reality, the older man avoids his truth by focusing on mundane details of his experience in the Vietnam War. Furthermore, the older man was once a young man himself, surely eager to have new experiences, as he enrolled in the army. Instead of having these desires fulfilled, his memories of the war have caused his view of the world to greatly deviate from that of the persona and
On the Rainy River is a story about a man, Tim O’Brien, who struggles with a life altering decision. He evaluated his own personal convictions regarding the Vietnam War at an isolated fishing lodge by the Canadian border. Three different forms of isolation are present in this story. These include physical, emotional, and societal isolation – all of which had an effect on how Tim dealt his conflicting emotions. Physical isolation played a prominent role in Tim O’Brien’s final decision to go to war.