Literary Analysis

Assignment Description

In this assignment, you will demonstrate your understanding of literary analysis. You will choose one of the following short stories (full texts on eCampus) and write an analysis of the story. 

Your literary analysis must include:

• A thesis statement in the form of an argument that represents your interpretation of the story
• Textual evidence from the story to support your argument
• Commentary for each piece of evidence that explains how your support proves your points; explain the “So what? Who cares? Why does it matter?” aspect of the section you are writing about. How does it relate to the real world or the human experience? What does it mean? What is the point?
• Clearly organized paragraphs including an introduction, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion

Be careful not to simply summarize the story. Your job is to interpret the story to find a deeper meaning or offer a new way to view the story (that is make the implicit explicit). 

General questions for consideration when analyzing:

• Does the short story illuminate or dispel a social issue? How does the story give insight into that particular social issue?
• Does the story show the ridiculousness of a social or cultural issue?
• Does the story illuminate the serious need for awareness and change in society? Examine how the story brings this problem to the surface through the narrative.
• Is the story an allegory for a larger controversy?
• What is the author trying to say through the short story narrative about life, human nature, or society?
• What is the conflict in the story (there may be more than one), and how does that conflict reflect a deeper understanding of life, human nature, or society? 
• Consider the larger context (biography, history, social, political, and religious). What meaning can you gain from understanding the biography of the author or the history surrounding him or her? What about the social or political context it was written in? Does the author’s religion play a part?

Choose one (links to full texts below):

Anzia Yezierska’s “Soap and Water”

Isaac Asimov’s “The Feeling of Power”

Gabrial Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”

Tim O’Brien’s “On the Rainy River”

Minimum Requirements

Length: 3-4 pages, not including the Works Cited page.

Style: Essay needs to conform to MLA standards, including double spacing in Times New Roman font, and must include a Works Cited page with correct in-text (parenthetical) citations for all quotes, paraphrases, and/or summaries.

Sources:  Do NOT use sources that offer an explanation/interpretation of the story, but you may use sources to offer context for the story. In other words, do not search “What does Harrison Bergeron mean?” You must create your own interpretation! While you can use sources for context, they are not required.

Literary Analysis Rubric

Areas of Assessment

Focus

Quality of analysis · The thesis offers a unique and critical interpretation of the text. · The essay goes beyond summary and description.

Support

Quality of evidence/support · The essay offers extensive support for its claim. · If outside sources are used, they are academic and credible (no Wikipedia or similar sources).

Integration of support · Quotes are introduced clearly and appropriately. · The essay uses both direct quotes and paraphrases. · All material from the text is cited. · Outside sources are clearly marked in the text through both introductions and citations. · Each piece of evidence (quotes and paraphrases) is explained. The paper offers commentary and shows how the support connects back to the thesis.

Organization

Quality of structure · The essay begins with a clear introduction that catches the readers’ attention, provides some background, and ends with a clear claim (thesis). · Each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence that summarizes its claim. · Each body paragraph focuses on one distinct idea or subpoint of the thesis. · The body paragraphs fall in a logical order. · The essay ends with a conclusion that does more than repeat the main points of the essay.

Grammar, Mechanics, & Style

Correctness of writing · There are very few grammar errors, and they do not distract from the overall clarity of the writing. · There are no typos or formatting errors.

Style · Sentence structure is varied and complex. · The writer adopts a voice of authority. · The writer uses academic vocabulary.

Formatting

MLA Format · The essay is properly formatted according to MLA standards. · Citations are technically correct.

The Feeling of Power

By Isaac Asimov

JEHAN SHUMAN was used to dealing with the men in authority on long-embattled Earth. He was only a civilian but he originated programming patterns that resulted in self-directing war computers of the highest sort. Generals consequently listened to him. Heads of congressional committees, too.

There was one of each in the special lounge of New Pentagon. General Weider was space-burnt and had a small mouth puckered almost into a cipher. Congressman Brant was smooth-cheeked and clear-eyed. He smoked Denebian tobacco with the air of one whose patriotism was so notorious, he could be allowed such liberties.

Shuman, tall, distinguished, and Programmer-first-class, faced them fearlessly.

He said, “This, gentlemen, is Myron Aub.”

“The one with the unusual gift that you discovered quite by accident,” said Congressman Brant placidly. “Ah.” He inspected the little man with the egg-bald head with amiable curiosity.

The little man, in return, twisted the fingers of his hands anxiously. He had never been near such great men before. He was only an aging low-grade Technician who had long ago failed all tests designed to smoke out the gifted ones among mankind and had settled into the rut of unskilled labour. There was just this hobby of his that the great Programmer had found out about and was now making such a frightening fuss over.

General Weider said, “I find this atmosphere of mystery childish.”

“You won’t in a moment,” said Shuman. “This is not something we can leak to the firstcomer.Aub!” There was something imperative about his manner of biting off that one-syllable name, but then he was a great Programmer speaking to a mere Technician. “Aub! How much is nine times seven?”

Aub hesitated a moment. His pale eyes glimmered with a feeble anxiety. “Sixty-three,” he said.

Congressman Brant lifted his eyebrows. “Is that right?” “Check it for yourself, Congressman.”

The Congressman took out his pocket computer, nudged the milled edges twice, looked at its face as it lay there in the palm of his hand, and put it back. He said, “Is this the gift you brought us here to demonstrate? An illusionist?”

“More than that, sir. Aub has memorized a few operations and with them he computes on paper.”

“A paper computer?” said the general. He looked pained.

“No, sir,” said Shuman patiently. “Not a paper computer. Simply a sheet of paper. General, would you be so kind as to suggest a number?”

“Seventeen,” said the general.

“And you, Congressman?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Good! Aub, multiply those numbers and please show the gentlemen your manner of doing it.”

“Yes, Programmer,” said Aub, ducking his head. He fished a small pad out of one shirt pocket and an artist’s hairline stylus out of the other. His forehead corrugated as he made painstaking marks on the paper.

General Weider interrupted him sharply. “Let’s see that.” Aub passed him the paper, and Weider said, “Well, it looks like the figure seventeen.”

Congressman Brant nodded and said, “So it does, but I suppose anyone can copy figures off a computer. I think I could make a passable seventeen myself, even without practice.”

“If you will let Aub continue, gentlemen,” said Shuman without heat.

Aub continued, his hand trembling a little. Finally he said in a low voice, “The answer is three hundred and ninety-one.”

Congressman Brant took out his computer a second time and flicked it. “By Godfrey, so it is. How did he guess?”

“No guess, Congressman,” said Shuman. “He computed that result. He did it on this sheet of paper.”

“Humbug,” said the general impatiently. “A computer is one thing and marks on paper are another.”

“Explain, Aub,” said Shuman.

“Yes, Programmer. Well, gentlemen, I write down seventeen and just underneath it, I write twenty-three. Next I say to myself: seven times three”

The Congressman interrupted smoothly, “Now, Aub, the problem is seventeen times twenty-three.”

“Yes, I know,” said the little Technician earnestly, “but I start by saying seven times three because that’s the way it works. Now seven times three is twenty-one.”

“And how do you know that?” asked the Congressman.

“I just remember it. It’s always twenty-one on the computer.

I’ve checked it any number of times.”

“That doesn’t mean it always will be though, does it?” said the Congressman.

“Maybe not,” stammered Aub. “I’m not a mathematician. But I always get the right answers, you see.”

“Go on.”

“Seven times three is twenty-one, so I write down twenty-one. Then one times three is three, so I write down a three under the two of twenty-one.”

“Why under the two?” asked Congressman Brant at once.

“Because” Aub looked helplessly at his superior for support. “It’s difficult to explain.”

Shuman said, “If you will accept his work for the moment, we can leave the details for the mathematicians.” Brant subsided.

Aub said, “Three plus two makes five, you see, so the twenty-one becomes a fifty-one. Now you let that go for a while and start fresh. You multiply seven and two, that’s fourteen, and one and two, that’s two. Put them down like this and it adds up to thirty-four. Now if you put the thirty-four under the fifty-one this way and add them, you get three hundred and ninety-one and that’s the answer.”

There was an instant’s silence and then General Weider said, “I don’t believe it. He goes through this rigmarole and makes up numbers and multiplies and adds them this way and that, but I don’t believe it. It’s too complicated to be anything but horn-swoggling.”

“Oh no, sir,” said Aub in a sweat. “It only seems complicated because you’re not used to it. Actually, the rules are quite simple and will work for any numbers.”

“Any numbers, eh?” said the general. “Come then.” He took out his own computer (a severely styled Gl model) and struck it at random. Make a five seven three eight on the paper. That’s five thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight.”

“Yes, sir,” said Aub, taking a new sheet of paper.

“Now,” (more punching of his computer), “seven two three nine. Seven thousand two hundred and thirty-nine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now multiply those two.”

“It will take some time,” quavered Aub.

“Take the time,” said the general.

“Go ahead, Aub,” said Shuman crisply.

Aub set to work, bending low. He took another sheet of paper and another. The general took out his watch finally and stared at it. “Are you through with your magic-making, Technician?”

“I’m almost done, sir. Here it is, sir. Forty-one million, five hundred and thirty-seven thousand, three hundred and eighty-two.” He showed the scrawled figures of the result.

General Weider smiled bitterly. He pushed the multiplication contact on his computer and let the numbers whirl to a halt. And then he stared and said in a surprised squeak, “Great Galaxy, the fella’s right.”

The President of the Terrestrial Federation had grown haggard in office and, in private, he allowed a look of settled melancholy to appear on his sensitive features. The Denebian war, after its early start of vast movement and great popularity, had trickled down into a sordid matter of manoeuvre and countermanoeuvre, with discontent rising steadily on Earth. Possibly it was rising on Deneb, too. And now Congressman Brant, head of the important Committee on Military Appropriations, was cheerfully and smoothly spending his half-hour appointment spouting nonsense.

“Computing without a computer,” said the president impatiently, “is a contradiction in terms.”

“Computing,” said the Congressman, “is only a system for handling data. A machine might do it, or the human brain might. Let me give you an example.” And, using the new skills he had learned, he worked out sums and products until the president, despite himself, grew interested.

“Does this always work?”

“Every time, Mr. President. It is foolproof.”

“Is it hard to learn?”

“It took me a week to get the real hang of it. I think you would do better.”

“Well,” said the president, considering, “it’s an interesting parlour game, but what is the use of it?”

“What is the use of a newborn baby, Mr. President? At the moment there is no use, but don’t you see that this points the way towards liberation from the machine. Consider, Mr. President,” the Congressman rose and his deep voice automatically took on some of the cadences he used in public debate, “that the Denebian war is a war of computer against computer. Their computers forge an impenetrable field of counter-missiles against our missiles, and ours forge one against theirs. If we advance the efficiency of our computers, so do they theirs, and for five years a precarious and profitless balance has existed.

“Now we have in our hands a method for going beyond the computer, leap frogging it, passing through it. We will combine the mechanics of computation with human thought; we will have the equivalent of intelligent computers; billions of them. I can’t predict what the consequences will be in detail but they will be incalculable. And if Deneb beats us to the punch, they may be unimaginably catastrophic.” The president said, troubled, “What would you have me do?”

“Put the power of the administration behind the establishment of a secret project on human computation. Call it Project Number, if you like. I can vouch for my committee, but I will need the administration behind me.”

“But how far can human computation go?”

“There is no limit. According to Programmer Shuman, who first introduced me to this discovery”

“I’ve heard of Shuman, of course.”

“Yes. Well, Dr. Shuman tells me that in theory there is nothing the computer can do that the human mind cannot do. The computer merely takes a finite amount of data and performs a finite number of operations upon them. The human mind can duplicate the process.”

The president considered that. He said, “If Shuman says this, I am inclined to believe him in theory. But, in practice, how can anyone know how a computer works?”

Brant laughed genially. “Well, Mr. President, I asked the same question. It seems that at one time computers were designed directly by human beings. Those were simple computers, of course, this being before the time of the rational use of computers to design more advanced computers had been established.”

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“Technican Aub apparently had, as his hobby, the reconstruction of some of these ancient devices and in so doing he studied the details of their workings and found he could imitate them. The multiplication I just performed for you is an imitation of the workings of a computer.”

“Amazing!”

The Congressman coughed gently, “If I may make another point, Mr. President The further we can develop this thing, the more we can divert our Federal effort from computer production and computer maintenance. As the human brain takes over, more of our energy can be directed into peacetime pursuits and the impingement of war on the ordinary man will be less. This will be more advantageous for the party in power, of course.”

“Ah,” said the president, “I see your point. Well, sit down, Congressman, sit down. I want some time to think about this. But meanwhile, show me that multiplication trick again. Let’s see if I can’t catch the point of it.”

Programmer Shuman did not try to hurry matters. Loesser was conservative, very conservative and liked to deal with computers as his father and grandfather had. Still, he controlled the West European computer combine, and if he could be persuaded to join Project Number in full enthusiasm, a great deal would be accomplished.

But Loesser was holding back. He said, “I’m not sure I like the idea of relaxing our hold on computers. The human mind is a capricious thing. The computer will give the same answer to the same problem each time. What guarantee have we that the human mind will do the same?”

“The human mind, Computer Loesser, only manipulates facts. It doesn’t matter whether the human mind or a machine does it. They are just tools.”

“Yes, yes. I’ve gone over your ingenious demonstration that the mind can duplicate the computer, but it seems to me a little in the air. I’ll grant the theory but what reason have we for thinking that theory can be converted to practice?”

“I think we have reason, sir. After all, computers have not always existed. The cave men with their triremes, stone axes, and railroads had no computers.”

“And possibly they did not compute.”

“You know better than that. Even the building of a railroad or a ziggurat called for some computing, and that must have been without computers as we know them.”

“Do you suggest they computed in the fashion you demonstrate?”

“Probably not. After all, this method we call it ‘graphitics,’ by the way, from the old European word ‘grapho’ meaning ‘to write’ is developed from the computers themselves so it cannot have antedated them. Still, the cave men must have had some method, eh?”

“Lost arts! If you’re going to talk about lost arts”

“No, no. I’m not a lost art enthusiast, though I don’t say there may not be some. After all, man was eating grain before hydroponics, and if the primitives ate grain, they must have grown it in soil. What else could they have done?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll believe in soil-growing when I see someone grow grain in soil. And I’ll believe in making fire by rubbing two pieces of flint together when I see that, too.” Shuman grew placative. “Well, let’s stick to graphitics. It’s just part of the process of etherealization. Transportation by means of bulky contrivances is giving way to direct mass transference. Communications devices become less massive and more efficient constantly. For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with computers altogether? Come, sir. Project Number is a going concern; progress is already headlong. But we want your help. If patriotism doesn’t move you, consider the intellectual adventure involved.”

Loesser said sceptically, “What progress? What can you do beyond multiplication? Can you integrate a transcendental function?”

“In time, sir. In time. In the last month I have learned to handle division. I can determine, and correctly, integral quotients and decimal quotients.”

“Decimal quotients? To how many places?”

Programmer Shuman tried to keep his tone casual. “Any number!”

Loesser’s lower jaw dropped. “Without a computer?”

“Set me a problem.”

“Divide twenty-seven by thirteen. Take it to six places.”

Five minutes later, Shuman said, “Two point oh seven six nine two three.”

Loesser checked it. “Well, now, that’s amazing. Mulitiplication didn’t impress me too much because it involved integers after all, and I thought trick manipulation might do it. But decimals”

“And that is not all. There is a new development that is, so far, top secret and which strictly speaking, I ought not to mention. Stillwe may have made a breakthrough on the square root front.”

“Square roots?”

“It involves some tricky points and we haven’t licked the bugs yet, but Technician Aub, the man who invented the science and who has an amazing intuition in connection with it, maintains he has the problem almost solved. And he is only a Technician. A man like yourself, a trained and talented mathematician, ought to have no difficulty.”

“Square roots,” muttered Loesser, attracted.

“Cube roots, too. Are you with us?”

Loesser’s hand thrust out suddenly. “Count me in.”

General Weider stumped his way back and forth at the head of the room and addressed his listeners after the fashion of a savage teacher facing a group of recalcitrant students. It made no difference to the general that they were the civilian scientists heading Project Number. The general was the overall head, and he so considered himself at every waking moment.

He said, “Now square roots are all fine. I can’t do them myself and I don’t understand the methods, but they’re fine. Still, the Project will not be sidetracked into what some of you call the fundamentals. You can play with graphitics any way you want to after the war is over, but right now we have specific and very practical problems to solve.”

In a far corner. Technician Aub listened with painful attention. He was no longer a Technician, of course, having been relieved of his duties and assigned to the project, with a fine-sounding title and good pay. But, of course, the social distinction remained and the highly placed scientific leaders could never bring themselves to admit him to their ranks on a footing of equality. Nor, to do Aub justice, did he, himself, wish it. He was as uncomfortable with them as they with him.

The general was saying, “Our goal is a simple one, gentlemen: the replacement of the computer. A ship that can navigate space without a computer on board can be constructed in one fifth the time and at one tenth the expense of a computer-laden ship. We could build fleets five times, ten times, as great as Deneb could if we could but eliminate the computer.

“And I see something even beyond this. It may be fantastic now, a mere dream; but in the future I see the manned missile!”

There was an instant murmur from the audience. The general drove on. “At the present time, our chief bottleneck is the fact that missiles are limited in intelligence. The computer controlling them can only be so large, and for that reason they can meet the changing nature of anti-missile defences in an unsatisfactory way. Few missiles, if any, accomplish their goal and missle warfare is coming to a dead end; for the enemy, fortunately, as well as for ourselves.

“On the other hand, a missile with a man or two within, controlling flight by graphitics, would be lighter, more mobile, more intelligent. It would give us a lead that might well mean the margin of victory. Besides which, gentlemen, the exigencies of war compel us to remember one thing. A man is much more dispensable than a computer. Manned missiles could be launched in numbers and under circumstances that no good general would care to undertake as far as computer-directed missiles are concerned” He said much more but Technician Aub did not wait.

Technician Aub, in the privacy of his quarters, laboured long over the note he was leaving behind. It read finally as follows:

“When I began the study of what is now called graphitics, it was no more than a hobby. I saw no more in it than an interesting amusement, an exercise of mind. “When Project Number began, I thought that others were wiser than I; that graphitics might be put to practical use as a benefit to mankind, to aid in the production of really practical mass-transference devices perhaps. But now I see it to be used only for death and destruction. “I cannot face the responsibility involved in having invented graphitics.”

He then deliberately turned the focus of a protein-depolarizer on himself and fell instantly and painlessly dead.

They stood over the grave of the little Technician while tribute was paid to the greatness of his discovery. Programmer Shuman bowed his head along with the rest of them, but remained unmoved. The Technician had done his share and was no longer needed, after all. He might have started graphitics, but now that it had started, it would carry on by itself overwhelmingly, triumphantly, until manned missiles were possible, with who knew what else. Nine times seven, thought Shuman with deep satisfaction, is sixty-three, and I don’t need a computer to tell me so. The computer is in my own head.

And it was amazing the feeling of power that gave him.

The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World
by: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

THE FIRST CHILDREN who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let themselves
think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and they thought it was a whale. But
when it washed up on the beach, they removed the clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the
remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did they see that it was a drowned man. They had been
playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again, when someone
chanced to see them and spread the alarm in the village. The men who carried him to the nearest house
noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and
they said to each other that maybe he’d been floating too long and the water had got into his bones.
When they laid him on the floor they said he’d been taller than all other men because there was barely
enough room for him in the house, but they thought that maybe the ability to keep on growing after
death was part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of the sea about him and only his
shape gave one to suppose that it was the corpse of a human being, because the skin was covered with a
crust of mud and scales. They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead man was a
stranger. The village was made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no
flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desertlike cape. There was so little land that
mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would carry off their children and the few dead
that the years had caused among them had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and bountiful
and all the men fitted into seven boats. So when they found the drowned man they simply had to look at
one another to see that they were all there.

That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men went to find out if anyone was missing in
neighboring villages, the women stayed behind to care for the drowned man. They took the mud off
with grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones entangled in his hair, and they scraped the crust
off with tools used for scaling fish. As they were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him
came from faraway oceans and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters, as if he had sailed through
labyrinths of coral. They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look
of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who drowned in
rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become aware of the kind of man he was
and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had
ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination.

They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him on nor was there a table solid enough to
use for his wake. The tallest men’s holiday pants would not fit him, nor the fattest ones’ Sunday shirts,
nor the shoes of the one with the biggest feet. Fascinated by his huge size and his beauty, the women then
decided to make him some pants from a large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal linen so that he
could continue through his death with dignity. As they sewed, sitting in a circle and gazing at the corpse
between stitches, it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on
that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man. They thought that if
that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would have had the widest doors, the highest
ceiling, and the strongest floor, his bedstead would have been made from a midship frame held together

by iron bolts, and his wife would have been the happiest woman.

They thought that he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out of the sea
simply by calling their names and that he would have put so much work into his land that springs would
have burst forth from among the rocks so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs.
They secretly compared him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable
of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dismissing them deep in their hearts as the
weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth. They were wandering through that maze of fantasy
when the oldest woman, who as the oldest had looked upon the drowned man with more compassion than
passion, sighed: ‘He has the face of someone called Esteban.’ It was true. Most of them had only to take
another look at him to see that he could not have any other name. The more stubborn among them, who
were the youngest, still lived for a few hours with the illusion that when they put his clothes on and he
lay among the flowers in patent leather shoes his name might be Lautaro. But it was a vain illusion.
There had not been enough canvas, the poorly cut and worse sewn pants were too tight, and the hidden
strength of his heart popped the buttons on his shirt. After midnight the whistling of the wind died down
and the sea fell into its Wednesday drowsiness. The silence put an end to any last doubts: he was
Esteban.

The women who had dressed him, who had combed his hair, had cut his nails and shaved him were
unable to hold back a shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves to his being dragged along the
ground. It was then that they understood how unhappy he must have been with that huge body since it
bothered him even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to going through doors sideways,
cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his
soft, pink, sea lion hands while the lady of the house looked for her most resistant chair and begged him,
frightened to death, sit here, Esteban, please, and he, leaning against the wall, smiling, don’t bother,
ma’am, I’m fine where I am, his heels raw and his back roasted from having done the same thing so many
times whenever he paid a visit, don’t bother, ma’am, I’m fine where I am, just to avoid the mbarrassment
of breaking up the chair, and never knowing perhaps that the ones who said don’t go, Esteban, at least
wait till the coffee’s ready, were the ones who later on would whisper the big boob finally left, how nice,
the handsome fool has gone. That was what the women were thinking beside the body a little before
dawn. Later, when they covered his face with a handkerchief so that the light would not bother him, he
looked so forever dead, so defenseless, so much like their men that the first furrows of tears opened in
their hearts. It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The others, coming to, went from
sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed the more they felt like weeping, because the drowned man was
becoming all the more Esteban for them, and so they wept so much, for he was the more destitute, most
peaceful, and most obliging man on earth, poor Esteban. So when the men returned with the news that
the drowned man was not from the neighboring villages either, the women felt an opening of jubilation
in the midst of their tears.

‘Praise the Lord,’ they sighed, ‘he’s ours!’ The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity.
Fatigued because of the difficult nighttime inquiries, all they wanted was to get rid of the bother of the
newcomer once and for all before the sun grew strong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter
with the remains of foremasts and gaffs, tying it together with rigging so that it would bear the weight of
the body until they reached the cliffs.

They wanted to tie the anchor from a cargo ship to him so that he would sink easily into the deepest
waves, where fish are blind and divers die of nostalgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to
shore, as had happened with other bodies. But the more they hurried, the more the women thought of
ways to waste time. They walked about like startled hens, pecking with the sea charms on their breasts,
some interfering on one side to put a scapular of the good wind on the drowned man, some on the other
side to put a wrist compass on him , and after a great deal of get away from there, woman, stay out of the
way, look, you almost made me fall on top of the dead man, the men began to feel mistrust in their livers
and started grumbling about why so many main-altar decorations for a stranger, because no matter how
many nails and holy-water jars he had on him, the sharks would chew him all the same, but the women
kept piling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling, while they released in sighs what they
did not in tears, so that the men finally exploded with since when has there ever been such a fuss over a
drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meat. One of the women, mortified by so
much lack of care, then removed the handkerchief from the dead man’s face and the men were left
breathless too.

He was Esteban. It was not necessary to repeat it for them to recognize him. If they had been told Sir
Walter Raleigh, even they might have been impressed with his gringo accent, the macaw on his
shoulder, his cannibal-killing blunderbuss, but there could be only one Esteban in the world and there he
was, stretched out like a sperm whale, shoeless, wearing the pants of an undersized child, and with
those stony nails that had to be cut with a knife. They only had to take the handkerchief off his face to
see that he was ashamed, that it was not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome, and
if he had known that this was going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place to drown
in, seriously, I even would have tied the anchor off a galleon around my nick and staggered off a cliff
like someone who doesn’t like things in order not to be upsetting people now with this Wednesday dead
body, as you people say, in order not to be bothering anyone with this filthy piece of cold meat that
doesn’t have anything to do with me. There was so much truth in his manner taht even the most
mistrustful men, the ones who felt the bitterness of endless nights at sea fearing that their women would
tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned men, even they and others who were harder
still shuddered in the marrow of their bones at Esteban’s sincerity. That was how they came to hold the
most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some women who
had gone to get flowers in the neighboring villages returned with other women who could not believe
what they had been told, and those women went back for more flowers when they saw the dead man,
and they brought more and more until there were so many flowers and so many people that it was hard to
walk about.

At the final moment it pained them to return him to the waters as an orphan and they chose a father and
mother from among the best people, and aunts and uncles and cousins, so that through him all the
inhabitants of the village became kinsmen. Some sailors who heard the weeping from a distance went
off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to the mainmast, remembering ancient fables
about sirens. While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep
escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their
streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and
beauty of their drowned man.

They let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished,
and they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss. They did
not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present, that they would never be.
But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider
doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban’s memory could go everywhere without
bumping into beams and so that no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too
bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to
make Esteban’s memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the
stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners
would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to
come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war
medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages,
look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it’s gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where
the sun’s so bright that the sunflowers don’t know which way to turn, yes, over there, that’s Esteban’s
village.

T 7 O N , I O D r J LT E X T S F O R W R I T E R S

o f b l a c k A r n e r i c a n s r o s e i z e l o c a l e n r r e p r e n e u r i a l o p p o r t u n i t i e s i s c o f a i l

to accept our role as leaclersof our own comrntrnity. Not to dernand

thar each member of the black cc-rmmunity accept individual respon-

s i b i l i t y f o r h e r o r h i s b e h a v i o r w h e t h e r t h a t b e h a v i o r a s s u l n e s t h e-

f o r m o f b l a c k – o n ‘ b l a c k h o r n i c i d e , g a n g m e r n b e r s v i o l a t i n s t h e s a n c t i t y

of the chtrrch, Lrnprotected sexual acdvity, gangster rap lyrics, what-

e v e r – i s f o r u s t o f u n c t i o n r l e r e l y a s e t h n i c c h e e r l e a d e r s s e l l i n g w o o f

tickers frorn calnpus or sr.rburbs,rather thar-r saying the dilficult things

r h a r m e y b e u n p o p u l a r w i t h o u r f e l l o w s . B e i n g a l e a d e r d o e s n o t n e c e s –

sarily rneen beir-rg loved; loving one’s community lneans daring to risk

esrrangelrrer-rrand alienation fi’om ir in che shclrc rttn in order to break

t h e c y c l e o f p o v c r t y a n d d e s p a i r i n w h i c h w e f i n d o u r s e l v e s , o v e r t h e

l o n g r u n . F o r w h a t i s a t s t a k e i s n o t h i n g l e s s t l – r a n r h e s u r v i v a l o f o u r

coLrlltr y, a nd rl-re Afi ican- Atne rican p’teoplethetn selves.

T h o s c o f u s o n c a r n p u s c a n a l s o r e a c h o l l t r o r h o s e o f u s l e f t b e h i n d

on rhe streers. l}e historically black colleges and universities and Afro-

Arnerican Srudics .-leparrments ir-r ti-ris cour-rtry can ir-rstitutionalize

s o p h o r n o r e : r n d j u n i o r y e : r r i n r e r n s h i p s f o r c o m m u n i t y d e v e l o p r n e n r

rlrrough orga.nizationssuch as the Childrens Defense Ftrnd. Together

w e c a n c o m b a t t e e n a g e p r e g n a n c i e s , b l a c k – o n – b l a c k c r i m e , a n d t h e

s p r e a d o f A I D S i r o r n d r u g a b u s e a n d L l l l p r o t e c t e d s e x r , r a lr e l a t i o n s , a n d

c o r r n t e r t h e s p r e a d o f d e s p a i r a n d h o p e l e s s n e s si n o u r c o u r t n u u i t i e s .

D r . K i n g d i d n o t d i e s o t h a t h a l f o f u s w o u l d r n a k e i t , h a l f o f u s p e r i s h ,

forever rarnishir-rg two centuries of agitation for our equal rights. We,

t h e m e m b c r s o f c h e T a l e n t e d T e n t h , r n L r s t a c c e p r o u r h i s t o r i c a l r e s p o n –

s i b i l i t y a n d l i v e D r . K i n g s c r e c J o t h a t n o n e o F u s i s f r e e u n t i l a l l o f u s a r e

f r e e . A n d r h a r a l l o f u s a r e b r o t h e r s a n d s i s t e r s , a s D r . K i n g s a i d s o l o n g

ago whire and bl:rck, Protestant and Caclrolic, Ger-rtile and Jew and-

M t r s l i r n , r i c h a n d p o o r – e v e n i f w e a r e n o t b r o t h e r s – i n – l a w .

T i m O ‘ B r i e n

On the RainyRiver

T i mO ‘ B r i e nw a sb o r n i n 1 9 4 6 i n A u s t i n , M i n n e s o t a ,t o a n i n s u r a n c e
s a l e s m a na n d a n e l e m e n t a r y s c h o o lt e a c h e r .B o t ho f h i s p a r e n t s
w e r ev e t e r ? f l S :h i s f a t h e r h a d b e e n i n t h e N a v y i n l w o J i m a a n d
O k i n a w ad u r i n gW o r l d W a r l l , a n d h i s m o t h e r h a d s e r v e d w i t ht h e
W A V E S( W o m e nA c c e p t e df o r V o l u n t e e rE m e r g e n c yS e r v i c e ) .A s a
c h i l d ,O ‘ B r i e ns p e n tt i m e r e a d i n g i n t h e c o u n t y l r b r a r y ,l e a r n i n gt o
p e r f o r mm a g i ct r i c k s ,a n dp l a y i n gb a s e b a l l( h i sf i r s tp i e c eo f f i c t i o n
w a sc a l l e d” T i m m yo f t h e L i t t l e L e a g u e ” ) .

O ‘ B r i e na t t e n d e dM a c a l e s t e rC o l l e g ei n S a i n t P a u l , M i n n e s o t a ,
m a j o r i n gi n p o l i t i c a ls c i e n c e .W h e nh eg r a d u a t e di n 1 9 6 8 , h e h o p e d
t o j o i nt h e S t a t e D e p a r t m e n ta sa d i p l o m a t – b u t i n s t e a d ,j u s tw e e k s
a f t e rg r a d u a t i o n ,h e w a s d r a f t e di n t ot h eA r m y .O ‘ B r i e nn e a r l yf l e dt o
C a n a d a :d u r i n gh i s t r a i n i n g i n F o r tL e w i s ,W a s h i n g t o n ,h e p l a n n e d
t o d e s e r t , b u t h e w e n t o n l ya s f a r a s S e a t t l e b e f o r et u r n i n g b a c k .
I n 1 9 6 9 ,a t t h e a g e o f 2 2 , h e w e n t t o Q u a n gN g a i ,V i e t n a m ,f i r s t
a s a r i f l e m a n a n d l a t e ra s a r a d i ot e l e p h o n eo p e r a t o ra n d c l e r k . H e
c o m p l e t e da 1 3 – m o n t ht o u r o f d u t y , e a r n i n ga P u r p l eH e a r t a n d a
B r o n z eS t a r .

A f t e r h i s r e t u r nt o t h e U n i t e d S t a t e si n 1 9 7 0 , O ‘ B r i e ne n r o l l e di n
H a r v a r d ‘ sd o c t o r a lp r o g r a mi n g o v e r n m e n ta n d s p e n t h i s s u m m e r s
w o r k i n ga s a n i n t e r nf o r t h e W a s h r n g t o n P o s t .H e b e c a m e a f u l l –
t i m e n a t i o n a l a f f a i r sr e p o r t e r ,c o v e r i n gS e n a t eh e a n n g sa n dp o l i t i c a l
e v e n t s .S e v e r a ly e a r sl a t e r ,O ‘ B r i e nl e f t b o t h h i s g r a d u a t ew o r ka n d
h i sj o b a t t h e P o s f t o p u r s u ea c a r e e ra s a w r i t e r . l n a m e m o i r , s e v e n
n o v e l s ,a n d m a n y s h o r ts t o r i e s ,O ‘ B r i e nh a se x p l o r e dt h e q u e s t i o n
o f m o r a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t y : f o rt h e 5 8 , 0 0 0 A m e r i c a nW h o i s r e s p o n s i b l e
s o l d i e r sa n d m o r e t h a na m i l l i o n V i e t n a m e s e p e o p l ek i l l e di n b a t t l e
b e t w e e n1 9 6 5 a n d 1 9 7 5 ?

” O nt h e R a i n y R i v e r ” d e s c r i b e sa y o u n gm a n w h o h a s t o c h o o s e
b e t w e e ng o i n gt o V i e t n a ma n d f l e e i n g t o C a n a d at o e v a d e t h e d r a f t .
H e b l a m e st h e w a r o n e v e r y o n e – t h e p r e s i d e n t ,t h e j o i n t c h i e f s
o f s t a f f , t h e k n e e – j e r k p a t r i o t si n h i s h o m e t o w n – b u t u l t i m a t e l v

1 7 I

– –

1 7 2 M o D E L T E X T S F o R w R T T E R S

t a k e s h i s p l a c ea m o n gt h e m , c h o o s i n g t o g o t o w a r . H i s d e c i s i o n
precipitatesthe events of the book, TheThingsThey Carried, just as
O ‘ B r i e n ‘ so w nc o n f l i c t e dd e c i s i o nt o g o t o w a rs e t t h e c o u r s e o f h i s
l i f e ,f i r s t a s a s o l d i e ra n d t h e n a s a w r i t e r .

The Things TheyCarried(1990)was a finalistfor both the Pulitzer
P r i z ea n d t h e N a t i o n a l B o o kC r i t i c s C i r c l e A w a r d . O ‘ B r i e n ‘ s o t h e r
significantbooks include lf I Die in a Combat Zone,Box Me Up and
Ship Me Home(1973), Goingafter Cacciato(I978), The Nuclear
A g e( I 9 8 5 ) , a n dl n t h e L a k e o f t h e W o o d s ( 1 9 9 4 ) .T i m O ‘ B r i e n l i v e s
i n T e x a sw i t h h i s w i f e a n d s o n .H e t e a c h e s c r e a t i v ew r i t i n ga t T e x a s
S t a t e U n i v e r s i t v .

his is one story I’ve never rold before. Not to anyone. Not to my
f

I parents,not to my brother or sister,not even to my wife, To go
inro it, I’ve always thought, would only cause embarrassmenr for all of
us, a sudden need to be elsewhere, which is che natural response to a
confession.Even now I’ll adrnit, the story makesme squirm, For more
than twenty yearsI’ve had to live wirh ir, feeling rhe shame, rrying ro
puslr ft away, and so by this act of remembrance, by putting the facts
down on paper,I’m hoping to relieveat least some of the pressureon my
dreams. Sdll, it’s :r hard story to tell. All of us, I suppose,like to believe
that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth,
bravelyand forthrightly,without thought of personalloss or discredit.
Cercainly chac was my conviccion back in the surnmer of 1968. Tim
O’Brien: a secrethero.The Lone Ranger.If the stakes everbecamehigh
enough if the evilwere evil enough, if the goodweregood enough I
would simply Ap a secretreservoirof couragethat had beenaccumulat-
ing inside me over the years.Courage,I seemed to think, comes to us in
6nite quantities,like an inheritance,and by being frugal and stashingit
awayand letting it earn interest,we steadily increaseour moral capital
in p”rsp2l”xtionfor that day when the account must be drawn down. It
was a comforting tl-reory.It dispensedwith all those bothersome little
accs of daily courage; it offered hope and gracero the repetitivecoward;
it justified the past while amortizing the future.

InJune of 7968,amonth afrcr graduatingfrom MacalescerCollege,I
wasdrafted to 6ght a war I hated’ I was twenty-one yearsold. Young,yes,
and politically naive, but evenso the American war in Vietnam seemed

O ‘ B r i e n * O n r h e R a i n y R i v e r I 7 3

ro me wrong. Certain blood wasbeing shed for uncerrain reasons. I saw
no uniry of purpose,no consensuson marrers of philosophy or history
or law. The very factswere shrouded in uncerrainty:Was ir a civil war?
A war of national liberarior-ror simpleaggressioniWho startedit, and
when,and whyi What realLyhappenedro rhe llSS Maddox onthat dark
night in the Gulf of Tonkini Was Ho Chi Minh a Communisr stooge,
or a nationalistsavior, or both, or neitheri What abour the Geneva
Accordsi What about SEATO and rhe Cold Wari Whar about domi-
noesi America was divided on theseand a thousand orher issues,and
the debate had spilled out acrossthe floor of the United Srares Senate
and into the streers, and smarr men in pinsrripescould not agree on
eventhe rnosr fundamental rnactersof public policy.The only cerraincy
that summer was moral confusion. It was my view then, and still is,
that you don’t rnakewar without knowing why. Knowledge, of course,
is alwaysimperfect,but it seemedro me thar when a narion goesro war
ir rnust have reasonable confidencein the jr-rsticeand imperative of irs
cause.You can’t fix your misrakes.Once people are dead, you canr make
rhernundead.

In any case rhose were my convicrions,and back in collegeI had
taken a modesr srand againstrhe war. Norhing radical,no horhead
scufl just ringing a few doorbells for Gene McCarrhy, composing a
few tedious, uninspired edirorialsfor che campus newspaper.Oddly,
though, it was almosr enrirely an inrellectualacrivity.I broughr some
energyro it, of course,bur ir was rhe energythat accompanies almost
any abstract endeavor; I felt no personaldanger,I felt no sense of an
irnpendingcrisisin my life. Srupidly,wirh a kind of smugremovalthat I
cant begin to farllom, I assumedrhar rhe problemsof killing and dying
did not fall wirhin my special province.

The draft noticearrived onJune 17,1968.Ir wasa humid afrernoon,
I remembeacloudy and very quiec, and Id jusr conle in from a round
of golf. My mother and farher were having lunch our in the kitchen.
I remember opening up the letter, scanning the firsr few lines, feeling
rhe blood go rhick behind my eyes. I remember a sound in my head. It
wasnt rhinking,jusr a silenr horvl. A million rhingsall ar once – I was
rco good for rl-riswar. Too sffrarc,too compassionate,too everything.
It couldn’t happen. I was above it. I had the world dicked – Phi Bera
Kappa and summa cum laude and president of rhe srudenrbody and a
Full-ridescholarshipfor grad studiesat Harvard. A mistake, maybe- a

https://17,1968.Ir

1 , 7 4 M o D E LT E X T sF o Rw R r r E R S

foul-up in the paperwork.I was no soldier.I haced Boy Scouts.I hated
campingout. I hateddirt and tents and mosquiroes.The sight of blood
made me queasy,and I couldn’r tolerareauthority, and I didn’t know
a rifle from a slingshot. I was a liber,tl, for Christ sake:If rhey needed
freshbodies,wl-rynot draft someback-to-rhe-srone-agehawki Or some
dumb jingo in his hard har and Bornb Hanoi burron,or one of LBJs
pretty daughrers,or Wesrmoreland’swhole handsomefamily – neph-
ewsand nieces and baby grandson.There should be a law I thought. If
you support awar, if you think ir’sworth rhe price, rhat’s fine,bur you
haveto Put your own preciousfluids on rhe line.You haveto head for
the front and hook up with an infantry unir ar-rdhelp spill the blood.
A’d you have ro bring along your wife, or ),our kids, or your lover. A
l a w , I t h o u g h r .

s I rememberrhe rage in my sromach.Later ir burned down to a
snrolderingself-pity,rhen to numbness.Ar dinner rhat nighr my father
askedwhat my planswere.

“Norhing,”I said. ” Wait.”

I spcnr rhe surnmer of i968 u’orkingin an Armour rnear-packingplant
ir-r rny homero’uvnof Worrhington, Minnesora. The planr specialized
in pork products,and for eighr hours a day I srood on a quarrer-mile
assemblyline – more properly,a disassemblyline – removing blood
clots frorn the necksof dead pigs. Myjob rirle, I believe,was Declotter.
After slaughrer,rhe hogswere de.:apitated,splir down the length of the
belly,pried open, eviscerated,and srrlrngup by rhe hind hockson a high
conveyerbelr.Then gravity rook over.By che rime a carcass reachedmy
spot on the line, chefuids had rnostly drained ouc,everyrhingexcepr
for thick clots of blood in rhe neck and upper chestcavity.Tor.,nou.
the stuf{, I used a kind of water gun. The machine was heavy,maybe
eighrypounds,and was suspended from the ceiling by a heavyrubber
cord.There was somebouncero it, an elasricup-and-downgive,and
the rrick was ro maneuverrhe gun with your whole body, noc lifting
with the anns,jusr lerrir-rgrhe rubber cord.do the work for you. At
one cnd was a tigger; ar rhe muzzle end was a small nozzleand a steel
roller brush. As a carcasspassed by, youd lean forward and swing the
gun up againsrrhe clors and squeeze the tigger, all in one morion, and
rhe brush would whirl and water would come shooringour and youd
heara quick splarering sound as rhetlots dissolvedinto a fine red misr.

O ‘ B r i c n o O n r h e R a i n y R i v e r I 7 5

It was nor pleasanrwork. Goggleswerea necessicy, and a rubber apron,
but evenso it waslike srandi.g for eighrhours ^ i^yunder a l,rk”warm
blood-shower.At nighr Id go home sleiling of pig.It wouldn’rgo away.
Evenafter a hot barh,scrubbinshard, rh” srink *i, ,h..I _ like

“l-“y,old bacon,or sausage,a densegreas/pig-srinkthar soakeddeepinto
rny ski’and hair.Arno.g ocherrhings,I rernernbecir wastoughg.rrirrg
datesrhar summer.I felr isolared;I spenta lor of cimealone.A”; rhere
was alsochardrafr noricetucked awayin my wallet.

In rhe eveningsId somerimesborrow my farher’scar and d,rive
aimlesslyaround rown, feelingsorry fo, *y.eli rhinking about the war
and the pig factory and how rny life seemedro be collapring toward
slaughter.I felr paralyzed.All around me the oprions seemedro be
narrowing,as if I were hurrling down a huse black funnel, rhe whole
world_squeezingin righr. Tlrere was no h”ppy way our. The govern-
ment had endedmosr graduareschooldefermenrs;the wairingiirt, fo,
rhe National Guard and Reserveswereimpossiblylong; my health was

-solid; I didn’t qualifyfor co srarus no religiousgrounds,no hisrory
as a pacifrst.Moreover,I could nor claim ro be c-rpposed,ro war as a-fherematcerof generalprinciple. were occasions,i believed, when a
nation wasjusrified in using nrilitary forceto achieveirs end,s,ro srop a
Hitler or somecomparableevil,and I told myself thar in such circum-
stancesI would’ve willingly marched off to rhe battle.The problem,
though,was thar a draft board did not let you choose your war.

Beyond all this, or ar rhe very cenrer,was the raw fact of terror. I
did nor wanr ro die. Not evcr.But certainlynor rhen, not there,nor
in a wrong war. Driving r-rpMain srreer,pasr rhe courrhouseand che
Ben Franklin srore,I somecirnesfelr rh” i”a. spreadinginside me like
weeds.I irnaginedmyselfdead.I imaginedmyselfdoing things I could
not do – charging an enemy position, caking aim at another human
being.

Ar somepoint in mid-JulyI beuanthinking seriouslyabout Canada. 1o
f}e border lay a few hundred miles norrh, an eight-hour drive. Boch-ro
my conscienceand my insri’crs were telling ffre make a break for
it, just rake off and run like hell and neversrop.In the beginningrhe
idea seemedpurely absrract,the word canada printing ir.”f o,rr ii -y
head;bur aftera rime I could seeparricula.shap”sorrdl-“g”s, rhe ror.y
details of rny own future – a horel room in ivinnip eg, a-batteredold
suitcase,rny fbrher’seyesas I rried ro explainmyselfou., ,h. relephone.

f 7 6 M o D E L T E X T S F o R w R r r E R S

I could almost hear his voice, and my morhers. Run, Id think. Then Id
think, Impossible. Then a second later Id think, Run.

It was a kind of schizophrenia. A moral split. I couldn’t make up
my mind. Ifeared the war, yes,but I also fearedexile. I was afraid of
walking away from my own Iife, my friends and my family, my whole
history,everythingchat matcered to me. I feared losing the respecrof
my parents.I feared the law. I feared ridicule and censure. My home-
town was a conservative little spot on the prairie, aplace where tradition
counted,and it was easy to imagine peoplesitting around a rable down
at the old Gobbler Caft on Main Streer, coffee cups poised,the conver-
sation slowly zerorngin on the young O’Brien kid, how rhe damned
sissy had taken off for Canada. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, Id
sometimes carry on 6erceargumentswith thosepeople.I d be scream-
ing at them, telling them how much I detested their blind, thoughtless,
automatic acquiescenceto it aIl, their simple minded patriotism, their
prideful ignorance,their love-it-or-Ieave-it pladrudes, how they were
sendingme offto 6ght awar they didn’t undersrand and didn’t wanr ro
understand.I held them responsible. By God, yes,I did. AIlof rhem – I
held them personally and individually responsible the polyestered-

Kiwanis boys,the merchants and farmers, the pious churchgoers,the
chatty housewives,the PTA and the Lions club and the Veterans of
Foreign Wars and the 6ne upstanding gentryour ar rhe country club.
Th.y didnt know Bao Dai from the man in the moon. Th”y didn’t
know history. Th”y didn’t know the 6rst thing about Diem’s tyranny,
or the nature of Vietnamese nationalism, or the long colonialisrn of the

-French this was all too damned compli car.ed, it required some read-
irg – but no matter, it was a war to stop the Communisrs, plain and
simple, which was how rhey liked things, and you were a rreasonous
pussy if you had second thoughts abour killing or dying for plain and
simple reasons.

I was bitter, sure. But it was so much more than thar. The emotions
went from outrage to terror to bewilderment to guilt to sorrow and
then back again to outrage. I felt a sickness inside me. Real disease.

Most of rhis I’ve rold before, or ar least hint ed ar, bur what I have
never told is the full rrurh. How I cracked. How at work one morn-
ing, standing on the pig line, I felr somerhing break open in my chest.
I don’t know what it was. I’ll neVer know. Bur it was real, I know rhar
much, it was a physicalruprure – a cracking-leaking-popping feeling. I

. , – l

C ) ‘ l J r i e n * O n t h e l l . a i n y R i v e r 1 7 7

rememberdropping my wacergun. Quickly, ahnosrwirhout rhougl-rt,I
took offmy apron and walked our of rhe planr and drovehome.Ir *”,
midrnorr-ri’g I remember, and the housewasempry.Down in my chest
therewassrill rhat leakingsensarion,somerhingverywarln andprecious
spilling out, and I was .ou.r”d wirh blood ;rnd hog-stink, for a

“,ldlong while I just concentratedon holding myself rogetl-rer.I rernernber
taking a hor shower.I remernberpackinga suitcase and carrying ir our
to the kitchen, standingvery srill for a few rninures,looking carefully
at the familiar objectsall around rne.The old chrome roasrer,rhe tele-
phone,the pink and whire Forrnicaon rhe kitchen counrers.The room
was full of brighr sunshine.Everythingsparkled.My hor_rse,I thoughr.
My life. I’m nor surehow long I srood rhere,bur later I scribbledour a
short note to my parenrs.

whar ir said, exactIy,Idon’r recall now.Somerhingvaglre.Taking oll
will call,loveTirn.

I drovenorth. 15
It’s a blur now as ir was then, and all I rer’ernber is a sense of high

velocity and rhe feel of rhe steeringwheel in n-ryhands. I was ri.ling
on adrenaline.A giddy feeling,in a way, exceprrhere was rhc drcamy
edgeof impossibiliryro ir-like runnir-rga dead-enc-l rnaze-no way
out – ir couldn’rcome to a happy conclusionand yet I was doing it
anywaybecauseit was all I could rhink of ro do. Ir was pure llighr,
fast and mindless.I had no plan.Jusr hir rhe border at high .p””d
and crashrhrough and keep on running. Near dusk I passedrhrough
Bemidji, then rurned northeasttoward L-rternarionalFalls.I .p..rr rt”
night in the car behind a closed-down gesstariona half mile from rfie
border.In rhe morning,afrergassing’p, I headedsrraighrwest along
the Rainy River,which separaresMinnesora frorn Canada,and which
for me separated or-relife from another.The l:rndwasmosrlywilderness.
Here and thereI passeda morel or bait shop,but otherwiserhecounrry

‘lhoughunfolded in great sweeps of pine and birch and sumac. ir -a.,
still August, the air alreadyhad the smell of Ocrober,foorb”il season,
piles of yellow-redleaves,everyrhingcrispand clean. I rernernbera huge
blue sky.off ro rny righr was the Rainy River,wide as a lake in places,
and beyond rhe Rainy fuver was Canada.

For a while I just drove,noc airning ar anything, rhen in rhe lare
morning I begar-rlooking for a placeto lie low for a day or rwo. I was

– –

I 7 B M o D E L T E X T S F o R w R I T E R S

exhausted,and scaredsick,and around noon I pulled inro an old fish-
ing resort calledthe Tip Top Lodge.Actually it was nor a lodge ar all,
just eight or nine tir-ryyellow cabins ch-rsreredon a peninsulathar-jutted
northward into the Rainy River.The placewas in sorry shape.There
was a dangerouswooden dock, an old minnow rank, a flimsy tar paper
boarhousealong the shore. The main building, wl-richsrood in a clus-
ter of pir-reson high ground, seemed ro lean l’teavilyro one side,like a
cripple,rhe roof saggingroward Canada.Briefly,I rhoughr abour rurn-
ing around,jusr giving up, buc rhen I gor our oi rhe car and walkedup
to the fronr porch.

The man who openedthe door rhar day is che hero of my life. How
do I say rhis withour sounding sappyi Blurr ir our – rhe man saved,
me. He ollered exactlywhat I needed,wirhour questions,withour any
words at all. He took me in. He was therear rhe criricalcime- a silent,
watchful Presence.Six days larer,when ir ended,I was r-rnablero find a
proper way ro rhank hirn, and I neverhave,and so, if norhing else,tfiis
story representsa small gesrure of gracicudetwenty years overdue.

Evenafter two decadesI can closemy eyesand return ro that porch
at che Tip Top Lodge.I cansee che old guy sraring ar me. Elroy Berdahl:
eighry-oneyears old, skinny and shrunken and rnosrly bald. He wore a
Ilannelshirt andbrown work pants.Inonehand,I remernber,he carried,
a green apple, a small paring knife in the other.His eyes had the bluish
graycolorof a razorblade,the sarne polishedshine,and ashe peeredup
at me I felt a strange sharpness,almost painful, a curting sensarion,as
if his gaze were somehowslicingme open.In parr, no doubr,ir wasmy
own senseof guilt, but evenso I’m absolutelycertainrhar rhe old man
took one look and went right to the hearr of rhings- a kid in rrouble.
When I askedfor a room, Elroy made a little clicking sound wich his
rongue.He nodded,led me our ro one of the cabins, and dropped a
key in my hand. I rernembersmiling ar him. I also remember wishing I
hadn’t.The old man shook his head as if to tell rne ir wasn’rworrh rhe
bother.

20 “Dinner ar five-thi rryi’he said.”youearfishi”
‘Anything,”

I said.
Elroy grur-rredand said, “Illbet!’

we spenr six days rogerherar rlre Tip Top Lodge.Jusr rhe rwo of us.
Tourist seasonwas over,and there were no boarson the river,and the

-d

O ‘ B r i e n m O n r h e R a i n y R i v e r 7 7 9

wilderness seemed to withdraw into a great permanent stillness.Over
those six daysElroy Berdahl and I took most of our meals togecher. In

the rnorningswe sornetimes went out on long hikes into the woods, and

at night we played Scrabble or listened to records or satreadingin front

of his big scone fireplace.At times I felt the awkwardness of an incruder,

buc Elroy acceptedme into his quiet routine without fuss or ceremony.

He took my presencefor granted,the sameway he might’ve sheltered
a stray ca(. no wasted sighs or pity and there was neverany talk

aboutit.Jusr the opposite. Whar I remember morc than anything is the

man’s willful, almosr ferocious silence.In all that time together, all those

hours, he never asked the obvious questions:Why was I therei Why

aloneiWhy so preoccupiediIf Elroy was curious about any of this, he

was careful never to put it into words.
My hunch, though, is that he alreadyknew. At leastthe basics.After

all,it was 1968, and guyswereburningdraft cards, and Canada was just

a boar ride away. Elroy Berdahl was no hick. His bedroom, I remember,

wascluttered with books and newspapers.He killed me at the Scrabble

board, barely concentrating, and on those occasions when speech was

necessaryhe had a way of compressing Iargethoughts into small , cryp-

tic packetsof language. One evening,just at sunset, he pointed up at an

owl circling over rhe violer-lighted forest to the west.
“H”y, O’Brien,”he said.”There’sJesus.”
The man was sharp – he didn’t miss much. Those razor eyes.Now

and then hecl catch me staring out at the river, at the far shore, and I

could almosr hear rhe tumblers clicking in his head. Maybe I’m wrong,

but I doubt it.

One thing for certain, he knew I was in desperate trouble. And he

knew I couldn’t talk about it. The wrong word even the right

word and I would’ve disappeared. I was wired and jittery. My skin-

felt too tight. After supperone evening I vomited and went back to my

cabin and lay down for a few moments and then vomited again; another

time,in the middle of the afternoon,I begansweating and couldn’r shut

it ofl. I went through whole days feeling dizzy with sorrow.I couldn’t

sleep;I couldn’r lie srill. At night I d ross around in bed, half awake,

half dreaming, imagining how Id sneak down ro the beach and quietly

push one of the old man’s boats our into the river and starr paddlingmy

way toward Canada. There were times when I thoughr Id goneoffthe

psychicedge.I couldn’t tellup from down, I wasjust falling and late in

25

https://silence.In

https://pants.In

– –

t 8 0 M o D E L T E X T S F o R w R r r E R S

the night Id, lie there watching weird pictr-rresspin rhrough nry l-read.
Getting chased by the Border Patrol- hclicoptersand searchlighcs
and barking dogs IA be crashing through rhe woods,I d be down on –

rny hands and knees peopleshoutinsour my name rhe law clos-
ing in on all sides my hornetown draft board and the FBI and the-

Royal Canadian Mounted Police. it all seemed t^zy and irnpossible.
Twenty-oneyearsold, an ordinary kid with all the ordinary dreamsand
ambitions, an.1 all I wanted was to live the life I was borr-r ro a main–

streamlfe- I loved baseball and harnburgcrs and cherry Cokes and-

now I wasoffon the margins of exile,leaving my counrry forever,and it
seemedso impossibleand terrible and sad.

Iin not surehow I rnade it rhrough those six days. Mosr of ir I can’c
remember,On two or three afternoons, to passsome time, I helped
Elroy get the place ready for winter, sweepingdown the cabins and
hauling in rhe boats, lirrle chores rhar kepr my body moving. The days
were cool and bright. The nights were very dark, One morning rhe old
man showed rne how to splic and stack firewoocl, and for several hours
wejust workedin silence or,rrbehind his house. Ar one poinc,I remcrn-
ber,Elroy put down his maul and looked at rne for a long rime, his lips
drawn as if framing a difficult question, br-rt rhen he shook his head
and wenc back to work. Thc rnans sel{-control was antazing. He never
pried. He neverput me in a position that required lies or denials.To
an extent,I suppose,his rericence was rypical of thar part of Minne-
soca, where privacy sdll held value, and evenif I cl bee n walking around
with some horrible defbrmity – four arms and three heac{s l’11 s111s-

the old man would’ve talkedabout everything except those exrra arms
and heads. Simple politenesswas parr c-rf it. Bur even rrrore rhan that, I
think, the man understood that words wefe insufficient. The problem
had gone beyond discussion. Dtrring that long sun-unerI d been over
and over the various argumenrs,all rhe pros and cons,and ir was no
longer a questionthat could be decided by an act of pure reason. Intel-
lect had come up against emotion. My consciencetold rne ro run, bur
someirrational and powerful forcewas resistine like a weighr pr-rshing
me toward the war. What it came down to, srupidly,was a sense of
sharne. Hot, scupicl sharne. I did nor wanr peoplero rhink badly of me.
Not rny parents,not my brother and sister, not even rhe folks .lown ar
the Gobbler Cafe.I was ashamed to be rhere at ttre Tip Top Lodge. I
was asharned of my conscience,as[amed ro be doing the righr thing.

O ‘ B r i e n o O n t h e R a i n y R i v e r 1 8 1

Sorneof this Elroy must’ve understood. Not the details,of course,
but the plain fact of crisis.

Although the old man never confronted me abouc it, there was one

occasion when he came closeto forcing the whole thing out into the

open.It was early evening, and wedjust finished supper, and over coffee

and dessert I asked hirn aboucrny bill, how much I owed so far. For a

long while the old man squinted down at the tablecloth.
“We11,chebasic rate’,’ he said,”is fifty bucks a night. Not counting

rneals.This rnakes four nighrs,righti”

I nodded. I had three hundred and twelve dollars in my wallet.
Elroy kept his eyeson the tablecloth.”Now that’s an on-season price.

To be fair,I suppose we should knock it down apegor twol’He leaned

back in his chair.”What’s a reasonablenumber,you figurei”
“I dont knowj’I said.”Forty?”
“Forty’sgood. Forry a night. Tl-ren we tack on food say another 3 5-

hundredi Two hundred sixry cotali”
“I guessl’
He raised his eyebrows.”Too muchi”
“No, thar’sfair. Its fine. Tomorrow, rhough . . . I rhink Id betrer take

offtomorrow.”
Elroy shrugged and began clearing rhe table. For a time he fussed

with the dishes, whistiing to himself as if the subject had been settled.

After a second he slapped his hands together.
“You know what we forgoti” he said. “We forgot wages. Those odd 4 0

jobs you done. What we have to do, we have to figure out what your
time’s worth. Your last job – how much did you pull in an houri”

“No[ enough,” I said.
‘A

bad one?”
“Yes.Pretty badi’

Slowly then, without intending any long sermon, I told him about

my days at the pig plant. It began as a straight recitation of the facts,

but before I could stop myself I was talking about the blood clots and

the water gun and how the smell had soaked into my skin and how I

couldn’twash it away.I went on for a long rime. I told hirn about wild

hogs squealing in my dreams, the sounds of butchery, slaughterhouse

sounds,and how Id sometimeswake up with that greasypig-scinkin

my throat.
When I was finished, Elroy nodded at me.

I 8 2 M o D E L T E X T S F o R w R I T E R S

“we11,ro be honesri’ he said,
“when you firsC showed up here, I

aroma, I mean. Smelled like you waswondered about all chat. fhe

awful {amned fond of pork chopsi’ The old man almost smiled. He

mad”ea snuflling sound, then sar down wirh a pencil and a piece of

paper.”Sowhard rhis crudjob pay?Ten bucks an hour?Fifreeni”

” L e s s i ‘

Elroy sl-rookhis head.”Let’s make it fifteen. You pur in twenty–{ive

Thar’s three hundred seventy-fivebucks total wdges.hours 6ere,easy.

we subrracrrhe two hundred sixty for food and lodging,I still owe you

a hundred and 6fteen’

He took four fifties out of his shirt pocket and laid them on the

table.
“Call it eveni’he said’
“Noi’
“Pick it up. Get YourseLfahaircur”

The mon-eylay on the table for the rest of the evening. It was still

rherewhen I went backto my cabin.In the morning, thorrgh,I found an

envelopetackedro my door.Insidewere the four fiftiesand a two-word

FUND’nore rhar said EIr,4ERGENCY

l n e l – l t a n
I

K n e w .

Looking back afrer rwenry years,Isornetimeswonder if the events of

didn’t happen in some other dimension, a placewhereth”t ,,rl-er

your life existsbefore you ve livedir, ancl where it goesafterward.Nonc

real.During nly titne at the Tip Top l.odge I had the of ir everseerned

feelingthat I d slipped out of my own skin, hovering a few feer away

while sornepoor yo-yo with nry name and facetried to make his way

toward a furure he didnt understandand didn’t want. Even now I can

seemyselfasI wasthen.It’slikewatchingan old home movie:I’m young

of it. I don’t smoke or drink. I’mand tan and fir. I’ve got hair -lots

wearingfadedbluejeansand a white polo shirt. I can see rnyself sitting

on Elroy Berdahlsdock neardusk one evening, the sky a bright shim-

mering pink, and I’m finishingup a letrer lo. my Parentschat tells what

to do and why I’m doingit and how sorry I am thar I d neverI’-
“bo,rt

found the courageto talk to thernabout it. I ask them not to be angry’

I rry to explainsomeof my feelings,but there aren’t enoughwords,and

so I just r”y th”r its a thing tharhas to be done.At the end of the letter

we usedto take up in this north country,at aI talk abour the vacations

O ‘ B r i e n . O n t h e R a i n y R i v e r 1 8 3

placecalledWhitefish Lake,and how the scenery here reminds me of

ihor. good times.I tell them I’m fine. I tell them I’11write agairtfrorn

Winnipeq or Montreal or whereverI end up.

On my lasr full day,rhe sixth d:ry,che old man took tne out fishing

on tlre Rainy River.The afiernoon was sunny and cold. A stiff \̂reeze

cameir-rfrom the north, and I rememberhow the little fourteen-foot

boat madesharprocking motions aswe pushedofl from the dock. The

current was fast.All around us,I remember, therewas a vastness to the

world, an unpeopledrawness,just the treesand the sky and the warer

reachingout toward nowhere.The air had the brirle scent of October’

For ten or fifteen minucesElroy held a courseuPstrealn,the river

cl-rop,pyand silver-gray,tl-renhe turned straightnorth and put the engine

on fr-rllrhrotrle.I felt the borv lift benearhme. I rememberthe wind in

my ears,the sound of the old outboardEvinrude.For a time I didn’t pay

arrention to anything,just feelingthe cold sPrayagainstmy face,but

then it occttrred to ffIe that at solnepoint we must ve passedinto Cana-

dian waters,acrossthat dotted line betweentwo differencworlds,and I

remembera sudden cightnessin rny chest as I looked up and warched

the f’arshorecome at me. Tl-riswasnt a daydrearn.It was tangibleand

real.As we came in toward land, Elroy cut the engitre,letting the boat

fishtaillightly about twenty yards off shore.The old man didn’t iook at

me or speak.Bendingdown, he openedup his tacklebox and busied

hirnselfwith a bobber and a piece of wire leader,hurnming to himselfl,

his eyesdown.

It struck lne then that he lnustve plannedit. I’ll neverbe certain,

of course, but I think he tneantto bring me uP againstthe realities,to

guide rneacrossthe river and to take me to the edgeand to stand a kind

of vigil as I chose a life for myself.

I remember staring ar the old man, rhen at my hands, then at

Canada.The shorelinewas densewith brush and tirnber. I could see

tiny red berrieson the bushes.I could seea squirrelup in one of the

birch trees,a big crow looking at me frorn a boulder along the river’

– – and I could seethe delicatelatticeworkThar close rwenry yards

of the leaves,the texture of rhe soil, the browned needlesbeneaththe

pines,the configurationsof geologyand human history.Twenty yards’

I could’vedone it. I could’ve jurnped and startedswitnming for my life’

Inside me,in my chest, i felt a terrible squeezingPressure.Evennow, as

1 8 5
1 8 4 M O D E L T E X T S F O R W R I T E R S

I write this, I can scill feel that tightness. And I want you to feel ic – the

wind coming off the river,the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier.

You’reat the bow of a boat on the Rainy fuver.You’retwenty-one years

old, you’re scared, and there’sa hard squeezingPressurein your chest.

What would you do?

Would you jumpi Would you feel pity for yourselfi Would you

rhink about your farnily and your childhood and your dreams and all

you re leavir-rg behindi Would it hurt? Would it feel like dyingi Would

you cry, as I did?

I tried to swallowit back.I tried to smile, excePtI wascrying.

Now perl-raps,you can understand why I’ve never told this story

before.It’s not just the embarrassffIentof tears.That’s part of it, no

doubt, but what embarrasses lne rnuch rrore, and always will, is the

paralysisthat took rny l-reart. A moral freeze:I couldn’t decide,I couldn’t

act,I couldn’tcorxportrnyself with evena Pretenseof modest human

dignity.
A11I could do was cry.Quietly,not bawling, just the chest-chokes.

6 5 At the rear of tl-re boar Elroy Berdahl pretended not to notice.He

held a fishingrod in his hands, his head bowed to hide his eyes. He

kept l-rumminga soft, monotonous little tune. Everywhere, it seemed,

in the trees and water and sky,a greatworldwide sadnesscamepressing

down on me, a crushing sorrow,sorrow like I had never known it before.

And what was so sad, I reahzed,was that Canada had become a pidful

fantasy. Silly and hopeless.It was no longer a possibiliry. Right then,

with the shore so close, I understoodthat I would not do what I should

do.I would not swim away frorn rny hometown and my country and my

life. I would not be brave. That old imageof rnyself as a hero, as a man

of conscienceand courage, all that wasjust a threadbarepipe dream’

Bobbingthereon the Rainy River,looking back at the Minnesota shore,

I felt a suddenswell of helplessnesscomeovcr mc, a drowning sensation,

as if I had toppled overboard and was being swePt away by the silver

waves.Chunks of my own history {lashedby. I saw a seven-year-old boy

in a white cowboyhat and a Lone Ranger mask and a pair of holstered

six-shooters;I saw a twelve’year’oldLittle League shortstop pivoting

to turn a double play; I saw a six[een-year-oldkid decked out for his

first prom, looking.pifry in a white tux and a black bow tie, his hair cut

shorr and flat, his shoes freshlypolished.My whole life seemedto spill

out into the river, swirling away fr0in me, everything I had ever been

O ‘ B r i e n * O n t h e l { a i n Y R i v e r

or everwanted to be. I couldn’t ger my breath; I couldnt stay afloat;
I

couldnt tell which way to swim.A hallucination,I suppose,but it was

as real as anyrhing i would ever feel.I saw my Parentscalling to
1xe

I saw rny brother and sister,all the townsfolk’from rhe faruhorii.,”.

the rnayorand the entire Chamber of Commerce anclall n-ryold teach-

.r, girlfriendsand high schoolbuddies.Like someweird sPorting
“.,i –

evenr:.ri.rybody ,.r”arrrir-rgfrotn the sidelines,rooting me on a loud
– stadium smells,stadiurn heat’stadium roar. Hotdogs and PoPcorn

A squad of cheerle”d”r, did carrwheelsalong the banks of the Rainy

R.iver;they had megaphonesand pompoms and smooth brown thighs.

The crowd swayedl”i, righr. A marching band playedfight songs.

All my aunrsand uncles
“trd

were there,and Abraharn Lincoln, and Saint

George,and a nine,year-oldgirl namedLinda who had cliedof a brain

,tl-o-l. back in fifth grade,and severalmemberspf the United States

Senate,and a blind plet scribblingnores,and LBJ,and Huck Finn, and

rhe deadsoldiersback from the grave, and theAbbie Hoffman, ar”,J

many rhousandswho
“il
were later to die – villagerswith terrible burns’

– Yes,and tl-reJointChiefs of Staffwerelittle kids withour arms or legs

there,ancla couple of popes, and a 6rst lieutenantnanledJimrny Cross,

and rhe lastsurvivi,’,gu.t”r”n of the AmericanCivil War, andJaneFonda

dressedup as Barbarella,and an old man sprawledbesidea pigpen,
and

rny grandfather,and Gary Cooper,and a kind-facedwoman cxrying

and a rnillion ferociousciti-.r*br”lla and a copy of Plato’sRepublic,
“., – peoplein hard hats,peoplezenswavingflagsof shapesand colors

– they
“ll

were all wl-roopingand chanting end urging mein headbands

toward one shore or the otl-rer.I saw facesfrom rny c-listantpast and

distanr future. My wife was rhere.My unborn daughterwavedaf
me,

and my rwo sons hopped up and down, and a drill sergeantnamed

Blyton sneeredand shot up a frngerand shook his l-read.There was a

choir in brighr purple robes.There was a cabbiefrom the Bronx.There

was a slim young man I would one day kill with a hand grenade along
a

red claytrail outsidethe villageof My Khe’

The litrle aluminum boat rocked softly beneathme. There was the

wind and the sky.

I tried to will mYselfoverboard.

I gripped rhe edge of rhe boat and leaned forward and thought,

Now.
I did try. It just wasn’tPossible.

t* r*r ‘

1 8 6 M o D E L T E X T S F o R w R r r E R S

70 A11 those eyes on me – the rown, the whole universe- and I
couldn’c risk che embarrassment.ft was as if therewere an audiencero
my Iife, that swirl of faces along rhe river,and in my head I could hear
peoplescrearringat me.Traitor! they yelled.Turncoar! Pussy!I felt
myself blush. I couldn’t rolerare it. I couldn’r endure the mockery, or
the disgrace, or the parrioricridicule. Even in my imagination, the shore
just twenry yards away,Icouldn’r make myself be brave. Ir had norhing
to do with n-rorality.Embarrassmenr,thar’sall ir was.

And right chen I submitred.
– –

embarrassednot ro.
That was the sad thing. And so I sar in rhe bow of rhe boat and

cried.
It was loud now. Loud, hard crying.

7 5 Elroy Berdahl remai’ed quier. He kepr fishing. He worked his line
with rhe tips of his fingers , pariently,squinring our ar his red and whice
bobber on rhe Rainy River. His eyeswere flat and irnpassive. He didn’t
speak. He was sirnply rhere, like rhe river and the late-sLrmlnersun.
And yet by his presence,his mure warchfulness,he made ir real. He
wasthe true audience.He was a wirness,likeGod, or like the gods,who
look on in absolutesilenceas we live our lives,as we make our choices
or fail to rnake thern.

I would go ro the war I would kill and maybedie becauseI w:rs

‘Ain’c
bitingi’ he said.

Then afrcra time the old rnan pr-rlled in his line and turned rhe boat
back toward Minnesota.

I don’t remember saying goodbye. Thar lasr nighr we had .linner
together,and I went to bed early,and in rhe morning Elroy fixed break-
fasc for rne.When I rold him Id be leaving,rhe old rnan nodded as if he
alreadyknew.He looked down at the table and smiled.

At some point later in the morning ir’s possible thar we shook
h a n d s – I j u s t d o n ‘ t r e m e m b e r – b u r I d o k n o w r h a t b y r h e t i m e I d
finished packing the oid man had disappeared.Around noon, whe’ I
took my suircase our ro rhe car, I noticed rhar his old black pickup truck
wasno longerparked in front of the house.I went inside and wairedfor
a while, bur I fek a bone cerr.ainry thar he wouldn’r be back. In a way, I
thought, it was appropriate. I washed up rhe breakfasr dishes,lefr his

O ‘ B r i e n * O n r h e R : r i r . r yR i v e r l B 7

two hundred dollarson the kitchen counter,got into the car,and drove

south toward home.

The day was cloudy.I passedthrough towns with familiar names, 8 0

and rhen to Vietnam’tlrrough the pine forestsand down to the Pralrre,
wlrere I was a soldier,and then home again,I survived,but it’s not a

hrppy ending.I was a coward. I went to the war’

https://R:rir.ry

Soap and Water by Anzia Yezierska

WHAT I so greatly feared, happened! Miss Whiteside, the dean of our college, withheld my diploma. When I came to her office, and asked her why she did not pass me, she said that she could not recommend me as a teacher because of my personal appearance.

She told me that my skin looked oily, my hair unkempt, and my finger-nails sadly neglected. She told me that I was utterly unmindful of the little niceties of the well-groomed lady. She pointed out that my collar did not set evenly; my belt was awry, and there was a lack of freshness in my dress. And she ended with: “Soap and water are cheap. Any one can be clean.”

In those four years while I was under her supervision, I was always timid and diffident. I shrank and trembled when I had to come near her. When I had to say something to her, I mumbled and stuttered, and grew red and white in the face with fear.

Every time I had to come to the dean’s office for a private conference, I prepared for the ordeal of her cold scrutiny, as a patient prepares for a surgical operation. I watched her gimlet eyes searching for a stray pin, for a spot on my dress, for my unpolished shoes, for my uncared-for finger-nails, as one strapped on the operating table watches the surgeon approaching with his tray of sterilized knives.

She never looked into my eyes. She never perceived that I had a soul. She did not see how I longed for beauty and cleanliness. How I strained and struggled to lift myself from the dead toil and exhaustion that weighed me down. She could see nothing in people like me, except the dirt and the stains on the outside.

But this last time when she threatened to withhold my diploma, because of my appearance, this last time when she reminded me that “Soap and water are cheap. Any one can be clean,” this last time, something burst within me.

I felt the suppressed wrath of all the unwashed of the earth break loose within me. My eyes blazed fire. I didn’t care for myself, nor the dean, nor the whole laundered world. I had suffered the cruelty of their cleanliness and the tyranny of their culture to the breaking point. I was too frenzied to know what I said or did. But I saw clean, immaculate, spotless Miss Whiteside shrivel and tremble and cower before me, as I had shriveled and trembled and cowered before her for so many years.

Why did she give me my diploma? Was it pity? Or can it be that in my outburst of fury, at the climax of indignities that I had suffered, the barriers broke, and she saw into the world below from where I came?

Miss Whiteside had no particular reason for hounding and persecuting me. Personally, she didn’t give a hang if I was clean or dirty. She was merely one of the agents of clean society, delegated to judge who is fit and who is unfit to teach.

While they condemned me as unfit to be a teacher, because of my appearance, I was slaving to keep them clean. I was slaving in a laundry from five to eight in the morning, before going to college, and from six to eleven at night, after coming from college. Eight hours of work a day, outside my studies. Where was the time and the strength for the “little niceties of the well-groomed lady”?

At the time when they rose and took their morning bath, and put on their fresh-laundered linen that somebody had made ready for them, when they were being served with their breakfast, I had already toiled for three hours in a laundry.

When college hours were over, they went for a walk in the fresh air. They had time to rest, and bathe again, and put on fresh clothes for dinner. But I, after college hours, had only time to bolt a soggy meal, and rush back to the grind of the laundry till eleven at night.

At the hour when they came from the theater or musicale, I came from the laundry. But I was so bathed in the sweat of exhaustion that I could not think of a bath of soap and water. I had only strength to drag myself home, and fall down on the bed and sleep. Even if I had had the desire and the energy to take a bath, there were no such things as bathtubs in the house where I lived.

Often as I stood at my board at the laundry, I thought of Miss Whiteside, and her clean world, clothed in the snowy shirt-waists I had ironed. I was thinking– I, soaking in the foul vapors of the steaming laundry, I, with my dirty, tired hands, I am ironing the clean, immaculate shirt-waists of clean, immaculate society. I, the unclean one, am actually fashioning the pedestal of their cleanliness, from which they reach down, hoping to lift me to the height that I have created for them.

I look back at my sweatshop childhood. One day, when I was about sixteen, some one gave me Rosenfeld’s poem, “The Machine,” to read. Like a spark thrown among oily rags, it set my whole being aflame with longing for self-expression. But I was dumb. I had nothing but blind, aching feeling. For days I went about with agonies of feeling, yet utterly at sea how to fathom and voice those feelings–birth-throes of infinite worlds, and yet dumb.

Suddenly, there came upon me this inspiration. I can go to college! There I shall learn to express myself, to voice my thoughts. But I was not prepared to go to college. The girl in the cigar factory, in the next block, had gone first to a preparatory school. Why shouldn’t I find a way, too?

Going to college seemed as impossible for me, at that time, as for an ignorant Russian shop-girl to attempt to write poetry in English. But I was sixteen then, and the impossible was a magnet to draw the dreams that had no outlet. Besides, the actual was so barren, so narrow, so strangling, that the dream of the unattainable was the only air in which the soul could survive.

The ideal of going to college was like the birth of a new religion in my soul. It put new fire in my eyes, and new strength in my tired arms and fingers. For six years I worked daytimes and went at night to a preparatory school.

For six years I went about nursing the illusion that college was a place where I should find self-expression, and vague, pent-up feelings could live as thoughts and grow as ideas.

At last I came to college. I rushed for it with the outstretched arms of youth’s aching hunger to give and take of life’s deepest and highest, and I came against the solid wall of the well-fed, well-dressed world– the frigid whitewashed wall of cleanliness.

Until I came to college I had been unconscious of my clothes. Suddenly I felt people looking at me at arm’s length, as if I were crooked or crippled, as if I had come to a place where I didn’t belong, and would never be taken in.

How I pinched, and scraped, and starved myself, to save enough to come to college! Every cent of the tuition fee I paid was drops of sweat and blood from underpaid laundry work. And what did I get for it? A crushed spirit, a broken heart, a stinging sense of poverty that I never felt before.

The courses of study I had to swallow to get my diploma were utterly barren of interest to me. I didn’t come to college to get dull learning from dead books. I didn’t come for that dry, inanimate stuff that can be hammered out in lectures. I came because I longed for the larger life, for the stimulus of intellectual associations. I came because my whole being clamored for more vision, more light. But everywhere I went I saw big fences put up against me, with the brutal signs: “No trespassing. Get off the grass.”

I experienced at college the same feeling of years ago when I came to this country, when after months of shut-in-ness, in dark tenements and stifling sweatshops, I had come to Central Park for the first time. Like a bird just out from a cage, I stretched out my arms, and then flung myself in ecstatic abandon on the grass. Just as I began to breathe in the fresh-smelling earth, and lift up my eyes to the sky, a big, fat policeman with a club in his hand, seized me, with: “Can’t you read the sign? Get off the grass!” Miss Whiteside, the dean of the college, the representative of the clean, the educated world, for all her external refinement, was to me like that big, brutal policeman, with the club in his hand, that drove me off the grass.

The death-blows to all aspiration began when I graduated from college and tried to get a start at the work for which I had struggled so hard to fit myself. I soon found other agents of clean society, who had the power of giving or withholding the positions I sought, judging me as Miss Whiteside judged me. One glance at my shabby clothes, the desperate anguish that glazed and dulled my eyes and I felt myself condemned by them before I opened my lips to speak.

Starvation forced me to accept the lowest-paid substitute position. And because my wages were so low and so unsteady, I could never get the money for the clothes to make an appearance to secure a position with better pay. I was tricked and foiled. I was considered unfit to get decent pay for my work because of my appearance, and it was to the advantage of those who used me that my appearance should damn me, so as to get me to work for the low wages I was forced to accept. It seemed to me the whole vicious circle of society’s injustices was thrust like a noose around my neck to strangle me.

The insults and injuries I had suffered at college had so eaten into my flesh that I could not bear to get near it. I shuddered with horror whenever I had to pass the place blocks away. The hate which I felt for Miss Whiteside spread like poison inside my soul, into hate for all clean society. The whole clean world was massed against me. Whenever I met a well-dressed person, I felt the secret stab of a hidden enemy.

I was so obsessed and consumed with my grievances that I could not get away from myself and think things out in the light. I was in the grip of that blinding, destructive, terrible thing– righteous indignation. I could not rest. I wanted the whole world to know that the college was against democracy in education, that clothes form the basis of class distinctions, that after graduation the opportunities for the best positions are passed out to those who are best-dressed, and the students too poor to put up a front are pigeon-holed and marked unfit and abandoned to the mercy of the wind.

A wild desire raged in the corner of my brain. I knew that the dean gave dinners to the faculty at regular intervals. I longed to burst in at one of those feasts, in the midst of their grand speech-making, and tear down the fine clothes from these well-groomed ladies and gentlemen, and trample them under my feet, and scream like a lunatic. “Soap and water are cheap! Soap and water are cheap! Look at me! See how cheap it is!”

There seemed but three avenues of escape to the torments of my wasted life, madness, suicide, or a heart-to-heart confession to some one who understood. I had not energy enough for suicide. Besides, in my darkest moments of despair, hope clamored loudest. Oh, I longed so to live, to dream my way up on the heights, above the unreal realities that ground me and dragged me down to earth.

Inside the ruin of my thwarted life, the unlived visionary immigrant hungered and thirsted for America. I had come a refugee from the Russian pogroms, aflame with dreams of America. I did not find America in the sweatshops, much less in the schools and colleges. But for hundreds of years the persecuted races all over the world were nurtured on hopes of America. When a little baby in my mother’s arms, before I was old enough to speak, I saw all around me weary faces light up with thrilling tales of the far-off “golden country.” And so, though my faith in this so-called America was shattered, yet underneath, in the sap and roots of my soul, burned the deathless faith that America is, must be, somehow, somewhere. In the midst of my bitterest hates and rebellions, visions of America rose over me, like songs of freedom of an oppressed people.

My body was worn to the bone from overwork, my footsteps dragged with exhaustion, but my eyes still sought the sky, praying, ceaselessly praying, the dumb, inarticulate prayer of the lost immigrant: “America! Ach, America! Where is America?”

It seemed to me if I could only find some human being to whom I could unburden my heart, I would have new strength to begin again my insatiable search for America.

But to whom could I speak? The people in the laundry? They never understood me. They had a grudge against me because I left them when I tried to work myself up. Could I speak to the college people? What did these icebergs of convention know about the vital things of the heart?

And yet, I remembered, in the freshman year, in one of the courses in chemistry, there was an instructor, a woman, who drew me strangely. I felt she was the only real teacher among all the teachers and professors I met. I didn’t care for the chemistry, but I liked to look at her. She gave me life, air, the unconscious emanation of her beautiful spirit. I had not spoken a word to her, outside the experiments in chemistry, but I knew her more than the people around her who were of her own class. I felt in the throb of her voice, in the subtle shading around the corner of her eyes, the color and texture of her dreams.

Often in the midst of our work in chemistry I felt like crying out to her: “Oh, please be my friend. I’m so lonely.” But something choked me. I couldn’t speak. The very intensity of my longing for her friendship made me run away from her in confusion the minute she approached me. I was so conscious of my shabbiness that I was afraid maybe she was only trying to be kind. I couldn’t bear kindness. I wanted from her love, understanding, or nothing.

About ten years after I left college, as I walked the streets bowed and beaten with the shame of having to go around begging for work, I met Miss Van Ness. She not only recognized me, but stopped to ask how I was, and what I was doing.

I had begun to think that my only comrades in this world were the homeless and abandoned cats and dogs of the street, whom everybody gives another kick, as they slam the door on them. And here was one from the clean world human enough to be friendly. Here was one of the well-dressed, with a look in her eyes and a sound in her voice that was like healing oil over the bruises of my soul. The mere touch of that woman’s hand in mine so overwhelmed me, that I burst out crying in the street.

The next morning I came to Miss Van Ness at her office. In those ten years she had risen to a professor-ship. But I was not in the least intimidated by her high office. I felt as natural in her presence as if she were my own sister. I heard myself telling her the whole story of my life, but I felt that even if I had not said a word she would have understood all I had to say as if I had spoken. It was all so unutterable, to find one from the other side of the world who was so simply and naturally that miraculous thing– a friend. Just as contact with Miss Whiteside had tied and bound all my thinking processes, so Miss Van Ness unbound and freed me and suffused me with light.

I felt the joy of one breathing on the mountaintops for the first time. I looked down at the world below. I was changed and the world was changed. My past was the forgotten night. Sunrise was all around me.

I went out from Miss Van Ness’s office, singing a song of new life: “America! I found America.”