Between Exile and War
...o flee. O'Brien begins to foreshadow the war with himself in it when he begins working in an Amour meatpacking plant. One may think that his summer job served as a contribution to his decision to flee to Canada. His job requires him to remove blood clots from dead pigs with an eighty pound water gun. O'Brien describes the smell he can not shake off. "The stink was always there, a pig stink that soaked deep into my skin" His unpleasant job and the stink that came with it foretold what was to come for him if he went to war. O'Brien then becomes drowned in self-pity. Spending most of his days alone, he floods his thoughts of war, his blood filled job at the factory, and what seems to be the end of his life. "My life seemed to be collapsing towards slaughter" (43) O'Brien felt that there was no way out at least "no happy way out" (43) and his options began to dim. He could not use his education as an excuse since the government had stopped graduate school deferments and the National Guard and Reserves had a long waiting list. As O'Brien imagined his dead body and killing another human being it causes him to contemplate running away to Canada. "Run, I'd think. Then I'd think, Impossible. Then a second later I'd think run again" (44) O'Brien also fears exile, the loss respect of his parents and ridicule almost as much as he fears teh war. He must then decide which one he fears most. All of these events, one would believe led to the morning that O'Brien snaps and makes his way towards the Canadian border. Driving on adrenaline, O'Brien reaches no happy decision and stops along the Rain River separating the two lives he would have to choose from, exile or war. The sagging roof top of the Tip Top Lodge leaning towards Canada almost convinces him to turn back; This was a sign telling O'Brien that this was the wrong way to go. He is greeted by the eighty year old who runs the lodge, Elroy Berdahl. A character that would play an important role in O'Brien's final decision. It is Elroy's silence and self control over questions he might have had for O'Brien that helped him to make his decision. When Elroy decided to pay O'Brien for his work around the cabin one will realize he was again trying to push him towards a decision. The envelope of money Elroy lables "Emergency fund" (54) not only tells the reader Elroy knows of O'Brien's situation, but that he will amke it that much easier to escape, all he would have to do is make a choice. On O'Brien's last day Elroy and he go fishing on the Rainy River. Elroy drives out into Canadian waters stopping just twenty yards short of the Canadian shore. With the border Elroy had laid before O'Brien, he would now make his choice. As O'Brien's life f...