Rainy River

The scene starts with O'Brien in the boat with Elroy. He is calm and relaxed. Eventually he opens his eyes and realizes he is at the Canadian border. Immediately there is a tightness in his chest. With this trigger he is pulled back into reality. He writes, "... I think he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself." This sentence takes a on a fluid movement as if to guide the reader up the river. Then he brings you near the bank by describing the intricate landscape in front of him. Once the reader has reached the point where he is standing in the boat he is able to latch onto their emotions and help them to feel the way he does. "You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in yoru chest what would you do?" A paragraph full of would you questions follows. It feels like the questions were asked rapidly so that the reader would not have time to respond to them but instead the questions would pile up on top of each other and create a sense of heaviness upon their mind. This heaviness then weighs through the rest of the chapter and helps the reader to better feel the emotions that O'Brien feels on the river.