The Things They Carried, On the Rainy River quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Why does the narrator say he has never told this story before?

   • He promised his parents he would keep that whole summer private
   • Correct answer: He is ashamed of the paralysis he felt, not just of the crying
   • He no longer remembers enough of it to tell it accurately
   • He believes the events happened in some other dimension entirely

   The tears embarrass him, but what shames him far more is the moral freeze that kept him from acting at all.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What is the narrator's job at the meatpacking plant the summer he is drafted?

   • Loading crates of pork products onto the delivery trucks
   • Correct answer: Removing blood clots from hog carcasses with a water gun
   • Inspecting the assembly line for health-code violations
   • Cleaning the killing floor at the end of each night shift

   His job title was Declotter; he used a heavy suspended water gun to blast dense clots from the necks of slaughtered hogs.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What does the narrator say the Rainy River separates?

   • Correct answer: Minnesota from Canada, and one life of his from another
   • His hometown from the meatpacking plant where he worked
   • The Tip Top Lodge from the nearest town with a draft board
   • His memory of that summer from the war he later fought

   He describes the river as the border between Minnesota and Canada, and says that for him it separated one life from another.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How does Elroy Berdahl get money into the narrator's hands?

   • He refuses all payment for the room and the meals outright
   • He wires it to a bank in Winnipeg before the boy leaves
   • Correct answer: He invents wages for odd jobs, then tacks the cash to the door
   • He hides it inside the suitcase the narrator packed at home

   Elroy calculates an inflated hourly wage for a few chores, lays four fifties on the table, and later leaves them tacked to the cabin door in an envelope marked EMERGENCY FUND.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does Elroy do on the narrator's last full day at the lodge?

   • He drives the narrator to the nearest border crossing station
   • He asks the narrator directly whether he has been drafted
   • Correct answer: He takes him fishing and stops the boat near the far shore
   • He packs the narrator's suitcase and sends him home himself

   Elroy motors north on the Rainy River, cuts the engine about twenty yards off the Canadian shore, and then busies himself with his tackle box.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What finally stops the narrator from swimming to the Canadian shore?

   • The current is too fast and the water far too cold to survive
   • Elroy warns him that the Border Patrol is watching the shore
   • He decides the war is justified after thinking it through
   • Correct answer: He cannot bear the imagined ridicule of everyone he knows

   He states plainly that the decision had nothing to do with morality; he could not endure the mockery and patriotic ridicule he imagined.

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7. 7

   Question 7. How does the narrator finally characterize his decision to report for the war?

   • As a hard-won victory over his own selfish fear of dying
   • Correct answer: As an act of cowardice he has never stopped regretting
   • As a debt he owed the friends already serving in Vietnam
   • As a choice his parents effectively made on his behalf

   The chapter closes with the narrator calling himself a coward for going to the war, treating his survival as a failure rather than a happy ending.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What is the purpose of the crowd the narrator hallucinates along the riverbank?

   • It shows he was suffering a fever brought on by exhaustion
   • It reveals his family drove north to talk him out of leaving
   • Correct answer: It externalizes the audience whose judgment actually decides him
   • It proves the whole episode was invented years after the fact

   The riverbank crowd of relatives, townspeople and historical figures makes visible the social pressure that overrides his conscience.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events actually occur in this chapter?

   • The narrator walks off the meatpacking line and drives north toward the border.

     Happened

   • Elroy Berdahl asks the narrator outright why he has come to the lodge.

     Didn't happen

   • Elroy leaves cash tacked to the cabin door in an envelope marked EMERGENCY FUND.

     Happened

   • The narrator swims to the Canadian shore and settles for a year in Winnipeg.

     Didn't happen

   • Elroy takes the narrator fishing and stops the boat near the Canadian shore.

     Happened

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10. 10

    Question 10. Which of these details are true of the narrator's summer of 1968?

    • His draft notice arrives about a month after he graduates from college.

      Happened

    • He spends the summer removing blood clots from slaughtered hogs.

      Happened

    • He burns his draft card at a protest in his hometown.

      Didn't happen

    • Elroy beats him at the Scrabble board while barely concentrating.

      Happened

    • He telephones his parents from the lodge to explain what he plans to do.

      Didn't happen

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does "censure" mean as used in "I feared ridicule and censure"?

    • A formal permission granted by a court of law
    • An expression of sympathy for someone in trouble
    • Correct answer: Severe public disapproval or open condemnation
    • A period of enforced service in the military

    Censure is harsh public disapproval, and the narrator fears being condemned by his hometown as much as he fears the law itself.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does "cryptic" mean as used in "compressing large thoughts into small, cryptic packets of language"?

    • Correct answer: Deliberately brief and puzzling in its meaning
    • Loud, forceful and impossible to ignore for long
    • Warm and openly affectionate toward other people
    • Repetitive and rather tiresome to listen to

    Cryptic describes speech that is short and hard to interpret, which fits an old man who says very little and packs a great deal into each remark.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does "comport" mean as used in "I couldn't comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity"?

    • To complain loudly about an unfair situation
    • Correct answer: To conduct or carry oneself in a certain way
    • To compare two options carefully before deciding
    • To surrender a weapon to a superior officer

    To comport oneself is to behave or carry oneself, and the narrator says his moral freeze left him unable to act with any dignity at all.

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