At the end of "the third bank of the river", the most likely reason why the narrator cannot get in the boat is that "He is terrified of repeating his father's actions"
Explanation:
"The third bank of the river" by João Guimarães Rosa is a story which is full of metaphor, where the river is the distant and unreal life the father lives instead of being there for his family in reality, then as the story moves forward and the narrator starts to repeat the path of his father he gets scared of it by foreseen that he would have the same end.
