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Narrative about a war
Literary techniques used in telling a true war story
Literary techniques used in telling a true war story
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The war in Vietnam is without a doubt an outlier in comparison to every other U.S. war, specifically as the only war that the U.S. has ever lost. Losing the war may have been a direct result of a draft that placed young men in Vietnam, many of whom had absolutely no personal goals other than survival. This sets the scene for Going After Cacciato and its main character Paul Berlin. The book is told in the form of three stories. Sixteen chapters are a narrative of the real war, focusing on the deaths of the men in Berlin’s squadron, another ten chapters depict a single full night when Berlin decides to take the whole watch rather than wake up one of his companions, and the other twenty chapters center on the squad’s imaginative journey to Paris chasing Cacciato. Berlin spends essentially the entire novel trying to come up with his own stories, one a true recollection of what actually happened and another, the fictional account he can tell when he returns home. The book is metafictional; it explores the process of writing a war story (Calloway 188). In Going After Cacciato Tim O'Brien utilizes metafiction to examine the confusion of war. O’Brien’s narrative structure demonstrates the confusion of war. In no particular sequence, he explores three separate narratives, but only two of these narratives happen according to a logical progression. The observation post narrative starts with Berlin at the beginning of his night shift and proceeds to the morning. The Cacciato chapters similarly follow a chronological order, common in most fictional novels; however, the chapters which document Berlin’s real war memories intentionally follow no order, only separately cataloging his fallen comrades. Jack Slay describes these chapters as “a litan... ... middle of paper ... ...ar Story': Metafiction in The Things They Carried." Critique 36, No. 4 Summer 1996: 249-57. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 211. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 187-91. Literature Criticism Online. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. Farrell, Susan. Critical Companion to Tim O'Brien. New York: InfoBase, 2011. Print. Freeman, Charlotte M. "Critical Essay on Going After Cacciato." Novels for Students. Vol. 37. Detroit: Gale, 2011. 188-92. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 Apr. 2014. Herzog, Tobey C. Tim O'Brien. New York: Twayne, 1997. Print. O'Brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato. New York: Dell, 1978. Print. Slay, Jack, Jr. "A Rumor of War: Another look at the Observation Post in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato." Critique 41, No. 1 Fall 1999: n. pag. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 211. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 193-96. Literature Criticism Online. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Going After Cacciato, an epic novel written by Tim O’Brien, is about a platoon of men going away without leave (AWOL) searching for a young man named Cacciato in the imagination of a man of the platoon named Paul Berlin. In Going After Cacciato the “tea party,” between the AWOL platoon and Li Van Hgoc contributes greatly to the novel by adding to the confusion and teaching the reader how to deal with the war and the ’noise.’
The years 1961 to 1972 saw the American involvement in Vietnam. For a little over ten years, America sent its sons off to fight for an unknown cause in a country they knew little about. When the United States finally pulled out of Southeast Asia, many were left scratching their heads. Over 58,000 young men died without really knowing why. Although it is a work of fiction, Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato expresses the views of those who spent their lives in the jungles of Vietnam.
As the war progresses, Caputo requests to go to a line company in the middle of November. This is a change from the “office” position he currently held where he was largely responsible for counting casualties. At this point, the romanticized visions Caputo had of war have been completely shattered and he goes into this transfer being fully aware of this. This change in viewpoint becomes even more clear when compared to the beginning of the novel where Caputo was intrigued by the romance and action of war. While readers would expect more action and typical war stories in this section of the book, Philip Caputo writes anything but. Caputo writes, “It went like that for the rest of the month. It was a time of little action and endless misery…Almost every hour of every night, the radio operators chanted, ‘All secure. Situation remains the same’ (1996: 240). Caputo repeats the phrase “All secure. Situation remains the same” five times throughout this single paragraph. Because of this, readers see the dull and mundane side of war that is often not talked about. In addition, Caputo continues to comment of the large amounts of waiting throughout the autobiography. When most think of the Vietnam War, they picture the “main events”. Similar to the numerous documentaries we watched in class, some of the main points of the war include: The first Indochina War, The Gulf of Tonkin, and the Tet Offensive. These documentaries all focused on these monumental events and because of this, the public perceives this war as the sum of these events. However, what many fail to consider the large gaps in time between these events. It is in these large gaps that little action occurred and most of the soldier’s time was spent waiting as Caputo depicted in this scene. In connection with
The Hardships Facing Vietnam War Soldiers in Tim O'Brien’s Going after Cacciato and In the Lake of the Woods
...r because it seems impossible to reconstruct an event from this objective point of view. Maybe the point of telling stories is not trying to recreate the reality of a past event, but it is the message that matters because that might be in the end the only thing that does not necessarily depend on single details of the story, but on the overall picture of an event. That is why to O’Brien another important component of a war story is the fact that a war story will never pin down the definite truth and that is why a true war story “never seems to end” (O’Brien, 425). O’Brien moves the reader from the short and simple statement “This is the truth” to the conclusion that, “In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself and therefore it’s safe to say that in a true war story nohting much is ever very true” (O’Brien, 428). These two statements frame the entire irony of the story, from its beginning to its end. Almost like the popular saying “A wise man admits that he knows nothing.”
Through these comments, he modestly provides hints to his desired interpretation of the novel. There are many sections such as “How to Tell a True War Story” where O’Brien breaks the fourth wall, comments on the truthfulness of his stories, and whether or not the truth is relevant to his message. He states, “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen… the angles of vision are skewed” (O’Brien, 71). His input here suggests that there may not be one whole truth to any story, especially a true one, because one man’s truth may not be another’s. Stories are built by many perspectives, and the result is that storytellers have a “tendency to stop now and then, interrupting the flow, inserting little clarifications or bits of analysis and personal opinion. It [is] a bad habit… because all that matters is raw material, the stuff itself, and you can’t clutter it up with your own half-baked commentary” (O’Brien,
Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
O'Brien's choice of character to reflect the novel's major themes was decided by his personal experiences of the war. As a war veteran, during the war there were times when he was strong, times when he was weak, and after the war a time when he was confused. But by writing this novel, O'Brien is able to let out his thoughts, allowing him to objectify his experiences andseparate it from himself. He identifies the major thematic events in his life with various characters in his novel and uses them to discover himself. By including these small introductions in the first chapter, O'Brien provides a road map to the novel which provides blueprints to his life.
Vannatta, Dennis. "Theme and Structure in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato." Modern Fiction Studies 28.2 (Summer 1982): 242-246.
" The Southern Literary Journal 17.2 (Spring 1985): 54-66. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol.
O’Brien’s unique verisimilitude writing style fills the novel with deep meaning and emotion. Analyzing the novel through a psychological lens only adds to its allure. Understanding why characters act the way they do helps bring this novel to life. The reader begins to empathize with the characters. Every day, the soldiers’ lives hang in the balance. How these soldiers react to life-threatening situations will inspire the reader. Life has an expiration date. Reading about people who are held captive by their minds and who die in the name of war, will inspire the reader to live everyday as if they are currently in the
For much time the gruesome, jaw-dropping nature of war stories has lead readers to question their truth. This is particularly true in the emotional anecdotes told about the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, is one of the first to address the idea of truth in his novel itself. Since O’Brien never confirms whether the factuality of his tales, many readers question whether the stories he weaves are actually true. O’Brien does not want for his audience to read so deeply into the facts and figures. To him it should not matter whether his tales truly happened. O’Brien’s greater purpose in writing of Vietnam is to share the stories he physically could not tell in a way that saves himself and society. He aims to use writing as self-release while also warning his audience of the horrors of war.
" Studies in Short Fiction 33.2 (Spring 1996): 171-184. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano.