In Tim Robbin's story Going After Cacciato, the main character, Paul Berlin, seeks to tell a story in which he and the gang attempt to catch the runaway soldier Cacciato, while at the same time trying to flee from the harsh environment of the Vietnam War, to Paris. Their journey eventually leads Paul Berlin to Iran where the crew of Paul Berlin, the Lieutenant, Doc Peret, Sarkin Aung Wan, and Stink Harris to name a few become stuck at the border of the country with absolutely no way of getting in because they seem to not have any passports. Captain Rhallon, who commands the Savaks takes it upon himself to question the group, consisting of Paul Berlin, the Lt, and Doc Peret. As the three are being interrogated, all seem to become engaged in the conversation as to what the true purpose of a soldier is. This scenario brings us to our main point, In Going After Cacciato there consist a number of arguments about purpose, the purpose of the soldier, of war, fear and self respect, and in the end, purpose in relation to where you are and what you are doing, it is a subject that consumes the entire story; with that said, Paul Berlin uses the Going After Cacciato storyline in order to directly relate his ideas of purpose to his own experiences and meaning of purpose within his reality of the Vietnam War.
Purpose is more often than not a necessity that is required to accomplish most anything. The dictionary defines purpose as “the reason for which something exists or is done, made, or used” (Dic-tionary.com) . On that note, the purpose of war and the soldier are both touchy subjects for many
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people because it brings about a lot of emotion, considering that many people think we go to war for either the right or wrong re...
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... evidence given that the Going After Cacciato storyline directly correlates with Paul Berlin’s reality, and that not only was the Going After Cacciato story a complete fantasy, but it helped the reader to take a deeper look into the character of Paul Berlin. The Going After Cacciato storyline within the novel describes Berlin in such a way that it goes beyond the surface of the character. The storyline serves to reveal Paul Berlin’s ideas and thoughts on issues
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that occur throughout the novel, not just in the fantasy storyline itself. The insightful look into Paul Berlin’s dreams allows us, the reader, to see what Berlin Is really thinking and how he operates outside of the fantasy storyline. Without the Going After Cacciato element to Tim O’Brien’s novel I don’t think we would ever be able to properly dissect the complex character of Paul Berlin.
In keeping with the atmosphere of her story, the book is written almost as though her two main characters are keeping journals. The stories of Bishop Latour and Father Vaillant, who have adopted this rugged lifestyle, are told in little vignettes separated by chapters. Each vignette narrates a meaningful incident in their lives. I find it interesting that each chapter, or vignette, can stand on its own as an independent short story, yet it is woven together to create a tapestry of the Father's lives, with the people they meet and places they go tying it all together. Cather put it best when, in the book, she says, "Observing them thus in repose, in the act of reflection, Father Latour was thinking how each of these men not only had a story, but seemed to have become his story" (182).
In the first chapter of the book, the relationship between the story and its title is quickly made. As the character who encites the chase, Cacciato embarks on the seemingly ludicrous journey to Paris. A voyage of eighty six hundred miles on foot is not one to be taken lightly. To get an idea of the distance that Cacciato is planning to transverse, imagine walking across the United States four times bringing only what one can carry. Paul Berlin, to whom Cacciato has divulged his travel plans, and his unit begin on a mission to retrieve Cacciato. Told from Berlin's viewpoint, the story is revealed from the experiences of a person who questions his own purpose in the war. The soldiers are literally walking away from the war as they follow Cacciato through the jungles of Vietnam. Paul's journey with the others is occasionally broken up by sudden lapses into the past. Such unexpected transitions have positive and negative affects on the reader. The latter result is immediate; the quick topic changes add an element of confusion as to what exactly is happening in the novel. However, the divisions also attribute to increased interest during these flashbacks as they break up the monotony of the mar...
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.
“The Things They Carry”, is narrated through the consciousness of Lt. Jimmy Cross and his reaction to a number of factors. These factors include the conditions and situations the war brings along. It switches off into other character’s conscience providing this observa...
The Civil War, World War I, the Vietnam War, World War II, and the conflict in the Middle East are all wars that have been fought over the difference of opinions, yet come at the cost of the soldier 's fighting them; Humans killing other humans, and death is just one of the many emotional scars soldiers of war face. Why do we go to war when this is the cost? For many it is because they are unaware of the psychological cost of war, they are only aware of the monetary cost or the personal gains they get from war. Tim O 'Brien addresses the true cost of war in "The Things They Carried". O 'Brien suggests that psychological trauma caused by war warps the perception of life in young Americans drafted into the Vietnam War. He does this through Lieutenant
War is never a happy subject. Although sometimes it is for a good cause, lives are lost, innocent people are in danger, and it affects more people than expected. War involves everyone from the soldiers on the ground, to the families watching the news about it at home. Wherever someone is, they are going to have their own view of war. No opinion will be exactly the same. The way a person views and expresses the war depends on how they come in contact with it.
Iraq. As a nation we are able to watch a war unfold before us in a way
The story has two main threads. The first is the true story of Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman's experiences as a young Jewish man during the horrors leading up to and including his confinement in Auschwitz. The second intertwining story is about Vladek as an old man, recounting his history to his son Art, the author of the book, and the complicated relationship between the two of them. It's a difficult process for both father and son, as Vladek tries to make sense of his twighlight years, indelibly marked by his experiences and a slave to the processes he had to resort to in order to make it through. On this level, it's also about Art, as he comes to terms with what his father went through, while still finding the more irritating aspects of his father's personality difficult to live with.
also the story that is implied by the author’s emotions and implications. One of the main
History is full of people fighting against one another and going to war for all types of different reasons. For the most part countries go to war to either protect their way of life, or for a better way of living. We want to preserve certain aspects of life like our rights, as well as helping others gain or maintain them, we also want to be able to prosper as a country. When one or some of these things are threatened a country will go to war. Some wars that fallow this trend include the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War. Besides protecting or bettering life, war can also make or break a countries economy.
The narrative of Paul Berlin’s made up scenario represents his struggle with following Cacciato or staying to do his duty. At one point in the imaginary journey to Paris, “Paul Berlin’s motives, as shapeless as water, washed through his imagination: a briny, sodden pressure that weighted him like gravity, layers of inclination pressing him deeper and deeper. His brain had the bends. Things were out of control. Gone haywire. You could run, but you couldn’t outrun the consequences of running” (O’Brien 226). The simile comparing his motives to water shows that while Berlin realizes that there is a lack of purpose in the war, he has not yet accepted the lack of purpose as Cacciato did. By comparing Berlin’s internal conflict to “the bends,” O’Brien shows the high level of moral ambiguity that the war brings: Berlin is unable to decide what is right. However, by the end of the novel, Paul Berlin comes to a conclusion. In an imagined scenario with Sarkin Aung Wan, Berlin says, “More than any positive sense of obligation, I confess that what dominates is the dread of abandoning all that I hold dear. I am afraid of running away. I am afraid of exile. I fear what might be thought of me by those I love. I fear the loss of their respect. I fear the loss of my own reputation” (O’Brien 320). The anaphora – “I am afraid” and “I fear” – highlights Berlin’s desire to maintain honor. This view differs drastically from that of Cacciato, as Berlin chooses to hold onto honor in the place of a purpose, while Cacciato accepts a lack of purpose and leaves. Thus, O’Brien shows how in war, the only reason for fighting is for reputation, for honor. When Berlin reflects on his imagined journey, he says “with courage it might have been
Pietro DiDonato’s Christ in Concrete is a powerful narrative of the struggles and culture of New York’s Italian immigrant laborers in the early twentieth century. Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale, in their historical work La Storia, state that "Never before or since has the aggravation of the Italian immigrant been more bluntly expressed by a novelist" (368). A central component of this "aggravation", both for DiDonato as an author and for his protagonist Paul, is the struggle to reconcile traditional religious beliefs and customs with the failure of that very same faith to provide any tangible improvement in the immigrants’ lives. Through Paul’s experience, we observe the Catholic institutions lose influence and effectiveness as Capitalist ones, manifest in Job, take their place. While doing this, DiDonato also illustrates essential aspects of Italian (specifically southern) Catholicism and the pressures placed upon it by the American environment.
the war with Iraq in which one of the greatest reasons why was Saddam Hussein trying to
But not all reasons are correct. For example, soldiers did not fight because their lives are less precious than ares, everyone is/should be valued equal no matter who they are. Soldiers did not also join for because they already lived in a more violent culture that took fighting and dying for granted more than the rest of us. The pay for volunteering was also not the best, it was unreliable(McPherson pg5). The pay for soldier was only $11.00 a month(LaFantasie). Some of the soldiers who volunteered were professional, and even coerced conscripts. But they did not fight because they knew how to(McPherson pg.5) None of these reason were causes of joining the war. The Civil War was gruesome and soldiers wouldn’t see their families and friends for the entire four years of struggle(Ray pg3). Most volunteers came from a background of wealth, fin families, and farmers(Ray pg2). Throughout the war soldiers would have to face the hardships of weather and disease. For example soldiers lined in shelter half also known as "dog tent", it was the most common overnight shelter. It would barely stand the weather, and what ever protection they were given to in the first place was ditched because it caused unnecessary extra weight for the soldiers(Helm). Why would anyone want to go through all this pain and struggle of the war? About 2.75 million soldiers fought in the civil war(history net). A man stated the reason he volunteered to fight in the war was because it was a duty in which every person should perform , since it shows love towards their country. He was one of many others who fought out of patriotism for their
Acknowledging Barthes’s theory allows the reader to break free of dictatorship the author may posses by promoting the reader to freely think about the pieces of literature such as Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon. Autonomous thinking gives the reader the advantage of discovering the duplicity of a potential underlying connotation or simply deciding not to delve deeper for hidden implications that may be sought out by the author. Barthes’s, The Death of the Author, provides the reader with knowledge and enlightenment in order to have the freedom to dive and think critically about the subject and characters written about in the narrative by Balzac. Barthes’s, The Death of the Author, proposes literary theories that can be directly related to the subjectivity of how a reader chooses to synthesis the meaning or meaninglessness of Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon.