OPPapers.com Essay Index >> Book Reports >> Going After Cacciato
We have many free term papers and essays on Going After Cacciato. We also have a wide variety of research papers and book reports available to you for free. You can browse our collection of term papers or use our search engine.
Going After Cacciato. Going ... reader. The "tea party" set the table for the
confusion, curiosity, and madness for Going After Cacciato.
Going After Cacciato. ... Vannatta, Dennis. "Theme and Structure in Tim O'Brien's Going
After Cacciato." Modern Fiction Studies 28.2 (summer 1982): 242-6.
Going After Cacciato. ... Vannatta, Dennis. "Theme and Structure in Tim O'Brien's Going
After Cacciato." Modern Fiction Studies 28.2 (summer 1982): 242-6.
Going After Cacciato. ... Some critics have thought that Going After Cacciato is
"not an antiwar novel"), but surely they must be incorrect. ...
Going After Cacciato. Long ... His time spent in Vietnam gave him all the
experiences necessary to write Going After Cacciato. After ...
Submitted by maddoxx20 on April 27, 2006
Category: Book Reports
Words: 942 | Pages: 4
Views: 246
Popularity Rank: 45,002
Average Member Grade: N/A (Add a Comment / Grade this Paper)
It is generally recognized that Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato (1978) is most likely the best novel of the Vietnam war, albeit an unusual one in that it innovatively combines the experiential realism of war with surrealism, primarily through the overactive imagination of the protagonist, Spec Four Paul Berlin. The first chapter of this novel is of more than usual importance. Designed to be a self-sufficient story (McCaffery 137) and often anthologized as one, this chapter is crucial to the novel in that it not only introduces us to the characters and the situation but also sets the tenor of the novel and reveals its author's view of this war in relation to which all else in the novel must be judged. In chapter 1, the plot of the entire novel is defined: A very young soldier named Cacciato deserts, intending to walk to Paris by land. As his squad follows under orders to capture him, Paul Berlin begins his fascinating mind-journey of "going after Cacciato," of escape from, and later a reexamination of, the reality of war. But what is defined first, in the first two pages to be exact, is this war's reality and its cost to the young American soldiers involved. These pages list for us those who have died, in action and otherwise, and those who have been maimed, at times through self-injury, underscoring the urgency of the desire to live. These pages also vividly delineate for us the daily miseries and sufferings of the Vietnam war, from rain and mud to disease and rotting flesh, from monotony and fear to a profound sense of futility. As Paul Berlin narrates, "It was a bad time" (O'Brien 1). And the young soldiers undergo all of this while being "led" by an ill, alcoholic, misanthropic lieutenant who cannot even remember who among his young charges is whom, or who is dead or alive. One thing that the book misses, however, is the same suffering, perhaps even worse, that was imposed upon the Vietnamese people. This is typical of novels from this time; they all...
You must Login to view the entire paper.
If you are not a member yet, Sign Up for free!