Novel Structure in Going After Cacciato
By structurally dividing Going After Cacciato into three narrative strands- war memories, flight to Paris, Observation Post - O’Brien displays Paul Berlin’s struggle to make order out of the chaos that is this war experience in Vietnam.
In general, Going after Cacciato is convoluted and confusing. The confusion created by the narrative structure, not only through the different narrative strands but also through the random order events are presented to the reader, serves as a whole to mimic the confusion soldiers feel at every instant in war. Soldiers do not just feel confusion though. These soldiers see and often do horrific acts which forever scar them. They are plagued by memories and ...
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is a kind of fantasy in and of itself as Paris is known the city of wonders, and one was extricated from the horrors of the war. In both real life and in Paul’s imagination, the squad is chasing after Cacciato, which in Italian means the hunted. It is hard to say however, whether in his imagination they are chasing in pursuit of the innocence and purity which Cacciato represents (as he never technically consented to the murder of Sidney Martin, and even tried to search for a better way to handle the situation, which was symbolized by Cacciato’s fishing), or whether they are going after him under the illusion that they are fulfilling their duties, although it is actually an excuse for fleeing the war.
For the same reason that the war memories are convoluted, these imaginative strands are strictly chronological, because they serve as the clear and logical path of escape from the tortuous memories of reality.
In these fantasy chapters, Paul’s deepest desires also manifest ...
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escape, showing how the degree of trauma is directly proportional to the magnitude of his fantasies.
However idealized his fantasies are, Paul can never truly escape the realities he tries to avoid. These chapters devoted to escape are always intruded by memories of the war. For example, in the chapter “Flights of Imagination”, Paul is in his fantasy land, riding a train in pursuit of Cacciato. The “bare, rugged country” which they drive past reminds Paul of Lake Country (177). Although he is in his idealized world, the memories of Lake Country which leads to the memory of Oscar “talking seriously about solutions” (178) still manage to penetrate his fantasy. These dream chapters ...
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"Novel Structure in Going After Cacciato." Essayworld.com. March 29, 2011. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Novel-Structure-in-Going-After-Cacciato/97113.
"Novel Structure in Going After Cacciato." Essayworld.com. March 29, 2011. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Novel-Structure-in-Going-After-Cacciato/97113.
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