Analysis Of The Vietnam In Me And In The Lake Of The Woods - Essay Example

Novel Paper The parallels between fragility of life and immunity of death proficiently depicted in “The Vietnam in Me” and “In the Lake of the Woods” by Tim O’Brien Vietnam war and the theme of war in general is not a new one to literature world. Many great writers have already elaborated on this complex issue, its causes as well as consequences. However, fortunately not each writer has had experience of active participation in war actions like Tim O’Brien has. The aim of this paper is to make an analysis of two different literature pieces of the same author, the New York Time article “The Vietnam in Me” and a novel “In the Lake of the Woods” by Time O’Brien. Author’s life experience has found its reflection in these both literary works written with the help of such modernistic techniques as stream-of-consciousness and flashbacks or reminiscing. O’Brien is putting on the theme of war inside out on the main plot of his works to make the reader see and feel what he has seen and has felt already. O’Brien’s article “The Vietnam in Me” has many parallels with his novel “In the Lake of the Woods”. Flashbacks are employed by O’Brien to present various events and his experience in Vietnam War as a soldier. The New York Times article begins with description of Landing Zone Gater, Vietnam, in 1994, the place which sucked narrator’s life and virtue. A few sentences further, the O’Brien talks already about events of February 1969. One can assume that the author was actually putting down the thoughts which were flowing in this mind jumping from one memorable event to the other. Likewise, the story of John Wade begins in September in the rented cottage “in the timber at the edge of Lake of the Woods” (O’Brien 1). However, already when John and Kathy talk, John has reminiscences of different events in his life and his mind formed a picture of “an enormous white mountain he had been climbing all his life” (O’Brien 5). As has been noted, the theme of war is one of the major themes of O’Brien. Haunted by events of war time, the author seems to be unable not to write about it, at least not to mention it. Many of his works give a fair account of wartime, for instance, such works as “The things they carried,” “If I die in a combat zone,” “Going after Cacciato,” and, of course, “In the lake of the woods”. The author cannot omit to write about what is in his mind and what is haunting his thoughts day after day and night after night even after years since the last war action. O’Brien managed to embed historical events into a mysterious novel which seemed to have nothing to do with the war. The story about John and Kathy must have been some love story with happy ending and not detective story with numerous reminiscences into John’s or rather Tim’s past. Reality the author recreates is that of a simple ordinary soldier and a writer-genius in one person, Tim O’Brien. Furthermore, having analyzed the plotline of the novel, it should be stressed that the reader can easily associate himself/herself with the main character of the story. The background of Kathy and John’s story can be similar to that of any other American couple: a husband who serves in military and participates in different war actions and wife who lives her own life waiting in constantly worries for her beloved one. These husband and wife do not expect anything bad to happen to their relationship, as they both are devoted to each other doing their duties and being honest. However, our lives are constantly in danger of being effect by different external sources which have nothing to do with our personal expectations, morality, and life views. Thus, John is haunted by his childhood fears like feelings he has got after his father’s death. Besides, the events of My Lai massacre will never leave John’s mind, because extremely vivid snapshots of those days were photographed by his mind and saved in his memory. Horrified and dazzled he was watching and capturing outrageous pictures of the slaughter: Hutto was shooting corpses. T’Souvas was shooting children. Doherty and Terry were finishing off the wounded. This is not madness, Sorcerer understood. This is sin. (O’Brien 107). Thus, in his article O’Brien reveals that even though the people of My Lai 4 did not fight back, “Charlie company killed whatever could be killed” (O’Brien, article 4). There is nothing to add to this sentence or comment on it as it’s too explanatory itself. On the one hand, the fact that John was a soldier one of his direct duties was to kill (to be more precise, “to kill anything that breathed”).On the other hand, killing is abnormal and unnatural to execute. The protagonist’s mind gets too deep into the war events not only of My Lai, of Vietnam, of other wars. Doing what is not normal to human nature, John feels like mad being unable to understand the whole rationality of war, mascara, slaughter of children, and other abnormalities and dreadful experience of war reality. Human tragedy is represented through ordinary soldier interpretation in his letters to Kathy and his flashbacks into the hell of the past. The main storyline of the novel is actually organized around intertwined flashbacks. Another common feature of both literary works, which, however, is expressed differently is the protagonist attitude to his life experience during wartime. John is trying to conceal events he has to live through in his letters to Kathy, while the author of “Vietnam in Me” tries to explain to Katy that “Vietnam was more than terror” (O’Brien). The article is autobiographic piece of writing where O’Brien does not have to conceal the truth or to make it look better. The author explains how the haunted mind of tired soldier is searching his memory for positive feelings and events as if trying to grab at straws. O’Brien claims that love is something a soldier can stick to in his mind in order not to go crazy: “You love your mom and dad, the Vikings, hamburgers on the grill, your pulse, your future - everything that might be lost or never come to be” (O’Brien, article 3). Being on the edge between two lines of life and death, one can feel every moment of life with attention and senses which are sharpened to the greatest degree. Hence, even though John and Kathy Wade are fictional personalities, the realities of war, its aftermath and consequences are harsh reality represented by the real person who has been unlucky to live all those dreadful events through. Veterans and their wives, few survivors of the slaughter of 1968, and its victims are all real people who live now or lived then. Even though John erased his involvement with Charlie Company while working with job records, he cannot erase dreadfully vivid pictures from his memory – those will always stay with him. Since it is stream-of-consciousness, the end of the novel is unclear and the reader has to conclude himself/herself what actually could happen to Kathy. Obviously, it is neither the main idea nor the main theme of the novel. “In the Lake of the Woods” is a realistic historical account of My Lai massacre as well as other events which preceded and happened after this tragedy. The most important is that the author wanted the reader to see the dreadfulness of that period, to feel that fear of peaceful Vietnamese, to hear the screams the soldiers could hear. In addition, the outcomes and the aftermath seem to be even more dreadful. Those who were guilty in My Lai massacre have not been punished. The dreadful events seem to sunk in years and when asked about My Lai in the colleges and high school the question “brings on null stares, a sort of puzzlement, disbelief mixed with utter ignorance” (O’Brien, article 5). The indifference and absence of compassion to the irreversible mistake, which took more than five hundred of lives among which many lives of many innocent children and women, stands beyond normal human understanding or acceptance. Finally, the reader who does not want to be ignorant and who is persistent in their search for truth, O’Brien has a wise helper in the novel. The narrator of the story is neither the author nor the main protagonist, but someone who has participated in war actions himself. This narrator gives a good advice for those who want to seek the truth: Yet evidence is not truth. It is only evident. In any case, Kathy Wade is forever missing, and if you require solutions, you will have to look beyond these pages. Or read a different book. (O’Brien 30). To conclude, unlike the truth interwoven into the mysteriousness of the story, author revelation in his article is laid out as it is with all the fear, depression, hesitations, desperateness, even love and compassion which have had their place in his own life. It is every reader’s responsibility to take something out of these great literary pieces. One thing is clear, that these stories cannot leave the reader unmoved and indifferent. Being on the verge of life where cruel death opens up its jaws to grab anyone standing too close, the author managed to get out of the hell alive and retell a complex story of his war experience. However, each one has to understand how fragile and, at the same time, wonderful life can be; and how immune and indifferent death can take the precious life away with the help of someone else’s gun’s shot or an order of an officer who is blind and deaf to human suffering. Works Cited O’Brien, Tim. “The Vietnam in Me.” The New York Times on the web. 2 October 1994. Web. 15 October 2011. O’Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Print. Read More