Going After Cacciato Theme Annalysis

Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien, is a book that presents many problems in understanding. Simply trying to figure out what is real and what is fantasy and where they combine can be quite a strain on the reader. Yet even more clouded and ambiguous are the larger moral questions raised in this book. There are many so-called "war crimes" or atrocities in this book, ranging from killing a water buffalo to fragging the commanding officer. Yet they are dealt with in an almost offhanded way. They seem to become simply the moral landscape upon which a greater drama is played-- the drama of running away from war, seeking peace in Paris. Paul Berlin tries to make sense out of it all by dreaming and imagining a journey with definite chronological and geographical proceedings and with definite goals, but it all just breaks down in the end. Despite abruptly jumping form reality to hallucinations, to flashbacks, a discerning reader can cut through the moral ambiguities and discover the underlying theme.

There is no order in war. You see, the folks back home like to believe there is an order in war. A sense of right and wrong. Some things are allowed, some things are not. War has no rules. No time outs. No penalties for fouls. If you can't accept that, then you can't accept war, because that's what war is. This is what O'Brien is saying in the scene in the Tehran bar, Doc Peret explains to Captain Rhallon, "The point is that war is war no matter how it is perceived. War has its own reality. War kills and maims and rips up the land and makes orphans and widows. These are the things of war. Any war. So when I say there's nothing new to tell about Nam, I'm saying it was just a war like every war. Politics be damned. Sociology be damned." (197) This brings us back to the morality question. How do we deal with these atrocities?

The answers are not in reality. The struggle to determine what's real and what's fantasy