AN ANALYSIS OF TIM O’BRIEN’S STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES IN GOING AFTER
CACCIATO, THE THINGS THEY CARRIED AND IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS USING
SIGMUND FREUD’S DREAM THEORY FROM “ON DREAMS”
By
Sadie Williams
A Thesis submitted to the
Faculty of the Graduate Studies Division of
Ohio Dominican University
Columbus, Ohio
in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for
the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH
August 2016
An Analysis of Tim O’Brien’s Storytelling Techniques in Going After Cacciato, The Things
They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods Using Sigmund Freud’s Dream Theory from “On
Dreams”
Sigmund Freud, in his essay “On Dreams,” expresses his ideas and theories surrounding
the formation of dreams. According to Freud, in the “prescientific days people were in no
uncertainty about the interpretation of dreams. When they were recalled after awakening they
were regarded as either the friendly or hostile manifestation of some higher power, demoniacal
and Divine” (1). However, “with the rise of scientific thought the whole of this expressive
mythology was transferred to psychology; to-day there is but a small minority among educated
persons who doubt that the dream is the dreamer’s own psychical act” (Freud 1). As he analyzes
the subconscious, Freud draws conclusions about why and how certain information and
experiences are included in dreams. Likewise, he furthers his theories by drawing out a specific
process that memories and experiences go through in order to arrive in a dream.
While Freud only speaks to the issue of dream-formation in “On Dreams,” it is apparent
that the process can be applied to other situations such as storytelling, as well. For example,
when an individual recalls information from the past in order to share his or her experiences with
another through the storytelling process, it is likely that he or she follows a similar set of steps to
arrive at the final product of a story, much like the dream-formation process results in a dream.
In a dream, the final product is based on the real life experiences of the dreamer. However, as
the experiences are processed and placed into the format of a dream, they undergo a series of
manipulations that transform the experiences into a dream that is far-removed from the reality in
which it is based. Similarly, the novel, the counterpart of the dream, is also many times based on
the real life experiences of the writer. However, as the writer transforms his experiences, it is
likely that he subconsciously follows many of Freud’s ideas in order to transform his recalled
experiences. In the end, in paralleling the dream, the novel is often a fictive representation of the
reality in which it is based. Therefore, Freud’s theories on the formation of dreams directly
parallel that of the storytelling process. While Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory has become an
established method of analyzing literature and an entire category of literary criticism is dedicated
to his theories, it seems natural that his theories can be applied to the storytelling process.
Specifically, taking into account Freud’s ideas on the formation of dreams, there are
many parallels that can be drawn between his theories and Tim O’Brien’s storytelling techniques
in his novels Going After Cacciato (1978), The Things They Carried (1990) and In the Lake of
the Woods (1995). Though each of O’Brien’s novels is a fictional narrative and not specifically
a dream, the storytelling techniques used by O’Brien to write the novels mirror Freud’s ideas on
the formation of dreams. While all of the novels are interconnected and woven together by the
thread of the Vietnam War, they seemingly reflect the real-life experiences of O’Brien, a
Vietnam War veteran himself. Yet, O’Brien maintains that his texts are works of fiction.
The novel, like its counterpart, the dream, is sometimes unrecognizable in its final form,
and the discrepancy between the reader’s propensity to view the novels as autobiographical
while O’Brien clearly maintains his novels are works of fiction can be explained when his
storytelling techniques are paralleled to Freud’s theories on the formation of dreams. As
O’Brien draws upon his own experiences in the war and begins to create works of fiction, it is
apparent that he is following a process similar to Freud’s dream-formation process. As a result,
the once present reality gets altered as it goes through a series of manipulations similar to the
dream-formation process. Therefore, while O’Brien’s novels likely have a basis in reality, as
they experience a storytelling process that parallels Freud’s theories on the formation of dreams,
O’Brien’s own life experiences are turned from fact to fiction.
Likewise, while O’Brien mimics the dream-formation process in order to create works of
fiction that are likely based on his own life experiences, he also uses the processes outlined by
Freud as storytelling techniques within the novels themselves. While he parallels the dreamformation process as a writer, O’Brien often creates characters who also follow many of the
same processes outlined by Freud.
According to Freud, the purpose of a dream is to reveal the suppressed feelings of the
dreamer: Thoughts and desires that are not expressed when the dreamer is awake are likely to
surface in his dream. Furthermore, Freud explains that a dream “is a sort of substitution for
those emotional and intellectual trains of thought” that are subconsciously present while the
dreamer is awake (7). Therefore, upon analysis, it is apparent that a dreamer can decipher his
own feelings and desires that are possibly not even recognized when awake when analyzing a
dream. Only in the dream, according to Freud, is a dreamer able to establish his true feelings and
desires as they are likely concealed during waking moments.
Thus, as O’Brien’s storytelling techniques parallel Freud’s dream-formation process, it is
evident that, upon analysis, readers can come to certain conclusions about O’Brien and his texts.
Just as the dream can be analyzed in order to determine the feelings and desires of a dreamer,
O’Brien’s texts can also be analyzed in order to determine his feelings. As his storytelling
techniques parallel Freud’s dream-formation process, it is apparent that O’Brien’s desires and
thoughts are revealed through his writing. As a Vietnam veteran, it is likely extremely difficult
for O’Brien to express his thoughts while awake and conscious. However, as the novel is
established as the counterpart of a dream, O’Brien is able to express his true feelings and desires
in the novel, just as a dreamer does in a dream. Therefore, while it may be difficult to discuss
the war and its impact on his moral conscious in his waking, everyday life, O’Brien is able to
convey these emotions through a novel. As O’Brien parallels Freud’s theories in both his
storytelling techniques and within his created characters, he is able to express his true desires and
provide readers with a real glimpse of the horrific war that he experienced.
Freud’s Dream-Thoughts and Connections to O’Brien
According to Freud, the first piece of dream-formation is the dream-thoughts. Freud
explains that the dream-thoughts are any experiences a person may have encountered throughout
his or her life that can be accessed and presented in a dream. These experiences may be actual
physical experiences, fantasies, imagined experiences or any other experiences that may occur
vicariously through another person or through written material. However, it is likely that much
of the material that enters into the dream-thoughts is accessed from some monumental childhood
occurrence. According to Freud, “around the psychical stuff of dream thoughts there are ever
found reminiscences of impressions, not infrequently of early childhood” (22). Therefore, it is
clear that Freud is suggesting that experiences that are likely to end up in an actual dream are
ones that have had some sort of major impact on the person.
In paralleling the dream-formation process, as a writer, O’Brien likely draws on his past
experiences as a basis for his novels. This recalling of experiences that O’Brien may choose to
include in his writing can be paralleled to the possibilities available for a dream from dreamthoughts. Therefore, O’Brien has the opportunity to select which memories he wishes to include
in his novels and use for inspiration in his texts. While O’Brien has a multitude of experiences
and memories which he can draw from, it is likely that the most monumental and impactful
experiences will stand out for inclusion, just as they do in the dream-formation process. While
Freud maintains that it is most likely that these impactful memories stem from childhood
experiences, O’Brien differs in the fact that he chooses memories that have left a monumental
mark on his consciousness. Thus, it is no surprise that O’Brien chooses to include the Vietnam
War in his novels and use the war as a basis for many of his plots.
In an interview with Jack Smith, O’Brien admits that the Vietnam War is a strong
influence on his writing even when he does not intend it to be. O’Brien explains, “Sometimes I
start with the intention of writing about Vietnam pretty directly. At other times I start
somewhere else, with no thought at all about Vietnam, and then end up going there anyway”
(Smith). Furthermore, O’Brien states, “It was traumatic, and I still carry the memories and the
ghosts and the horrors along with me, and I suppose my subconscious had pushed my stories in
that direction” (Smith).
Since the Vietnam War is clearly a monumental event in O’Brien’s life, Freud would
suggest that the war would be predominant in O’Brien’s dreams. In connection, as O’Brien’s
storytelling techniques mimic the dream-formation process, it is evident that the war would be a
powerful presence in the end product of his storytelling process: his fictional novels.
Though not his first published novel inspired by the Vietnam War, Going After Cacciato
was penned much earlier than The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods. Unlike
some of O’Brien’s other texts, Going After Cacciato’s entire plot takes place while the main
character is in the midst of the war and utilizes flashbacks to depict the feelings of Paul Berlin.
While Going After Cacciato focuses on Berlin’s experiences in the war and displays his regrets
and longings, it also portrays the story of Cacciato, whose first name is never mentioned.
Cacciato controls the majority of the text as he leads his fellow soldiers on a chase toward Paris
as he has gone AWOL in pursuit of the city. Berlin and his fellow soldiers follow Cacciato’s
route toward Paris and endure many experiences along the way.
Throughout the text, Berlin struggles with his involvement in the war and longs to escape
his present reality. As a result, some of the chapters are mere figments of Berlin’s imagination.
The chapters that are a result of Berlin’s imaginings are often bizarre and confusing. Instances
such as Sarkin joining the men on their quest for Cacciato, the soldiers’ exploration of the Viet
Cong tunnels and the constant pursuit of Cacciato illustrate a world far removed from reality.
The chapters that are part of Berlin’s imagination that depict the fictional pursuit of Cacciato
represent Berlin’s attempt to sort through the chaos of the war and find a means of escape.
The chaos illustrated by Berlin appears to be a reflection of O’Brien’s own feelings about
the war. As a result, unlike the other two novels, there does not seem to be one particular
instance from O’Brien’s own life that is the inspiration for this work. Instead, Going After
Cacciato appears to be a reflection of O’Brien’s overall feelings about his experience in the war.
In his interview with Smith, O’Brien attempts to express a few of his complex feelings
about his experience in the war. Acknowledging that his own reality is a strong influence,
O’Brien states, “There’s a real world out there that influences all of us” (Smith). Additionally,
O’Brien explains that “reality – or what we call reality – has traveled through the human mind
and come out the other end as a blur. Which is why, late in the night, I’ll sometimes find myself
thinking back on Vietnam, asking questions such as, God, did I really do that?” (Smith).
O’Brien’s reflections and subsequent questioning of his experience in Vietnam appears to mimic
an aspect of the dream process: the waking from a dream and being unable to decipher if what
was experienced was reality or just merely a dream. At times, when a person awakens from a
dream, it is difficult to determine if the experiences actually occurred in real life. This confusion
parallels O’Brien’s own confusion and uncertainty about his time in the war.
Taking into account O’Brien’s own musings on reality, it appears that, at times, he has a
difficult time expressing his experience in the war into words. At times, for O’Brien, the war is a
“blur” in his mind and the structure of Going After Cacciato appears to mimic that confusion.
Oftentimes, the chapters that depict Berlin’s imagination are simply a “blur” to readers as
Berlin’s actual reality is unattainable.
Furthermore, in Going After Cacciato, Berlin is extremely imaginative and a multitude of
chapters in the text are dedicated to his daydreams and fantasies of chasing after the AWOL
Cacciato as he pursues the city of Paris. While Berlin’s imagination is exceptionally important
to him as it allows him to escape his daily reality, this emphasis on imagination appears to be a
reflection of O’Brien’s own personal beliefs. In his interview with Smith, O’Brien explains,
“I’m a believer in the power of the imagination in ordinary human lives, and it’s much more
important than we often credit” (Smith). For example, O’Brien explains, “If you’re thinking
about becoming a doctor, you don’t just make a wholly rational, pro-and-con decision. You’re
going to imagine doctoring, helping people, the long hours of residency, the great pressures and
rewards that play out in your daydreams” (Smith). As a result, “You’re going to make some
kind of determination based at least in part on what you imagine. Do I want to put my hands in
gore all day? If the answer’s no, you’re probably not going to be a surgeon” (Smith). O’Brien
finally conveys that “in our daily lives, we make concrete choices in response to our daydreams
and imaginings and flights of fancy” (Smith). In connection to his early war novel, O’Brien’s
interest in and belief in the positive results of the use of the imagination appears to have been an
inspiration for his character Berlin.
While there is no specific instance to highlight as an inspiration for this novel, it is clear
that O’Brien’s own feelings are reflected throughout. As a result, O’Brien’s feelings that are
drawn upon mirror Freud’s dream-thoughts. While personal feelings are possible dreamthoughts, in a parallel scenario, personal feelings are available possibilities to be revealed in his
novels, such as Going After Cacciato.
Furthermore, with even a cursory glance at the novel The Things They Carried, it is easy
to see that the text is likely rooted in O’Brien’s own life experiences in the Vietnam War. Most
prominently, the main character in The Things They Carried bears the author’s own name and is
a Vietnam War solider much like the author O’Brien himself. Likewise, the author O’Brien
served in the Alpha Company like the fictive O’Brien (“O’Brien,” Current Biography).
Jon Volkmer, in his article “Telling the Truth about Vietnam,” discusses O’Brien’s
choice to include a narrator who is very similar to himself and the complexities that occur as a
result of this choice. Volkmer explains that the confusion for the reader “begins even before the
reader gets to the first story, and discovers the narrator’s name is “Tim O’Brien.” The front
matter of the book contains the routine disclaimer that, “all incidents, names and characters are
imaginary.” But a page later, the author “lovingly” dedicated the book “to the men of Alpha
Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders,
Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa” – that is, to those selfsame names and characters we have just been
assured are imaginary” (246). Even with many similarities between his own experiences and the
characters and events in his novel, O’Brien still maintains that his work is a work of fiction.
However, when his storytelling techniques about these men and experiences undergo a process
similar to Freud’s dream-formation process, it is clear that he is recalling real people and events.
Yet as the story unfolds, it gets manipulated to the point that is no longer fact. Therefore, it can
be inferred that while O’Brien’s novels result in works of fiction, he is clearly drawing upon his
own life experiences. The life experiences that O’Brien draws upon as a basis for his novels can
be paralleled to the first piece of the dream-formation process that Freud describes as the dreamthoughts.
Furthermore, a parallel can be drawn between the fictive Tim O’Brien and the author Tim
O’Brien in The Things They Carried. In the chapter entitled “On the Rainy River,” the fictive
Tim O’Brien depicts his hesitancy and lack of desire to go to the war. Upon receiving his draft
notice, O’Brien claims, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too
everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 41).
Likewise, he states, “I was no soldier. I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and
tents and mosquitos. The sight of blood made me queasy, and I couldn’t tolerate authority, and I
didn’t know a rifle from a slingshot” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 41 – 42). Furthmore,
O’Brien claims, “I imagined myself dead. I imagined myself doing things I could not do –
charging an enemy position, taking aim at another human being” (O’Brien, The Things They
Carried 44). As a result, the narrator looks for a means of escape from a war that he did not
support and not believe in. After much contemplation, O’Brien decides to dodge the war he does
not support: he makes a plan to flee to Canada. One day after finishing work at the meatpacking
plant, O’Brien drives north and arrives at a spot where “off to [his] right was the Rainy River,
wide as a lake in places, and beyond the Rainy River was Canada” (O’Brien, The Things They
Carried 47). O’Brien takes up residence for almost a week at Tip Top Lodge, a run-down
fishing resort operated by a man named Elroy Berdahl. Though O’Brien notes that he never
mentions to Berdahl his reasons for retreating to the Canadian border, he suspects that the old
man knows his intentions. O’Brien explains, “after all, it was 1968, and guys were burning draft
cards, and Canada was just a boat ride away” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 49). In an
event that concludes O’Brien’s stay at the lodge, Berdahl gives the narrator an opportunity to
make a final decision: flee to Canada or accept his fate and go to war. O’Brien explains that
Berdahl takes him out on a boat ride and pauses right where he has the opportunity to flee.
O’Brien explains that it was “twenty yards. [He] could have done it. [He] could have jumped
and started swimming for [his] life” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 56). Instead, he began
to feel a “terrible squeezing pressure” in his chest that was inescapable (O’Brien, The Things
They Carried 56). O’Brien explains that he began to cry from embarrassment as he was unable
to act: “I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t act, I couldn’t comport myself with even a pretense of
modest human dignity. All I could do was cry. Quietly, not bawling, just the chest-chokes”
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 57). Yet, he tried “to will [him]self overboard,” but “it just
wasn’t possible” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 59). Therefore, O’Brien explains that he
“submitted:” “I would go to war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not
to” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 59). In the final words of the chapter, the narrator states,
“I was a coward. I went to war” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 61).
Like the narrator Tim O’Brien, the author Tim O’Brien had no desire to participate in the
Vietnam War. The “Current Biography” article about the life of Tim O’Brien explains that he
“received his draft notice to fight in a war he had protested” at the same time he “had been
offered a full scholarship to pursue a graduate degree at Harvard University” (“O’Brien,” Current
Biography). In reaction, O’Brien explains, “I went to my room in the basement and started
pounding the typewriter. I did it all summer. It was the most terrible summer of my life…My
conscience kept telling me not to go, but my whole upbringing told me I had to” (“O’Brien,”
Current Biography). Furthermore, it is explained that O’Brien, like the fictive O’Brien, “initially
intended to seek refuge in Canada, but he changed his mind” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography).
Additionally, like the fictive O’Brien, the author O’Brien describes his choice to succumb to the
war as an act of cowardice. Echoing the words of the fictive O’Brien, O’Brien explains, “I was a
coward. I went to Vietnam” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography).
Thus, it is apparent that O’Brien drew upon his own experiences as an inspiration for
much of The Things They Carried. The memories that appear in the text parallel what Freud
describes as dream-thoughts. As the storytelling process parallels the dream-formation process,
the memories and experiences available to O’Brien from his personal life are possibilities
available for a presence in his novel.
At first glance, In the Lake of the Woods does not reflect O’Brien’s life beyond the fact
that both he and the main character John Wade are Vietnam War veterans. It appears to be
simply a tale of Wade, who has recently experienced a landslide defeat for a United States
Senate seat. In response to his disappointment, Wade and his wife Kathy retire to a cabin in
Lake of the Woods, Minnesota in order to recover from the difficult loss. While at the cabin,
Wade awakens one morning and finds that Kathy has disappeared. As a result, the novel focuses
a great deal on the search and investigation of the disappearance of Wade’s wife.
However, readers quickly become aware of the impact of the Vietnam War on the novel.
It becomes apparent that Wade has suffered a devastating loss for the U.S. Senate due to the fact
that the media has uncovered unfavorable information about his involvement in the war,
particularly his participation in the My Lai Massacre that he attempted in vain to cover up and
ignore. The My Lai massacre, which “went on for four hours,” was a devastating killing spree
committed by Wade’s company (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 200). It is explained that
“people were shot dead and carved up with knives and raped and sodomized and bayoneted and
blown into scraps” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 200).
Wade appears particularly troubled with his involvement in the massacre and his own
commitment of two murders that he thought he “could get away” with (O’Brien, In the Lake of
the Woods 68). Wade convinces himself that it was “an accident, the purest reflex” and that it
“hadn’t happened the way it happened” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 68). Wade
“pretended he wasn’t responsible; he pretended he couldn’t have done it and therefore hadn’t; he
pretended it didn’t matter much; he pretended that if the secret stayed inside him, with all the
other secrets, he could fool the world and himself too” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 68).
In the end, Wade finds it rather easy to pretend that his involvement in the massacre did not
really occur as he took advantage of his desk job at the end of his enlistment and erased all
participation he had with the Charlie Company and, consequently, his involvement in the
massacre. It is explained that Wade locates the file dedicated to the Charlie Company and “made
the necessary changes, mostly retyping, some scissors work, removing his name from each
document and carefully tidying up the numbers;” furthermore, Wade reassigned “himself to
Alpha Company” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 269). However, his secret did not stay a
secret forever. In the height of his quest for the U.S. Senate, his secret is uncovered and he
quickly loses favor with the voters, which leads to a landslide defeat.
As a result, Wade is deeply troubled by his time in the war and the crime he committed at
the end of his enlistment. He is often tortured with difficult memories and wakes during the
night screaming obscenities and struggling with his own thoughts and memories. On the night of
Kathy’s disappearance, Wade appears particularly troubled as “twice during the night John Wade
woke up sweating” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 47). On his second time waking up,
Wade retreats to the kitchen, boils water and proceeds to kill all of the houseplants by scorching
them with the boiling water. Yet, perhaps most troubling, Wade is portrayed as speaking the
words “Kill Jesus” as he kills the plants and hoping “there was a god so he could kill him”
(O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 47).
Wade’s response to the trauma of Vietnam appears to be taken from O’Brien’s own
experience, lending itself as a parallel to Freud’s dream-thoughts. Tobey C. Herzog, in his
article “Tim O’Brien’s “True Lies” (?),” explains that the phrase “Kill Jesus” that is spoken by
Wade in In the Lake of the Woods is simply an echo of O’Brien’s own words and feelings about
his involvement in the Vietnam War, making it clear that at least this portion of the text is based
on his own experience. Herzog states, “O’Brien confesses: “I wake up in the way John Wade
wakes up, screaming ugly, desperate and obscene things. […] That ‘Kill Jesus’ refrain that
appears throughout the book – that sense of self-hatred […] comes from my own soul; it isn’t a
made up refrain. It is a real one out of my own life” (“Tim O’Brien Interview” 107)” (Herzog,
“Tim O’Brien’s “True Lies” (?)” 901).
In addition, Current Biography explains that O’Brien has a connection to the My Lai
Massacre from his own personal experience in the war. O’Brien’s Alpha Company’s “area of
patrol included the village of My Lai, a larger village of Son My” (“O’Brien,” Current
Biography). Though his unit did not participate in the massacre, he was keenly aware that
“hundreds of women, children, infants, old men, and other civilians, in addition to virtually all
the animals within firing range, were gunned down by the approximately 115 American soldiers
of Charlie Company” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography). As a result, O’Brien “has suffered from
an ineradicable sense of guilt and responsibility” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography). When
paralleling O’Brien’s storytelling to the dream-formation process, the experience at My Lai
appears to have been monumental; therefore, it is no surprise that it reveals itself in O’Brien’s
novel.
Furthermore, there appears to be a connection between the author Tim O’Brien and Wade
in their motivations for going to war. In the Current Biography article, O’Brien explains, “I went
to war purely to be loved, not to be rejected by my hometown and family and friends, not to be
thought of as a coward and a sissy” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography). Therefore, it is clear that
love is a strong motivating factor for O’Brien in his decision to go to war. Similarly, in In the
Lake of the Woods, it is explained that “it was in the nature of love John Wade went to the war.
Not to hurt or be hurt, not to be a good citizen or a hero or a moral man. Only for love. Only to
be loved” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 59). Additionally, just as O’Brien was seeking
acceptance from his family and friends, Wade too reflects that desire: “he imagined his father,
who was dead, saying to him, “Well, you did it, you hung in there, and I’m so proud, just so
incredibly proud” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 59).
Yet another connection to O’Brien’s own life that reveals itself in In the Lake of the
Woods is his own experience of being lost in the Minnesota wilderness at a young age. In the
Smith interview, O’Brien explains, “As a kid, I once got lost in the Minnesota wilderness. I
spent a couple of miserable hours blundering around in the forest, an 8-year-old, totally turned
upside down” (Smith). As a result, O’Brien explains, “the experience hit me hard and stayed
with me into adulthood. And throughout my fiction, I’ve called upon that experience as a way of
addressing, or dramatizing, a certain spiritual disorientation and confusion people sometimes
encounter” (Smith).
The memory of being lost in the wilderness surfaces in In the Lake of the Woods at the
end of the text. While there is no certain explanation as to what happened to Kathy Wade, it is
suggested at the end of the novel that both Kathy and Wade have become lost in the Minnesota
wilderness. At the end of the text, readers learn that while in search of Kathy “John Wade made
his last broadcast in the early morning hours of Sunday, October 26, 1986” (O’Brien, In the Lake
of the Woods 302). After his broadcast, Wade disappears just like his wife. Though it is merely
a hypothesis offered in the text, there is a suggestion that Wade simply became engulfed in the
wilderness and “lost himself in the tangle” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 303).
A final connection, and perhaps the “most horrifying of all” as explained by Current
Biography, between the characters in In the Lake of the Woods and Tim O’Brien himself is “the
author’s convincing illumination of the inner destruction wrought by self-deception” (“O’Brien,”
Current Biography). Current Biography explains that as “the author provides various accounts of
the days leading up to Kathy Wade’s disappearance, O’Brien reveals a marriage scarred by
deceit on both sides” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography). As a result, O’Brien explains, “The
deceits I write about in the book are magnified versions of the secrecy and deceit I practice in my
own life, and we all do…We’re all embarrassed and ashamed of our evils deeds and try to keep
them inside, and when they come out, the consequences are devastating” (“O’Brien,” Current
Biography).
It is clear that there are traces of O’Brien’s own life in his fiction. When paralleling
Freud and establishing the dream and the novel as counterparts, his life experiences are similar to
the dream-thoughts. While dream-thoughts are any experiences available for inclusion in a
dream, O’Brien’s own life experiences make themselves available for inclusion in a novel.
Freud’s Dream-Work Process and Connections to O’Brien
As O’Brien begins his story-telling process and references memories from his own life,
he parallels Freud’s dream-work process. According to Freud, dream-work “denotes the
transference of dream thoughts to dream content” (28). The dream-work is not a creative
process; Freud makes it clear that “it develops no fancies of its own, it judges nothing, decides
nothing” (28). It does not add new experiences to the dream-thoughts, but it takes the
information and begins the process of creating an actual dream through a series of manipulations
of the material that is already present. The acquired content taken from the dream-thoughts may
be a cohesive situation, but oftentimes, it is represented through a series of “scattered fragments
of visual images, conversations, and even bits of unchanged thoughts” (23). The dream-work
takes the disconnected information and begins the transformation into a dream. Dream-work
itself has four functions: 1. condensation, 2. displacement, 3. pictorial arrangement and 4.
interpretative revision (Freud 26).
As O’Brien works through the different drafts of his narrative, he naturally parallels the
dream-work process, evolving the story as he writes and edits. While telling his tale that is
seemingly based on his own personal experience, O’Brien has the opportunity to manipulate the
experiences by condensing them (only telling a shortened version), displacing them (telling them
by representing ideas in some other form), pictorially arranging them (giving them a visual
representation) and interpretively revising them (editing it to make a cohesive story). In
addition, varying slightly from the dream-work process of a dream, O’Brien also takes the
opportunity to add imaginary experiences to his memories. While the dream-work is not a
creative process, O’Brien takes the authority of a writer in the storytelling process and adds
experiences that will augment and better convey his own memories. As a result, O’Brien’s
reality becomes manipulated to the point that it is no longer fact, but instead, fiction. While
some instances in the text may be recognizable to O’Brien’s own life such as the impact of the
Vietnam War, for example, they are so manipulated through the series of processes characteristic
of the dream-work that they are no longer reality.
In addition to manipulating his own life experiences, O’Brien also uses the dream-work
processes outlined by Freud as a story-telling technique within the texts themselves. Many of
O’Brien’s characters and events experience or illustrate condensation, displacement, pictorial
arrangement and interpretive revision.
Condensation: The First Function of Freud’s Dream-Work and Connections to O’Brien
According to Freud, condensation is the process in which all of the information from the
dream-thoughts is manipulated and condensed. Through this process, the information from the
dream-thoughts is scanned and the most important information is kept to find its place in a
dream. In demonstration of this idea, one might consider the process of reading a novel. While
reading the actual novel, a reader is able to experience every moment of the story. However,
when finished, if a reader is asked to summarize the events, he or she retells the story and does
not include every single minute detail. The reader only recalls the most important information
and the monumental events. This is a very similar process that condensation represents in the
process of dream-formation. Though the dream-work has many experiences to draw upon from
the dream-thoughts, through condensation, which is, according to Freud, “the most important and
most characteristic feature of the dream-work,” only certain memories or experiences are utilized
to be included in the dream-content (Freud 17).
Since none of O’Brien’s novels take place in real-time, it is likely that each goes through
a process of condensation. Drawing from his own memories of the Vietnam War, O’Brien is
forced to recall information that he wishes to include in his stories. As seen in the texts, it is
monumental occurrences from the war that stand out for inclusion. As O’Brien is not a
nonfiction writer, he does not aim to include every memory he has from the war; He does not
share with readers a log of experiences or a journal kept during his time in Vietnam. Instead,
readers are only privy to the memories that stand out at the most monumental and the most
impactful. Mundane memories of O’Brien’s day-to-day life in Vietnam do not find themselves
as possible candidates for inclusion into his texts.
Additionally, while O’Brien uses a process similar to condensation in order to establish
which memories to include in his eventual fictional tales, he also uses condensation as a
storytelling technique within his texts. Many of O’Brien’s characters illustrate the process of
condensation.
In Going After Cacciato, readers are provided with several chapters where the narrator
Paul Berlin describes his day-to-day life in Vietnam, but since Berlin is unable to narrate every
day throughout the course of his service, condensation is used in order to share the most
important and traumatic events. For example, in the chapters that depict Berlin’s life as a
soldier, readers are privy to stories of the brutal realities of war such as the time Frenchie Tucker,
a fellow solider, was injured while attempting to clear out a tunnel. Berlin explains that Sidney
Martin “ordered Frenchie into the tunnel,” which consequently led to Tucker’s demise (O’Brien,
Going After Cacciato 65). In the chapter entitled “How Bernie Lynn Died After Frenchie
Tucker,” Berlin explains, “Frenchie lay uncovered at the mouth of the tunnel. He was dead and
nobody looked at him…He had been shot through the nose. His face was turned aside, the way
they’d left him” (O’Brien, Going After Cacciato 65). As a result, Berlin explains that Bernie
Lynn was ordered into the tunnel to retrieve Tucker and also became seriously injured. Knowing
that Lynn would never survive the wounds, the medic orders that Lynn be given painkillers. As
the “earth shook” around them from the violence of battle, Lynn succumbs to his life-threatening
wounds (O’Brien, Going After Cacciato 68).
While readers are provided with stories from Berlin’s life as a soldier in sometimes very
vivid detail, such as the story that depicts the deaths of Frenchie Tucker and Bernie Lynn, there
are clearly parts of his day-to-day life that are overlooked as Berlin retells his stories. As
Berlin’s stories undergo condensation as described by Freud, mundane, day-to-day details of his
life are not mentioned. Berlin does not mention everyday occurrences that must have occurred
such as dining, refueling or reloading supplies. Instead, similar to condensation that occurs in
the dream-formation process, only the most important and meaningful events stand out for
inclusion in Berlin’s retelling of his stories.
Though The Things They Carried is told from a few different points of view, many of the
chapters are told from the perspective of the character O’Brien. As a result, readers are able to
hear and learn about many of the fictive O’Brien’s experiences in the war. Readers learn of
events full of intensity and high emotion such as Kiowa’s death, the two times O’Brien himself
got shot and the loss of Ted Lavender. It is clear that while the narrator O’Brien recounts his
experiences in the war, he is utilizing condensation as he only chooses to share stories that
convey high-emotion and trauma. It is evident that the mundane, day-to-day activities that
O’Brien experienced do not stand out for inclusion in his stories as he does not choose to share
them.
One event that is particularly impactful on the fictive O’Brien is the death of Lavender,
which is a central focus in the chapter entitled “The Things They Carried.” Lavender is the first
man killed and, ironically, is the most fearful: “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried
tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe” (O’Brien, The Things
They Carried 2). However, it is not only O’Brien that is impacted by the death; in fact, it is
evident that every character in the chapter is impacted as each takes a turn discussing the death.
For example, Jimmy Cross struggles with the guilt of Lavender’s death and repeatedly blames
himself for the loss. Cross explains that “he pictured Martha’s smooth young face, thinking he
loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because he
loved her so much and could not stop thinking about her” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 7).
Furthermore, “after the chopper took Lavender away,” “he tried not to cry” (O’Brien, The Things
They Carried 16). Cross “felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his
men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to
carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 16).
Additionally, Rat Kiley is deeply impacted and repeatedly mentions the event: “Oh shit, Rat
Kiley said, the guy’s dead. The guy’s dead, he kept saying” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried
13). Likewise, Kiowa, “who saw it happen,” explains, “He was dead weight. There was no
twitching or flipping…said it was like watching a rock fall, or a big sandbag or something – just
boom, then down” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 6). As each character takes a turn at
discussing the death, condensation is at work as other mundane events are excluded. Lavender is
not killed while in the line of duty; instead, “Ted Lavender was shot in the dead on his way back
from peeing” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 12). This monumental event is one that stands
out for inclusion by almost every character while other moments pass from their memories as
they are especially shocked by the circumstances of it.
In addition, O’Brien also appears to utilize condensation in his physical description of the
young man he killed in the chapter entitled “The Man I Killed.” O’Brien creates a fictive life for
the man in his own mind; He imagines that the man was a “scholar” and that “he hoped the
Americans would go away” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 128, 125). Furthermore, he
imagines that the man “wrote romantic poems in his journal [and] took pleasure in the grace and
beauty of differential equations” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 128). However, as O’Brien
creates a fictive life for the man, he exercises condensation in his physical description of him.
Immediately after the shot, O’Brien physically describes the man and explains, “His jaw was in
his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a starshaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was undamaged”
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 124). As the chapter progresses, however, O’Brien
condenses his description of the man and only focuses on the star-shaped hole in the man’s eye.
Later in the chapter, O’Brien is talking with Kiowa and his mind wanders to the wound: “The
star-shaped hole was red and yellow. The yellow part seemed to be getting wider, spreading out
at the center of the star” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 126). In another situation in the
chapter, as O’Brien and Kiowa are examining the body, O’Brien focuses on the wounded eye
and notices “the one eye did a funny twinkling trick, red to yellow” (O’Brien, The Things They
Carried 129). Finally, in the end of the chapter, O’Brien provides a summary of the man he
killed and again focuses on the eye: “He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about
twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive
nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (O’Brien, The Things
They Carried 130). Instead of imagining the life of the man he killed, it appears that O’Brien has
condensed him to the one image that he cannot escape: the image of the star-shaped hole.
In O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods, the narrator also demonstrates the process of
condensation as he provides readers with details about Wade’s childhood. It appears that the
events that the narrator chooses to share are events that are of extreme importance to Wade and
ones that have greatly impacted his adult life. For example, in the chapter “The Nature of Loss,”
the narrator explains, “When he was fourteen, John Wade lost his father” (O’Brien, In the Lake
of the Woods 14). As expected from the death of a parent, Wade is dramatically impacted by this
loss. In describing Wade’s feelings at the funeral, the narrator illustrates how deeply affected
Wade was by the loss. In reference to Wade, the narrator explains, “At the funeral he wanted to
kill everybody who was crying and everybody who wasn’t. He wanted to take a hammer and
crawl into the casket and kill his father for dying. But he was helpless. He didn’t know where to
start” (O’Brien, In The Lake of the Woods 14). Furthermore, “In the weeks that followed,
because he was young and full of grief, he tried to pretend that his father was not truly dead. He
would talk to him in his imagination, carrying on whole conversations about baseball and school
and girls” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 14). Therefore, it is evident that the loss of
Wade’s father had a great impact on him as a child, so it is fitting that the narrator would choose
this memory for inclusion. Just as the most important events stand out for inclusion in a dream,
the most important events stand out for inclusion in a story. Therefore, it is no surprise the death
of Wade’s father would be included in the narrator’s story.
In both O’Brien’s retelling of situations of his own life and his storytelling techniques,
condensation is an important process, just as it is in Freud’s dream-formation process. In the
nature of storytelling, condensation allows O’Brien to only share stories that are exciting,
monumental and impactful. As a result, condensation allows O’Brien to keep his stories exciting
and interesting to readers. Condensation eliminates the possibility of mundane occurrences
throughout the texts and, instead, allows for the sharing of shocking, attention-grabbing stories.
Though Freud admits that “we have as yet no clue as to the motive calling for such
compression of the content,” condensation performs yet another important function: it has the
ability to combine separate and unrelated memories into one dream (Freud 17). For example,
Freud explains, “I can build up a person by borrowing one feature from one person and one from
another, or by giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can also visualize
one person, but place him in a position which has occurred to another” (16). Therefore, Freud
explains that in a dream, original thoughts are manipulated and construed in a manner that while
they are based on reality, the end result is not a representation of facts. Instead, the events,
characters and traits have been condensed so that they no longer represent reality.
Thus, in mimicking Freud’s ideas on condensation, O’Brien has the ability to manipulate
his characters in any way he sees fit in his fiction. For example, while O’Brien draws upon his
own life and his own character, he is able to use the process of condensation in order to provide
readers with a work of fiction. While readers may see fragments of O’Brien’s own character in
his narratives, the complete character of the writer O’Brien is no longer present as he has been
condensed. O’Brien takes the opportunity to combine features and traits from other life
experiences in order to create a fictive O’Brien, for example. The author O’Brien utilizes
condensation to manipulate the characters so that while they are based on reality, they are a
subtle combination of a variety of events, characters and experiences.
Displacement: The Second Function of Freud’s Dream-Work and Connections to O’Brien
The next function of the dream-work, as described by Freud in the dream-formation
process, is displacement. According to Freud, displacement is the process by which feelings
from the dream-thoughts are transferred from the original object to some other object. Freud
explains, “During the dream-work the psychical intensity of those thoughts and conceptions to
which it properly pertains flows to others” (18). For example, in a dream, the dreamer’s intense
love of his grandmother may be transferred in the dream to the love of an old rocking-chair.
Throughout the process of story-telling that parallels the dream-formation process, it is
likely that O’Brien’s memories undergo the process of displacement. However, while O’Brien’s
own tendency to displace feelings for one object onto another is difficult to determine, it is clear
that he uses displacement as a storytelling technique in his texts. Many of O’Brien’s characters
illustrate the process of displacement.
In Going After Cacciato displacement is illustrated by Paul Berlin’s desire for the safety
and comfort of home being displaced by his imaginative quest for the city of Paris. While it is
evident that Berlin does not want to be a part of the war and longs to return home, he accepts his
position as a soldier and does not take any action in an attempt to leave the war. However, Dean
McWilliams, in his article “Time in O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato,” explains that before the
fictive pursuit of Cacciato, Berlin has not been the model of a brave and aggressive soldier.
McWilliams explains that “Berlin has already shown in his combat experiences a tendency to
flee unpleasant reality by withdrawing into his imagination. When Buff is killed, Berlin
imagines he is home raking leaves, and when Billy Boy dies, he imagines he is back on a
boyhood camping trip with his father” (249). Furthermore, in the chapters of the text which
represent reality, Berlin is described as aloof and always at the end of the line when marching in
formation.
However, in the chapters where the men actively seek the AWOL Cacciato, Berlin is
transformed into a leader who often leads the pursuit of Cacciato. In the beginning of the hunt
for Cacciato, Berlin is often represented as being at the end of the line in formation: “Single file,
they followed the narrow trails through banks of fern and brush and vine…They moved slowly.
The heavy grind of the march: Stink still at point, then Eddie, then Oscar and the lieutenant, then
Harold Murphy toting the big gun, then Doc, then, at the rear, Spec Four Paul Berlin” (O’Brien,
Going After Cacciato 30). However, as the journey toward Paris progresses, Berlin is observed
taking on a more active role in the search. He questions, “Where would Cacciato have hung his
big hat? What was he after? What drove him away and what kept him going, and which way,
and for how long, and why?” (O’Brien, Going After Cacciato 119). As a result, Berlin is seen
straying from his group and pushing “toward the center of a crowd” in order to seek out Cacciato
(O’Brien, Going After Cacciato 121). He is no longer at the end of the line in formation; He is
actively taking his share of the responsibility for finding the AWOL Cacciato. This
transformation of Berlin can be defined as a process of displacement within the novel. O’Brien
utilizes displacement as a storytelling technique within his character Berlin as Berlin displaces
his desire for the safety and comfort of home onto the city of Paris. McWilliams explains that
“Paris was the capital of a country that had already extricated itself from a war in Vietnam, had
already anticipated and lived through the disillusionment of engagement in Southeast Asia”
(250). Furthermore and “even more important, Paris is the mythic place of healing for the
sensitive American male weary of war” (McWilliams 250). As Berlin continues to push forward
in a quest to locate Cacciato in the city of Paris, he is representing his desire to escape the war
and live safely at home. Therefore, while Berlin longs for home, he displaces the location of
home onto the safety of Paris.
In The Things They Carried, displacement is illustrated by the character Henry Dobbins
in the chapter entitled “Stockings.” In the chapter, it is explained that Henry Dobbins wears his
girlfriend’s “pantyhose around his neck before heading out on ambush” (O’Brien, The Things
They Carried 117). According to Dobbins, “the pantyhose…had the properties of a good-luck
charm:” “He liked putting his nose into the nylon and breathing in the scent of his girlfriend’s
body; he liked the memories this inspired” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 117).
Additionally, “he sometimes slept with the stockings up against his face, the way an infant sleeps
with a flannel blanket, secure and peaceful” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 117). Yet,
“more than anything…the stockings were a talisman for him. They kept him safe. They gave
access to a spiritual world, where things were soft and intimate, a place where he might someday
take his girlfriend to live” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 118). Therefore, it is apparent that
the pantyhose became a symbol to Dobbins for the safety and comforts of home. If Dobbins
were home with his girlfriend, in a world far removed from Vietnam, he would be experiencing
love, comfort and safety. While this scenario is not possible, Dobbins instead displaces these
feelings of love, comfort and safety on the pair of stockings. As a result, “he believed firmly and
absolutely in the protective power of the stockings” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 118).
While under the protective power of the stockings, Dobbins appeared “invulnerable:” “never
wounded, never a scratch” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 118). Dobbins eluded a
“Bouncing Betty” and a “firefight” after he partook in the ritual of “arranging the nylons around
his neck, carefully tying the knot, draping the two leg sections over his left shoulder” (O’Brien,
The Things They Carried 118).
At the end of the chapter, Dobbins’ girlfriend “dumped him” (O’Brien, The Things They
Carried 118). However, through the process of displacement, the pantyhose are no longer
representative of his girlfriend. Instead, the feelings of love, comfort and safety have been
displaced on the pantyhose; therefore, as Dobbins explains, “the magic doesn’t go away”
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 118).
In In the Lake of the Woods, Wade demonstrates displacement by representing his desire
for control with magic. Throughout many periods of his life, Wade longed to control situations
that were beyond his power to control. Instead of being a passive participant and accepting his
inability to control, Wade takes active role of his life by participating in magic tricks as he
displaces his desire for power by participating in magic.
Early on in his life, before the war, Wade suffered the loss of his father by an apparent
suicide. In order to sort through his emotions, Wade would often do “tricks in his mind” in order
to connect with his late father. As a result, Wade gained control over a situation that he
previously did not control. While he could not control his father while he was alive, in his
dreams, through magic, he could control both his father’s actions and words. Wade would “lie in
bed at night, imagining a big blue door, and after a time the door would open and his father
would walk in, take off his hat, and sit in a rocking chair beside the bed” (O’Brien, In the Lake of
the Woods 31). In his dreams, magic allowed Wade to imagine his father saying, “So what’s
new?” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 32). While his father was alive, Wade had a
tumultuous relationship with him. In contrast, in his dreams, under the spell of magic and
trickery, Wade was able to control the relationship and they could catch “up on things, like
cutting a tie and restoring it whole” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 32).
Later in life, it is apparent that Wade also used magic in order to assist him in gaining
control in another difficult period: the Vietnam War. Throughout the war, it appeared that Wade
experienced a multitude of conflicting feelings, particularly those associated with helplessness.
In the beginning, Wade did not even necessarily support the war. Wade did not go to war out of
desire or patriotism; instead, he went in order to pay tribute to his late father by partaking in
something that would make him proud. As a result, Wade “was not much of a soldier, barely
competent” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 36). Though he managed to “hang on without
embarrassing himself,” Wade struggled internally with the war as “the war itself was a mystery.
Nobody knew what it was about, or why they were there, or who started it, or who was winning,
or how it might end” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 36, 72 – 73). Furthermore, “secrets
were everywhere – booby traps in the hedgerows, bouncing betties under the red clay
soil…There were all secrets. History was a secret. The land was a secret. There were secret
caches, secret trails, secrets codes, secret missions, secret terrors and appetites and longings and
regrets. Secrecy was paramount. Secrecy was the war” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 73).
Therefore, Wade found himself in a foreign country fighting in a war and experiencing situations
that were beyond his control.
In an attempt to gain some control over his position in the war, Wade turned to the magic
that had been so prevalent in his life before the war. During down times “after the foxholes were
dug,” Wade “transformed the ace of spades into the queen of hearts, the queen of hearts into a
snapshot of Ho Chi Minh. Or he’d swallow his jackknife” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
36, 37). When performing magic tricks, Wade found a new sense of control as he controlled the
attention of the men. It is explained in the text that magic provides “power,” and Wade took
advantage of the power and control it provided (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 71). After a
time, his fellow soldiers would “ask his advice on matters of fortune; they’d tell each other
stories about his incredible good luck, how he never got a scratch, not once, not even the time
back in January when the mortar round dropped right next to his foxhole. Amazing, they’d say.
Man’s plugged into the spirit world” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 38). In a letter to
Kathy, Wade reveled in his newfound influence: “I’m the company witch doctor…These guys
listen to me. They actually believe in this crap” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 38).
As a result of his magic trick performances, Wade earned himself the nickname Sorcerer
(O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 37). To Wade, “the nickname was like a special badge, an
emblem of belonging and brotherhood, something to take pride in” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the
Woods 37). However, most of all, Wade took pride in the nickname because “it had magic, it
suggested certain powers, certain rare skills and aptitudes” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
37). Therefore, while “the war was aimless. No targets, no visible enemy,” Wade was able to
gain a sense of control due to his magic and trickery (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 102).
After the war, Wade continued with his propensity toward magic and entered into a
career that is described as the ultimate “magic show:” politics (O’Brien, In the Lake of the
Woods 35). It is clear that throughout much of his life Wade displaces his desire for control on
magic, and his occupation is no exception. Wade chose politics as he viewed it as a constant
magic show, which would essentially allow him to maintain daily control over a large portion of
his life. Even though Wade “talked about leading a good life, doing good things for the world,”
deep down, he understood that “politics was manipulation” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
35). Though he did not perform any card tricks or disappearing acts in order to impress the
electorate, Wade performed manipulations, much like magic, in order to gain favor with the
voters. Even before they were married, Kathy suspected that Wade’s agenda for going to war
was part of a larger agenda to influence future voters. In a letter to Wade regarding the war,
Kathy urged, “I just hope it’s not part of your political game plan…All those dead people, John,
they don’t vote” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 36). Yet, “it was true that he sometimes
imagined returning home a hero, looking spiffy in a crisp new uniform, smiling at the crowds
and carrying himself with appropriate modesty and decorum. And it was also true that uniforms
got people elected” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 36).
Furthermore, throughout his political career, Wade kept his involvement in the My Lai
massacre a secret from the electorate. Though he was urged to reveal any secrets that he may
have, Wade kept the My Lai incident unrevealed for many years. He was under the assumption
that “he could fool the world and himself too” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 68). In
connection to magic, his secret of the My Lai Massacre was like a mirage in his political career.
Therefore, politics allowed Wade to take control over his guilt. It is explained that politics was a
“way of salvaging something in himself and in the world” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
152). Though Wade did not have control during the My Lai Massacre and attempted to yell,
“no” and “please!,” he eventually succumbed to the pressure and participated in the killings
(O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 106, 107). Therefore, while he did not have control over his
involvement in the massacre, Wade recognized it as “sin” and used the magic of politics in order
to gain personal atonement and control over his guilt (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 107).
The final instance where Wade used magic in order to gain control over a situation in his
life is merely a hypothesis, yet it is possible enough that it is worthy of the reader’s attention. It
is suggested that in his final and most powerful act of magic, Wade performed a disappearing
act, of sorts, on his wife. The mystery of Kathy’s disappearance is never solved, but O’Brien
provides readers with a sense of foreshadowing earlier in the text when Kathy notes, “A piece of
advice. Be careful with tricks. One of these days you’ll make me disappear” (O’Brien, In the
Lake of the Woods 38). In the end, Kathy does disappear, and Wade is under great suspicion. In
a chapter entitled “Hypothesis,” it is suggested that her disappearance was “maybe a vanishing
act” and under the guise of “Sorcerer,” Wade “maybe…whispered magic words” as he deposited
her into the bottom of the lake (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 273, 274). Additionally, it is
also suggested that Kathy disappeared for a while and waited for Wade to join her so they could
disappear together. It is hypothesized that “they discovered happiness on earth – in some secret
country, perhaps, or in an exotic foreign capital with bizarre customs and a difficult new
language. To live there would require practice and many changes, but they were willing to
learn” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 301). Still, this hypothesis suggests that Wade
performed one final act of magic.
Therefore, throughout much of his life, Wade displaces his desire for control on the
illusions of magic. While he cannot always exercise control over his situations without magic,
he is demonstrating his desire for control by performing magic. While he never directly states
his desire for control, readers are able to comprehend this desire when the connection between
magic and control is recognized. Wade simply demonstrates what Freud describes as
displacement: his desire for control of his life is illustrated through this performance of magic.
Though occurrences of displacement are difficult to pinpoint in O’Brien’s own life, it is
clear that displacement is used by O’Brien as a storytelling technique within his novels.
Displacement is not explicitly stated, however. As a result, O’Brien uses this technique as a
means of encouraging active reading. Displacement allows readers to familiarize themselves
with characters by making their own connections and conclusions. While O’Brien establishes
the original connection between a character and a place or item, he expects readers to use active,
inquisitive minds to comprehend the relevancy of the connection.
As Freud suggests, the displacement that is present may not always simply be from one
object to another, however. Freud explains that there is also a “transvaluation of psychical
values,” which is exhibited by many of O’Brien’s characters (19). The “phenomena” of
transvaluation can be described as a deeper level of displacement (Freud 19). In the event of
transvaluation, displacement does not occur simply between objects; transvaluation allows for
the displacement of feelings and desires onto places or objects that may represent similar
emotions. Therefore, transvaluation is title given to the displacement that extends beyond the
displacement between objects.
Transvaluation is prevalent in many of O’Brien’s texts. As Berlin longs for Paris,
Dobbins holds steady to his girlfriend’s stockings and Wade engulfs himself in magic, each of
the men displace a feeling or desire that he is unable to otherwise demonstrate. Berlin, Dobbins
and Wade are all involved in the trauma of the Vietnam War where the exercising of feelings
may prove difficult. It is not realistic that each man would hold such feelings and desires within
him internally; instead, he finds a means of escape by displacing his feelings on a place or object.
According to Freud, displacement is an essential aspect of the dream as it allows the
dreamer to obtain “certain conclusions,” such as “what provokes a dream at all” and realize the
“connection of the dream with our waking life” (Freud 19). Therefore, when paralleling the
storytelling process to the dream-formation process, displacement must be an important aspect of
the novel as well. The displacement illustrated by Berlin, Dobbins and Wade is an important
factor as it grants readers a deeper understanding of each of the characters as it allows them to
see each of the men’s true desires. Though some of O’Brien’s storylines and characters may
prove challenging to comprehend, Freud explains that “the more obscure and intricate a dream is,
the greater is the part to be ascribed to the impetus of displacement in its formation” (Freud 19).
Therefore, while displacement may complicate the plots of O’Brien’s texts, it serves a greater
purpose: it deepens the connection between the characters and the readers.
Pictorial Arrangement: The Third Function of Freud’s Dream-Work and Connections to O’Brien
Pictorial arrangement is the process by which the dream-thoughts are transferred into
pictorial form that results in a visual representation. According to Freud, “the dream content
consists chiefly of visual scenes; hence the dream ideas must, in the first place, be prepared to
make use of these forms of presentation” (22). In explanation, Freud suggests that dreams “do
not appear to be expressed in the sober form which our thinking prefers; rather are they
expressed symbolically by allegories and metaphors like the figurative language of the poets”
(22). In illustration, Freud provides the following example: “Conceive that a political leader’s or
a barrister’s address had to be transposed into pantomime” (22). In essence, Freud explains that
pictorial arrangement provides a visualization of the dreamer’s experiences.
Likewise, O’Brien’s memories and stories undergo a process similar to what Freud
describes as pictorial arrangement. However, within the story-telling process, pictorial
arrangement occurs in a different form. Rather than taking ideas and putting them into a
pictorial form, O’Brien is taking memories and ideas and putting them into written form. Since
O’Brien’s memories of the war are present in his mind, he is faced with the challenge of
choosing words that will allow his readers to picture the stories he is telling. It is clear that he
uses his own life experience to build a novel, but he also includes musings from his own
thoughts. Therefore, pictorial arrangement is present in every instance where O’Brien uses his
personal memories as a basis for his novels and connects them with his own imagination. As
already established, O’Brien’s own memories are drawn upon for inspiration in Going After
Cacciatio, The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods; thus, pictorial arrangement is
utilized in all three novels.
In his interview with Smith, O’Brien explains that he uses many techniques in order to
take his ideas and past experiences and transfer them into written form, thus imitating Freud’s
ideas of pictorial arrangement. Most notably, O’Brien explains that his writing undergoes an
“endless” revision process in order to express exactly what he wants the text to say (Smith). He
explains, “I revise as a write. I might rework a sentence 10 times, 15 times, or even, in
occasional cases, a hundred times” (Smith). Furthermore, he explains, “And then, having finally
locked the sentence down, I’ll move on to the next sentence, and then same wrestling match will
begin anew. Once a paragraph is completed, I may then go back and think, oh, my God, I didn’t
even need that first sentence. So I delete it. But now I’ve got to revise the second sentence
because it’s become the first sentence” (Smith). Therefore, it is evident that O’Brien is using
editing in order to achieve pictorial arrangement. It is clear that the process of pictorially
arranging memories in order for readers to be able to visualize the scenario while reading is not
an easy task.
Like O’Brien, characters in the novels Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried
and In the Lake of the Woods are also storytellers. Therefore, each character would also utilize
the process of pictorial arrangement. As each character takes ideas from his own mind and
conveys it in either written or verbal form, he is demonstrating pictorial arrangement.
In Going After Cacciato, the character Berlin demonstrates pictorial arrangement as he
takes on the role of a storyteller as he composes letters to his mother and father during the midst
of the war. In the chapter “Pickup Games,” Berlin “composed letters” and wrote, “Things were
fine…a nice quiet time with no casualties and no noise, nothing but a river fat with dragonflies
and leeches and a million kind of bugs” (O’Brien, Going After Cacciato 100). Furthermore, “he
told his parents,” “times were divided into good times and bad times, and this…was clearly
among the good times” (O’Brien, Going After Cacciato 101). Therefore, in an attempt to get his
parents to understand the nature of the war he was fighting and visualize his own experience,
Berlin drew upon his own experiences in his mind and put them into written form in a letter to
his parents. With his act, Berlin is illustrating the process of pictorial arrangement that is
described by Freud.
In The Things They Carried, the character Rat Kiley in the chapter “How to Tell a True
War Story” takes on the role of a storyteller, thus utilizing the process of pictorial arrangement.
In the chapter, “a friend of his gets killed, so about a week later Kiley sits down and writes a
letter to the guy’s sister” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 67). In the letter, “Rat tells her
what a great brother she had, how together the guy was, a number one pal and comrade”
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 67). In illustration, “he tells a few stories to make the point,
how her brother would always volunteer for stuff nobody else would volunteer for in a million
years, dangerous stuff, like doing recon or going out on these badass night patrols” (O’Brien, The
Things They Carried 67). As Kiley depicts moments of bravery to his friend’s sister, he is
utilizing the process of pictorial arrangement. As he recalls events that happened with his friend
and attempts to get the sister to comprehend their significance, he is mimicking the pictorial
arrangement process that is described in Freud’s dream-formation process.
In In the Lake of the Woods, pictorial arrangement is present in one of the chapters
entitled “Evidence.” In this particular chapter, Richard Pendleton, a former soldier from Wade’s
platoon, is forced to testify in court in regard to the events of the My Lai massacre. As he is
questioned and forced to recall information from his own memory, Pendleton is demonstrating
the process of pictorial arrangement. As he recalls instances from his own mind and verbalizes
them for others to receive and envision, Pendleton is paralleling Freud’s process of pictorial
arrangement. For example:
Q: Can you describe what you saw?
A: There was a large mound of dead Vietnamese in the ditch.
Q: Can you estimate how many?
A: It’s hard to say. I’d say forty to fifty.
Q: Can you describe the ditch?
A: It was seven to ten feet deep, maybe ten to fifteen feet across. The bodies were all
across it. There was one group in the middle and more on the sides. The bodies were on
top of each other (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 139).
Therefore, as Pendleton, in his Court-Martial Testimony, attempts to get the government
officials to visualize and comprehend his experience in the My Lai Massacre, he is utilizing
pictorial arrangement. The memories in his mind are being transferred into verbal form, thus
paralleling Freud’s process on the formation of dreams.
In a dream, pictorial arrangement is essential as it allows for the visual representation of
feelings. Freud explains that the goal of pictorial arrangement is for a dream to contain “a
logical connection as approximation in time and space, just as the painter, who groups all the
poets for his picture of Parnassus who, though they have never been all together on a mountain
peak, yet form ideally a community” (23). In a novel, the counterpart of a dream, the process is
equally important. Pictorial arrangement allows readers to visualize the experiences of O’Brien
and his characters, thus making them feel a part of the action. In addition, pictorial arrangement
allows all of O’Brien’s memories and imaginings to come together and work as a cohesive story.
As a result, the experiences of O’Brien are then transferred into the reader’s own dreamthoughts, making O’Brien’s stories available for inclusion in the reader’s dreams.
Interpretive Revision: The Fourth Function of Freud’s Dream-Work and Connections to O’Brien
Finally, interpretative revision occurs at the end of the other three processes in an attempt
to make the dream-work a logical, cohesive story. Freud states that “we can call those dreams
properly made up which are the result of an elaboration in every way analogous to the psychical
action of our waking life” (28). However, Freud explains that this process is “not shared by
every dream” (27). He states, “In other dreams there is no such action; not even an attempt is
made to bring about order and meaning” (Freud 28). Therefore, not every dream is presented as
a logical and connected story; Some dreams present themselves as confusing and nonsensical as
they are presented in a fragmented manner. These seemingly nonsensical dreams can be
described as “quite mad” (Freud 28). Yet, Freud is quick to maintain that the result of the
interpretive revision is not a reflection on the value of the dream; no dream is devoid of meaning.
In following Freud’s process on the formation of dreams with his storytelling techniques,
O’Brien would also subject his novels to a process similar to interpretive revision. Like the
formation of dreams, some of his novels experience an interpretative revision that allows the text
to be presented in a logical and connected manner, while others do not. The logical and
connected story would most likely encompass a linear plot that does not present surprises for the
reader. This manner of interpretive revision would allow readers to easily understand the text
and not question the plot. Other times, O’Brien’s novels are presented in a manner that is
fragmented after the interpretive revision. In this case, a novel would reflect a nonlinear plot that
may sometimes lead to confusion for the reader. However, that is not to say that the novel is
devoid of meaning and interpretation. Either result of the interpretive revision process leads
readers to deep meanings and conclusions about the texts.
O’Brien’s text Going After Cacciato presents an instance where the interpretive revision
process has resulted in a fragmented text. When reading the text from beginning to end, Going
After Cacciato does not reflect a linear plot line; instead, Michael W. Raymond, in his article
“Imagined Responses to Vietnam: Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato” explains that the text of
the novel is divided into three very distinct narrative structures that each “exhibit distinct
fictional techniques” (98). Each of the fictional techniques are intermixed within each other
among the chapters and does not follow a linear plot-line.
Going After Cacciato’s first “narrative appears to depict the day-to-day surface of the
Vietnam War” (Raymond 98). Demonstrating evidence of fragmentation, this narrative “is not
fully rendered, is not chronological, and is not cohesive” (Raymond 98). Raymond explains that
“it starts in medias res with Berlin on patrol and with Cacciato’s going AWOL, slips back to
Berlin’s introduction to Vietnam, moves to record the senseless deaths of men in his patrol, and
then has him going to his first battle” (98). None of the events in the day-to-day narrative of the
war are linear and cohesive and “few details or particulars of time, place, action, or character are
provided” (Raymond 98). As a result, it is evident that the interpretive revision process of Going
After Cacciato has not resulted in a linear, cohesive text.
Furthermore, O’Brien also includes a second type of narrative into the text. Raymond
explains that the second narrative involves “ten chapters – all of which are entitled “The
Observation Post”” (99). He explains that “this narrative presents a series of indirect interior
monologues or meditations by Paul Berlin” (Raymond 99). However, unlike the first narrative
structure, “The Observation Post” often includes “the particulars of time, place, action, and
character,” yet readers are still privy to “distortions, pretending, possibilities, and illusions”
(Raymond 99). “The Observation Post” chapters of the text appear unique as they seem “to be a
rumor, a war story, a vision of what might have happened as opposed to what did happen”
(Raymond 100). In short, while readers are able to identify the setting of “The Observation
Post,” there is still confusion as Berlin’s mind is exercising an active imagination. The
confusion experienced by readers furthers the evidence that the interpretive revision process of
Going After Cacciato has resulted in a fragmented and non-linear narrative.
The third and final narrative structure of Going After Cacciato identified by Raymond is
“the story of a sad, dumb, and apparently crazy soldier named Cacciato who decides to walk
away from the war and to walk to Paris from Vietnam, and it is the story in twenty chapters of a
squad of American soldiers who follow Cacciato on the road to Paris” (100). While it becomes
clear to the reader very early on that the main character Paul Berlin is clearly imagining these
events, it is also apparent that “he is “exploring the possibilities” of pretending, dreaming, and
imagining to the fullest” (Raymond 101). As readers struggle to grasp the reality of Berlin’s
situation, evidence of an interpretive revision that results in a cohesive text is not visible.
While O’Brien creates a novel that contains three different narrative structures that do not
all combine to present a linear, cohesive story, he is presenting a text that did not experience an
interpretive revision process that resulted in a linear, cohesive text. Instead, O’Brien provides a
text that is fragmented.
Additionally, The Things They Carried is not a linear, connected plot, and, therefore,
experienced an interpretive revision process that resulted in fragmentation. Oftentimes, readers
are forced to question the reality of the events in the novel as they are told out of order and retold
from different perspectives, often even resulting in a different outcome. As Volkmer explains,
“O’Brien brings an ingenious arsenal of weapons for disrupting reader expectations and
complacencies. His narration is recursive rather than linear” (246). This often leads to
confusion in the reader and uncertainty about the truth.
Steven Kaplan, in his article “The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s
The Things They Carried,” explains that O’Brien forces readers to question the reality that is
being depicted in the text as he has a “pattern of stating facts and then quickly calling them into
question” (45). For example, Kaplan draws upon the character Jimmy Cross. He explains that
as Jimmy Cross narrates events, “the facts about an event are given…[then] they are quickly
qualified or called into question” (Kaplan 45). For example, readers become privy to the story of
the unrequited love between Cross and a young woman at home in the United States. While
Cross longs for his love to be returned, he focuses his time on imagining details, particularly her
virginity, about the girl. While readers are told that “she was a virgin…this is immediately
qualified by the statement “he was almost sure”” (Kaplan 45). As a result, O’Brien’s fictive
characters force readers to question the reality of the text. While readers are unable to grasp
what is true and what is imagined or embellished, they are experiencing a text that illustrates an
interpretive revision process that results in fragmentation and confusion. When readers question
the reality of the text, they are not receiving a cohesive story.
On the other hand, while most of In the Lake of the Woods appears to be a logical,
cohesive story, there are many instances where the main story line is interrupted. As readers are
not provided with a linear story from the beginning of the text to the end, they are provided with
a product similar to a dream that does not present itself in a linear, cohesive manner.
The main plotline of In the Lake of the Woods follows the story of Wade and his wife
Kathy, who retreat to a cottage in Lake of the Woods to recover from Wade’s staggering defeat
for a seat in the U.S. Senate. While at the cottage, Kathy disappears and the text focuses on her
disappearance and the subsequent search for her. As the first chapter of the text begins with the
explanation of Wade and Kathy retreating to the cabin as it explains, “In September, after the
primary, they rented an old yellow cottage in the timber at the edge of Lake of the
Woods…There were no towns and no people…They needed solitude,” it appears that the novel
is preparing to present the story in a linear and cohesive manner (O’Brien, In the Lake of the
Woods 1). Furthermore, when looking toward the end of the text, readers observe Wade going
out on his own to search for his missing wife after several rescue teams have been unsuccessful.
However, as readers read the entire text of the novel, it is apparent that throughout the course of
this story, there are several interruptions that disrupt the linear progression of the plot.
First and foremost, there are several flashbacks that interrupt the linear progression of the
novel that assist in establishing this as a fragmented text. Flashbacks that depict the history of
Wade and Kathy’s relationship, his involvement in the war and memories of his father consume
entire chapters. For example, the chapter “The Nature of Marriage” depicts Wade’s inclination
to spy on Kathy when she was then just his girlfriend. Instead of focusing on the present
situation of Kathy’s disappearance, the text provides readers with information that early in their
relationship, Wade “began spying on” Kathy and “found satisfaction in it” (O’Brien, In the Lake
of the Woods 32). Another chapter, “The Nature of the Beast,” depicts Wade’s experience in the
war, particularly his involvement in the My Lai massacre. Likewise, the chapter “The Nature of
Loss” depicts Wade’s intense personal struggle due to the loss of his father at a young age. The
chapter explains, “…because he was young and full of grief, he tried to pretend that his father
was not truly dead. He would talk to him in his imagination, carrying on whole conversations
about baseball and schools and girls” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 14). Entire chapters
interrupt the linear progression of the novel, thus limiting the reader’s ability to receive a
cohesive story. Therefore, the presence of flashbacks contributes to the novel’s classification of
a fragmented text.
In addition to the flashbacks that interrupt the linear progression of the novel, the novel
also contains multiple chapters are entitled “Hypothesis” and “Evidence.” Each of the chapters
entitled “Hypothesis” function to offer possibilities about what could have happened to Kathy
and how and why she disappeared. Among the hypotheses are that Kathy ran away with her
dentist ex-lover, she was murdered by Wade and that she and Wade simply ran off together in
order to escape their present reality. On the other hand, the chapters entitled “Evidence” serve to
incriminate Wade for the disappearance of his wife, most notably by citing the impact the war
had on his persona.
Therefore, it is clear that In the Lake of the Woods does not deliver a linear, cohesive plot.
As a result, it can be suggested that in connection to the dream-formation process, the novel
parallels a dream that is fragmented and seemingly nonsensical.
Like their counterpart, the dream, novels such as Going After Cacciato, The Things They
Carried and In the Lake of the Woods are not always presented in a linear, cohesive fashion.
Therefore, they have experienced an interpretive revision process that reflects fragmentation and
rejects a linear progression. As a result, the novels, like dreams, appear confusing and
nonsensical.
Freud’s Dream-Content and Connections to O’Brien
The final piece of the dream-formation process is the dream-content. Dream-content is
the dream itself. Freud acknowledges that while being put through the dream-work process, the
dream that results may appear nonsensical; however, he is quick to maintain that the final
product is meaningful nonetheless. According to Freud, a “dream, which resembles a medley of
disconnected fragments, is of as much value as the one with a smooth and beautifully polished
surface” (28). In short, all dreams are capable of conveying meaning.
Therefore, if the final product of the dream-formation process is always capable of
conveying meaning, then the final product of a storytelling process that parallels the dreamformation process is always capable of conveying meaning.
While it is certainly clear that Going After Cacciato did not result in an linear, cohesive
text as readers are given a novel that is disconnected, non-linear and, at times, seemingly
nonsensical, it is still very much capable of conveying a deep meaning. Raymond suggests that
the third type of narrative in the text, the imaginings about the soldier Cacciato, “represents
Berlin’s overt use of imagination to sort out, order, and understand his possible responses to the
Vietnam War experience. Pursuing Cacciato on the road to Paris is entirely fiction; it never
happened and no reader believes for a minute that it might have happened” (Raymond 101).
However, Raymond suggests that “in this narrative Paul Berlin (and perhaps Tim O’Brien) is
able to come to grips with participation in the Vietnam War” (101). While the narrative about
Cacciato appears nonsensical, Raymond explains that “Berlin takes the chaotic surface of the
war; the metaphysical musing about war, life, and reality; and the personal human ingredients
inherent in a twenty-year-old product of the American culture and infuses them with a sense of
order, control, and distance” (101). By doing so, “Berlin is able to face his problems of fear and
ignorance: Why did he go to war? Why did he stay? Why was it being fought? Who was right?
What was right? How did he feel about war? What is the difference between good and evil?”
(Raymond 101).
From a different perspective, Tobey C. Herzog, in his article “Going After Cacciato: The
Soldier-Author-Character Seeking Control,” suggests that O’Brien’s “imagination and
craftsmanship” allows him “to achieve a formal completeness in the novel missing in Berlin’s
tale. Moreover, the author reveals the value of imagination, his own and Berlin’s, as a means of
holding events in one’s own consciousness so they can be confronted, studied, and perhaps
understood” (95). As readers struggle to identify with the American solders about an experience
that even the soldiers themselves struggle to comprehend, O’Brien appears to be establishing a
larger theme. Herzog suggests that “most important, Going After Cacciato established art as a
salvation in the midst of chaos – a source of order, truth, and meaning in a study of the human
spirit” (Herzog, “Going After Cacciato” 95).
Herzog’s perspective is reinforced when the parallels between O’Brien’s storytelling
techniques and Freud’s theories on the formation of dreams is taken into account. While it has
been established that O’Brien’s own personal experiences in the war are likely the foundation for
his texts, it is fitting that he would hope to convey the message which has been suggested by
Herzog. In an interview, O’Brien has stated that “truths are contradictory. They swirl. There
are varieties of truth, angles on truth, reports of truth, etc….In general, I guess I’m saying that
“truth” does not seem to be…something we can touch and eat for breakfast…how we hear, what
we bring to a report of truth (say a story being told) determines our judgements about
“truthfulness” (Volkmer 245 – 246). It is evident that O’Brien himself struggles with taking his
memories and illustrating them in a clear way as, he, too, is confused by such a complicated war.
Therefore, as O’Brien follows a process similar to Freud’s theories on the formation of dreams,
he is able to convey his memories in a fictive manner that grants him salvation from a catalogue
of memories that are disordered, confusing and complicated.
In the case of O’Brien’s novels, the final products are sometimes confusing to readers and
difficult to analyze and arrive at a true meaning, and The Things They Carried is no exception.
While his plots are often non-linear and non-cohesive, it is sometimes difficult to decipher his true
message. Jon Volkmer, in his article “Telling the Truth about Vietnam,” discusses the difficulty
in obtaining a message from O’Brien’s text as he attempts to establish the idea of truth as a central
theme in many of O’Brien’s works. Volkmer explains, “In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
makes the problem of locating the truth the central theme. Instead of promising the truth, O’Brien
spends most of his time hacking away at the very idea of “truth” when it comes to war. The term
is too closely aligned with “meaning,” “coherence,” and “significance” for his liking” (245).
Instead, “O’Brien’s strategy, throughout the book, is to hook the reader into an engaging story,
then radically disrupt the narrative” (Volkmer 245). In essence, “O’Brien wants to pull the rug
out from under the reader, explode complacencies, keep the reader on the edge and guessing”
(Volkmer 245).
The result of O’Brien’s disruption of narrative can be paralleled to a dream-content that is
not completely understandable after being subject to the dream-work processes. However, Freud
is quick to maintain that just because a dream is seemingly nonsensical, it is not meaningless. As
a result, Volkmer suggests that “this state of never coming to conclusions, never being allowed to
settle into a truth, paradoxically provides a “truer” sense of the experience of Vietnam than a
consistent narrative could do” (245).
Furthermore, Kaplan explains that “conveying the average soldier’s sense of uncertainty
about what actually happened in Vietnam by presenting the what-ifs and maybes as if they were
facts, and then calling these facts back into question again, can be seen as a variation of the
haunting phrase used so often by American soldiers to convey their own uncertainty about what
happened in Vietnam: “there it is.” They used it to make the unspeakable and indescribable and
the uncertain real and present for a fleeting moment” (46). However, Kaplan argues that while
O’Brien’s text may appear nonsensical to readers at first glance, it functions to present notions
about a larger reality. Kaplan explains that “by giving the reader facts and then calling those facts
into question, by telling stories and then saying that those stories happened (147), and then that
they did not happen (203), and then that they might have happened (204), O’Brien puts more
emphasis on the question that he first posed in Going After Cacciato: how can a work of fiction
become paradoxically more real than the events upon which it is based, and how can the confusing
experiences of the average soldier in Vietnam be conveyed in such a way that they will acquire at
least a momentary sense of certainty” (46). Thus, Kaplan is implying that O’Brien’s own
storytelling techniques, which have been established as paralleling Freud’s dream-formation
process, seek to convey to readers the uncertainty experienced by soldiers in the midst of the war.
Therefore, while The Things They Carried is not a logical and linear novel, it is clear that
the text is not devoid of meaning. Kapan argues that “representing events in fiction is an attempt
to understand them by detaching them from the “real world” and placing them in a world that is
being staged” (48). Kaplan explains that O’Brien desperately struggles to make his readers believe
that what they are reading is true because he wants them to step outside their everyday reality and
participate in the events that he is portraying” (48). In a larger perspective, beyond the conflict of
the Vietnam War, Kaplan explains that “when we conceptualize life, we attempt to step outside
ourselves and look at who we are. We constantly make new attempts to conceptualize our lives
and uncover our true identities because looking at who we might be is as close as we can come to
discovering who we actually are” (47 – 48). As a result, O’Brien is attempting to convey the
complex feelings experiences by the soldiers to the readers. As a result, their experiences can be
experienced vicariously and readers may receive them better than they would from reading a nonfiction text.
Additionally, Kaplan adds that “before the United States became militarily involved in
defending the sovereignty of South Vietnam, it had to, as one historian recently put it, “invent”
(Baritz 142 – 143) the country and the political issues at stake there” (43). Kaplan explains that
“first the United States decided what constituted good and evil, right and wrong, civilized and
uncivilized, freedom and oppression for Vietnam, according to American standards; then it
traveled the long physical distance to Vietnam and attempted to makes its own notions about these
things clear to the Vietnamese people – ultimately by brute, technological force” (43). While these
inventions quickly became fact for the military leaders of the United States, it transpired that “for
the soldiers that the government sent there…the fact that their government had created about who
was the enemy, what were the issues, and how the war was to be won were quickly overshadowed
by a world of uncertainty” (Kaplan 43). Therefore, Kaplan explains that readers are provided with
a time period of literature that pays tribute to the complicated and brutal Vietnam War. As
O’Brien’s novels such as The Things They Carried encompass the war, it, “like all of the literature
on the war, both fictional and nonfictional, makes clear that the only certain thing during the
Vietnam War was that nothing was certain” (Kaplan 43).
Additionally, while readers can look at the work as a whole in order to establish a message,
they may also analyze each chapter individually in order to receive a message from writer Tim
O’Brien. For example, in the chapter entitled “The Lives of the Dead,” the concluding chapter of
the text, readers are provided with the story of the fictive O’Brien’s first experience with love.
While in fourth grade, O’Brien falls in love with Linda, one of his classmates. O’Brien explains
that “it was real. When I write about her now, three decades later, it’s tempting to dismiss it as a
crush, an infatuation of childhood, but I know for a fact what we felt for each other was as deep
and rich as love can ever get” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 228). He remembers her as
having “poise and great dignity” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 228). One night, when he
and Linda go on their first date, O’Brien recalls that she was wearing “a new red cap, which
seemed…very stylish and sophisticated, very unusual” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 229).
He explains, “It was a stocking cap, basically, except the tapered part at the top seemed extra long,
almost too long, like a tail growing out of the back of her head” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried
229). Later, O’Brien is granted the knowledge that Linda wears the red cap in order to hide her
head, which is slowly losing hair due to the effects of a brain tumor. Soon after their date, Linda
passes away and O’Brien vividly recalls visiting the funeral home and seeing Linda in her casket.
After confirming Linda’s death with his visit to the funeral home, O’Brien finds himself thinking
of Linda and making “up elaborate stories to bring Linda alive in [his] sleep” (O’Brien, The Things
They Carried 243). In his dreams, Linda comforts O’Brien and assures him that “right now,” in
his dreams, she is “not dead” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 245). In essence, as long as
O’Brien dreams of Linda and holds her in his thoughts, she is never truly dead, but alive in his
memories.
When analyzing “The Lives of the Dead” as a stand-alone chapter, it appears that readers
can decipher a message from the author O’Brien about the action of storytelling. It seems as if
O’Brien is making a statement about the healing power of writing and its ability to save. The
chapter begins with the words, “but this too is true; stories can save us” (O’Brien, The Things They
Carried 225). In the same chapter, O’Brien explains that once in a while, he remembers the deaths
of “Ted Lavender…Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and several others
whose bodies I once lifted and dumped in a truck,” yet when he transfers those memories and puts
them into a story, “the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world” (O’Brien, The
Things They Carried 225). As a writer, O’Brien is aware he has the unique ability to keep the
dead alive, metaphorically, by memorializing them through the written word of stories.
In “The Lives of the Dead,” O’Brien explains that while in Vietnam, the soldiers “had ways
of making the dead seem not quite so dead” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 238). While the
soldiers attempted to escape the reality by “shaking hands” and “pretend[ing] it was not the terrible
thing is was,” O’Brien explains that the most healing technique was keeping “the dead alive with
stories” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 239). O’Brien explains that with the power of stories,
he will never forget his first love or the brave soldiers who fought alongside him in Vietnam.
As “The Lives of the Dead” is the concluding chapter of the text and offers a powerful
message about the power of storytelling, it cannot be ignored that O’Brien is likely making a
statement about his text as a whole. Perhaps O’Brien is offering the suggestion that while The
Things They Carried is quite obviously about the Vietnam War, it likely carries much more
relevance than simply making a claim about the brutalities and sorrows of the war. Perhaps
O’Brien is exercising his belief that “stories can save us” and writing a book that allows him to set
himself free of demons from the war and consequently, save himself (O’Brien, The Things They
Carried 225).
While O’Brien creates a novel about the potential for stories to save people that likely saves
him by allowing him to purge his painful memories, O’Brien is exercising what is described by
Terry Eagleton in his book How to Read a Poem as the incarnational fallacy. While Eagleton is
speaking specifically of poetry, his principles can be applied to novels, as well. Eagleton explains
that “on this view, form and content in poetry are entirely at one because the poem’s language
somehow ‘incarnates’ its meaning. Whereas everyday language simply points to things, poetic
language actually embodies them” (59). Therefore, O’Brien exercises the incarnational fallacy by
creating a story about the power of stories to save people that, as a result, saves him from his own
memories.
O’Brien, in what appears to be an autobiographical moment at the end of The Things They
Carried, poetically explains the power of his writing a story that includes fragments of his own
past:
And then it becomes 1990. I’m forty-three years old, and a writer now, still
dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way. She’s not the embodied Linda; she’s
mostly made up, with a new identity and a new name, like the man who never was.
Her real name doesn’t matter. She was nine years old. I loved her and then she
died. And yet right here, in the spell of memory and imagination, I can still see her
as if through ice, as if I’m gazing into some other world, a place where there are no
brain tumors and no funeral homes, where there are no bodies at all. I can see
Kiowa, too, and Ted Lavender and Curt Lemon, and sometimes I can even see
Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow floodlights. I’m young and happy. I’ll
never die. I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding
the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into
the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save
Timmy’s life with a story. (245 – 246)
According to a “Current Biography” article on the author O’Brien, O’Brien has voiced his
belief in the power of storytelling in an interview with D.J.R. Bruckner of The New York Times:
“My life is storytelling…I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep
the living alive, and the dead…storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation,
the more essential it is. In Vietnam men were constantly telling one another stories about the war.
Our unit lost a lot of guys around My Lai, but the stories they told stay around after them. I would
be mad not to tell the stories I know” (“O’Brien,” Current Biography).
Therefore, Freud argues that a seemingly “obscure, intricate [and] incoherent” dream that
results from the dream-formation process is meaningful nonetheless (24). He explains that “when
the dream appears openly absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of
purpose” (Freud 24). In connection, the same principle can be applied to a novel that is created
from a storytelling process that parallels the dream-formation process (24). While The Things
They Carried is, at times, seemingly nonsensical, there is great meaning to be deciphered upon
closer observation.
Likewise, while In the Lake of the Woods presented a fragmented text, it is clear that it,
too, is capable of presenting a deep meaning and message. Looking at the story within the novel
itself, it is difficult to overlook the presence of a narrator who has fixated on the story of Wade
and his disappearing wife for over four years. Timothy Melley, in his article “Postmodern
Amnesia: Trauma and Forgetting in Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods, explains that “the
novel’s narrator is an obsessive researcher who tries – and ultimately fails – to get to the bottom
of Kathy’s disappearance. In place of a final explanation, he offers eight different hypotheses
about Kathy’s disappearance: she was murdered, committed suicide, got lost in the woods, ran
away from John, and so on” (113). Through his experience in analyzing Wade’s tale and his
inability to come to a definite outcome of what actually happened to Kathy, the narrator seems to
be conveying a message to readers about the unreliability of truth.
Marjorie Worthington, in her article “The Democratic Meta-Narrator in In the Lake of the
Woods,” suggests that the presence of the narrator functions to question the believability of truth
within the novel itself, and, in a larger perspective, life in general. Worthington explains that the
presence of the narrator functions to “cast doubt about whether truth can ever be definitively
determined” and make the claim that “the truth is difficult to determine and can depend upon the
context” (121). Connecting to O’Brien’s ideas about the fluidity of truth, Worthington refers to
The Things They Carried. Worthington explains that “The Things They Carried differentiates
between the “happening truth” and the “story truth,” the former is the actual, nonabstract account
of what happened, and the latter is the philosophical meaning behind an event” (Worthington
121). Worthington explains that “the storytruth can be more vivid and direct, more “true” than a
reality-based account [and] these ideas are echoed in In the Lake of the Woods” (121).
Worthington suggests that “the structure of In the Lake of the Woods reinforces this notion of the
slippery indeterminacy of the truth” by using a biased, and, therefore, unreliable narrator. In
order to question the notion of truth, Worthington suggests that the narrator utilizes “Evidence”
and “Hypothesis” chapters within the structure of the novel in order to convey the idea that the
truth of a situation is impossible to determine.
Throughout the novel, the main plot is interrupted by chapters entitled “Evidence.”
Worthington explains that “the evidence sections provide bits of material from Wade’s life and
related sources that may provide insight into whether he killed his wife” (122). Yet, “no single
clear picture emerges from the evidence; as the narrator says, “[E]vidence is not truth. It is only
evident” (30)” (Worthington). Therefore, “instead, it is left to the reader to determine whether or
not Wade could have murdered Kathy, or to determine that it is impossible to know one way or
the other” (Worthington 122). Though multiple pieces of evidence are presented, the reader is
still unable to come to a firm truth about what happened to Kathy Wade.
In the “Hypothesis” chapters, on the other hand, the narrator “provide[s] various
possibilities of what might have happened to Kathy,” infusing his own opinions into the text of
the novel (Worthington 122). For example, “one chapter depicts her running away with a lover;
others show her taking out a boat and getting lost or drowning in the lake. One graphically
depicts Wade killing her by pouring boiling water over her face” (Worthington 122). However,
in the end, “the novel does not overtly privilege one hypothesis over another; instead, it provides
enough evidence for any of the scenarios to be valid. The truth, then, remains a mystery”
(Worthington 122).
In the end, “what the narrator does by consciously and openly informing us of his
personal opinion is to expose his own agenda and admit that he, too, is an observer and, as such
will paint a portrait of the truth that is shaped by his agenda” (Worthington 123). As a result,
“this narrator makes us aware of his presence and discloses his own opinion, thereby further
freeing the reader to construct his or her own opinions” (Worthington 123). By his inability to
come to one conclusion about the fate of Kathy, the narrator is reinforcing the idea that the truth
of a situation is often impossible to determine. While one scenario may be more likely than the
other, it is often up to the observer of a situation to actually determine what is more believable to
them, and therefore, the truth. In essence, the truth of a situation is fluid and often determined by
individuals based on their own opinions and biases.
O’Brien reflects on the idea of the impossibility of determining truth and the notion that
truth can be different for different individuals in his interview with Smith. O’Brien explains,
“Some novels begin with a scrap of language – for instance, “This is true:” the first sentence of
“How to Tell a True War Story.” When I wrote that, I knew nothing at all about what would
become the content of the story, or plot, or character or theme” (Smith). Instead, O’Brien states,
“I simply found myself tantalized by language itself, that flat declaration: “This is true.”
Instantly, I wondered what is true?” (Smith). As he continued writing the story, O’Brien
explained, “The very content of the story began to take shape as if by magic – how firm is socalled “truth,” can truths evolve or reverse themselves over time, is truth a product of the mind,
can one person’s “truth” be another person’s outrageous falsehood, can two “truths” be utterly
contradictory and yet remain true” (Smith).
Therefore, it appears that by the narrator’s inability to come to a solid conclusion about
the fate of Kathy, O’Brien is forcing readers to question their own beliefs on the solidity of truth.
O’Brien, through a narrative that appears nonsensical as it has not undergone a successful
interpretive revision, allows readers to understand that the truth may be different depending on a
person’s interpretation, experiences and context.
Freud’s Repression and Connections to O’Brien
Taking into account Freud’s ideas, it can be understood that through the process of
dream-formation, all experiences that are represented in a dream are likely not represented in
true form. Through the dream-work process, memories and experiences are oftentimes
manipulated through condensation, displacement, pictorial arrangement and interpretive revision
and the outcome of the dream-content has a basis in reality, but it is often only a representation
of reality. Therefore, it can be inferred that while O’Brien likely draws on his own personal
experiences in the Vietnam War, as he follows a process similar to the dream-formation process
in his creation of novels, all experiences may not be presented in exact, true fashion.
It is possible that O’Brien’s experiences are not represented in exact fashion and that he
is not a reliable story-teller due to the effects of repression. While he battles with telling difficult
tales from his involvement in a brutal war, it is possible that O’Brien experiences an unconscious
repression which does not allow him to tell the complete truth of his experiences. According to
Freud, repression is a process that occurs in order to protect the dreamer from experiencing
extremely painful, buried memories while dreaming. Therefore, a dream continues to repress
certain information by the processes mentioned in the dream-work process. Freud refers to his
new representation in the dream as “dream distortion” (32). In paralleling the dream-formation
process, it is likely that O’Brien is subconsciously experiencing repression while exploring
memories to include in his texts.
Relating to O’Brien, it is clear that he is experiencing repression in some form. When
writing his novels, the author O’Brien does not present a cohesive, linear text in Going After
Cacciato, The Things They Carried or In the Lake of the Woods. Instead, the novels which are
presented to readers are fragmented narratives that are likely the result of repression. While
O’Brien advises aspiring writers to not “avoid entirely that which has hurt you or that which has
jerked you awake at night,” it seems apparent that O’Brien is unable to depict his own fears and
memories in a clear, linear fashion (Smith). Instead, readers are provided with bits and pieces of
O’Brien’s memories in a disorderly fashion. Readers are given pieces of truth mixed with an
abundance of imagination. The use of imagination lends O’Brien the opportunity to fill in pieces
of stories that are filled with “bitterness and irony and guilt” that he is unable to remember due to
repression (Smith).
Additionally, many of O’Brien’s characters also experience repression. Perhaps the most
prominent example of repression is Wade’s repression of events that occurred at My Lai in In the
Lake of the Woods. Readers see Wade experience many emotions in regard to his role in the
Vietnam War. A participant in what would be later referred to as the My Lai Massacre, Wade
most prominently experiences repression as he is unable to recall the exact events that occurred
that day. In the text, it is explained that “he would both remember and not remember a fleet
human movement off to his left. He would not remember squealing. He would not remember
raising his weapon, nor rolling away from the bamboo fence, but he would remember forever
how he turned and shot down an old man with a wispy beard and wire glasses and what looked
to be a rifle. It was not a rifle. It was a small wooden hoe” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
109). Though Wade is able to remember some about the massacre, it is only in fragmented
pieces. Thus, it is evident that Wade is subconsciously repressing some memories in order to
protect himself from a likely brutal reality.
Additionally, in the chapter entitled “What He Remembered,” Wade also exhibits signs
of repression. Since Wade was the only person with Kathy directly before her disappearance, he
is immediately a prime suspect in the case. However, when questioned, instead of outlining his
entire last day with Kathy in order to free himself from suspicion and the theory that he is “not
quite explaining everything,” Wade has difficulty recalling the exact events of the day (O’Brien,
In the Lake of the Woods 177). The narrator explains, “Some things he would remember clearly.
Other things he would remember only as shadows, or not at all. It was a matter of adhesion.
What stuck and what didn’t” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 17). For example, “He would
be quite certain, for instance, that around noon that day they put on their swimsuits and went
down to the lake,” but later in the day, the events are foggy in Wade’s mind (O’Brien, In the
Lake of the Woods 19). The narrator explains, “Maybe he dozed off. Maybe he had a drink or
two. All he would remember with any certainty was that late in the afternoon they locked up the
cottage and made the six-mile drive into town…If they spoke at all during the ride, he would
have no memory of it” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 19).
As Wade struggles to remember exactly the events leading up to Kathy’s disappearance,
he appears to be experiencing repression. The text suggests that Wade had many motives that
might make him want to cause harm or death to Kathy: “a decayed marriage,” “deferred dreams,
withheld intimacies” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 250). The narrator implies that Wade
may have caused physical harm to his wife by pouring scalding water on her face when he
explains, “he would remember only the steam [of the teakettle] and the heat and the tension in
his fists and forearms” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods 49). However, as a sign of repression,
Wade would only remember part the event leading up to his tension: “Stupidly, he was smiling,
but the smile was meaningless. He would not remember it” (O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
49). Therefore, it is possible that Wade is subconsciously repressing moments of the day that
may incriminate him in the disappearance of his wife. It is possible that he is subconsciously
repressing memories in order to protect himself, much like Freud described.
Furthermore, it is clear that the fictive O’Brien in The Things They Carried is also
demonstrating signs of repression. For example, in the chapter “Spin,” the narrator speaks to the
readers and explains that while writing about the war is a cathartic, he also has difficulty
remembering specific instances about his time in Vietnam. While O’Brien explains that he
remembers some difficult times such as “Kiowa sinking into the deep muck of a shit field, or
Curt Lemon hanging in pieces from a tree,” “much of it is hard to remember” (O’Brien, The
Things They Carried 32). While O’Brien explains that “the bad stuff never stops happening: it
lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over,” there is evidence of repression as
O’Brien rarely mentions situations that involve him specifically when addressing the reader
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 32). While the fictive O’Brien “sit[s] at [his] typewriter and
stare[s] through [his] words, none of the stories that he shares directly with readers are his own
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 32). O’Brien’s stories are the stories of his fellow soldiers;
he does not struggle in remembering the stories that involve others. In contrast, however, he is
unable to remember much of what directly impacted his own character, which is a sign of
repression.
Additionally, readers are provided with the character Jimmy Cross in The Things They
Carried as yet another example of repressed memories. While Cross’s repression is partially
conscious and partially unconscious, it is clear that Cross is having difficultly dealing with the
death of Ted Lavender. In the chapter entitled “Love,” Cross visits the narrator O’Brien many
years after the war” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 27). While looking over “maybe a
hundred old photographs,” the two men “paused over a snapshot of Ted Lavender, and after a
while Jimmy rubbed his eyes and said he’d never forgiven himself for Lavender’s death”
(O’Brien, The Things They Carried 27). In the end of the chapter, Cross illustrates his conscious
need for repression of this painful memory as he asks the fictive O’Brien, “And do me a favor.
Don’t mention anything about-- ” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 30). The memory of
Lavender’s death is still present, but the details of it remain repressed in Cross’s memory as it is
too difficult to recall in its entirety.
While the function of repression is to protect the dreamer from painful memories, it
appears that O’Brien is making the claim that in real life, repression can also be damaging. For
example, while Cross keeps the memories of Lavender’s death buried deep inside of him and
refuses to speak of it or forgive himself, other aspects of his life suffer. Instead of finding
freedom in forgiveness, Cross appears self-destructive in other relationships in his life. For
example, the love that Cross has for Martha is mentioned on several occasions throughout the
text, yet the love seems to be more of an obsession than a pure love. It seems as if Cross has
taken his intense emotion of guilt and transferred it into an obsession of Martha. While he
appears to feel that he cannot control or change his role in Lavender’s death, he can certainly
control – or attempt to control – his relationship with Martha. However, Martha is turned off by
his intensity and breaks off the relationship. Therefore, the effects of repression are damaging to
Cross as he refuses to face his pain and instead experiences destruction in other areas of his life.
Conclusions
In summary, while Freud’s theories speak only to the issue of dream-formation, it is clear
that his processes can be applied to the storytelling process, as well. However, while the dreamformation process results in dream, a storytelling process that mirrors Freud’s process results in a
novel. Specifically, as Tim O’Brien draws on his own experiences from the Vietnam War, he
follows a process similar to the dream-formation process which allows him to transform his
actual experiences into fictional ones that he presents in the form of novels.
Furthermore, O’Brien utilizes many of the processes outlined by Freud with his novels as
a storytelling technique as his characters also follow similar processes. Mirroring Freud’s
process allows O’Brien to present his ideas in non-cohesive and seemingly confusing fashion.
However, in the end, it is clear that just as every dream is meaningful, so is every novel that is
created following the dream-formation process.
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