Discuss with other students and post an answer to the reading group questions. If posting as a group, be sure to list the names of the people in your group for credit. You can write the answers in a word document before you post, so that you have a copy.
Also, work on your short stories and for homework, finish the novel for Tuesday.
Have a great weekend.
1. Almost from this novel's first page we know that Kathy Wade will vanish, and it is not long before we discover that her disappearance will remain unsolved. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woodsits undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
3. What does O'Brien accomplish in the sections titled "Evidence"? What information do these passages impart that is absent from the straightforward narrative? How do they alter or deepen our understanding of John as a magician, a politician, a husband, and a soldier who committed atrocities in wartime? What connections do they forge between his private tragedy and the pathologies of our public life and history? Does the testimony of (or about) such "real" people as Richard Nixon, William Calley, or George Custer lend greater verisimilitude to John's story or remind us that it--and John himself--are artifices?
4. Who is the narrator who addresses us in the "Evidence" sections? Are we meant to see him as a surrogate for the author, who also served in Vietnam and revisited Thuan Yen many years after the massacre? (See Tim O'Brien, "The Vietnam in Me," in The New York Times Magazine, October 3, 1994, pp. 48-57.) In what ways does O'Brien's use of this narrator further explode the conventions of the traditional novel?
5. One of the few things that we know for certain about John is that he loves Kathy. But what does John mean by love? How do John's feelings for his wife resemble his hopeless yearning for his father, who had a similar habit of vanishing? In what circumstances does John say "I love you"? What vision of love is suggested by his metaphor of two snakes devouring each other? Why might Kathy have fallen in love with John?
6. Although it is easy to see Kathy as the victim of John's deceptions, the author at times suggests that she may be more conscious (and therefore more complex) than she first appears. We learn, for example, that Kathy has always known about John's spying and even referred to him as "Inspector Clouseau," an ironic counterpoint to John's vision of himself as "Sorcerer." At a critical moment she rebuffs her husband's attempt at a confession. And in the final section of "Evidence," we get hints that Kathy may have planned her own disappearance. Are we meant to see Kathy as John's victim or as his accomplice, like a beautiful assistant vanishing inside a magician's cabinet?
7. Why might John have entered politics? Is he merely a cynical operator with no interest in anything but winning? Or, as Tony Carbo suggests, might John be trying to atone for his actions in Vietnam? Why might the author have chosen to leave John's political convictions a blank?
8. John's response to the horrors of Thuan Yen is to deny them: "This could not have happened. Therefore it did not." Where else in the novel does he perform this trick? How does John's way of coping with the massacre compare to the psychic strategies adopted by William Calley or Paul Meadlo? Do any of O'Brien's characters seems capable of acknowledging terrible truths directly? How does In the Lake of the Woods treat the matter of individual responsibility for evil?
9. Each of this novel's hypotheses about events at the cabin begins with speculation but gradually comes to resemble certainty. The narrator suggests that John and Kathy Wade are ultimately unknowable, as well; that any attempt to "penetrate...those leaden walls that encase the human spirit" can never be anything but provisional. Seen in this light, In the Lake of the Woods comes to resemble a magician's trick, in which every assertion turns out to be only another speculation. Given the information we receive, does any hypothesis about what happened at Lake of the Woods seem more plausible than the others? With what certainties, if any, does this novel leave us?
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
3. What does O'Brien accomplish in the sections titled "Evidence"? What information do these passages impart that is absent from the straightforward narrative? How do they alter or deepen our understanding of John as a magician, a politician, a husband, and a soldier who committed atrocities in wartime? What connections do they forge between his private tragedy and the pathologies of our public life and history? Does the testimony of (or about) such "real" people as Richard Nixon, William Calley, or George Custer lend greater verisimilitude to John's story or remind us that it--and John himself--are artifices?
4. Who is the narrator who addresses us in the "Evidence" sections? Are we meant to see him as a surrogate for the author, who also served in Vietnam and revisited Thuan Yen many years after the massacre? (See Tim O'Brien, "The Vietnam in Me," in The New York Times Magazine, October 3, 1994, pp. 48-57.) In what ways does O'Brien's use of this narrator further explode the conventions of the traditional novel?
5. One of the few things that we know for certain about John is that he loves Kathy. But what does John mean by love? How do John's feelings for his wife resemble his hopeless yearning for his father, who had a similar habit of vanishing? In what circumstances does John say "I love you"? What vision of love is suggested by his metaphor of two snakes devouring each other? Why might Kathy have fallen in love with John?
6. Although it is easy to see Kathy as the victim of John's deceptions, the author at times suggests that she may be more conscious (and therefore more complex) than she first appears. We learn, for example, that Kathy has always known about John's spying and even referred to him as "Inspector Clouseau," an ironic counterpoint to John's vision of himself as "Sorcerer." At a critical moment she rebuffs her husband's attempt at a confession. And in the final section of "Evidence," we get hints that Kathy may have planned her own disappearance. Are we meant to see Kathy as John's victim or as his accomplice, like a beautiful assistant vanishing inside a magician's cabinet?
7. Why might John have entered politics? Is he merely a cynical operator with no interest in anything but winning? Or, as Tony Carbo suggests, might John be trying to atone for his actions in Vietnam? Why might the author have chosen to leave John's political convictions a blank?
8. John's response to the horrors of Thuan Yen is to deny them: "This could not have happened. Therefore it did not." Where else in the novel does he perform this trick? How does John's way of coping with the massacre compare to the psychic strategies adopted by William Calley or Paul Meadlo? Do any of O'Brien's characters seems capable of acknowledging terrible truths directly? How does In the Lake of the Woods treat the matter of individual responsibility for evil?
9. Each of this novel's hypotheses about events at the cabin begins with speculation but gradually comes to resemble certainty. The narrator suggests that John and Kathy Wade are ultimately unknowable, as well; that any attempt to "penetrate...those leaden walls that encase the human spirit" can never be anything but provisional. Seen in this light, In the Lake of the Woods comes to resemble a magician's trick, in which every assertion turns out to be only another speculation. Given the information we receive, does any hypothesis about what happened at Lake of the Woods seem more plausible than the others? With what certainties, if any, does this novel leave us?
Whitney Lora
ReplyDeleteAlaina Howell
Jerry Figueroa
1. In the Lake of the Woods, even though the reader is aware that Kathy will disappear, we still are faced with the mystery of how she disappeared. We are given vague hints and hypotheses about her disappearance, but we are left speculating on her whereabouts and if John is responsible for Kathy’s disappearance.
2. By using this narrative scheme, the author achieves a form of storytelling that isn’t linear yet manages to tie the whole story together. This also puts off the ending, and leaves the reader more time to speculate and come up with his or her own theories about Kathy.
3. If it’s evidence, then we know for sure that it’s a fact. O’Brien uses the evidence, background, and motives to explain Kathy’s disappearance
1.)The suspense is sustained throughout the book, because he is unaware of what happened to her the whole book; he believes he could of had something to do with it.
ReplyDelete2a.)By moving backward and forward in time gives the reader background information on the present and future.For example we know John's motives based on his childhood experiences. The literary technique of flashbacks are effective throughout the whole novel
2b.)They all tie into his thought process of how he is trying to figure out what happened to his wife.
3a.)It gives us the detailed information that we don't get in the straightforward passages.
3b.)They are accounts of other people, and instead of maintaining a third person omniscent we also have a first person narrative that give us personal insight about John's life.
3c.)John is obviously suffering from PTSD and we can see that throughout the novel. The life after soldiers leave a war they suffer from this disorder which John is a prime example of.
3d.)It proves the fact that it-- and John himself-- are artifices, because most politicians manipulate people, magic does the same thing.
4.)Tim O'Brien usage of the surrogate author goes against a traditional novel by using more than one narrator.
5.)John loves Kathy, because she fills that void that John didn't get to fill with his father. Although Kathy Vanishes she always comes back, and the was what john yearned for with his father; he just wanted him to come back. The metaphor of two snakes devouring each other symbolize two similar people constantly going at each other, but at the end of the day they will always be able to start anew and begin newer and better days together.
6.)I think Kathy was an accomplice, because she was so in love with John, that she felt that if she disappeared she would cover up everything that he did previously.
7.)John is in politics, because it is the offset of him being a magician when he was younger. Being a magician you can manipulate people and the people perception of you, politics do the same thing. The author may have chosen to leave John's political convictions a blank so the reader can come up with their own perception of John.
8.)John's psyche like william calley and Paul Meadlo is not being able to let go of their experiences in the Vietnam War, which plays a huge role in their motives in the way that they think in their daily lives. O'Brien develops kathy's character to being another factor of John's childhood that never seemed to die. Kathy is like the living version of his father.
9.)We are certain that John is a magician, and we are also certain that John is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, everything else is unreliable.
Nautica, Kennethea, Brianna
Justice
ReplyDelete1. The book has suspense because we don't know if she left, or if john himself killed her. We never really know what happened that night when he killed the plants and blacked out.
2. The scheme in the book helps us to understand why john is the way he is, talking about him as a child with his father lets us know how he feels about relationships and why he was so needy when it came to Kathy in college. Showing him at war shows us how he hols him self together with and with out Kathy at the roughest of times. They all tie together because all of these experience made John who he is.
3.We understand him more and see how he pulls his life together. It makes me wonder how much did he really love Kathy and why is she now gone?
4. I think the narrator is John in a way. The text seems really personal when you read it.
5. I think John is just obsessed with the idea of Kathy. His dad died and he feels somewhat alone so he feels like he has to fill the empty hole left and he found Kathy and filled it with her. I'm sure he does love her but i think it's the idea of her that he really loves.
Ta'shae
6.I think Kathy is meant to be the victim, I think even in college Katy settled for John and fell in love but she was fed up and probably left, she may have regret about leaving but i think she was the victim.
7. I think he joined politics so he could have a sense of stability. He wanted to be in charge of something because he felt helpless because of his fathers death when he was little.
8.
9. The book leaves us certain of nothing but the fact that John loved Kathy. It gives clues about Kathy just leaving and about John getting rid of her, but it is never clear and we are never certain.
Shayla and Marissa
ReplyDelete1. Even though we know that Kathy will disappear the suspense lies in the mystery behind her disappearance. The deeper we go into the story we see their relationship begin to crumble and Wade seems to be losing his sanity and the suspense builds up as we wait for him to reach his climax and finally do something to prove his insanity. Tim O’Brien may have given away the end of the mystery but the way he writes the events leading to Kathy’s disappearance is written in such a way that the suspense of a traditional mystery is still there.
2. O’Brien incorporates flashbacks to Wade’s past because they hold importance for Wade’s present actions. By doing this it allows the reader the reader to develop their own hypotheses about Kathy’s fate by knowing Wade’s past and observing his current behavior.
3. The “Evidence” sections allows the reader to get a sense of what others thought of Wade and Kathy’s relationship and their past, a deep personal view not offered in the narrative itself.
4. The narrator is meant to be seen as surrogate. This is a technique that breaks traditon.
Monica, Ledibel, Victoria, Jenee'
ReplyDelete1) In the novel, its a mystery to what happened to Kathy. The author gives you just enough information for the reader to form their own opinion on what happened in the book.
2) You see how the past and present events unravel to make the future in which we ourselves have to predict based on the evidence. We see how his character was created from childhood to marriage to war.
3) You see their perspective of how John was and how life was in the war. The author lets us build our own opinion of what really happened based on the factual evidence that we are given about Kathy's disappearance .
4) It sounds like a reporter investing the historical background of the Vietnam War and the trials afterward to further understand the severity of the violence and immorality that went on during that time and the affect it had on the already unstable John Wade. The post traumatic stress became overwhelming to the the point he lost the love of his life as well as any sanity he had left.
5) John has a history of neglect that he projected onto Kathy. He used to Kathy to fill a void that wasn't love but neediness and obsession. He was scared another person he cared about leaving him. When John compared his relationship with Kathy to that of snakes devouring each other seemed possessive as if if he couldn't have her then no one could.
6) Kathy encouraged John's being unstable by not pointing out his obsessive behavior and not acknowledging his feelings about his involvement in the war.
7)John likes being a magician and projecting the image that he wants to see. It's nice to have an audience that's amazed by his tricks, illusions.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWade, Valerie, Alex, and Danielle
ReplyDelete1. The novel helps bring about suspense by dropping little hints instead of giving a clear-cut answer. In addition, the novel has many flashbacks from John’s life. It will give bits of information about the time when John was in Vietnam, and then it will switch off to his childhood, then back to the present. It leaves the reader wanting to know more about what happened to Kathy.
2. O’Brien creates an atmosphere of confusion, for none of the characters really know what’s truly going on, especially for John. This helps John’s characterization because it shows how he has grown as a character based upon his childhood and being in war. Magic helped tie everything together because one would say that politics and magic go hand in hand, for they both deceive others. Kathy, his parents, and his platoon all feed into his magic tricks.
3. The sections entitled “Evidence” help bring in outside sources and bring in other points of view. John is in a confused state, so the quotes from the interviews that were conducted help the reader understand what is going on a bit more instead of completely relying on John. Each interview with people helps bring about different sides of John and how he had reflected on others.
4. The narrator of the “Evidence” sections would be the reporter. They’re asking those who were close to John and gathering intel on what could have went down at the cabin. The narrator is one person, but they are telling the story of multiple points of views. This is different from a traditional novel because it is a fragmented narrative, the only time you hear the narrators voice is in the footnotes.
5. Kathy’s love is a necessity for John, which is why he was stalking her. He never felt truly loved by his father, so he craves the affection from others, as in Kathy. He can’t bare being alone and needs her there with him to try and keep him sane. Kathy fell for John because she was drawn into his magic tricks. She had fallen victim to his persona, which was another magic trick of his.
6. One could interpret Kathy’s disappearance in their own way. They would look at the evidence sections and the hypothesis sections and draw their own conclusions. One could state that Kathy left on her own because John wasn’t giving her the life that she wanted, for she didn’t feel happy anymore. On the other hand, one could say that since John was so angry and still full of rage from war, he could have murdered her and be completely unaware of his actions.
7. John entered politics because it is similar to magic for it’s full of allusion and deception. Both are like a stage shows because it’s like a performance. He spent his whole life using trickery with his magic tricks like when he was in war or while he was growing up as a child, politics was no different to him.
8. In the novel, John has a tendency to alter the truth and make up a lie to make himself feel better. Two examples of this would be when he was a child. He used the mirror mask all the horrible things in his life, like his father. After he passed, he himself believe that he was still alive and had conversations with him while he was in bed. Another example would be when he changed all the records and made it seem like he wasn’t in My Lai and gave himself metals.
9. The hypothesis sections all have an equal amount of plausibility to them. The reader chooses which one seems more real to them which allows them to interoperate the ending of the novel in their own way and choose the ending of the story. The only thing one is sure of is that both John and Kathy are gone at the end of the novel, but no one knows what exactly happened to Kathy.
Khari, Aubrey
ReplyDelete1. The suspense is created by the reader’s desire to know John’s secrets, as well as by the fact that the reader is constantly faced with a mystery with different possibilities that they have to think about their selves
2. O’Brien is able to reveal what he wants to at the same time. It also allows the reader to dig deeper and deeper, and realize that they will never really know everything. The narrative strands are connected because they’re all about the same characters, and add to the same plot.
3. The evidence sections help us to gain perspective on the things John is going through, they introduce characters, and give us new information. The evidence sections add verisimilitude, because the reader has an opportunity to delve into the psychology and humanity of what John’s going through, and the connections give more depth into the human condition. They also remind the reader that John is serving as a lens into the lives of real, historical people.
4. The evidence sections are relayed by an investigative reporter. Yes, we’re supposed to see the person dictating as a surrogate for the author, since there are so many parallels. This differs from usual conventions in that he’s not making up a character with different thoughts or beliefs, but channeling his feelings and ideas through a character that may be seen as his self. This may be a false assertion, however, and O’Brien may have intended for the subject of it to be a fallacy, to further show how the reader will never know anyone’s, even an author’s, secrets.
5. John longs for Kathy because he doesn’t want her to leave him, as his father did. He’s afraid of desertion, and he’s attached himself to Kathy in order to try and stop that process. His lasertine metaphor has to do with love lasting forever, and bringing him and his wife closer, until they’re nothing but a non-existent One. Kathy probably fell in love with John because he was in love with her, and because of his mystery, and his tendencies to be like a puzzle.
Jenee, Ledibel, Monica, Victoria
ReplyDelete8) Another time in the book when John denied reality was after he lost the election. He and Kathy tried to believe that they could achieve their dreams and happiness that they didn't have time for before.
John coped with the massacre of Thuan Yen but denying totally; whereas Calley and Meadlo forced themselves to believe that ALL Vietnamese civilians were the enemy to justify their cruel and unusual actions.
As with most human beings, if O'Brien's characters tried to acknowledge and deal with their 'terrible truths' head on then the guilt might be too great to live with. Perhaps so great that they lose their minds.
9) The only thing that the author makes us certain of is the fact that John Wade was a magician and politician and also served in the Vietnam war. Everything else we are left uncertain of. The author uses illusion in the novel and gives us hints of what happened to Kath without really saying what happened to her. This is what makes the novel really interesting to read because we can use the evidence he gives us in the novel to base our own opinion of what happened to Kathy.
Marissa and Shayla Part 2
ReplyDelete4. The narrator is meant to be seen as surrogate. This is a technique that breaks tradition. The narrator seems to be a criminal investigator because when someone is murdered or missing an investigator has to find all the facts. John’s past, the events leading up to Kathy’s disappearance, the surrounding evidence and with all of these facts the investigator creates his own hypothesis.
5. John claims that he loves Kathy but it seems like he loves her company more than her as a person. She gives him the love that John’s father didn’t give him. Kathy has vanished before but she always came back. To John the two snakes symbolize two people who love each other so much that they end up killing each other. Kathy consumed John’s every thought and it just led to his growing mental instability.
6. There are many possibilities behind the reason of Kathy’s disappearance. We could believe that Kathy willingly disappeared because John wasn’t giving her the life that she wanted. We could also believe that John let Vietnam get to him and he killed her himself.
7. John’s love for politics is rooted in his childhood love of magic. Magic allows you to trick and manipulate people, which he believes can be accomplished in politics as well.
8. John denies destroying the plants. Just like in Thaun Yen where his camp killed that entire innocent village, John killed all of the plants and when asked about it he denies it like it never happened. Just like William Calley and Paul Meadlo, John is not able to let go of his experiences in Vietnam.
9. There are only some things that we are certain about in the book. One thing that we are certain about is that John is a magician and that Kathy really does love him. We are certain that John was in the Vietnam War. The story is not really clear about what has happened to Kathy if she disappears or does she simply just run away to get ride of all her stressful problems.
In my group it was Wade, Valerie, Alex, and Zach. I forgot to add some people.
ReplyDelete