Going After Cacciato (vol. III)

While I enjoyed reading Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, I personally would not consider it a bildungsroman. A bildungsroman must contain an essential element which Cacciato does not have: the growth of the main character. Paul Berlin experiences a great deal in Vietnam, both real and fictional, but he himself is never truly shaped by these events. The character Sarkin Aung Wan identifies his problem when she remarks, “Thinking…You are afraid to do…All your fine dreams and thinking and pretending…no more thinking, Spec Four” (297). Paul Berlin is terrified of death and of the idea of facing his own demise. Indeed, Berlin wishes to face death only when he is old and feeble (167). As a result, Berlin constantly uses imagination as an escape from the harsh realities of the war. During the night march with Lt. Martin, “He [Berlin] was pretending he was not in the war…he was pretending he was a boy again, camping with his father in the midnight summer along the Des Moines River” (209). Berlin’s escapism is never something he overcomes or matures out of. In fact, even after he is taken off of patrol duty and given a position on the observation post Berlin still uses his imagination to escape into another world (287). Although he is a likeable character, from his first patrols to his last shift on the observation post, Paul Berlin remains throughout the novel as a character fleeing from fear.