Morality in Going After Cacciato by O'Brien Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien, is a book that presents many problems of understanding. Just trying to figure out what is real and what is fantasy and where they combine can be very overwhelming for the reader. But the larger moral questions raised in this book are even more obscure and ambiguous. There are many so-called "war crimes" or atrocities in this book, ranging from the killing of a water buffalo to the destruction of the commander. Yet they are treated almost casually. They seem to become simply the moral landscape on which a larger drama is being played out, namely the drama of fleeing war and seeking peace in Paris. This journey after Cacciato turns into a morality play, a metaphor for the road to the West. As Dennis Vannatta explains: "The desire to flee may have started as a reaction to fear, but by the time the team reached Paris, Paul nurtured and cultivated it until it was become a political, moral and philosophical statement” (245). ). But what about the atrocities that are happening all the time? How could they be ignored in the face of this larger drama? As Milton J. Bates puts it, although Going After Cacciato is "not based on atrocities in the manner of most autobiographies and fiction about the Vietnam War, [it] records incidents in which Vietnamese civilians were beaten or killed and see their livestock and homes destroyed. " (270). This book has an almost casual way of dealing with these My Lai-style atrocities. Why? What is going on here? Well, one thing that needs to be considered is the purpose of the As quoted by Timothy J. Lomperis in a lecture, O'Brien said: "For me, the purpose of writing fiction is to explore moral dilemmas.... middle of paper ......have had a wonderful dream, I urge you to boldly go for it, join your dream and live it” (O’Brien 284). , it is also doing. The act of imagination can sometimes have more power than any technological weapon. It is imagination that stops wars. It is art that fulfills its role in war. society. It is art that poses moral problems. It is art that makes us human. Works Cited Bates, Milton J. "The Myth of Courage by Tim O'Brien" (Summer). 1987): 263-279 Lomperis, Timothy J. “On the slippery slope: tensions between reality and fiction. Interpretive criticism. O'Brien, Tim. Go after Cacciato. New York: Dell, 1978.Vannatta, Dennis. “Theme and Structure in Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato.” Modern Fiction Studies 28.2 (Summer 1982): 242-246.