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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Going After Cacciato, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fantasy, Magical Realism, and Storytelling
Vietnam and the Chaos of War
Obligation vs. Escape
Discontinuity and Trauma
Survival and Self-Preservation
Summary
Analysis
Berlin thinks about what the mayor has told him. He thinks to himself that he does have a history. He grew up playing baseball and canoeing with his father. He spent summers building houses alongside his father, and drinking beer. He decided to become a soldier at the age of twenty. This, he concludes, is his history.
Berlin is a young man, and still trying to make a history for himself, but we can see that his “history” with his father is nonsense—he fashions loving memories to replace the dearth of such memories in his life. This reminds us that Berlin, first and foremost, is a storyteller. When he doesn’t like reality, he changes it.
Themes
