In The Lake Of The Woods Literary Analysis

In the brilliant novel, In The Lake Of The Woods, Tim O’Brien tells his audience many things about the nature of love. O’Brien claims that the nature of love is solely only to love and be loved. O’Brien says that, “It was the nature of love that 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.”(59) This means that in many instances, people's nature of love is simply just for love. Nothing else. The nature of love is about the passion you have toward the other people or things in your life. The nature of love can be gained, last forever, and unfortunately, can be lost. When reading In The Lake Of The Woods, the narrative chapters serve as a deeper dive into the backstory of O'Brien's claim. Throughout the narrative chapters, O’Brien makes many references to the nature of love. On March 15 John Wade received a short letter from Kathy saying, “What I hope is that someday you'll understand I need things for myself. I need a productive future-a real life. We have to be looser with each other, not so wound up or something-you can't squeeze me so …show more content…
The chapters can also give ideas about what happens to Kathy during the story. O’Brien says things to give possible answers to the audience like, “What happened, maybe, was that Kathy drowned. Something freakish: a boating accident. Maybe a sandbar. Maybe she was skimming along, moving fast, feeling the cold spray and wind and sunlight, and all of a sudden a quick jolt and the lake was around her. Inside her.”(111) The quote serves as an hypothesis to as why Kathy disappeared. Things like, “If she didn't love me Anymore, why didn't she just say so?” Because the nature of love is so powerful, it would hurt if kathy's love towards John was simply gone. It hurts even more when you don't know the