Literature Analysis Questions: In the Lake of the Woods

1. The story begins with John and Kathy Wade, a married couple, sitting on the porch of their rented cottage in the woods of Minnesota. John, a politician and Vietnam veteran, has just lost the Senate election (lost the race badly), which signified the end of his political career, mainly because of the stories reporters dug up about his involvement in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians. The Wades were renting the cabin by The Lake of the Woods in order to get away from it all, but John they both seemed to be taking it hard (though Kathy was secretly happy; she hated being a politician's wife). However, John Wade isn't quite..."right." He developed an alter ego, "Sorcerer," after his fellow soldiers noticed his knack for magic. After he loses the Senate race, he goes into a downward spiral of depression and, well, some might call it "craziness." One morning his wife disappears, and it takes him an entire day to decide that something is wrong and he must go look for her. From then on, John is, of course, the primary suspect in his wife's disappearance. Search parties are sent out, the lake and the woods are searched, but nothing ever comes up. John doesn't believe he killed his wife, who was his everything, but there is no way to be sure. However, there is the possibility that Kathy quietly slipped out in the night, away from all of the unhappiness she had been dealing with. Not even the author divulges the answer.
2. The novel, like so many others, has several ideas that can be called theme--one can even say love, but frankly, you can say that about just about any book. Instead, the theme of In the Lake of the Woods can be living outside of reality; it is present throughout the entire book. John, more than anyone, tricks himself into living in some other reality; one where his father was a great man, where he was Sorcerer. A place behind the "mirrors" in his head. Kathy also shared in the delusion at some point: they imagined a life together, post-politics, where they would own their very own dream house, travel to Italy, and have all the children they wanted.
3. Tim O'Brien's tone seems to be very reporter-like (after all, the narrator is someone who is writing a book, so he remained largely unbiased throughout the book). The best examples of this are the interviews thrown into the story, but also in the actual story. He is also reporter-like in the way that he is very inquisitive; he is always adding questions in the story and footnotes. Some examples of O'Brien's tone include "At no point did John Wade admit to the slightest knowledge of Kathy's whereabouts, nor indicate that he was withholding information information."; "Can we believe that he was not a monster but a man? That he was innocent of everything except his life? Could the truth be so simple? So terrible?"; "Maybe, in the end, she blamed herself. Not for the affair so much, but for the waning of energy, the slow year-by-year fatigue that had finally worn her down." (The narrator hypothesizes throughout the entire book.)
4. One technique that the author used throughout the book was the repetition of a certain phrase, "Kill Jesus." Wade muttered and thought this to himself over and over, because it was the worst possible thing he could think to say. The way O'Brien had him repeat this so many times reinforced the fact that Wade was not quite "right," and how the loss of the election seemed to be his tipping point after a lifetime of hardship. The phrase was used mostly when John felt the lowest; when he felt the need to destroy something. ("...how it surged up into his throat and how he wanted to scream the most terrible thing he could scream-Kill Jesus!-and how he couldn't help himself and couldn't think straight and couldn't stop screaming it inside his head-Kill Jesus!-because nothing could be done, and because it was so brutal and disgraceful and final."; "After a while later he kicked back the sheets and said, 'Kill Jesus.' It was a challenge--a dare."; "'Kill Jesus,' he said, which encouraged him, and he carried the teakettle out to the living room and switched on a lamp and poured the boiling water over a big flowering geranium.")  Another technique employed often was rhetorical questioning. The questions showed that the narrator was not totally sure about anything, either; this reinforced his inquisitive and journalistic tone. The questions are sometimes about human nature in general, and sometimes specifically about the characters/situations; they encourage the reader to consider the answers and apply them in his/her own investigation that he knows must be going on as s/he reads. (Footnote, in reference to "Other" stats in the Minnesota primary election results: "Aren't we all? John Wade--he's beyond knowing. He's an other....the man's soul remains for me an absolute and impenetrable unknown..."; "Can we believe that he was not a monster but a man? That he was innocent of everything except his life? Could the truth be so simple? So terrible?"; "Does happiness strain credibility? Is there something in the human spirit that distrusts its own appetites, its own yearning for healing and contentment?") O'Brien also uses many flashbacks; this is probably expected in a book about a war veteran. The storyline often goes backwards in time to significant events in John and Kathy's lives; it builds a focus on the past, and explain why things had happened the way they did, and to give background (adding more detail every time the memory was brought back around). ("When he was a boy, John Wade's hobby was magic."; "When he was fourteen, John Wade lost his father...What John felt that night, and for many nights afterward, was the desire to kill."; "There was  a war in progress, which was beyond manipulation, and nine months later he found himself at the bottom of an irrigation ditch. The slime was waist-deep. He couldn't move. The trick then was to stay sane.") Motifs were also present in the novel, including the ever-present idea of living out of reality. John and Kathy lived in another reality when they dreamt of a life full of travel and a "busload of babies," John escaped "behind the mirrors in his head," and John had an alter ego, "Sorcerer," that ended up helping him cope: "Sorcerer, they called him...And for John Wade, who had always considered himself a loner, the nickname was like a special badge, an emblem of belonging and brotherhood, something to take pride in."