Going After Cacciato Socratic Seminar 1 Considerations on Plot Structure, Narrative Prospective and Narrative Framing Going After Cacciato Socratic Seminar 1

Narrative Perspective Soldier Paul Berlin is the narrator. The story is told from his 3rd person limited perspective. The story traces the events that ensue after Cacciato, a member of Berlin's squad, decides to go AWOL by walking from Vietnam to France, through Asia.

Plot Structure, Consideration 1 The plot structure of Going After Cacciato is the same as all plot structures. This universal plot structure outline in this novel serves as the mechanism that propels Cacciato towards Paris, and Paul Berlin’s squad to chase after Cacciato. Cacciato = Italian word that translates roughly into English as “hunted/caught”

Plot Structure, Consideration 2 Even though, like all novels, Going After Cacciato follows a conventional plot structure, the arrangement of events and narrative vignettes is non-linear. The non-linear arrangement of events or narrative vignettes is a organizational technique authors typically employ in works depicting psychological trauma. In Going After Cacciato, the contrast between the storyline following the conventional plot structure of a story and the arrangement of events and narrative vignettes in a non-linear fashion affects a dark ironic joke popular among soldiers in Vietnam.

The dark ironic joke It was said that of all the walking a soldier did in Vietnam, it would, if laid out on a straight line, lead to Paris…

Sadly, for all the walking a soldier did, he could not escape Vietnam.