Considerations on Plot Structure Narrative Prospective and Narrative
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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 3 rd 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.
