Lake Of The Woods Archetypes

“There were many trees, mostly pine and birch, and there was the dock and the boathouse and the narrow dirt road that came through the forest and ended in polished gray rocks at the shore below the cottage.” (pg 1) This is just one of the few symbolic archetypes found in Tim O’Brien’s novel, In the Lake of the Woods that gives a description of how nature portrays a sense safety and comfort. The first and most obvious nature symbol in the novel would be the lake. “Beyond the dock the big lake opened northward into Canada, where the water was everything, vast and cold, and where there were secret channels and portages and bays and tangled forests and islands without names.” (pg 1) The lake is described as complicated in the beginning of the

For example, from the evidence chapters scattered in the novel, society thinks he’s the reason his wife has gone missing. The reason they think this is because of the horrid murders he committed during his time in the Vietnam war which could be contributed to Kathy’s disappearance. At first when John and Kathy meet, both of them equally fall in love and they seem happy together, but as time passes Kathy starts to notice John’s sudden change. He begins to constantly spy on her, thinking she’s cheating on him with another worthy man. At first she thinks it is out of love, but later realizes this distances him from her substantially and he becomes very unstable, as Kathy and other people begin to catch onto John’s bi-polar like actions. John could be definitely judged as a mad-man by society after his incident that occurred in Vietnam. Soldiers were already being judged for fighting in Vietnam and John Wade’s past as a soldier may lead to the extra judgement he gets. On top of just being a soldier, John kills U.S. soldiers during his tour and this leads to him being even more feared and viewed as a psychopath in society. When Kathy is pronounced missing, John is acting in a way as if his wife isn’t missing and everything is perfectly normal. The night of Kathy’s so-called murder, John begins doing crazy things and acting strange. For example, he poured boiling hot water during his crazy night terror. John appears to be a different man to other’s in the town because his anger and rage seems to have disappeared with his loving