A Monster or a Man? The True Case of In the Lake of the Woods Sonya Scott College

He has dark secrets and regrets. The mystery to solve is not only that of John Wade, but that of the narrator of the story himself. Throughout the novel In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien, the narrator uses the case of John and Kathy as way to justify his own past. The narrator depicts the situation of John Wade and Kathy from a unique point of view, disregarding the truth of what happened to Kathy. Nonetheless, the footnotes reveal that there is so much more to the story than what happened to Kathy. The narrator has his own mystery he is trying to solve; the inner complexities of John as a person. It appears that the narrator is an unreliable narrator, as he, “distorts the tale [he’s] telling” (Kelly xiii). Kelly’s introduction explains, “When reading a story by such a narrator, part of the reader’s pleasure comes from piecing together a more reliable account of the events” (xiii). The footnote at the end of chapter 30 reveals a deeper truth about the narrator and about the novel itself.

In attempt to assemble the pieces of the mystery, the narrator is attempting to assemble the pieces of himself. The narrator says, “Maybe thats what this book is for. To remind me. To give me back my vanished life” (298n10). When the...