Bates, Milton J. "Tim O'Brien's Myth of Courage." Modern Fiction Studies 33 (Summer 1987): 263-79.

    In Bates' view, Going After Cacciato presents a myth of courage which "combines masculine endurance with feminine commitment. "Bates sees Paul Berlin as a dreamer who creates possibilities. Central among his possibilities is Sarkin Aung Wan. Created by Paul Berlin's imagination, she presents him with the ethical dilemma of choosing between loyalty to his squad and happiness with her. The dilemma embodies the larger political realities of the Vietnam War along with O'Brien's central concept of courage as shown in decisions of commitment to human communities.

Couser, G. Thomas. "Going After Cacciato: The Romance and the Real War." Journal of Narrative Technique. 12 (Winter 1983): 1-10.

    Couser begins and ends his discussion by saying that wars are not narratable. Nonetheless, he points out, a character's experience of a war can be portrayed. The article analyses the use of Paul Berlin's perspective in the three different narratives in Going After Cacciato. Couser identifies Paul Berlin as basically a dreamer by nature and provides a detailed look at the relationship between the "real events" and the "imaginary" episodes. As this is an article about the possibility and nature of fiction, the author comments briefly but helpfully on a number of influences on O'Brien, not only Hemingway and Heller, but also Faulkner and Ellison; and he sets Cacciato into the tradition of the American romance.

Herzog, Tobey. "Going After Cacciato: The Soldier-Author-Character Seeking Control." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction. 24 (Winter 1983): 88-96.

    Herzog focuses on Paul Berlin as author, as soldier, and as character in the three narratives that make up Going After Cacciato. Herzog finds in these narratives O'Brien's search for order not only in his experience of Vietnam but in his experience of authorship as well. Berlin's reflections on the imaginative challenges of shaping his own dream reflect the challenges faced by O'Brien in shaping his novel.

McWilliams, Dean. "Time in O'Brien's Going After Cacciato." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction. 29 (Summer 1988): 245-55.

    In this article, McWilliams defends the thesis that O'Brien's novel is a study of the guilt stemming from failed military ideals. He takes at face value Paul Berlin's early talk of winning the silver star, and he sees the men as exercising bad faith in abandoning the military oath and following only orders with which they agree. For McWilliams, Paul Berlin's daydream is a flight not only from Vietnam in general but more specifically from his complicity in Lieutenant Martin's murder. The eventual collapse of the fantasy provides hope for Berlin's "honest moral confrontation with his past." McWilliams' reading depends on a close analysis of the chronology of the seemingly chaotic "memory" chapters; and in developing his reading of the book, he provides a most helpful chart of the chronology of these chapters

Raymond, Michael. "Imagined Responses to Vietnam." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction. 24 (Winter 1983): 97-104.
    Raymond points out that Going After Cacciato is "diametrically opposed" to attempts to reveal "the way things were" in Vietnam. He sees both the observation post chapters and the Cacciato chapters as intentional fictions and the memory chapters as "realistic." But ironically, it is the "fiction" chapters that adhere to quasi-realistic techniques such as chronology, character development, and defined themes, whereas the memory chapters detail random events, roles rather than characters, and only chaos and horror as a theme. Thus it is through imaginative transformation of experience and the discovery of the limits of imagination that Paul Berlin finds a way to deal with his nightmare.

Schroeder, Eric. "Two Interviews: Talks with Tim O'Brien and Robert Stone." Modern Fiction Studies. 30 (Spring 1984): 135-64.

    In a discussion which is essentially about fiction and nonfiction, imagination and memory, Tim O'Brien summarizes the themes of his writing: "My concerns...have to do with abstractions: What's courage and how do you get it? What's justice and how do you achieve it? How does one do right in an evil situation?" Nevertheless, O'Brien insists that a writer must be cautious about "assigning meaning to his work." He says that Going After Cacciato is not about war but about writing a book; it is especially about the way memory and imagination interact in writing. Much of Schroeder and O'Brien's conversation centers on fictional technique, such as the use of the basketball games to communicate boredom without being boring and the creation of Sarkin Aung Wan as Paul Berlin's alter ego.

Vannatta, Dennis. "Theme and Structure in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato." Modern Fiction Studies. 28 (Summer 1982): 129-49.

    Vanatta begins with the assertion that the Vietnam War has produced little worthwhile fiction. War novels tend to draw their structural principles from the battles and troop movements of their respective conflicts. But events in Vietnam, for the most part, were too chaotic to readily sustain a fictional structure. This article sees Going After Cacciato's achievement as its three-fold division of chapters. Vannatta also defines a threefold thematic focus in the novel as the contemplation of three possibilities: heroism, escape, and "an existential commitment to one's own choices." This brief, clear article is an astute though basic introduction to O'Brien's overall approach in Going After Cacciato.

Wilson, James C. Vietnam in Prose and Film. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1982.

    Starting with the view that the Vietnam War was sustained from the beginning by distortion and viewed since its end through repression and revision, Wilson traces these distortions, repressions, and revisions through prose, both fictional and nonfictional. He then examines prose works that he believes correct those misrepresentations and illuminate understanding. Finally, he examines films about Vietnam, those that distort and those that illuminate its history and experience. Wilson's interest manifests itself as primarily historical and political rather than literary. But a history revealed through convolutions of logic and language becomes a history usefully examined through literary imagery. And that is what Wilson does, beginning with Greene's The Quiet American and concluding with Coppola's Apocalypse Now. He admires Going After Cacciato's, depiction of Paul Berlin creating a fictional reality as the only way to make sense of an intolerable situation defined by distortions marketed by the powers that be as facts. This book is especially effective in setting O'Brien's method into the larger context of historical and political language.