English 015 - Americans Abroad
Who is Paul Berlin?
Who is Paul Berlin?
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What Spec Four Paul Berlin wanted more than anything else in the war, was to please his father: “At the depot, when the train stopped, he would brush off his uniform and make sure all the medals were in place, and he would step off boldly, boldly, and he would shake his father’s hand and look him in the eye” (47). Though consciously Paul Berlin’s claims his biggest goal in the war is to make his father proud by being a good soldier, Paul Berlin’s true goal in the war is to create an identity for himself to replace his personal sense of uselessness. Paul Berlin’s inner struggle to gain his sense of identity takes the form of a subconscious admiration of Cacciato, which leads Paul to create the Road to Paris. Not until he can dispel this dream, and rid himself of his personal pursuit of Cacciato, can Paul Berlin accept himself.
“It wasn’t really a decision; just the opposite: an inability to decide” (227): Paul Berlin does not try to control his future, but relies on what either happens to him, or what he is told to do. When Paul Berlin had dropped out of college and had been drafted for the war, “…it came as no great shock” (227). Because of his lack of identity, he looks for others to tell him what is expected of him. In the war Paul Berlin stays “inside himself, keeping an eye peeled for the good things” (227) because that is what he has been told to do by his father. Paul Berlin does not have a perspective on what he should do with his life outside of what he thinks will please his father. In order to try to live up to his father’s expectations, Paul Berlin initially tries to be a good soldier and fulfill all of his duties.
Under Lieutenant Sidney Martin, Paul Berlin first questions his conscious purpose of being in the war, but quickly suppresses these thoughts. Paul Berlin wanted to quit but he didn’t: “Powerless and powerful, like a boulder in an avalanche, Private First Class Paul Berlin marched toward the mountains without stop or the ability to stop” (167). Paul Berlin, though part of a powerful army, is powerless himself, to consider why he is marching for a cause he is not devoted to. Any doubt he has about his duty, he quickly suppresses subconsciously so he doesn’t have to confront it. As Paul Berlin has to undergo increasingly terrible experiences though, he begins to more consciously fight this formless sense of duty he has so unquestioningly followed.
In contemplating Billy Boy Watkins’s death, Paul Berlin, for the first time, is unable to subconsciously suppress his doubts about his purpose in Vietnam. Confronted with these doubts on a conscious level, Paul Berlin tries to convince himself that the bad things are easy to forget about, but in doing so leaves much more doubt: “[i]t (Billy Boy Watkin’s death) was not especially terrible, or hard to think about…[n]ow it was merely a matter of following the facts to where they ended” (220). Billy Boy’s death is quite unbearable to Paul Berlin. Dealing with such tragedy, Paul Berlin is not as convinced that he should hold back his growing skepticism of the war and his goals in it. Instead of immediately dismissing his thoughts, he tells himself that the pain of the war will be simple to forget. In admitting that he needs to proactively forget something, he is acknowledging his skepticism.
The growing battle within Paul Berlin to suppress his subconscious questioning of purpose cannot continue to escalate. To avoid confronting his doubts, Paul Berlin uses Cacciato’s desertion as a way to subconsciously avoid his longing to escape his mindless allegiance to the war. In reality, Paul Berlin and the rest of platoon travel no further than the first mountain in pursuit of Cacciato, but Paul Berlin’s overwhelming desire to be running with Cacciato spurs his imagination to make him believe that the platoon follows Cacciato all the way to Paris. At first this dream is very believable, as the platoon travels through the Vietnamese jungle in hot pursuit of a somewhat tangible Cacciato: “[f]or two days they had moved through simple jungle. Cacciato had escaped…the trap was empty. A few empty rations cans, some Hershey bar wrappers, Cacciato’s dog tags” (30-1). Paul Berlin’s dream is very rational in the beginning, and offers him a believable escape from the war and reality. In order to reinforce the plausibility of his dream, and prolong his comfort, Paul Berlin convinces himself that the Cacciato’s journey by foot to Paris is possible: “[t]he odds were poison, but it could be done” (23). In his imagination, Paul Berlin wanted to believe that by virtue of Cacciato getting to Paris, he too, could escape the war, the very thing that he would not allow himself to do consciously.
Paul Berlin successfully postpones the confrontation within himself in the short run through his imagining of the Road to Paris. Even in his dream though, Paul Berlin knows on some level, that he cannot continue to run from his conflicting needs: the need to follow orders, and the need to live for himself. In order to force him back to the reality of his conflict, his dream becomes increasingly unbelievable. The first time his dream is truly unbelievable is the hole in the road: “The road opened in a long jagged crack, tiny at first, then ripping wide…[t]hen they were falling” (76). Though there are many tunnels in Vietnam, the idea of the whole platoon falling into a hidden entrance of one is not very plausible. In an effort to prevent himself from realizing the fallacy of his dream, and thus forcing him to face his conflicting feelings, Paul Berlin’s imagination quickly leads the platoon out of the hole, and back into the pursuit of Cacciato in the city of Mandalay. Slowly at first, but at a quickly accelerating rate, Paul Berlin’s dream looses its sense of reality as his subconscious slowly forces him to realize that he is in a dream so he can get back to the war and find a comfortable medium between following others and following what he wants. When the platoon is arrested in Tehran for the second time, Paul Berlin realizes in his subconscious that, “this time something had gone wrong” (227). Paul’s subconscious comes very close to waking him from his dream here. This awakening takes the form of the Iranian officers forcing the platoon to admit that it is impossible for them to get to Paris, and that they, too, are deserters like Cacciato (231). In forcing the platoon to admit that what they are attempting in the dream is impossible, Paul Berlin’s subconscious is trying to tell him that his dream is also impossible. For a final time though, Cacciato, comes to the rescue. By Paul Berlin’s imagination inventing the platoon’s escape through Cacciato breaking them out of jail, Paul Berlin is once again able to stay away from his confrontation with reality.
Now, even in Paul Berlin’s dream, he is fighting himself. As his mind tries to wake him, Paul tries to escape, but like his position back in the war, this conflict within him is not sustainable. Paul Berlin must escape it and face himself. Paul Berlin leaves his dream in Paris by finally defeating Cacciato: “[h]e couldn’t stop shaking. He squeezed the rifle. He held on tight…Then there was a floating feeling, then a swelling in his stomach, then a wet releasing feeling” (330-1). In the hotel shooting, Paul Berlin’s mind brings his dream back to reality by paralleling the shooting during the real chase of Cacciato. In defeating the Cacciato his mind had created, Paul Berlin’s dream is over, and he is able to see himself for who he is and accept himself. He is no longer torn between what he feels obligated to do and what he wants to do because he is fully aware of what he wants.
With his new sense of place and identity, for the first time during the war, Paul Berlin is able to think about home without thinking of how he would have to please his father or meet his father’s expectations: “[t]hey talked softly…Later they talked about going home. It would become a war story” (335). Paul Berlin is finally secure with who he is. He has overcome his inner conflict, and does not need to hide in his imagination any more: “Paul Berlin slept. There were no dreams” (336). Paul Berlin is now free of his drifting nature, and is confident in who he is, so he doesn’t need to hide from his feelings.
Paul Berlin enters the war as a boy, and he leaves it as a man. Entering the war Paul Berlin is unsure of his own identity, and what his purpose is. He is therefore unable to make decisions for himself, and relies on others to tell him what to do. His hatred of the war, and his need to express his hate for the war is in direct contrast to the way he feels he is supposed to be. Until Paul Berlin gains the self-confidence to distinguish between who he is, and who he is supposed to be, he must hide in his imagination. By escaping his imagination and facing himself, Paul Berlin frees himself from his indecision, and is able to gain a sense of identity. It is fittingly ironic that the war, which Paul Berlin hates so much, is the only thing that can make him accept who he is.
Posted by on December 15, 2003 at 03:41 PM