In the Lake of the WoodsAshley Hibbert - September 1997

‘Tim O’Brien’s decision to provide an open finding on John and Kathy Wade is

the one weakness of the novel. Do you agree?’

The closing scenes of In the Lake of the Woods leave us without any answer to the fate

of Kathy Wade. Yet this ambiguity, while leaving us unsatisfied, is for the greater cause

of the novel and all that is within it.

It’s the unknown that makes the book special - ambiguity is what keeps our

attention beyond the ending. It drives us to look for clues, and answer the closing puzzle

- what happened to Kathy - with what we have been given.

Also, it separates itself from simply being a mystery novel, and adds themes that

can only interest the reader when they close the book without a clear answer. It also

reveals ambiguity to be a basis of human awareness (or unawareness) - we are not

omniscient. No amount of technology can change that, since no machine could really

identify John’s motives in killing his wife, if he actually did so.

John Wade himself shows the reader the importance of not being aware:

“To know is to be disappointed. To understand is to be betrayed.”

Say we were told the truth of Kath’s disappearance. Would we be satisfied? Would we

believe even Tom O’Brien? Or would we, like members of an audience at a magicians

show, storm out in disgust? Since, as John states:

[It’s] “Better to leave your audience waiting in the dark, shaking their fists, some

crying how? others Why? ”

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Had we found that John truly did kill his wife, that he perhaps piloted the boat out with

her body chained to the side, and sunk it - would that drastically alter our view towards

him? Certainly, in one way or another - most likely, we would look down on him. We

would see him as more than a baby killer, but a wife murderer. Throughout the novel,

the narrative techniques advocate our establishing sympathy for John, the main

protagonist of the story. To reveal his guilt is to contradict the entire pattern that the

story has developed.

In the closing scenes, he is shown to have achieved a sense of peace with

himself.

“...The lost election had come to seem almost a windfall.”

In a sense, he acknowledges the wrongs of his acts. He appreciates the inhumanity of

his sins. He is glad the truth is out. He is reborn, without the ‘forte’ that condemned

both Kathy and himself to misery. He seeks forgiveness for his wrongs, and he achieves

it by forgiving himself. To hate him is to discard all he teaches us: that a man can

change. People can become better people regardless of what wrongs they have

committed in the past.

Tim O’Brien’s decision to provide an open finding on John and Kathy Wade is

not the one weakness of the novel. To leave the question of whether or not John killed

his wife unanswered is the novel’s most predominant strength, and we as the reader

should appreciate that. We should also ask ourselves this - does it really matter?

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