What Really Happened?

What really happened to Kathy Wade? We will never know. Tim O'Brien leaves that decision up to the reader. Though many readers despise not knowing what happened to Kathy, O'Brien says that its the truest way to tell a story.

There are a few different possibilities of the way Kathy died. The first one presented in the novel is that Kathy was cruising at high speeds in a boat and she went through a rough patch of water. Kathy then got sent sailing through the air and landed in the water. She took in much water at impact which destroyed her lungs and lead to her drowning. "Maybe for a few seconds she leaned back and gave herself over to sun and speed" (116). Right after Kathy ran away from John, she wanted to forget her bad memories and just let go, be crazy or feel completely free for a few seconds. But, as she leaned back, her boat ran over whitecaps and sent her soaring through the air to her death.

Another possible theory is that Kathy incorrectly navigated the boat through the water and became helplessly lost in the wilderness. She enjoyed the time she spent alone. "She could hear her thoughts unwinding. No more politics, not ever again. All that was over. It was nothing. Less than nothing" (164). We see here again that she is relieved to be free of John's stress that he took out on her and the hard life of being a politicians wife. Now she could think and not be distracted. However, as time went on, she began running out of supplies. She kept running out until they were completely gone and she died.

One final, yet highly unreasonable theory is that John murdered her. Like I said, highly unreasonable. John loved Kathy way too much for this to ever happen and he was just at the time where he wanted to make things better in their relationship. But, O'Brien offers what proceeds next as an outcome. "Quietly then, he swung out of bed and moved down the hallway to the kitchen and ran water into an old iron teakettle and put it on the stove to boil" (271). As the water boiled, he waited alone, feeling the crush of defeat and humiliation storm through his body. This made him mad. He took the boiling teakettle filled with water back to the bedroom. "He was rocking on his heels, watching Kathy sleep. Amazing, he thought. Because he loved her. Because he couldn't stop the teakettle from tipping itself forward. Kathy's face shifted on the pillow. Her eyelids snapped open... Puffs of steam rose from the sockets of her eyes" (273). In this way, Kathy suffered to her death. The boiling water tore her skin apart and destroyed her organs. 

John dragged her into the boat and pushed it into the shallow part of the river. He tied an end of a rope to her ankles and tied heavy rocks to the other end. With one easy push,Kathy's body fell overboard and sank to the bottom of the lake never to be seen again.

These are a few theories of Kathy's death. Now you decide. What really happened to Kathy in the Lake of the Woods, Minnesota.

Image Study

"When he was fourteen, John Wade lost his father... In the weeks that followed, because he was young and filled of grief, he tried to pretend that his father was not truly dead. He would talk to him in his imagination, carrying on whole conversations about baseball and school and girls" (14).

Losing his father was very tough for John to deal with. In order to cope with the pain, John would pretend his dad was still right next to him and they would talk for hours. The power of a child's mind is demonstrated here by the way they can believe something is real that really is not. The death of his father is what made John so attached to Kathy and scared to lose her.

"By and large he was well liked among the men in Charlie Company. In the evenings... he'd sometimes perform card tricks for his new buddies, simple stuff mostly, and he liked the grins and bunched eyebrows as he transformed the ace of spades into the queen of hearts" (36-37).

During the small amounts of free time the soldiers had in Vietnam, John would stand up in front of the other soldiers and perform magic tricks. Because he was not much of a soldier, he had to be able to do something to make the other soldiers like him. He would do anything to gain the favor of others. The magic made him so popular that he gained the nickname of "Sorcerer." For John, who had always considered himself  loner, the name was like a special badge or an emblem of belonging to a brotherhood.

"Outside the boathouse, Wade paused to collect himself... He pulled the doors back, stepped inside, swung the flashlight across the dirt floor. There was no surprise. The boat was gone, as it had to be. The outboard was gone, too, and the gas can and the orange life vest and the two fiberglass oars" (83).

John spent the later hours of the day that Kathy left him searching for her. She had been gone since morning and he had searched everywhere around since. There was only one possibility left: Kathy took the boat. He opened the boathouse door with little hope of the boat being there, and it wasn't. Kathy had left with the boat with no intentions of ever returning. The emptiness of the boathouse is like the emptiness that has drained everything out of John's heart.

"There was a shiver at the bottom of the boat--a snapping sound-- and for an instant she was free of everything, she was light and high, she was soaring through the glassy roof of the world and breaking out into another, and then the lake was all around her, and soon inside her, and maybe in that way Kathy drowned and was gone" (117).

Tim O'Brien offers many different possibilities of what could have happened to Kathy Wade. This one, however, seems the most viable. This theory is also symbolically probable because Kathy wanted a new life in a new world and to be free of all of her stress. Here, as she sails heavenward out of the boat, she "breaks into another world" and she is free of all her pains. 

Character Study

The two main characters of the novel are John and Kathy Wade. They have known each other since college when they began dating. They fell in love quickly, but their relationship was one of secrecy and privacy.

John Wade, 41 years old, serves as the main focus of the novel. Being a former lieutenant governor for the state of Minnesota, John's life is dominated by politics. Soon after serving as lieutenant governor, he decided he would take his chances at becoming a state senator. However, he never was able to achieve that as he lost the election in a landslide. Ever since the day of the humiliating loss, John has lived a life of sorrow, which adds more sadness to his pre-existing life of secrecy. 

While a student at the University of Minnesota, John was constantly worried about the on-goings with Kathy. He always had to know exactly what she was doing and who she was seeing. So, John began spying on Kathy and it quickly became an unhealthy obsession. "In early November he began spying on her... Finesse and deception, those were his specialties, and the spying came easily" (32). It was impossible for John to have a steady relationship with Kathy if he was always deceiving her, but, somehow, they managed to last. When spying, he would looked for signs of betrayal. This detective-like life did manage to unfold one secret, and that was that Kathy had an affair with a dentist. This still did not break his love for her and they stayed together, without Kathy ever finding out that he knew about her affair.

Losing the election for senator was a crushing blow for John and he was never the same after it. He hated his life because he had worked so hard to become a senator and the dream never came true. He seemed to lose his personality and everything that Kathy loved about him. "It all came crashing down at once. Everything, it seemed. His sense of purpose. His pride, his career, his honor and reputation, his belief in the future he had so grandly dreamed for himself" (5). After the loss, John's life was changed for good and six months after, he would lose his wife.

Kathy Wade had loved John ever since they met and always stood by his side, no matter what, even though she hated his career in politics. But most of all, she hated the secrecy. 

The day John lost the election was the second happiest day of Kathy's life, behind her wedding day. She secretly loathed his career in politics and knew thought that when the career was over, he would become more involved with her. John had always put their marriage to the side and she thought they could maybe start over. "Things might finally turn out good again. Pack a picnic lunch. Go for a swim and lie in the sun and talk about their lives. Which was one of the problems--they never talked anymore" (112). All she had ever wanted was to spend quality time with her husband without the distractions of politics. Even just a simple date like a picnic; something where they would be able to talk and re-ignite their love for each other.

John wasn't the only one hiding secrets though. Kathy hid a big one of her own: she knew about the spying back in college. Kathy never told John she knew about this though as she hoped that he would come clean himself and tell her. "What they needed, she thought, was to be honest. Talk about everything they'd never talked about--trust and love and hurt, their truest feelings. Get him to open up" (112). She thought that if John was able to tell her his feelings that maybe she would confide her own big secret to him. Unfortunately, John never opened up and did not save his marriage to her. Kathy made the decision to leave John and their awful past and hopefully start a life with someone new.

 

Runaway Wife

Another normal day had began: John slept in late, brewed some coffee, scrambled three eggs, and ate his breakfast on the porch. Things wouldn't be normal for long however.

"Another brilliant day: ivory clouds pinned to a glossy blue sky" (77). John returned inside to was the dishes and to wait for the return of Kathy from her morning walk.  He thought another half hour and she'd be home. She must have just gone on a nature walk or hiked along the shoreline. She liked to do so on most mornings. But just another half hour. An hour at the most. For now, he decided it was time for house-cleaning, something Kathy desperately wanted John to take care of.

For a couple hours he cleaned and took care of some unpaid bills. The time flied until he realized the house seemed curiously vacant. It was already mid-afternoon and no sign of Kathy. He started compiling some lists of self-improvement and lists of assets and debits, also something Kathy wanted him to do. It was now four o'clock, still no Kathy.

Later, while half-sleeping, John detected movement. "He heard her footsteps. He heard the low voice that could be only Kathy's voice... and then came a fearful silence as she moved away, a drop in the temperature, a subtle relaxation in the magnetic forces that one human body exerts upon another" (80). It was only his imagination, but it was enough to make him finally go out and look for her. It was six o'clock. In a half hour the darkness would completely settle in. 

Multiple thoughts came to his mind. Maybe a bad fall, lacerations or broken bones. He searched for an hour, but no luck. He returned to the house in hopes she had came back, but again, no luck. This began the biggest search of John's life for the love of his life. But, would she ever be found?

Themes from American Literature

Being loved, having family and fame, and owning land are all aspects of the "American Dream." John Wade is fortunate enough to posses all of those, however, not for a great deal of time.

Growing up, John always wanted to do something great with his life and have people love him. After graduating college from the University of Minnesota, John thought the perfect way to be loved was to join the Army. He went off to war quickly after enlisting. However, he was able to survive the war and return home a hero for serving his country. Being a hero was a great start for John and his quest for family and fame.

Just after returning from war, John asked his college love Kathy to marry him. This was perfect to him because he now had what he had wanted his whole life, a wife. He couldn't wait to have kids to add onto the family and the idea excited him. They tried over and over again for years and years, but they were never lucky enough to have babies. To compensate for the disappointment, they would joke about having lots of babies. This gave them some comfort about an issue that had no hope. Though a having a big family wasn't working out, John had a career in politics waiting for him, but it would only turn out to disappoint him again.

Being a war veteran gave John a slight edge when he started campaigning for government positions. People tend to sway for the patriotic candidate who has served his nation. This is most likely the reason for his success in running for the position of lieutenant governor of Minnesota at the age of thirty seven. It was one of the first times in his life in which he felt the joy of winning something and having self-pride. After gaining confidence from winning his first election, John felt ambitious and decided to run for the United States Senate at age forty. Unfortunately, he lost by a landslide in a three to one vote. "It was more than a lost election. It was something physical. Humiliation, that was part of it, and the wreckage in his chest and stomach, and then the rage" (5). He could not take the hurt and embarrassment of the lost election and it brought out the bad side of him. "He wanted to scream the most terrible thing he could scream -- Kill Jesus!--... and nothing could be done" (5). The disgrace and brutality of the loss took over his mind and he felt crazy. Loss had been and continued to be a reoccurring theme for John ever since his childhood when he lost his dad.

Even though he had lost the election, he still had his wife to turn to, but not for long. Kathy had always made John happy and she had a way of being able to take his mind of his failures. To get away from the city, where the loss occurred and where people knew him, the Wade's moved to Lake of the Woods, Minnesota. Here there were barely any people which meant no one to humiliate John. They bought a little house in the woods next to a lake, a perfect place to escape. However, after living there for six months, Kathy could not take anymore of John's sadness and the way he took it out on her. She left him, without leaving any message. She just left. Yet again another loss, and it was the hardest one of them all to swallow.