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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Use of Tricks

One of the central themes in In the Lake of the Woods is the use of tricks to achieve specific goals. John has practiced “tricks” throughout his entire life to form relationships with people. As a lonely child, he learns how to do magic, which becomes a lifesaver for him. Performing for an audience is one of the few times John receives approbation from his classmates. In years to come, John continues to rely on trickery to make himself feel valued. As a soldier, John uses his ability to perform tricks to win friends, a sound reputation, and a nickname that pleases him, all of which were out of reach to him as a child. As superstition is so prevalent in Vietnam, as “Sorcerer,” John is suddenly beloved, even functioning as a good luck charm for his company. As an adult, John also uses tricks, which he often refers to as manipulation, to turn himself into an up-and-coming politician. Believing that he must constantly hide who he is, which includes his experiences in Vietnam, John uses his skill at trickery to create a persona that will appeal to the widest swath of voters.

Once Sorcerer is born, John relies on this persona to navigate the toughest parts of life. In Vietnam, Sorcerer plays tricks on the Vietnamese with a much worse effect—for instance, ending a magic show for civilians by making their village disappear, with an order called into a radio, or causing a sniper to levitate by hanging his dead body upside down. Sorcerer employs these tricks as a means of turning acts of violence and death into something mysterious and more palatable to John. After Thuan Yen, Sorcerer convinces John that he didn’t take part in the massacre at Thuan Yen, and Sorcerer reappears on the night before Kathy disappears. If John did kill Kathy, certainly it was Sorcerer who committed the crime.

The Persistence of Trauma

One of the central themes of In the Lake of the Woods is the long-lasting effect that trauma has on people. John is the most obvious example of a man permanently scarred by trauma, from both the suicide of his father and his participation in the massacre at Thuan Yen. John survived both events by creating new realities and suppressing the truth. Yet he is unable to be wholly successful in his efforts. While attempting to banish what happened at Thuan Yen from his consciousness is a normal response because John was an active participant in the killing, he still carries vestiges of the horror. For John, what he hides in his subconscious emerges at night, manifesting through the terrible and frightening words he yells in his sleep. Other soldiers in Charlie Company also suffer long-lasting trauma. Robert T’Souzas became a homeless alcoholic who was killed in a squabble. Richard Thinbill can’t stop hearing the flies that swarmed over the dead bodies. In their court-martial testimony, other soldiers attempt to deny their culpability and their trauma by insisting that the villagers—old men, women, and children—were truly the enemy.

John’s response to trauma is not atypical, which the inclusion of quotations from Trauma and Recovery in the story makes clear. Yet the novel does suggest that a person needs to at least be open with someone about the trauma, whether it be a psychiatrist, a loved one, or even oneself, to survive.

The Need to Be Loved

While In the Lake of the Woods is a war story and a mystery, at its core, the novel is a love story. Every choice John makes is motivated by his desire for love, from spending money on a diet plan to please his father to enlisting in the Army. John’s father, a charismatic alcoholic who commits suicide, strongly influences him. John’s childhood experience with his father is filled with never measuring up to expectations and never making his father proud. John’s father withheld love, and as John was unable to ever win what he most wanted, as an adult, John transfers his need for love to Kathy and future voters.

Kathy recognizes John’s insatiable need, thinking he views politics like a “love thermometer.” However, Kathy also has her own need to be loved extravagantly, as she admits. While Kathy rarely seems as desperate as John, Pat’s comments about Kathy often imply otherwise. Pat explains how much nonsense Kathy put up with to remain John’s wife, like his yelling in the night and him spying on her. Kathy ultimately seeks affection in other places, from another man. Yet even though Kathy has an affair, she hardly remembers anything about the man, bolstering her claim to have never loved him.

The narrator makes clear that by the time of their disappearance, neither John nor Kathy feels loved in the way they need. In the second paragraph of the book, the narrator writes that the couple may be together but are not making love—they had tried doing so once, but it didn’t work out. Fittingly, the novel ends with a hypothesis of what happened to Kathy and John. In this possible world, John and Kathy huddle together, celebrating their escape from the life that had disappointed both of them and planning for a happier future.

Violence and Death

Violence and death permeate In the Lake of the Woods. Violence and death characterize the American military effort in Vietnam, particularly the men of Charlie Company, many of whom sadistically murder old men, women, children, and even babies. Some do so because they are following the orders of their commanders, but others seem to enjoy their actions. Eventually, the soldiers’ deeds become known to Americans back home, and the ensuing investigation sickens the people who learn about it. Yet the Vietnam War is hardly the only venue that leads to such violence and death. As the narrator shares in the “Evidence” chapters, American history provides numerous examples of the horror that humans inflict on one another. In the Revolutionary War, both sides killed savagely and, at times, indiscriminately. During the period of the expanding American West, military and government leaders sought the extermination of an entire race of people, the American Indians.

While wars provide a grade scale, John’s character provides an illustration of the impact that being close to death and participating in violence can have on individuals. John, seemingly in a state of shock, internalizes the horror of Thuan Yen by reflexively killing an unarmed old man and a fellow soldier. He later brings the horror of violence and death to the attention of his voters, whose love he craves, when pictures of the tortured victims of Thuan Yen appear in the newspapers. Violence and death have imbued John’s life since his father committed suicide when John was a teenager. The rage John feels can’t be released but can’t be kept inside either, and his best response to his own emotions has been to hurt things. Whether John killed Kathy, committed suicide, or simply left his entire life behind, the novel makes clear that violence and death cannot exist without real consequences.

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