The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, is an emotion provoking collection of short stories about the Vietnam War. One of those stories, The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong, is about Rat Kiley, who had the reputation of “heating up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt” and that quality is displayed in his account of a girl named Mary Anne. In Rat’s story, Mark Fossie, a medic, flew in his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to Vietnam where she gets enveloped and changed by the excitement of the war. Rat Kiley created the story of Mary Anne to characterize changes that happen to all people who go to war. Rat also highlights the idea that we have “these blinders on about women”. One of the reasons that I think Rat Kiley invented Mary Anne was to show how people are affected by being in a war. In the beginning, Mark Fossie only noticed small …show more content…
Mark Fossie would grin at this. He was proud, yes, but also amazed. A different person, it seemed, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.” (94). Mark saw that Mary Anne’s demeanor changed and her new “tight, intelligent focus” made him happy, but he saw “a different person” and did not know what to do about it. Other changes like “No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandanna.” and she gained “a new confidence in her voice, a new authority in the way she carried herself” (94). Mark noticed these small changes in Mary Anne as she enlivened and assimilates with life in Vietnam. After Mary Anne goes with the Greenies on an ambush and when she got back “Fossie took a half step forward and hesitated. It was as though he had
Mary Anne Bell was a young girl who was brought to Vietnam by her boyfriend Mark. She was known to be, “coy and flirtatious” (O’Brien 91). She was always curious, asking lots of questions about things. She started to get more distant from Mark.
Tim O’Brien is a novelist and a retired soldier from the Vietnam War. He wrote a semi-autobiographical novel titled, The Things They Carried, in a format that seemed as if we were in the novel itself. As readers continue with this novel one can envision and have the impression of deaths and all the effects war has on a soldier from the war. O’Brien explores the effect of war on an individual through fictionalized stories he tells in this novel in order to show how humans can change through drastic events that happen to them due to the war. Being in a war affects the way we think and the people we love.
She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandanna. Hygiene became a matter of small consequence.” (62). Eventually, Mary Anne gets ‘seduced by the greenies’ and is seen wearing a necklace of tongues. It’s obvious Mary Anne is used to represent a loss of innocence among the young soldiers who went to Vietnam (or really any other war).
She becomes overly invested in the war that she does not care about what she used to before being involved in the war. Mark Fossie, Mary Anne’s boyfriend, immediately
Eventually, she came back late at night, and then, soon, not at all. Mark Fossie, and the other soldiers are one of the compelling forces. Mary Anne wanted to stay with them because she seemed to love Mark and liked learning all she could while she was there for him. They had been sweethearts since grade school and had their life entirely planned out, all the way to dying in the same walnut
When Mary Anne first gets to Vietnam, she’s this sweet, innocent girl that comes comes into a war zone. She completely changes after being there just a couple of weeks. Now she's distant, not innocent, and is seen in a whole new character. Her values from before and after change herself to where she is a different person. “Too wide in the shoulders, maybe, but she had terrific legs, a bubbly personality, and a happy smile” (O’Brien 90).
Many social and political events during the early 20th century helped play a role in the molding of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams.” The conclusion of World War I, the Roaring Twenties and the emergence of the new woman all were reflected in Fitzgerald’s work. When the US entered WWI, women all over the country had to step up into new leadership roles, ones that had never been filled by women prior to the war. Men of the households were rushed out of the house and on to the battlefields, leaving openings in the workplaces, and the homes. Women began becoming self-sufficient and were forced to rely on themselves and other women.
Mary’s whole definition of who she was changed drastically after the attack on Pearl Harbor and internment began. Mary questioned if she was really an American if her civil liberties and freedoms given to her by the Declaration of Independence could be taken away so quickly and without warning. She illustrates this notion in her novel when she states, “How strange it felt to be saying the Pledge of Allegiance after a forced evacuation to a prison camp.” (Matsuda Gruenewald,
In the chapter “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, it is assumed that because Mary Anne is a young woman she will react differently than the male soldiers to the war. For example, Mark Fossie assumed that visiting the village would be too dangerous for Mary, and it was assumed that since Mary was a young woman the war wouldn’t affect her mental health in the same way that it affected the men. The chapter “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” goes on to show how war changes people, especially how it can change women. The war ends up changing her the most then it does any of the male soldiers.
Mary Anne Bell’s character shows how much war really changes someone. She was shipped over to Vietnam by her boyfriend, Mark Fossie, at just seventeen years of age. She was an innocent, young and pretty girl from Cleveland Heights. When she first arrived,
Violence typically conjures images of battle and blood and broken bones, but oftentimes, it manifests itself in a far more insidious manner. One doesn't need to physically transgress upon a woman's person in order to abuse them. The mindset of misogyny prevalent in our society lends itself to constant reinforcement of the devaluation of women and disregard of their autonomy, which itself is conducive to violation of boundaries. This hostility is endemic to the patriarchy, a socially constructed system in which males wield the power in society, which is used to control and dominate discourse, especially in the realm of war stories. Antifeminist notions are widespread within the accounts of bloodshed and combat; roles female characters typically play pigeonhole them into some sort of prop-like state in order to advance the male narrative.
This passage explains love and emotional significance in the war . Although the small role of women in The things they carried ,it is an importance threw out the book. Females character’s Martha ,Mary Anne and Kathleen have all effects on the men. Different women in the book have different effects on the men and affect them in different ways .For an example “Jimmy cross carried letters from a girl who named , Martha who 's an English major at Mount Sebastian College.
This transformation of Mary Anne captures the separation of beauty and horror in war. Her initial innocence and curiosity represent the beauty of human resilience and the pursuit of love and connection, even in the worst of circumstances. But, as she dives into the darkness of the war environment, she reflects the horrors of war which can strip away innocence, humanity, and
Like everyone else?’” (O’Brien 92). Mary Anne’s question proves that she is the only character throughout the novel that understands the extensive suffering of the Vietnamese people during the war, and how their anguish was overlooked by the Americans. Mary Anne believes it was unfair towards the Vietnamese how they were treated by the Americans based on the assumption they were all Viet Cong. However, Mary Anne ignores the wishes of the American soldiers and continues to explore the Vietnamese lands and learn their customs.
When we dragged them out, the girl kept dancing"(Pg.129). War will destroy your humanity and innocence, and there will be no mercy. It will destroy the most innocent of people. The destruction of humanity and innocence is not something good to hear, it 's horrific and shocking, it 's a terrible thing. The destruction of humanity and innocence was also seen when a soldier, Mark Fossie, invited his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to visit.