Summary: Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong

As Ray Kiley describes it, “She was seventeen years old, fresh out of Cleveland Heights Senior High. She had long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream. Very friendly, too,” (89). Mary Anne is immature and naive, but also very curious. She is curious of Army machines and also of the Vietnamese culture. Like many other Americans, Mary Anne feels that the war is easily winnable and that she is untouchable, even in a foreign land. At one point she strips down to her underwear and swims in the Song Tra Bong, a Vietnamese river, even after Fossie explains that there are likely snipers

He was proud, yes, but also amazed. A different person, it seemed, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.” She stopped wearing makeup and jewelry. She cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark bandana. She was beginning to look like a man. She learned how to shoot a gun. Mary Anne began talking her and Mark’s future. Instead of getting married like they had planned, she wants to just live together for a while to see what it’s like. Everything about her was changing. She was no longer bubbly, she rarely laughed, and she was going off on her own more and more. One night she never came home. She had spent all night with the green berets on ambush. When Mary returned, she was hardly recognizable. Mark was fed up, he made her wash her hair and clean up. Things seemed to be all right. But there was a great deal of tension between them. Finally, Mark started talking about sending her back home. Mary Anne was gone the next morning along with the 6 other green berets. When she returned, her appearance had completely changed. “It was then, Rat said, that he picked out Mary Anne’s face. Her eyes seemed to shine in the dark-not blue, though, but a bright glowing jungle green. She did not pause at Fossie’s bunker. She cradled her weapon and moved swiftly to the Special Forces hooch and followed the others inside.” When Mark entered the green berets hooch, he first thought he saw the same old sweet Mary Anne. She was wearing a pink sweater and a skirt. But there was no

Mary Anne made her first appearance in the Vietnam War on a helicopter that would fly supplies in and out of the medical base in Chu Lai. She wore some “white culottes … and a pink sweater” when she first arrive because it was what she enjoyed to wear because she was still young( O’Brien 86) . She was described as having “ long white legs, blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream” this is what the men thought of her when they saw her walking around the base with Mark Frossie (O’Brien 89). Mary Anne was very “curious about things” always asking questions

Once she entered the Vietnam War, it was hard for her to leave. She was inexperienced about the war and the involvement in the war caused her to be fearless and obsessed with it. She transformed from a bubbly, innocent, and naïve American girl into a hardened killer. Rat Kiley explains in this chapter that “what happened to her, Rat said, was what happened to all of them. You come over clean and you get dirty and then afterward it’s never the same,” (O’Brien 109). The changes that Mary Anne experienced, shows the similar changes that every soldier in Vietnam went through; they deserted themselves from their culture and became hardened soldier. Mary Anne was not recognized by her boyfriend Mark Fossie and replaces her love into the jungle of Vietnam and consumed by

Everyday, soldiers had to experience the major horrors of war in Vietnam. These soldiers had nothing but each other which resulted in the creation of many close bonds. One of the main themes of The Things They Carried is friendship. If friendship was utterly left out of the book, there would be virtually nothing to read about. Some paramount examples of friendship would be found in the chapters “The Man I Killed”, “Friends” and “In the Field”. Overall, O’Brien uses this theme to effectively convey the importance of friendships in times of war. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien which describes the horrors of war in Vietnam, uses cavernous syntax, relatable symbolism and effulgent imagery to impose the exact feelings of the soldiers that experience guilt, fear and madness together during the war.

This description shows just how much she has changed. The way that she describes being alone in the mountains is like nothing she’s ever said before. And yet, she claims that the feeling is something that helps her to discover herself, she knows exactly who she is when she’s there. Mary Anne says that she feels close to her own body, she feels whole and complete in the wilds of Vietnam. She describes herself as “burning away into nothing” with this feeling. Brimming with electricity, even, she feels alive when she’s alone in the wilds. The way Mary Anne describes her feelings for herself after being in Vietnam for months represents her own previous insecurities and pressures being wiped away and replaced with freedom. Mary Anne is tetherless in Vietnam, free to do whatever she pleases, and she would not let Fossie stop her from that, no matter how he felt. After this confrontation, they

Many character’s develop throughout O’Brien’s novel, but there is a chapter dedicated to the entire development of Mary Anne Bell and the extreme effects the war had on her. Although Mary Anne is not involved in any other piece of the novel, she is a perfect example of the effects of war on individuals- which are an important aspect of The Things They Carried.

"Twice/ she came in late at night. Very late. And then finally she did not come in at all." (99). Mark became worried that she might be sleeping with someone else. He woke up Rat and him go check out the barracks to see if Mary Anne was with any of the guys. "All accounted for. No extras." (101). Then they got the idea that she was with the "Greenies" and she was, in a way. Mary Anne was out on Ambush with the Green Beret's. Poor Mark Fossie tried to talk some sense into her, but it was to no avail. Before long Mary Anne was gone again, this time there would be no reckoning with her. She had made her decision to be where she felt she belonged. When Mark finally realized this, he was hit with an emotional artillery shell that could have taken

“If you believed the Greenies, Rat said, Mary Anne was still somewhere out there in the dark. Odd movements, odd shapes. Late at night, when the Greenies were out on ambush, the whole rain forest seemed to stare at them- a watched feeling- and a couple of times they almost saw her sliding through the shadows. Not quite, but almost. She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land” (Tim O’Brien 110).

During World War ll a man of 18 years old will be drafted for the Army right out of college. In the novel A Separate Piece I John Knowles there's a very tight bond between many characters throughout the book. For example Gene and Finny are the main focus of friendship. Their friendship is a combination of admiration, respect, jealousy, and resentment. For all the camaraderie between them, these boys are still driven by good old healthy competition. . As well s Brinker and Gene are beginning to have a tight Bond after the incident with Finny. 8/3 friendship in the novel is Gene and Leper. Throughout the novel there are a lot of ways that show a good friendship between 2 characters

All night long, man, Mary Anne’s out on fuckin’ ambush”” (O’Brien 97). Mary Anne changes completely, going from being a girly girl to wearing her hair in a short bob, wearing a bandana, and losing all sense of hygiene. She wants to learn how to be a part of the war and is not afraid to get her hands dirty and work hard, a complete turn around from when she first arrived. Her confidence grew and her ambition became more apparent over the duration of her visit, and she developed more

Mary Anne’s story begins when her boyfriend, a soldier in Vietnam, flies her over to Vietnam so that he can see her. When she first arrives, she looks

He states, in his story, that Rainsford just fell of the yacht and made his way to the island then stumbled upon this home which was grand and out of place (64). The simile Connell used was “…door opened as if it were on a spring” portrays that the door opened quickly and swiftly just as a spring would spring something forward fast and quickly (64) Another remarkably placed simile happened when Rainsford was on the run and then came to a swamp and he got his foot stuck in the quicksand and Rainsford tried to wretch his foot out (77). Connell uses the simile, “…as if it were a leech” to describe that the quicksand was sucking his foot in just as a leech would suck your

When she came back he keeps a close eye on her and won’t let her out of his sight. Mary Anne left with a special forces unit, called the Greenies on a mission for weeks on end, but when she came back she had gone crazy. She had a necklace of tongues and there was stacks of bones and dried strips of skin hanging from the wall of the Greenies’ house. She had used a culture of Vietnam to make up for the hole left by her previous American culture. People use other cultures to make up for their old

O’Brien’s use of imagery vividly describes the Vietnamese soldier he killed in the heat of the war. For example, O’Brien, a soldier of the war says, “His jaw in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his