Mary Anne Bell Character Analysis

A 360 Degree Transformation
It is a well known fact to all, that experiencing traumatic war events and sights that aren’t pleasant, changes people. There is an innocence that is forever lost. An innocence that can never be gained back. Change is inevitable. Change, in Mary Anne Bell’s case, is here to stay. It has its way of affecting each and every person it encounters. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, he incorporates an innocent city girl into the wild jungle of war in Vietnam; Mary Anne Bell. Because Mark Fossie decides to take a drastic measure and fly his girlfriend to Vietnam during one of the most brutal wars, she gains the soldier’s sympathy and soon becomes the “not so innocent blonde” new to the territory; she is simply an entirely renovated girl living in a whole new world.
O’Brien uses the significance of gender to relay the idea that Mary Anne is an unusual example of innocence that is lost at war because unlike other soldiers, she is a woman. Although she is only present for one chapter, questions and thoughts still puzzle the reader…What happened to Mary Anne Bell? She arrived in her white culottes and pink sweater. The irony that is present here adds to the drama of a woman coming to Vietnam, during the war, a time of sadness and fighting; where no woman from the city should be present. Tim O’Brien adds a fascination with Mary Anne Bell that is unable to be grasped fully; a fascination in which is significant when discussing change and the impact of war. Typically, soldiers who come back from war under experience a similar