ideal soldier‚ he then goes on to say “Even now‚ twenty years later‚ I can see him wrapping his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck before heading out on ambush.”. The stockings were a talisman for him. O’Brien paints a picture in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” of the necessity and essence of femininity that paradoxically and inevitably slips quietly into the masculine. In both instances‚ the essence of femininity plays an integral role in the
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When you go to war‚ you need to be strong and have the ability to perform under pressure. Unfortunately‚most people never talk about the mental aspect of war. Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is a story told by Rat Kiley in the book‚ The Things They Carried‚ by Tim O’Brien. It shows how the war takes a toll on people mentally. This story shifts from light hearted to mysterious and uses lighthearted diction‚ mysterious syntax‚ and environmental imagery. This specific story is told through the perspective
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Study Guide for “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” 1. Rat’s reputation among the men of Alpha Company was of being an exaggerator who frequently overstated the truth. The narrator compares Rat’s storytelling to sharing the experience of a fire‚ in order to burn his audience and ensure that they would come to the same understanding as him‚ Rat would embellish his tales. The narrator suggests that his stories be corrected by ‘subtracting superlatives‚ figuring the square root of an absolute and
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“Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” I enjoyed reading "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" because I can relate with Mary Anne. There were two part of the chapter that caught my attention the most. The first was when the Rat was describing the changes in Mary’s look. It doesn’t take long for someone to adapt to war‚ its not so much they want to its more that they need to. To survive someone must worry about what’s outside the walls and the soldiers you work with‚ not so much your personal preferences
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Throughout the novel O’Brien shows the audience the functionality of his platoon through describing their life stories. Each character is changed due to their time in the war. Some lose their innocence along with their ability to cope like Norman Bowker‚ or Mary Anne. Some are like Time O’Brien; while he was changed in Vietnam‚ he found a way to continue living. O’Brien tries to show the conflict of war while telling us how it changes people. These three characters represent the effects of Vietnam
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effects that come with the act of war are inevitable and one must struggle with the predicament of keeping one’s sanity intact. Humans are inherently good until thrown to the darkness and dysfunctional effects of war. Similarly‚ In Tim O’Brien’s “Song of the Tra Bong”‚ a story about how a young man from the Vietnam War pays to have his significant other sent to his station unfolds as a dramatic turn for the worse. The young man‚ Mark Fossie‚ deals with the pain of seeing his significant other‚ Mary Anne
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English 1020 22 February 2012 Mary Anne Bell of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” by Tim O’Brian It is a well known fact that experiencing war changes people; there is an innocence that is forever lost. In Tim O’Brian’s‚ “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”‚ Mary Anne Bell is an unusual example of the innocence that is lost in war because unlike the rest of the soldiers‚ she is a woman. Mary Anne’s transformation from innocent “sweetheart” to fierce warrior left readers with mixed emotions because
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In the chapter Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong in the fictional novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien‚ Mary Anne Bell is a prime example of a dynamic character. Mary Anne was an attractive girl‚ seventeen years old‚ from Cleveland Heights Senior High. She had a bubbly and girly personality. Her boyfriend‚ Mark Fossie‚ got the idea to fly his girlfriend out to his assigned medical outpost in Vietnam. The outpost was near the village of Tra Bong‚ up in the mountains west of Chu Lai. It was a fun
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America. With her pink sweater and culottes‚ she is the All-American girl with an American Dream. “Mary Anne and Fossie had been sweethearts since grammar school and since sixth grade on they had known for a fact that someday they would get married‚ live in a house near Lake Erie‚ and have three children‚ That was the plan” (95). The chapter “Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” examines the transformation that occurs when this innocent girl is lifted out of the Cleveland suburbs and plunked down in the mountains
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soul‚ revealing more about what is bad in human nature than what is good‚” in other words every person has darkness hidden within him or her. Two works of literature that prove this statement true are “Greasy Lake” by T.C. Boyle and “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” by Tim O’Brien. To begin‚ “Greasy Lake” demonstrates just how malicious a person can be. Boyle uses the characterization of the narrator to show how evil is hidden in every person. The narrator is characterized as greasy‚ bad and reckless
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