“The sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” is a short story about the war in Vietnam by O’Brien. He is telling the story and uses Rat Kiley a soldier with a reputation to tell the story about the war. He uses figurative language to express the theme of how war transforms people from who they are to another and uses metaphors and objectifying Mary Anne in the story.
Rat Kiley was in a medical detachment in the village of Tra Bong near a river called The Song Tra Bong.
He has a reputation of telling tales and at a point, the listeners tell him to tell the story as it is without lies or exaggeration. At the start of the story, Rat Kiley claims to have witnessed the transformation of Mary Anne, a typical American innocent girl from high school at the age of 17 years, who visits her fiancé Mark Fossie in Vietnam.
Mary Anne arrives in by helicopter with daily supplies.
She was imported like goods. Rat then describes how the girl was before the transformation process began. He said the girl was “ tall, gig-boned blonde” with long white legs, blue eyes, and a complexion” Like strawberry ice cream”, She is a nave , friendly and curious. She wears a pink sweater and white culottes. (Pg 3). Rat Kiley was describing how the girl came, with all her feminine before it started fading away as days passed on. She becomes curious about everything and she joins the medical department and helps the casualties without fear.
After some weeks she requests the fiancé to take her to the village of the Vietnamese where they had to cross a river. The crossing of the river was symbolic as Mary Anne’s transformation begins and, on their way, back, She removes her clothes and swims in the river this was a symbol of baptism. She arrives and starts going out with the Greenies who were antisocial who would go for days and weeks in the jungle without worry. Rat describes them as “very secretive “. The author introduced Mary Anne being the only character woman to show that women can be in the war too and not items to offer men pleasure and that what she passed through and the transformation happens to men too.
The change continues and Mary Anne cuts her hair and stops wearing makeup and washing. Her voice changed and becomes lower and learns how to shoot. Her fiancé Mark Fossil becomes uncomfortable and suggests exporting her back home (America) but refuses and begins coming home late. Mark Fossie was amused by the changes Taking place in Mary Anne. She was curious about everything especially the way she fell into the habit of the bush, no cosmetics, no fingernail filing, cut her hair short and wraps it in a dark green bandanna, her feminine gone. Her voice changes and there a new authority in the way she carried herself. The wilderness had swallowed her in.
On page 12 of the short story, Rat Kiley describes how Mary Anne was no longer concerned with her fiancé but joined the Greenies full. When they followed her from the camp, they couldn’t believe what they saw in the rooms, the smell of dead people paralyzed their lungs meaning it was rotten, He continues to say “ Thick and Numbing, like an animals den, a mix of blood and scorched hair, the stink of the kill.” In this state, there were people ( The Greenies and Mary Anne in such a scenario. What the hell! They were truly insane people changed by the war. They kill and carry the kill? War had already contaminated them.
The author shows the differences between the Native world of Vietnam and the world of the Americans where they walk almost naked. We see this where Mary Anne removes her clothes and swims in the river Tra Bong. (pg 4) She fully embraces Vietnamese culture while Mark Fossie does not approve of the idea. This makes them have a different experience of a world in which the separate cultures are incompatible with each other. In the story, O’Brien doesn’t show how one can embrace both cultures and assimilate them into a comfortable mix but rather must choose one cultural identity in which Mary Anne finally decides to remain in the jungle.
O’Brien in the story also reflects the idea of women as one-dimensional beings who serve only to offer pleasure to men. Eddie Diamond brings the suggestion of bringing women for entertainment to the soldiers, an idea which Mark Fossie picks and brings his girlfriend thinking that after gaining comfort and companionship she will remain unaffected by the surroundings. This imagination was flushed out by reality when Mary Anne becomes curious about everything surrounding her. Form the language, the culture and the war itself. The iron is that what she wanted to be agreed with her and fitted her, war overpowers her and varnished in the jungle.
After visiting the museum, I was able to view some weapons used in the war of Vietnam and the rifle alone was making my handshake. I couldn’t imagine how Mary Anne felt with the weapon in the hand and inaction to kill too.
This reminds me how when I came I asked some teenage girls in school their fears and they shared briefly that they are afraid of their parents divorcing but mostly afraid of shootings and war. A teenage instead of worrying about their birthdays are full of fears of war and shootings. We all should engage in peacebuilding and less weapon use to remain pure and uncontaminated by avoiding war.
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