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Mary Anne Bell In The Things They Carried

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In the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien it featured a character named Mary Anne Bell going through a transformation into a new character called the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. Mary Anne Bell was a very friendly girl, straight out of Cleveland Heights Senior High whereas the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, a character more determined and adapted to war decided to join the Green Berets because she loved the feel of the ambush and wore her human tongue trophies threaded along a copper wire necklace. When Mary Anne was introduced in the book she was described as being young and innocent. She didn’t know about all the aspects of life in the Vietnam war, but it was just like Eddie Diamond had said “This girl will most definitely learn” (92). After learning about how to treat wounded soldiers and how to use an M-16 she became more determined in what she wanted. She even said that everything she wanted was in Vietnam. This was when she began to transform into the Sweetheart because she was already determined in what she wanted, which was the surge of adrenaline that came with the Vietnam war. Mary Anne completely transforms into the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong after her first ambush with the Green Berets. Mary Anne stated “When i'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I …show more content…
To her, nothing else mattered more than the feeling she got from the ambush which expedited her adaptation. She morphed into something that was the result of the environment around her, so in a sense she had become one with the Vietnam war. She even said to Mark Fossie, “You’re in a place where you don’t belong...she moved her hand in a gesture that encompassed not just the hootch but everything around it, the entire war, the mountains, the mean little villages, the trails and the trees and rivers and deep misted-over valleys” (106). This shows how she has adapted and understood the war more than Mary

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