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Conflicting Desires In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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In “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, There are many ideas and desires running through the head of every soldier in Vietnam. It is a challenging war to fight, and also a very hard one to come home from as it was an incredibly unpopular war. Many soldiers faced conflicting desires on the battlefield, but the most interesting example of conflicting desires was Mary Anne Bell. She was the elementary school girlfriend of the young medic Mark Fossie, who was staying at a base in the mountains of Chu Lai. Many soldiers at the base always joked about it being so safe, and with so few officials, that someone could actually fly their girlfriend in and they would both be fine. It was all fun and games untill Mark actually did it. When she arrived, …show more content…

They were always kissing, so much so that it bothered the other soldiers a bit. But, she was so smart and curious about pretty much everything the soldiers did that they didn’t mind, and actually enjoyed teaching her about the various things a soldier needs to know. Soon, she began changing. She stopped wearing her girly clothes she came over with, and soon began dressing like the soldiers, started smelling like them, and soon started going on missions with them. They all liked the idea of having her around and taught her all they knew. Eventually, she came back late at night, and then, soon, not at all. Mark Fossie, and the other soldiers are one of the compelling forces. Mary Anne wanted to stay with them because she seemed to love Mark and liked learning all she could while she was there for him. They had been sweethearts since grade school and had their life entirely planned out, all the way to dying in the same walnut …show more content…

She had been out on ambush, said the other soldiers. Mark waited outside the hut for hours, eventually forcing his way in and seeing her inside with a necklace of human tongues around her neck. She insists that Fossie doesn’t really understand Vietnam in his sheltered camp and that she isn’t doing anything wrong. Soon, she disappears all together and nobody ever sees her again. The second force was Vietnam itself. All of the culture, the people, and the mystery. She said that the soldiers didn’t get it, that there was so much more to Vietnam than sitting inside a compound and waiting for injured soldiers to get flown in. As she learned from the soldiers, she picked up the Vietnamese culture, something Mark completely ignored. Soon, she chose Vietnam over Mark and the other soldiers, even the greenies, and

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What if you were chosen in the next draft for a war between your country and a distant nation, but you had an indifference to the conflict? This becomes a reality for the narrator Tim O'Brien, as he is drafted into the Vietnam war. In the novel, The Things They Carried, written by the narrator Tim O'Brien, the reader is taken through a series of stories ranging from before O'Brien enters the war, when he is stationed in Vietnam during the war, and years after he returns home from the war. These stories are arranged in no particular order, and they all reflect the influence the Vietnam war has on O'Brien's personal experiences of the harsh realities he faces accompanied by his fellow comrades. In the novel, The Things They Carried, the author

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When Mary Anne first gets to Vietnam, she’s this sweet, innocent girl that comes comes into a war zone. She completely changes after being there just a couple of weeks. Now she's distant, not innocent, and is seen in a whole new character. Her values from before and after change herself to where she is a different person. “Too wide in the shoulders, maybe, but she had terrific legs, a bubbly personality, and a happy smile” (O’Brien 90).

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Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

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When Mary Anne arrived at the base, she was always being flirtatious with the soldiers because she was used to acting like that back at home. She was noted as being “perky and fresh-faced (96).” Mary Anne used to be a young girl who was always buoyant. She would wander around curiously, yet she remained cheerful. The soldiers had a great time talking to her because she was “very friendly (93).”

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The girl she was when she arrived vanishes into the girl she becomes. Mary Anne knows who she is and has found where she belongs. She is the girl who goes out on ambush because she enjoys it. Everything within Vietnam, including the war, sings to her. It is everything she wants and needs.

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When we dragged them out, the girl kept dancing"(Pg.129). War will destroy your humanity and innocence, and there will be no mercy. It will destroy the most innocent of people. The destruction of humanity and innocence is not something good to hear, it 's horrific and shocking, it 's a terrible thing. The destruction of humanity and innocence was also seen when a soldier, Mark Fossie, invited his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to visit.

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