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Female Characters In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The female characters in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien have a huge impact on the men of the war. The women seem to be a burden that the men must carry around even after the war has ended. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s feelings for a girl back home often distracts him from the war. Mary Anne Belle, Mark Fossie’s girlfriend who visits Vietnam to see him, gets addicted to the war, which places a heavy burden on Mark.The high school sweetheart of Norman Bowker, Sally Kramer, is a reminder of the normal life that Norman could have if he did not go to Vietnam. The women in The Things They Carried may have very small roles, but those roles are very significant. Martha is Jimmy Cross’s escape from the war that turned wrong. Jimmy often …show more content…

Mary Anne is flown over by Mark to Vietnam and at first the two are inseparable and extremely happy to be together. Mary Anne is fascinated with everything that is going on in Vietnam. From the culture and lifestyle of the native people to how to shoot a gun, Mary Anne wants to learn all about life in Vietnam. Soon Mary Anne becomes so obsessed with the war that she goes out on an ambush in the middle of the night with the Green Berets (O’Brien 97). Mark Fossie is enraged that Mary Anne would go off on an ambush. The next day Mary Anne barely speaks and Mark tells Rat Kiley that that they are now officially engaged. Soon Mark is making arrangements for her to go home but Mary Anne does not want to leave and disappears. Three weeks later she shows up back at the base and does not go see Mark but instead goes straight to the Special Forces tent. Mark sits outside the tent all night waiting for her to come outside. When it becomes clear that Mary Anne will not be coming to see him. Mark storms into the tent. What Mark sees in the tent, however is no longer Mary Anne. Wearing a pink sweater and a skirt Mary Anne is dressed as the same girl that Mark fell in love with back home, but her choice of accessories shows how much she has changed. Around Mary Anne’s neck is a necklace made of human tongues, which most likely belong to her victims (O’Brien 105). When Mary Anne and Mark start talking, she says

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680 Words | 3 Pages

A woman named Mary Anne Bell goes to Vietnam to visit her boyfriend Mark Fossie. As time passes Mary Anne changes but her change isn’t very different from the men. She starts to not wear makeup, cutting her hair short, but she learns how to shoot guns and help with soldiers'

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1754 Words | 8 Pages

In the book "The things thy Carried" written by Tim Obrien we can see a story about solders at Vietnam War. The connections i will be talking about are "Woman in war" and "The loss of innicence". Tim Obrien shows us those connections through chapters as "Sweet heart of the song tra bong", "The Things they carries", "Love" and "Field trip". Usually i would think that a woman in war is always used as a passive character, however Tim Obrien changes the stereotipical view on the role off Woman in war and showed us how the troma of war can change your prespective to anything. Through this book i can learn that as soon as you lose your innacence you can not get it back.

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705 Words | 3 Pages

As she becomes engaged in the war Mary Anne evolves to embrace the savage beauty of the land and is lured by the mysteriousness of war. Mary Anne’s presence represents a semblance of normalcy and beauty, contrasting with the harsh realities and horror of combat. This beauty lies in her determination to follow her heart despite the dangers surrounding her. Her interest with Vietnamese culture and integration into their way of life reveals both the allure and the terrifying consequences of war. The beauty lies in her curiosity and willingness to embrace new experiences, even in the midst of a war zone.

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550 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, one of the many significant themes that O’Brien uses are that the soldiers had to hold what was within them and it was the guilt. One of the examples in the novel is that, O’Brien specifically puts in detail how most of the soldiers had something haunting them. The back of their mind they were thinking and looking for someone to blame for something they have caused. They were so guilty of the many deaths of the war that it had physically traumatized them. All they could think of was the deaths of the comrades and the deaths of the North Vietnamese soldiers.

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403 Words | 2 Pages

In 1945, during World War II, roles of women varied from building ships and weaponry to nurses working on the front lines. In the novel, The Things They Carried, women have overlapping and contrasting responsibilities during the Vietnam War. Propaganda boosted civilian morale during the WWII; similarly, women boosted the morale of soldiers during the Vietnam War. Two women, Martha and Dobbins unnamed girlfriend, demonstrated throughout the book the role of women to First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Henry Dobbins, respectively.

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1066 Words | 5 Pages

Mary Anne is this cute girl that comes to this war zone in Vietnam. By coming to Vietnam she did not know the dangers that were hidden in the jungle. Before she felt it was right to go and help with what she can, but after she felt that she had to do more and was losing herself along the way. “She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill” (O’Brien 110).

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125 Words | 1 Pages

The Things They Carried, is a lot about what all of the men carried and what it all meant to each one of them. The author describing the material things wants to give a sense of the physical burden, but the guilt of men lost and the weight of responsibility was what truly weighed them down mentally and physically through the war. The author allows the reader to realize how each of the characters dealt with their time within the war and how they coped giving them a sense of hope to survive, and how they traveled through Vietnam carrying the weight of physical burdens and the weight of responsibility, loss and guilt and the memories they will carry for the rest of their lives.

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1094 Words | 5 Pages

There were many different type of women in the novel The Things They Carried. These roles of women were displayed in Martha, Linda and Kathleen the most. In my opinion Linda has one of the most important/impactful roles in the novel. Linda is Obrien’s child hood first love. Unfortunately she died at the age of nine because of a brain tumor.

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750 Words | 3 Pages

By letting Mark come to her house she can help him with his loneliness and find out what his condition is, then maybe a cure for it. Susan starts the car and starts making her way back to her house so she can meet Mark there. Susan hears a knock on the door and races over there to go greet Mark. “Welcome!” says Susan.

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788 Words | 4 Pages

In the story, The Things They Carried, in the chapter, Spin, Tim O’Brien wrote the quote “Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity when memory is erased when there is nothing to remember except the story.” In this quote, O’Brien uses a rhetorical device called, Anaphora. Interpreting the meaning is not always exactly what the original meaning is.

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1137 Words | 5 Pages

Mary Anne Bell’s character shows how much war really changes someone. She was shipped over to Vietnam by her boyfriend, Mark Fossie, at just seventeen years of age. She was an innocent, young and pretty girl from Cleveland Heights. When she first arrived,

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817 Words | 4 Pages

Often times women serve several important roles in a novel that help to drive and fully develop the plot. Many authors write about women and what they represent in order to keep the reader engaged. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, the various female characters in the story represent numerous topics. Since the women in the novel serve an important role, they represent psychological baggage, innocence, and the function of memory. One female character in the novel that represents psychological baggage is Martha.

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583 Words | 3 Pages

There were three types of women in The Things They Carried. These roles of women, displayed in Martha, Linda and Kathleen, were love, death, and an enabler. The following explanation defines their role in the novel and the impact they made. Martha is Lt. Jimmy Cross’s love, even though she has only considers him as a friend. O’Brien’s uses their story to show a common trend between soldiers and the separation created by the war.

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1345 Words | 6 Pages

During the First World War women played a very vital role, either directly as nurses or as forms of comfort and hope (Brose 109). However, as the fighting dragged on countless men lost their lives and saw the unspeakable horrors of trench warfare, attitudes toward women changed. Men were angry that their wives were home living ‘comfortably’ while they suffered, and the nurses saw them broken and vulnerable (Brose 113). Decades later, the women of the 1960s were rebelling against the typical feminine roles of their mothers and grandmothers, but the perception in the minds of the men at war was generally unchanged from those of the soldiers in the past. “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian shows this same transition in emotions—from positive to negative—views, during the Vietnam War by following a platoon of soldiers through the jungle.

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601 Words | 3 Pages

This passage explains love and emotional significance in the war . Although the small role of women in The things they carried ,it is an importance threw out the book. Females character’s Martha ,Mary Anne and Kathleen have all effects on the men. Different women in the book have different effects on the men and affect them in different ways .For an example “Jimmy cross carried letters from a girl who named , Martha who 's an English major at Mount Sebastian College.

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