Mary Anne Bell Quotes

It is hard to tell what is true and not true in a novel, especially when the author says, “Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness” (68). The character Mary Anne Bell was too crazy for this novel though. The most unrealistic characters in The Things They Carried is Mary Anne Bell because she went to the war as a civilian not a soldier, embodies the theme loss of innocence, and there are other character that feel the same loss. There are many events that take place that makes Mary Anne an implausible character. The whole reason that she comes to Vietnam is that she is visiting her boyfriend, and not even the other soldiers believe Rat

When Mary Anne comes to Vietnam Rat Kiley describes her as, “She was seventeen years old, fresh out of Cleveland Height Senior High. She had long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream,” and that she wore, “White culottes and this sexy pink sweater” (86, 89). This makes the reader picture someone inexperienced in life and pure, and dresses like someone that is going out not to war much in life. Not much later Mary Anne came back from an ambush and is described as, “She wore a bush hat and filthy green fatigues; she carried the standard M-16 automatic assault rifle; her face was black with charcoal" (98). She went from wearing girly clothes to wearing what the men do and does not care about the mess, and it shows how quickly she changes from when she arrived, especially since she went on a dangerous mission. The last scene with Mary Anne shows just how drastically transformed she becomes with blank stares and a necklace of human tongues (105). This is far from the pure, sweet Mary Anne that is described in the beginning of the novel, because this is someone who has seen and done unimaginable