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Mary Ann's Innocence In 'Sweetheart Of The Song Tra'

421 Words2 Pages

War is a convoluted system that strips civilians of their innocence, and morphs them into heartless, savage creatures. Having lived in a foreign place for so long without any lawfulness, many of the soldiers lose their morals. Due to their severe disconnect from American civilization, and inhabitation in a brutal and eerie new place, people resort to violence and ruthlessness to survive. Tim O’Brien portrays this concept of corruption within “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bra”. After being specially shipped to her lover’s base in Vietnam, Mary Ann conveys her loss of innocence through a decline in human like tendencies, and ultimate regression into a barbaric state of being. She transforms from a dainty young woman who wore a string of pearls …show more content…

In his gripping poem entitled, Losses, Randell Jarrell normalizes war and the barbarities that it induces. Unlike Mary Ann in The Things They Carried, who feels invigorated and fully embraces war, Jarrell describes how war causes men to become insensitive and dazed. Seemingly, as a result of being constantly exposed to such horrors, soldiers lose their understanding of loss, and see death as an insignificant, ordinary occurrence. The narrator articulates, “With enormous adrenaline rushing through you, friends and fellow soldiers dying left and right, bullets of varying size and sound whizzing past you...stopping to help carry a wounded friend to safety and taking a bullet as a result, this is all a "mistake" on your part... How cold and unforgiving the world of war is.” (Jarrelll). From this statement it is made clear that war strips young and thriving men of their innocence, just as it did to Mary Ann. However, while Mary Ann had been changed by war for the better, these soldiers are being changed for the worst. This experience changes people, distorting their perceptions and chilling their

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In Tim O’Brien’s “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” Mary Anne Bell’s evolution into adulthood is driven by her acquisition of the knowledge that she is a predator. From the beginning, she is absorbed by the carnage and danger of war, even “fascinated by it. Not the gore so much, but the adrenaline buzz that went with the job” (O’Brien 7). Mary Anne accepts, and even welcomes, her predator lifestyle, and presents herself as “someone perfectly at peace with herself” (O’Brien 17). Mary Anne may crave the kill because it gives her a goal and an objective, while life as Mark Fossie’s wife would not provide such a purpose.

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The loss of innocence Mary Anne Bell experiences revives the soldiers memories regarding the time when the soldiers first got drafted, when they were as innocent as her. “Mary Anne made you think about those girls back home, how clean and innocent they all are” (113), but Mary Anne changed drastically. She lost all of the innocence she had left in her. The Vietnam War changed her completely due to all the horrors that come along. She departed from her

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