The Things They Carried Mary Anne Character Traits

Sir William Shakespeare once said “We know what we are, not what we may become.” A story in the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, is about a soldier in Vietnam during the war who flew his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to his bunker, but over time she ended up leaving him and joining the Green Berets. Throughout the story, she transformed from an innocent young girl to an unrecognizable creature. As the story progressed, her appearance, actions, and mentality all change into those of a mysterious being.
The first thing you notice about someone is the way they look. Mary Anne arrived at the camp as a “cute blonde (90).” The soldiers perceived her as an innocent girl due to the way she dressed. She did not need to say anything for them to

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).” No matter what the circumstance was, for the first few weeks, Mary Anne was always enjoying herself and was always sprightly. However, people change. She began to blend in by learning “how to clip an artery (98),” or “how to dissemble an M-16 (96).” She began turning into soldier rather than an innocent girl. When she first arrived, Mary Anne did not seem like somebody who would enjoy the gruesomeness of the war, but she began to change into someone that did enjoy it all. Not only did she begin to look like the soldier, but she began to act like it too. Nobody knew it, but she was about to become a completely different person. Towards the end of the story, Mary Anne went “out on a f***in’ ambush (102).” Her behavior since she arrived has taken a different turn. She was only supposed to hang out for a little while then head back home, but she ends up taking part in the war and leaving the base in the depths of night. She was no longer perky, but rather she was in “a restless gloom (104).” Her cheerful personality has

When Mary Anne arrived at the compound, she had a curious mentality in which she wanted to learn more about life during the war. She would pester Mark Fossie “to take her down to the village (96).” She did not fly to the war just to wait and stare into space, she came to learn. If she did not bother her boyfriend, she would never have been able to see anything outside of the base. Her attitude when she arrived was that she “wanted to get a feel for how people lived (96).” She began to blend in with the troops in order to better understand what their daily lives consisted of. After a few weeks passed, her mentality began to change. She did not want to watch anymore, she wanted to learn. The troops said that she was “a real tiger (97),” not because of her appearance, but because of her aggressive curiosity. She had already witnessed the villages and the weapons, but now she wanted to learn how it all worked. She began “[picking] up on things fast (97).” They were teaching her how to do various tasks that should have seemed hard to Mary Anne, but were not. They were not teaching her for the sake of it, but because she constantly wanted to feel as though she belonged with the soldiers. As days passed on, her attitude changed again, but now she wanted to take action. She went on an ambush and began to spend “late nights (103),” putting her newly acquired abilities to use. She would leave for hours, days, and