Song Tra Bong

Words: 765
Pages: 4
Open Document
According to Tim O’Brien, made up things are sometimes truer than the truth. He means to say that for something to be true, it doesn’t have to necessarily be factual, but it has to have empathetic integrity; it has to retain and convey the true feeling that the story-teller had. “How to Tell a True War Story” and “Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong” are both short stories in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. It can be argued either way whether or not “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” is a “true” war story; it’s a story about the girlfriend of a soldier--Mark Fossie--who travels to Vietnam and subsequently falls victim to its charms and dangers. It symbolizes the tarnishing and eventual loss of innocence experienced by the soldiers who fought in the vietnam war. The other story, “How to Tell a True War Story,” is an informational piece of prose that gives several sets of criteria that determines the validity of a war story. These criteria are things like “[a] true war story is never moral;” “[o]ften in a …show more content…
The exact events depicted in the story did not happen. However, O’Brien expresses that ‘made-up things are sometimes truer than the truth,’ and this can be true. The way O’Brien writes this story, it makes the audience feel the gradual loss of Mary Anne and so the gradual loss of innocence that the soldiers experienced. The way the story ended, with the disappearance of Mary Anne, left the story feeling unresolved, like there was more to the story. This is how the soldiers must have felt after the war. Once they got back, there was no easy way to readjust to civilian life, feelings of aggression and violence went unresolved and undealt-with. In this way, by keeping to the feelings of the soldiers, O’Brien has made the feeling and the tone of the story true, even without any actual facts. In this regard, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” is a true war story, but only in this abstract
Show More

Related Documents: Song Tra Bong

Sweetheart Of Song Tra Bong Analysis

Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong In this chapter Tim O’Brien recalls a story that Rat Kiley had told him. This story begins with a group of soldiers that were assigned to a medical detachment, Kiley being one of them. One night, in the midst of drinking and having fun, one of the soldiers jokes that they should all pitch in money to bring a prostitute to Vietnam. Mark Fossie, one of the soldiers, was inspired by this idea and so he decided to fly his highschool sweetheart, Mary Anne Bell, over to their…

Words 655 - Pages 3

The Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong Analysis

Tim O’Brien uses animal imagery in the story, The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong to support a theme of the novel that war significantly changes a person. One of the best examples, of war changing a person in Mary Anne, she is the fiance of a medic named Mark Fossie, who decided to bring her to Vietnam. When she arrives, she is wearing culottes, and looks like a “cheerleader”(96). When she leaves the camp, she was wearing a “necklace of human tongues”, an object she wouldn’t have dreamt of when…

Words 391 - Pages 2

Summary Of Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong

Joselynne Talavera Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong: Tasting Freedom and Horror A true war story should make you feel as close as possible to war and its horror. This necklace is part of a true war story. In the story Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong, this necklace is the noticeable factor of an intense transformation within a young girl. Mary Anne Bell was a curious teenage girl with “a bubbly personality and happy smile,” (90) who was flown into a Vietnam medical detachment by her boyfriend. The…

Words 564 - Pages 3

Sweetheart Of The Song Of Tra Bong Analysis

I see the theme of loss of innocence in the “Sweetheart of the Song of Tra Bong”. The young men, Rat Kiley, Eddie Diamond, Mark Fossie and the others they were with, thad been stripped of their innocence. They might have been fresh out of high school, not having any idea they would land in Vietnam witnessing and experiencing the hostility of the time. As a former military member, I feel like you grow up faster, much more if you experienced war. From dependence to independence, you learn to deal…

Words 695 - Pages 3

Song Tra Bong Truth Vs Truth

The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong is a short story taken out of the book, “The Things They Carried “, by Tim O’Brien. In this story, O’Brien utilized the literary technique of storytelling to give the theme of truth vs. belief through the debate of Rat Kiley and Mitchell Sanders. With the character of Mary Anne, the theme of loss of innocence is shown from her arriving as a just a curious American girl to a strong and wild woman in Vietnam. In the beginning, O’Brien writes that not all stories can…

Words 1069 - Pages 5

Cold War Comparative: Women of the Decades Essay

resilient and rise to the occasion. While women in the 50s and 60s had to overcome their feelings, Mary Anne in the chapter, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, from the book, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, was exposed to a new way of living and that was the trigger which allowed her to access her true identity. In The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, an officer at a medical base has his girlfriend fly across the world to him and when she arrives at the base, she is a blond-haired, blue-eyed…

Words 1007 - Pages 5

What Does The Slaughterhouse Symbolize

In The Things They Carried there was many types of symbolism. One type of symbolism is the slaughterhouse. It symbolized that the war was a slaughter. It gives a sense of thought of what they had to do to get through the war. If they came into contact with the enemy they had to slaughter them like in a slaughterhouse. When Tim O’Brien got back from the war years later he went back to the sewage field. He told his daughter it was a vacation trip. In reality it was for him to go back to where Kiowa…

Words 374 - Pages 2

Femininity In The Things They Carried

Cross’ deep feelings for Martha are further explored, as he tells the narrator of where Martha is now, and how she is still unmarried, and he still harbors hopes of one day connecting with her. Towards the middle of the novel, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” has Rat Kiley recounting how an old platoon member brought over his girlfriend Mary Anne with him to Vietnam, and she slowly become more feral and savage, before one day disappearing into the bush. In the final, slightly unique story in the collection…

Words 440 - Pages 2

The Man He Killed Comparison

“The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy and "The Man He Killed” by Tim O’Brien both revolve around a man that the narrator kills. Both of the men that are killed are similar to the narrator. In "The Man He Killed”, the narrator explains that the man he killed would probably be his friend if he met him in a different circumstance, like a bar. The narrator also describes the man as similar to him, they both enlisted in the war because there was no work. The narrator also remains feeling guilty over the…

Words 598 - Pages 3

Things They Carried Reflection

In the chapter “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, The author tells a unrealistic story about a soldier’s girlfriend that comes into Vietnam to visit him. After she arrives she is slowly progresses into a barbaric savage due to the environment of war. Tim O’Brien writes a unrealistic story about…

Words 1311 - Pages 6