The Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong Analysis

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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 she arrived(116). She transforms from an All-American “Barbie Doll” into a cat, due to her experiences in the Vietnam War.
Mary Anne’s transformation is perfectly shown by Tim O’Brien with the use of animal imagery. She gradually loses her human characteristics,
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