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The after effect of world war two on society
The after effect of world war two on society
The similarities between the USA and Vietnam
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The setting of Vietnam differs to the landscape of the United States. In this new environment, the soldiers must dress and act differently from how they were in their hometown. The war changes Mary Anne in the same way it did to the soldiers. As a result of wars, people becomes dirty and loses their naivety. O’Brien compares the war to a drug. Ironically, drugs help the soldiers escape from the reality of war. Ted Lavender’s unstable state of mind due to dope leads to his death. The war- which changes people's mentality also leads to the death of many like the drug. This passage deals with Mary Anne’s initiation to war. She undergoes a metamorphosis and transforms from an ordinary girl into a killer. Due to the freedom she receives
Tim O’Brien begins his journey as a young “politically naive” man and has recently graduated out of Macalester College in the United States of America. O’Brien’s plan for the future is steady, but this quickly changes as a call to an adventure ruins his expected path in life. In June of 1968, he receives a draft notice, sharing details about his eventual service in the Vietnam War. He is not against war, but this certain war seemed immoral and insignificant to Tim O’Brien. The “very facts were shrouded in uncertainty”, which indicates that the basis of the war isn’t well known and perceived
In the short story, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” by Tim O’Brien, the author shows that no matter what the circumstances were, the people that were exposed to the Vietnam War were greatly affected. A very young girl named Mary Anne Bell was brought by a boyfriend to the war in Vietnam. When she arrived, she was a bubbly young girl, and after a few weeks, she was transformed into a hard, mean killer. Mark Fossie decided he was going to sneak his girlfriend onto his base in Vietnam. When she arrived, Rat Kiley described her as, “A tall big-boned blonde.
In the two novels of recent war literature Redeployment, by Phil Klay, and The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, both call attention to the war’s destruction of its soldiers’ identities. With The Things They Carried, we are introduced to the story of a young Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is currently fighting in the Vietnam War and holds a deep crush for his college-lover Martha. Jimmy carries many letters from Martha with him throughout the war, and he envisions this romantic illusion in which “more than anything, he want[s] Martha to love him as he love[s] her” (1). However, a conflict quickly transpires between his love for Martha and his responsibilities with the war, in which he is ultimately forced to make a decision between the two.
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
It has been known that the Vietnam War affected many American soldiers who were involved in the war physically and psychologically. The Vietnam War was one of the most memorable wars in history. Many Americans’ lives lost for no objective at all. Chapter 10 informed us about how the Vietnam War started and what really happened during that time. It also gave us background information about Vietnam Veterans and nurses who were involved in the war and what they went through during the war. I had the opportunity to interview a Vietnam Veteran also.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
Kiley is telling the story to illustrate how all GI's changed in their Vietnam experience. The fact that the main character is a woman drives his point even farther home. She is the very portrait of mainstream, wholesome America; the only thing she lacks is an apple pie. Kiley describes her as "This cute blonde - just a kid, just barely out of high school - she shows up with a suitcase and one of those plastic cosmetic bags." (O'Brien 90) This girl is the antithesis of what one would expect to find in Vietnam. She is pure and innocent. Throughout her time in Vietnam she changes from this image to something very different, she spends less time with her boyfriend, Mark Fossie. Mary Anne hangs around with the Green Berets, who are very different from the other soldiers. Eventually she becomes one of them, marking a total transformation, "There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it. But the grotesque part, he said, was her jewelry. At the girl's throat was a necklace of human tongues. Elongated and narrow, like pieces of blackened leather, the tongues were threaded along a length of copper wire, one overlapping the next, the tips curled upward as if caught in a final shrill syllable." (O'Brien 110) Vietnam changed Mary Anne; it forced her to become something as foreign to America as the war itself.
The Vietnam War was a traumatic experience for everyone that fought on the ground. American soldiers were up close and personal with the Viet Cong (enemy) which made them live in constant fear for their lives. They never knew how they would die or when they would take their last breath, and this thought was always in the back of their minds. The Vietnam War was very brutal, and the amount of death from both sides was enormous. Tim O’Brien’s story “The Things They Carried” is an accurate description of the Vietnam War. He paints a good, yet brief, description of what the war was like for the American soldiers who fought on the front lines.
Mary Anne Bell, Mark Fossie’s girlfriend, arrives in Vietnam in her pink sweater and culottes, suitcase and cosmetic bag on hand, epitomizing the perfect American girl and the perfect girlfriend to an American soldier. Willing to drop her life in the suburbs of Cleveland, she takes four flights and a chopper to visit her high school sweetheart. A change occurs in her behavior as her curiosity allows her to spend time becoming more directly drawn into and infatuated with the dynamics of war, losing the previously perceived innocence and becoming an intimidating figure. Elroy Berdahl, the quiet, elderly hotel manager who O’Brien claims “saved” him (48), is portrayed with an emphasis on his silent wisdom. He is completely detached from war, yet
The Vietnam War was a controversial conflict that plagued the United States for many years. The loss of life caused by the war was devastating. For those who came back alive, their lives were profoundly changed. The impact the war had on servicemen would affect them for the rest of their lives; each soldier may have only played one small part in the war, but the war played a huge part in their lives. They went in feeling one way, and came home feeling completely different. In the book Vietnam Perkasie, W.D. Ehrhart describes his change from a proud young American Marine to a man filled with immense confusion, anger, and guilt over the atrocities he witnessed and participated in during the war.
In conclusion the soldiers use dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions which all allow an escape from the horrors they had to go through in Vietnam. These coping mechanisms allowed the men to continue to fight and survive the war. They wouldn’t have been able to carry on if it wasn’t for the outlets these methods provided. Without humor, daydreaming, and violent actions, the war would have been unbearable for the men, and detrimental to their lives going forward.
Mary Anne is initially introduced to the audience, narrated by Rat Kiley, as an innocent and naïve young woman present in Vietnam solely to visit her boyfriend, Mark Fossie. She arrives in “white culottes” and a “sexy pink sweater” (86), and is deemed by the other soldiers as no more than a happy distraction for her man. As Mary Anne settles in though, her abundant curiosity of Vietnam and the war heighten, and she soon enough possesses as much interest in the war as many of the men. Forward, Mary Anne’s transformation into a soldier begins as she leaves her sweet femininity behind. No longer caring for her vanity, she falls “into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, [and] cut her hair short” (94). Mary Anne’s lost femininity is also evident when she handles powerful rifles like the M-16. Not only does the weapon literally scream out masculi...
When Mary Anne begins interacting with the land and the material culture of war we are introduced to her curious nature. She would “listen carefully” (91) and was intrigued by the land and its mystery. Vietnam was like Elroy Berdahl to her in the beginning in that it did not speak, it did not judge, it was simply there. Vietnam saved Mary Anne’s life. Like Elroy, “[Vietnam] was the t...
And she revelled in it, before it became too dangerous. She, unblinkingly, sent countless people to their deaths; she effortlessly imposed dreadful fear upon the young girls in the village, to the extent that one was reduced to insanity. She thought not once to stop, the euphoric indulgence was too great for her, because she could, she did. Ironically throughout her diabolical reign the one redeeming feature she possessed enforced her actions and accusations most powerfully, her illusive childlike innocence.