Gender Deviance In Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong

He portrays a clear difference between the native third world of Vietnam and the first world of the Americans. Mary Anne Bell fully embraces Vietnamese culture, while Mark Fossie completely ignores it. The difference between their involvement sets up a world in which the cultures are completely foreign to, and incompatible with, each other. O’Brien does not suggest that one character can absorb elements of each culture into a comfortable mix. Rather, the characters must choose a cultural to identity themselves with. “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” challenges the idea of women as one-dimensional beings who serve to comfort men. Fossie believes if he sends Mary Anne over to the comparatively comfortable quarters he and his men keep, he can gain her comfort and their relationship and she will remain neutral by her surroundings. This fantasy is immediately shattered as Mary Anne is instantly curious about several things surrounding her. From the language of the locals, to the ammunition and procedures within the camp, and finally the essence of war itself. The irony of this story is that Mary Anne’s new reality accepts her more than her conservative life. She is uplifted and empowered by war. It influences her her to make plans for future travel and to attempt to make her path away from the life she considered desirable. Ironically, Mark brings her over to be a comfort while he is in the midst of war, however, in the end, Mary Anne’s transformation makes her hungrier more for adventure than confort

On page 92 in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” Rat Kiley uses the simile “...like a cheerleader visiting the opposing team's locker room,” to describe the sight of Mary Anne visiting the village of Tra Bong. Mary Anne is compared to a cheerleader because she is a young cute girl all dolled up in nice clothes while visiting a poor village with “thatched roofs” and “naked children.” This simile is to compare the odd sight of a well dressed girl in this run down village in Vietnam, to illustrate how she doesn’t look like she belongs, like “visiting the opposing team’s locker room.” On page 106, Mary Anne uses the hyperbole "...Sometimes I want to eat this place,” to express how much the thrill of the war in Vietnam makes her feel alive. She

Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.

Throughout literature women are often displayed as idealized characters. Women in the eyes of society are plagued with the stereotype of being kind, nurturing, and tender individuals while men are established as ambitious, assertive, and tough. However, when the time comes for women to possess the qualities of men and men of women, a turnaround of events can occur. Women were the individuals that then shape the males into their ending personna. Shakespeare's Macbeth, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrated the reversal of gender roles through portraying women as the instigator of the male character’s ultimate demise.

Mary Ann can be seen transforming in the chapter “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”. The transformations in the chapter take place at different times as the story progresses. The Mary Ann that is presented at the beginning of the chapter is a great contrast to the Mary Ann that we end the chapter with. The different transformations of Mary Ann that take place are physical, behavioral, and psychological. These different types of transformations can symbolize many different things, some of which will be discussed in the following. Resisting Remasculinization: Tim O'Brien's “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” an article based on the chapter and book by Chris Vanderwees also discusses how the changes relate to the world.

Imagine what would happen if a soldier invited someone to a war zone to be with them. One of the most notable chapters in Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried is “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” which is about a soldier bringing his girlfriend to Vietnam. In this chapter, the story is told by Rat Kiley who has a “reputation for exaggeration and overstatement.” The story starts out with a few soldiers jokingly throwing around the idea of getting girls into their camp. However, after thinking about it, one of them, named Mark Fossie, decides to fly in his girlfriend. He eventually did and he and her hung out together and had a good time. His girlfriend, Mary Anne Bell, was very curious about war and weapons and things of that nature.

In “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” Mark Fossie’s suppression of Mary Anne Bell and her desire for survival transforms her into

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

The nineteenth century is popularly known for its traditional view of gender roles, especially regarding women. The term “True Woman” refers to what society at that time thought to be the ideal woman, carrying qualities of “modesty, submissiveness, physical weakness, limited education, and complete devotion to husband and home” (White, 2009, p. 1). Women were restrained in terms of sexuality, dress, language, and economic decisions. In Amy Gilman Srebnick’s The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers, Mary rebels against these standards by being a single women that is also sexually active, however, her actions are what seemingly lead to her demise. Similarly, Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall also goes against gender norms. In her case, she earns her own economic independence through her writing and lives a more unconventional life as a mother, but faces repercussions from her family. Through the novels Ruth Hall and The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers, the main female characters revolt against being “True Women” through their daily actions and behaviors, however they’re each punished with consequences for trying to deviate from society’s path.

Presenting literature to the public that is meant to be a commentary on social or political issues, masked under the guise of entertaining and fictional, is a tool implemented by authors and activists for centuries. While not all satire is as overt as Jonathan Swift’s suggestion that we eat the babies, it does not diminish the eyebrow raising suggestions that are conveyed once the meaning has been discovered. In Aphra Behn’s The History of the Nun and Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, the established expectations of the female role within society are brought into question then directly rejected. These expectations establish that women should be deferential to men, morally unblemished, and virtuous at all times. Men, however, are not held to these expectations in the same way. The masculine roles assumed by Isabella and Fantomina demonstrate a private rebellion against the established patriarchal society as it warns against the under-estimation of women and proves that women exist independently.

American Literature has always been about men and for men. In this essay, we are going to analyze the women’s role in the book, as inferior and weaker gender.

   Ernest Hemingway has been greatly criticized for a supposed hatred of women that some feel is evident in his writings. One of the primary books that critics believe shows this misogynistic attitude is A Farewell To Arms. It is counterproductive to interpret the book using such a narrow focus because the author is dealing with much more profound themes. Hemingway is not concerned with the theme of gender equality, but rather with the greater themes of the inherent struggle of life and the inevitability of death.

An example of this notion is shown in Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord, reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal her reason why: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of...pleased dependence, which is natural... and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority” (219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents an internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a book defies the cult of true womanhood. Thus, defying the qualities rooted in the cult of true womanhood causes high risk of

In the short story “Indian Camp”, by Ernest Hemingway, many controversies arise about the idea of feminism in the text. Feminism is a general term used to describe advocating women’s rights socially, politically, and making equal rights to those of men. Feminist criticism is looked through a “lens” along the line of gender roles in literature, the value of female characters within the text, and interpreting the perspective from which the text is written. Many of Hemingway’s female characters display anti-feminist attributes due to the role that women play or how they are referred to within a text by him or other characters. There are many assumptions that go along with the

All characters in the novel are living in a man’s world; nevertheless, the author has tried to change this world by the help of her characters. She shows a myriad of opportunities and different paths of life that woman can take, and more importantly she does not show a perfect world, where women get everything they want, she shows a world where woman do make mistakes, but at the same time they are the ones that pay for these mistakes and correct them.