Even more so than the other American soldiers in Vietnam, Mary Ann is the embodiment of an outsider. She is also the representation of American arrogance in the Vietnam War. She does not belong there, and her story accentuates what happens when someone’s surroundings affect him or her. She arrives to Vietnam as Mark Fossie’s girlfriend, and she is the only tangible example of love in the novel. Mary Ann gets there dressed in her pink sweater and her white culottes, with a fresh face and a very curious personality. She wants to know about everything. She is the perfect representation of transformation, and it is really accentuated throughout the story. More specifically, the corruption of innocence to experience in war really defines her character.
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Mary Ann can be said to symbolize the way people lose themselves to war, since the war became a drug that made her realize how empty her life was in the United States. In a sense, Vietnam gave her life purpose and meaning, something that she had never experienced before.
Mary Ann’s strengths in moral qualities are pretty clear, although not vast; she is very sincere in the sense that she is honest about the person she is becoming. Even though she is changing to be a completely different person than she was when she got there, Mary Ann doesn’t put up a front or tries to hide her feelings. The war is shaping her to be a bloodthirsty, curious soldier, when in reality, she got there being an innocent girl that was very in love with her boyfriend. Another one of her strengths is courage. Mary Ann learns how to hunt front the Green Berets, and soon enough she moves beyond even them, she becomes an …show more content…
From the language and the locals, to the ammunition and the procedures, and finally, the nature of war itself. Just like the Americans who thought the war would be fairly easy and would be over quickly, Mary Ann believes she can’t be touched. She treats the war as a holiday, swimming in a river that is likely to be surrounded by snipers, and treating a Viet Cong stronghold like a touristic town. She is empowered by war, and in the end, her transformation makes her hungrier for adventure than her boyfriend is. She is enchanted by Vietnam, and loves the way it makes her feel, as if she if complete, and can never lose herself. Ironic, since the first thing that happened when she came in contact with the war is she lost her
Mary Ann can be said to symbolize the way people lose themselves to war, since the war became a drug that made her realize how empty her life was in the United States. In a sense, Vietnam gave her life purpose and meaning, something that she had never experienced before.
Mary Ann’s strengths in moral qualities are pretty clear, although not vast; she is very sincere in the sense that she is honest about the person she is becoming. Even though she is changing to be a completely different person than she was when she got there, Mary Ann doesn’t put up a front or tries to hide her feelings. The war is shaping her to be a bloodthirsty, curious soldier, when in reality, she got there being an innocent girl that was very in love with her boyfriend. Another one of her strengths is courage. Mary Ann learns how to hunt front the Green Berets, and soon enough she moves beyond even them, she becomes an …show more content…
From the language and the locals, to the ammunition and the procedures, and finally, the nature of war itself. Just like the Americans who thought the war would be fairly easy and would be over quickly, Mary Ann believes she can’t be touched. She treats the war as a holiday, swimming in a river that is likely to be surrounded by snipers, and treating a Viet Cong stronghold like a touristic town. She is empowered by war, and in the end, her transformation makes her hungrier for adventure than her boyfriend is. She is enchanted by Vietnam, and loves the way it makes her feel, as if she if complete, and can never lose herself. Ironic, since the first thing that happened when she came in contact with the war is she lost her