O’Brien illustrates the physical and emotional barrier Vietnam creates between men and women. The letters soldiers write to their girlfriends in the United States demonstrate the physical barrier between the two genders. O’Brien describes a soldier’s relationship with a girl in America: “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey” (O’Brien 1). Vietnam physically separates men from…
Rat Kiley tells a remarkable tale about an American war medic, Mark Fossie, who ships his girlfriend, Mary Anne, over to Vietnam to be with him. “..the guy sends her the money. Flies her over. This cute blonde... just barely out of high school... Comes right out to the boonies.” (90). The troops stationed at the medical base take a liking to Mary Anne; she reminds them of the girls back home. Time passes, and Mary Anne begins to evolve. She's curious about everything, especially Vietnam; the people, the land and the war. “She was curious about things... she liked to roam around... asking questions... She had a good quick mind... The war intrigued her. The land, too, and the mystery.” (95, 96). Soon, Mary Anne hangs around with the elite Green Berets stationed at the medical base. She goes on ambush and patrols the wilderness with them. Mary Anne enters Vietnam as a naïve child, but the land changes her into a brutal she-warrior. Vietnam infatuates her; it fills her body and soul with the desire to be free within its mysterious realm. “...everything around it, the entire war, the mountains... villages... the trails and trees... rivers and deep misted-over valleys... Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country... I just want to eat it and have it there inside me... you can't feel like that anywhere else.” (111). Mary Anne loses…
Tormented. Beaten. Herded like cattle. Imprisoned within walls lined with barbed wire. Cowering with fear when in the shadow of a tall, strong soldier. All hope depicting escape has faded away and been replaced with dread. No one would dare attempt to abscond from the camp for it would result in immediate death. Blood spilled on the dirt floors, living in filth and scars.…
Misto focuses on the unsung' hero's of the war, for example the Australia nurse that washed the bed pans of the women on the way to Belalau. "It was the bravest act I have ever seen. She didn't get a medal for it but all of us loved for of that " (Sheila) The stories of the two women are expanding the conventional view of heroism to include acts of sacrifice beyond simple physical courage.…
When one reads a war story, they expect to hear about the hardships of being a soldier. Stories about the rough and tough journey a soldier goes on when going to war. Tim O’Brien writer of many war stories portrays the hardships of being a soldier in Vietnam. While most of the readers are so intrigued with the killings and dead bodies, they will overlook the negative female characteristic labelling anyone who is opposing the soldiers. Lorrie N. Smith author of “The Things Men Do: The Gendered Subtext in Tim O’Brien’s Esquire Stories,” reflects on how O’Brien’s stories are highly representative of its bias against femininity. The story is centered around masculinity, and negatively labels the weak with feminine characteristics. An example from…
The origin of a story may come from a plethora of triggers in life such as a notebook, memory, or even pure intuition. In Kingston’s novel, The Woman Warrior, she primarily uses her memory to recall the legend of Fa Mu Lan, a Chinese girl who took her father’s place in battle illegally (21). Kingston uses this familiar Chinese story that leaves a “direct personal impression” on her and links it to her own imagination (Lanning and Macauley 3). This fabricates the origin of a story that gives the reader insight on how Kingston feels about Chinese society.…
O’Brien uses the significance of gender to relay the idea that Mary Anne is an unusual example of innocence that is lost at war because unlike other soldiers, she is a woman. Although she is only present for one chapter, questions and thoughts still puzzle the reader…What happened to Mary Anne Bell? She arrived in her white culottes and pink sweater. The irony that is present here adds to the drama of a woman coming to Vietnam, during the war, a time of sadness and fighting; where no woman from the city should be present. Tim O’Brien adds a fascination with Mary Anne Bell that is unable to be grasped fully; a fascination in which is significant when discussing change and the impact of war. Typically, soldiers who come back from war under experience a similar…
The Woman Warrior, Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, combines myths with autobiography in order to explore Kingston’s identify formation in relation to her mother and female relatives. Kingston uses the first person to narrate five distinct short stories. Each of them contains a central female character. The unique feature of this book is the rearrangement of the traditional Chinese myths, legend of Fa Mu Lan and Ts’ai Yen. The combination of fact and fiction and the combination of reality and fantasy closely intertwine in the stories. Critical use of Chinese myths in the Woman Warrior shows a sharp contrast with Kingston’s real life in America and accentuates the equality between women and men.…
“The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien includes an assortment of fictional war stories, providing a moral insight into the Vietnam War for those that were privileged enough to escape its grasp or miss it altogether. What is particularly fascinating about O’Brien’s novel is his incorporation of context regarding the different gender roles existent within American society during this turbulent period of history. These stereotypes are displayed in explicit detail within the chapter entitled, ‘On The Rainy River’ of the novel, in which O’Brien deliberates the exact effect that these gender conceptions had on the young men that were told that they had to go to war.…
The Woman Warrior begins with a talk story about Kingston’s aunt who died in the family well after getting pregnant and giving birth while her husband was in America. From this particular talk story, the reader is introduced to several Chinese traditions such as an “outcast table” and how marriage in Chinese is also known as “taking a daughter-in-law in.” The second chapter, “White Tigers,” begins with a talk story about a woman warrior named Fa Mu Lan. This talk story relates to the topic of heroism, a common topic used in the scops’ poems. Kingston not only writes about the Chinese culture through her and her mother’s talk stories, but also relates these talk stories to describe her Chinese-American life and the struggles she faced. In The Woman Warrior, Kingston presents the differences between the American and Chinese culture, but also expresses the importance of storytelling and talk story, which played an important role in her…
“Young Man in Vietnam” by Charles Coe goes against the 1980 patriotic views of Vietnam veterans, as he positions readers to be sympathetic towards veterans. Through the use of characterisation and symbolism Coe has positioned readers to be sympathetic towards the young man in Vietnam.…
This essay’s purpose is to provide facts and convincing examples to persuade the reader to agree with the prompt .The inclusion of the general individuals of history ; Nancy Wake and Gale Halverson made the essay much stronger and easily supported the prompt, as a wide range of information was used that the reader could relate with. Conflict is a situation which one cannot easily forget and is haunted by it all through life. The movie Paradise Road showed women of various ages and nationalities and presented us with women who did display heroic qualities compared to others. It shows the different approaches and sacrifices people are willing to make in order to give hope to the distressed victims of the conflict.…
The Tet uprising was a major event in the Vietnam war. America was fighting North Vietnam, where communism was in use, in favor of South Vietnam to protect freedom as they vowed to do. America was a superpower with an excellent military and numerous supplies and weapons. In no way do they expect a loss. While America’s military tactics tended to be more on the offensive side, North Vietnam fought with strategy, only fighting when opportunity and surprise was on their side. During the Tet uprising, North Vietnam used strategy to attack South Vietnamese cities, forcing America to realize they were not winning by a landslide like they initially thought, supporting the statement “The Tet uprising was a major turning point in the Vietnam War.”…
"When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves" (19). Talk-story supplied Chinese girls with dreams of becoming more than their culture allows them to. It is through these stories that women live to their fullest extent. The stories exemplify what a woman strives to be, not a mere housewife or slave, but a great warrior. One such talk-story is that of Fa Mu Lan. Throughout the years, the story of Fa Mu Lan has changed from storyteller to storyteller, each with its own dramatic difference. To illustrate the dramatic changes that occur among storytellers, one can compare Kingston's interpretation of Fa Mu Lan's story to Disney's Mulan. In this comparison, we see that aside from the talking dragon, Disney's adaptation of the myth is much more realistic.…
Writing is one of the many ways people try to understand their identity. In the book, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, by Maxine Hong Kingston, she reveals that voice, through the use of talk-stories and her words, allows her the freedom to own the independence needed to reach a closer understanding of her own identity. Talk-stories, defined by Jenessa Job in “The Woman Warrior: A Question of Genre,” are “…verbally relayed stories based upon Chinese myth and fact” (83). Kingston uses talk-story to retell her aunt, No Name Woman, and her mother, Brave Orchid’s, stories. As well, she talk-stories her life, to give readers a better understanding of her identity as an American-Chinese woman.…