The Mythology of Merry Anne Bell

The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong forces O’Brien’s readers to question the difference between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien claims that though a story may be fiction, it can hold more truth than a story that is fact. Though blurring the line between truth and fiction may seem like paradox, according to O’Brien, it was a paradox that every Vietnam soldier faced. The reader is told that a factual story from Vietnam would often contain a superimposed moral or lesson, therefore factual stories could not be true. “There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue” (pg. 65). Truth in the forests of Vietnam, according to O’Brien, was abstract. A true story would be crafted to fill in details such as emotions, introduce seemingly mystic or mythic occurrences, or created to entertain or stun its audience. “All you can do is tell it one more time, patiently, adding and subtracting, making up a few things to get at the real truth” (pg. 81).
The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong allows O’Brien’s audience another glimpse of what he means by a “true” story. O’Brien’s comrade, Rat Kiley, tells his fellow soldiers an outlandish story of a soldier bringing his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to Vietnam. Both the reader and his friends are in total disbelief of his story, but Rat Kiley continues to insist that every word is true. Rat has a tendency to “heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.” Stories were used to build comradery and find something to laugh about. O’Brien sees over exaggeration as another truth to make the “facts” feel “formed by sensation” (pg. 85). Mary Anne is fresh and green, has no training by the military, and is genuinely curious about the ways of the camp. Mary Anne shows resilience and strength, as she continues to grow as a soldier and medic. The men, sticking with their sexist mantra of their time, do not believe a woman would be willing to fire rifles or cut open and operate upon soldiers. Each layer of Rat Kiley’s story adds more details that seem unbelievable to his comrades, but O’Brien reminds us that his stories are no crazier than Vietnam.

            O’Briend says, in Vietnam, soldiers are likely to believe a fellow trooper about a visitation by the Mother Mary in the forest, and less likely to believe a factual story with ending with a lesson or moral. Rat Kiley’s story turns into a mystical story or urban legend. Mary Anne evolves from a curious pretty pink girlfriend, to a green beret commando, and then on to a creature of the forest in just a few short weeks. Her transformation into a goddess of the forest lends the story a mystic air that compels soldiers to believe it. The rustle of leaves, the oddities that happen in the forest, the creeping shadows of the jungle can all be explained by Mary Anne, the woman who became one with Vietnam. The story threatens the sanity of soldiers while personifying their deep fears rooted in the Vietnamese jungle. Is it a factual story? Maybe not, but to the Vietnamese soldiers the story felt real, SHE feels real, Mary Anne’s presence in the jungle can be sensed and heard. Rat Kiley spins a tale that distracts Alpha Company from their struggle against Vietnam, and if we can believe O’Brien, seared itself into his memory.

Comments

  1. Arielle SummittFebruary 6, 2018 at 1:36 PM

    I really like your last paragraph, where you talk about Mary Anne being the embodiment of the weird things that the soldiers think they hear and see in Vietnam. It gives the soldiers a sort of explanation, however unlikely, for the strange things that they perceive in the forest, so I would argue that instead of "threatening their sanity," as you say, it actually helps keep them grounded and unites them through a common explanation of their experiences. I really think O'Brien did a good job in conveying his "truth" in "Sweet Heart of the Song Tra Bong," because the absurdity and creepiness of entire thing gives us a glimpse into the psychological state of the soldiers in Vietnam.

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  2. ZachFebruary 7, 2018 at 6:34 AM

    I think you're dead on about O'Brien's point in these stories, especially in how Mary Anne's transcendence from an outlandish story into a legend for the Vietnam soldiers shows that to them, the emotions inspired by a story is more important that whether it's factual or not. Rat Kiley's story also represents demonstrates the more modern trope of "it's so crazy, it must be true". As Rat continues to describe Mary Anne's story in more detail, it turns from a tall tale into a myth as the soldiers can't help but feel it has an element of truth to it. O'Brien's representation of how powerful a simple story could be creates both an interesting story to read and a psychological question about what makes a story truly real, and I feel you broached this topic very well.

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