What is the role of women in the
novel? Refer to the characters of Martha, Kathleen, Mary-Anne bell and Linda.
Also refer to the literary
devices (symbolism, irony) and conventions (characters, Setting) where
necessary.
Provide Evidence
Through the novel, particularly part one;
Tim O’Brien juxtaposes the different roles that women played in the setting of
the Vietnam War.
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| Martha, depicted as an innocent American girl. |
On one side we have women playing the role of the innocent
and unknowing “escapes” for the men from the reality of war, this meaning that
they don’t know about the war and are thus ignorant and innocent from the
events if the war. Martha and Kathleen both represent this innocent side of
femininity as Tim O’Brien portrays them both in this light. We can see an
example of Martha ignorance as within “those burnt letters
Martha had never mentioned the war” (pg 11). As Martha had never mentioned the
war, thus we can assume that to her the war was a faraway thing,
almost in a
different life to here, and that she had no knowledge of what really happens in
war.
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| An artwork depicting the Necklace of Tongues that Mary-Anne | Bell was wearing. |
On the other hand we have Mary-Anne Bell, who is a character introduced in the late events of part One. Mary, in juxtaposition to Martha develops an understanding of war from her time there. In this way she starts to develop a sense of war, and a love for death and the dark. She begins to go on night patrols with the green berets and in the end it is revealed that she is more suited to war than any of the men of the Song Tra Bong. This is shown in the chapter “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, where Mary is with Green Berets in there hooch and Mark Fossie her boyfriend pushes in. Mary walked over to mark and said that he is “in a place where you don’t belong”(pg 45), this shows us that Martha has found out who she truly is and how she as glimpsed the secrets of Vietnam, how she now understands her purpose in the world. Another example of how Mary is more suited to the environment of Vietnam, is where the Green Berets have seen here a couple of times “sliding through the shadows…she was part of the land” (pg 47). We also are told that in this scene, Mary s wearing a necklace of tongues showing that she is a true hunter and killer. The war had won over innocents and love, and thus is an entity of corrupting influence.
Therefore we can see that there are two different representations of women, one being the ignorant, innocent girls and the few others being war suited and ‘evil’ version of femininity.
