Societys Beliefs Revealed in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong Essay

Societys Beliefs Revealed in Sweetheart of the telephone call Tra Bong One steamy, humid afternoon in 1961 the first United States helicopter landed in Vietnam dispensing gullible boys onto the soggy marshlands. Some would return to that same helicopter one day, whether it be wrapped in a poncho about to be taken to the morgue, lying strapped to a stretcher about to report to the hospital, or standing tall holding their heads high because they were about to return to their homelands. Tim OBrien, one of the returning solders, put together swindle stories pertaining to the war and how he viewed it as well as the Americas society. While reading OBriens stories, it would be more effective if the reader applied the New Historicist Approach fetching in to consideration his and American societys beliefs, habits of thought, and biases about concepts during the 1960s. Afterwards the true image of women in combat will be revealed, the mocking of deceitful war stories, and the indictable feelings of the returning solider. Women of the 1960s usually took the role of being a mother to her children, innocent child to her parents, and a subdued possession to men. In Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, OBrien describes Mary Anne Bell, a female Greenie in the making, as being This cute blonde-just a kid, just barely out of high school...wearing white culottes and this sexy bug sweater (90). Through the text it is easy to uncoer the direct feelings of women. The words in which OBrien uses to describe Mary Anne, makes it sound as though she is too delicate and precious to be in a place such as Vietnam during war. Not only does this express in certain terms how OBrien feels about women in the war, it also can be related to the thoughts of A... ...rs were feeling remorse for their behaviors in the United States various protests against the American soldiers killing innocent people were in hop on at the same time. All together, The Man I Killed can too be related historically to the numerous protest that were being held all over the country because of the deaths of innocent people in Vietnam. OBriens allows his text to represent the thoughts of his views as well as the American view about guilt felt soliders, women in combat, and his distaste of those that deceitfully create war stories. If these connections are not apparent it is must easier once the historicist approach has been applied because it allows one to decipher the thoughts of a crabbed society at that time frame. This is because it is almost as if the author soaks in the feelings of that time to express how society should operate.