But the story did not end there. If you believed the Greenies, Rat said, Mary Anne was still
Somewhere out there in the dark. Odd movements, odd shapes. Late at night, when the
Greenies were out on ambush, they whole rain forest seemed to stare in at them- a watched
Feeling- and a couple of times they almost saw her sliding through the shadows. Not quite,
But almost. She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land. She was wearing her
Culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was
Ready for the kill. (O, 110)
O, Tim. The Things They Carried. 1990. Print.
The whole paragraph summed up so much for me after I read it. I could feel how a person could become so entrenched in a situation that they become a factor in that said situation. It seems to me, that while the men were shocked that Mary Anne understood the wilderness and patterns of this foreign country and culture better than the men that surrounded her. She became what she saw and felt, which is something that the men had been trying to do, and now they can’t help but envy her for being able to actually do it. It felt to me that O’Brien himself would have stayed out in the wilderness and been one with the culture and land. And the image of the tongues hanging in a necklace to me stood for every the fact that no one ever really talked about what happened and the truth of the situation. It symbolized that one must hold one’s tongue before they lose that tongue.
The above picture is something that came to mind when I imagined Mary Anne with the Green Beret's and the way that their hootch was described earlier in this tale. (Well, not the exact picture,but something similar).
Hello Christina,
ReplyDeleteWhile reading your blog post I felt like a rag doll being tossed from side to side. It was very hard to follow what angle you were going with straight at the gate. The quote that you used was not in quotation marks which was confusing. The summary you provided was good but it seemed to be all over the place as well. I like how you said that the necklace of tongues represented the unspoken truth, which many war vets experience just because of the trauma they endured. All in all the post was good but I personally was thrown off by quite a few things that were discussed.
Augie
I really liked your post because you interpreted it a little bit differently than I did. You helped me see it from a different angle. I really liked what you said, "she became what she saw and felt, which is something the men had been trying to do". I think you nailed it.I had to read the story a couple of times to get a deeper meaning.Your analysis of the tongue necklace was intriguing because I hadn't thought that it represented the truth that no one would talk about. That part of the story was a bit creepy! Good post.
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