Example research essay topic: The Sweetheart Of Song Tra Bong By Tim - 812 words

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The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong By Tim O'Brien The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is about the metamorphosis of a girl, who traveled to Vietnam to visit her boyfriend (on his wish), from a perfectly normal high-school kid to an indefinable creature of the dark. The metamorphosis takes place gradually and in small steps. At the beginning, just after her arrival in Vietnam, nothing seems unusual about her but the fact that she is visiting her boyfriend, a doctor at an aid station, during the war. Mary Ann is described during this phase as an attractive, young, blond girl. She is represented to the reader as innocent and pure, simply by the expressions used to describe her (a complexion like strawberry ice cream; long, white legs and blue eyes; pink sweater). During this phase she spends a lot of time with her boyfriend, Mark Fossil, and the two of them are once called sweethearts, which explains the heading of this chapter partially.

Because of her fascination with Vietnam, she urges Mark to show her a Vietnamese village nearby and later even swims in a river. Her behavior here actually seems rather naive, not only just curious, but it also proves, that she does not hesitate even when danger is involved, which will be of importance later. Another important point is the river, which is called Song Tra Bong. Although this might appear unimportant, it should be kept in mind, that the Song Tra Bong is part of the heading, so the river should have a central meaning. A possible one is, that Mary Ann for the first time gets in immediate contact with nature and most importantly Vietnam, by which she is so fascinated. (One might even allude to birth, when one keeps in mind, that a river after all contains water. ) During her swim, the reader finds hints to Mary Anns future. A soldier calls her a tiger and another one already seems to have an idea, what is going to happen to her and states, that Mary Ann will most certainly learn and calls this scary.

These predictions seem to mark the start of Mary Anns metamorphosis, because from this point its steps follow each other rapidly. Mary Ann did not have any evil intentions at the beginning, but only a very pure one - curiosity. Curiosity appears to be a very innocent character trait. Throughout Mary Anns metamorphosis, her at first quite general curiosity first turned to fascination, which was concentrated towards mystery (for example, she in my opinion went on ambush, because she wanted to perceive Vietnam with all its faceted at night, and an important aspect of Vietnam is definitely its mystery because of the words used to describe it, as mentioned above) but as it grew, to the deepest sides within her.

Later, though, another factor must have been added. It appears that her fascination turned into addiction and addiction always includes an aspect of self-destruction. From that point onwards, she was not the central aspect within herself anymore, but only the object, which caused her addiction, which then at the final stage took over of her completely. In the end, her addiction was probably satisfied, because the object of her addiction and herself (who only seemed to consist of this addiction) unites. Mary Ann is taken as an example for all other women. Here it is relevant, how evil she became in the end, and according to Rat, there must have been an evil side within her right from the start.

This implies that other women possess it as well, as Mary Ann was just one of them at the beginning. This side does not have to express itself the same way as it did with Mary Ann, but there are definitely various possibilities. For example, Rat denies the thesis, that there would be no wars, if the president was female. So fighting wars is not typically male, but the necessary traits of character are possessed by women as well. One might further ask, if this might allude to humans in general, which would mean, that there is an evil side within everyone (the example concerning the president actually already implies this).

There are no real hints to be found in this particular chapter, but several throughout the whole book, for example, when one soldier tortures a baby buffalo by killing it very slowly or when the soldiers cut off pieces of corpses or simply make fun of them. The only difference is, that there were no real good intentions present at the beginning, which then took an evil turn (like in Mary Anns case), but the intentions were evil right from the start. This difference is not relevant, though, because it does not deny the thesis, that there is probably an evil side within everyone covered up by other ones.

Research essay sample on The Sweetheart Of Song Tra Bong By Tim