Mary Anne Bell Character Analysis

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In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien the cultural, physical, and geographical surroundings shape the psychological and moral traits in a character. A character that is affected by their surroundings in this novel is Mary Anne Bell. These surroundings helped to create the person she became. Mary Anne Bell was brought to Vietnam by Mark Fossie because they were in love. When she first arrived all eyes were on her and nobody understood why Mark wanted her there. She went there loving Mark Fossie but never left, she ended up disappearing there. Mary Anne Bell was brought there by Mark as comfort. Unlike most of the others whose girlfriends were only a fantasy in another world away from Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam Rat Kiley was the one who saw her and told people about it. Rat had a history of exaggerating his stories because they were most of the time so far-fetched they were untrue. People couldn’t understand why Mark Fossie would want his girl “shipped” there. She was “a 17 year-old, fresh out of Cleveland Heights Senior High.” She was an innocent and very friendly girl when she arrived.…show more content…
Rat was awake and he saw seven silhouettes silently moving. He picked out Mary Anne’s face and as she walked by Mark Fossie’s cabin she never even hesitated. She followed the others into the Special Forces hootch. Rat told the others and Mark wanted to go get her but they said if they were him they wouldn’t mess around with the Greenies. As he went to get her she walked towards him into the light. She had a blank stare, no emotions or sense of a person. She wore a necklace of human tongues. She told Mark “you’re in a place, where you don’t belong.” She explained to him that nothing else mattered because she was in a place where she knows exactly who she is and she can’t get that anywhere else. Then one morning Mary Anne walked into the mountains, all alone, and never came

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