Where does the story of Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong take place? Upon reading the
story, one would first assume that it takes place in Vietnam. Upon further examination,
however, it becomes quite evident that it really takes place inside Rat Kiley's head.
This isn't to declare the story false; instead, one should examine the influence and
literary freedom that Rat flexes upon the truth. "For Rat Kiley... facts were formed by
sensation, not the other way around." (101) The story occurs in two separate but equally
chaotic places: Vietnam, and Rat's head. The story intertwines between the two settings,
and in order to completely grasp the idea behind them, one must first recognize, then
separate and analyze the two settings.
Upon the first reading of this work, the reader finds himself dropping into the story of
a seemingly misplaced girl in Vietnam. The role of Rat Kiley seems somewhat minor and
irrelevant. Upon the second and third times through, however, his role as the
storyteller stands out. It becomes more evident that he holds Mary Anne with the highest
regard. He romanticizes her relationship with the war. He is so amazed with the fact
that a girl can be seduced by the lure of the wilderness that he begins to talk about her
with the listeners as if she were the attractive girl from school that everyone knows but
nobody dates. " 'You know...I loved her. Mary Anne made you think about those girls
back home, how clean and innocent they all are.' " (123)
Rat is pushing his views upon the listener. He is shaping how the story is seen. The
reader sees "triple-canopied jungle, mountains unfolding into higher mountains, ravines
and gorges and fast-moving rivers and waterfalls and exotic butterflies and steep cliffs
and smoky little hamlets and great valleys of bamboo and elephant grass." (103) The
actual reality of the situation is added by the narrator, as extrapolated from Rat: that
they were in an almost completely indefensible situation. Had somebody cared enough to
take control of the little base, there would be no resistance.
Rat wanted to let the reader know his opinion on the citizens of the Viet Cong, how he
wants the listener to think of them. "Mary Anne asked, 'They're human beings, aren't
they? Like everybody else?' Fossie nodded. He loved her." (107) Rat lets us know that
he thinks the VC are less then human. Why did Fossie nod, in Rat's opinion? Not because
he thought Fossie felt she was right, but because he loved her. Because Rat feels that
the VC are subhuman, part of the jungle, he sees Fossie's nod as a patronizing nod to an
unknowing inductee to the jungle.
Rat, at every turn, tries to "make [the truth] burn so hot that you would feel exactly
what he felt." (101) Rat makes the reader constantly want to love Vietnam, to love the
intricacies of the jungle, to love the trill of danger and imminent threat of death. "
'It's like trying to tell somebody what chocolate tastes like.' " (123) The audience
gets a somewhat gentle reminder from Mitchell Sanders, as he declares " 'Or shit.' "
(123) "But Rat Kiley couldn't help it. He wanted to bracket the full range of meaning."
(116) Rat wants to inject within the reader a love similar to his toward Mary Anne. He
wants the reader to want to become one with the jungle. He wants the reader to
understand that there is a base human connection with nature, and that one doesn't have
to be a man to feel it. It isn't about man vs. woman, it's about humans vs. nature.
Everybody comes in without a clue. They get their view on the future and humanity raped
away by the deflowering of reality in the jungle. They begin to understand what matters
and what doesn't.
On it's superficial level, Song Tra Bong is about a story. This story takes place within
a character. Rat "had a tendency to stop now and then, interrupting the flow, inserting
little clarifications or bits of analysis and personal opinion." (116) Rat molded the
view of the story. He shows the reader what Rat deems important, and he constantly adds
his own twist to it all. As he said, he loved her. He is going to put her on a pedestal
for the world to view and appreciate. On the top, the character (at this level, the only
one that matters) is the setting. Just as Vietnam had it's oddities and tendencies,
Rat's mind had it's own pockmarked landscape with it's own jungles and rain forests.
Now that one has identified the skew of the stained glass window the story is viewed the
through, one can begin to fully appreciate what happened to Mary Anne, and the conflict
she encounters. She finds herself torn between the civilized world which has her long
time love, and the uncivilized world, Vietnam where she can exist in her purest form.
There is a slow transition, as she appears in preppy clothes, and she moves to "the
habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut
her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandanna." (109) She finishes in a bizarre
fashion, wearing her culottes, pink sweater, and tongue necklace. "She had crossed to
the other side. She was part of the land." (125) How does this happen? What makes this
girl who has everything she wants give it all up to live like an animal?
Mary Anne finally shed the illusions of grandeur from home and decided she wanted to be
a woman of the bush. It all starts with natural curiosity. Mary Anne wants to
understand the ways of war. She wants to understand it's people. However, she
inexplicably finds herself out on ambush with the Green Berets. "The Endorphins start to
flow, and the adrenaline, and you hold your breath and creep quietly through the moonlit
nightscapes; you become intimate with danger; you're in touch with the far side of
yourself, as though it's another hemisphere." (123) She is beginning to become seduced
by her basic human instincts, the ones that say "Organized society is bad. Self
dependency is good. One should live within the wilderness. One should wear a necklace of
tongues."
Being set in Vietnam, such a recognizable word, one so synonymous with war, the irony of
the situation leaps off the pages. Here is a man who has been in-country for a decent
amount of time. By bringing his girlfriend over, he is bringing into the fray somebody
who has no idea of the dangers of the bush, somebody who, being a girl, and according to
modern and past military policy, shouldn't have been there. He should be the one who, in
relation to her, understands the war. However, this doesn't hold true. She becomes the
understanding and wise one, as she exclaims "You hide in this little fortress, behind
wire and sandbags, and you don't know what's out there or what it's all about or how it
feels to really live in it." (121) A month earlier, he could have told her the exact
same thing to prevent her from becoming so intimate with the country, it's inhabitants,
and the war itself.
At it's base level, the inner core of Song Tra Bong, the interaction between setting and
character is immense. So immense, in fact, that the setting itself becomes a character,
interacting with the other characters, causing conflict. At it's base level, Song Tra
Bong is about the land, and maturing to return to innocence. It's about evolving so one
can devolve. It's about returning to the land, and it's about the land seducing people
to return to it. " 'Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the
whole country - the dirt, the death - I just want to eat it and have it there inside me.
... I feel close to myself.' " (121) Mary Anne now knows who she is. She has found her
calling.
In Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, setting is paramount. If one were to take this
story and place it in New York City, it would be laughed at. As Mary Anne said, " 'You
can't feel like [this] anywhere else.' " (121) The story takes place in two places. On
one level, it takes place in the heart of the jungle, deep in Vietnam. On this level,
the setting plays such an important role that it becomes a character. It seduces Mary
Anne, and it talks to her. The story also takes place in the heart of Rat Kiley. On
this level, the character influences the story in such a way that he becomes the top
level setting. In the end, " '...it wasn't all that complicated. The girl joined the
zoo. One more animal - end of story.' " (117) But as Mitchell Sanders not-so-gently
tells Rat " ' Yeah, fine. But tell it right.' " (117), the reader must also try to read
it right. If the different settings are identified, separated and analyzed, then the
true idea behind the story comes out.
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