Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong's Theme We Are Always "doing Gender"

In the story "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong", which is part of the larger "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, gender difference and gendered behavior is at the core of themes exemplified through various symbols and characters. The story brings us along for the transformation of an innocent young woman into a killer so vicious she was an outcast from the rest of the military. The primary examples are represented by the transformation of Mary Anne from innocent high school girl into a jungle stalking warrior and the simultaneous realization of Fossie as a feminine character based on his routine/daily actions. The phases Mary experiences during her transformation provide profound incite into the things that occur when someone begins displaying behavior not commonly associated with one's gender. Mary is not the only character to exhibit the gender theme in the story; Fossie, Mary's Fiancé, is constantly illustrating gender through his lack of combat and proclivity to do routine "house" chores.

Together the characters Mary and Fossie exemplify themes from two of the essays from "The Gendered Society Reader" by Michael Kimmel.
The first essay is by Scott Coltrane and the article is named "House Labor and the Routine Production of Gender". This essay helps analyze the process by which the reader realizes how the daily activities that Fossie and Mary engage in are the means by which we, society, determine how masculine/feminine that character is and in that way we are at all times "doing gender". The second article named "Boundaries, Negotiation, Consciousness: Reconceptualizing Gender Relations" by Gerson and Peiss helps us put into perspective the gradual change in Mary's character as she slowly learns and becomes more and more comfortable in her surroundings and eventually turns into a vicious killer. By keeping in mind the concepts from the Gerson and Peiss essay it's easy to identify that Mary clearly does not conduct her business in the private sphere as is the stereotype for women and in that way we can see how although she is a female by gender - she is always negotiating gender borders and as such she can move beyond the usual for females and has, in this exaggerated case, become substantially more masculine then her male counter-part Fossie. Instead Fossie's behavior, consisting mainly of routine chores around the medical center, more so pervaded the private sphere and not so much the public sphere that is most commonly associated with manhood and masculinity. Through these examples I believe the author intended to show the reader that we are at all times, by means of our daily actions and routine activities, "doing gender" and gender wise aligning ourselves, rather negotiating gender borders, according to what gendered connotations our routine behavior expresses to those around us.

Fossie's situation brings to mind the Scott Coltrane article named "House Labor and the Routine Production of Gender" which explained how the daily activities we do, and how they rank as public/private, are examples of how we are constantly "doing gender". In this article Coltrane explains how common household productions functions generally have "gendered" connotations and how the division of household labor functions and labor is ranked, subconsciously and by society, as public/private and whether it's generally masculine/feminine in nature. In this story, the military and the tasks ones performed there seem to have a distinct feel of tasks in the home, private sphere, compared to tasks in public. I feel that this story tries to change the reader's impression of gender differences and gendered behavior by exaggerating how people change and adapt to situations in a male dominated environment. I feel this story tries to convey that people are always doing gender, that people are not sealed in their allowable gendered behavior but instead that they are at all time in the process of negotiating these borders, and in that way they are "doing gender" all the time. The author uses the masculine transformation of Mary and the feminine transformation of Fossie to illustrate the point that we are at all times "doing gender" and that we are constantly re-negotiating society's gender borders and that we are not locked in our gender.

Another interesting point exemplified in the Coltrane article was the stay-at-home dad's were praised highly by other mothers whose spouses did not regularly perform the task they saw the stay-at-home dad doing. In the "Sweetheart" story this concept is exemplified by how Mary's atypical behavior was normalized by others and she was seen as something special or irregular and unique enough to deserve being discussed and gossiped about by all the male soldiers. This was due to the fact that typically males are the ones "naturally" adept at being a soldier; yet this female was able to and thus she is noticed for a task that may not have been noticed if a male had accomplished the same task instead. Then, that aspect of the story gets exaggerated by the author and Mary becomes so incredibly good at being a jungle stalking killer that it is apparent to the reader that it is incredibly unnaturally for a female to be in that situation. This exaggeration is used by the author to grab the reader's attention and show the theme that we do gender by the activities involved in our daily routine which is also the theme of Coltrane's article.

Mary's transformation from innocent high school girl to ruthless jungle stalking killer has some themes in common with the Gerson and Peiss article named "Boundaries, Negotiation, Consciousness: Reconceptualizing Gender Relations". The plot illustrated the theme of Gender borders and their continuous re-negotiation well through the stages of Mary's education of her new environment. At first, Mary was learning about medical procedures and the surrounding towns. Then pretty soon she was learning how to shoot an M16 and eventually learned about going on ambushes. She was being consumed by some passion inside her to continue to kill and be enthralled by her Vietnam/war surroundings, which was meant to symbolize the epitome of the warrior narrative.

Fossie's situation can be looked at with the Gerson and Peiss essay and some themes become clear as well. Fossie was content doing the common daily chores of the informal base; and never went on raids. These daily activities of Fossie can definitely be perceived as routine labor most commonly associated with the private sphere of gender and thus is more often "naturally" associated with women. Perhaps the best example of this was when Fossie was rejected from entering the Greenie's hooch because he "didn't belong" there; yet Mary did belong, and maybe this decision was reached based on the daily activities each pursued and where they ranked gender wise in the military bases' society. This theme clearly illustrates how our sex does not determine our gender and that and, according to Gerson and Peiss's article, we are constantly crossing gender borders and negotiating the public and private spheres of gendered behavior.
Through these examples I believe the author, Tim O'Brien, intended to show the reader that we are at all times, by means of our daily actions and routine activities, "doing gender" and gender wise aligning ourselves, rather negotiating gender borders, according to what gendered connotations our routine behavior expresses to those around us.