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+\input mla8.tex
+\numberfirstpage
+\clas{AP Lang}
+\name{Holden} \last{Rohrer}
+\prof{Jones}
+\header
+\title{``Sweetheart on the Song Tra Bong'' and
+    {\it The Edge of Darkness} by Iron Maiden}
+% Written in 19 very distracting minutes
+
+Rat Kiley's story is about the specific instance of a soldier's
+girlfriend coming to Vietnam during the war and becoming so enthralled
+with the country that her old personality gets lost in combat. The more
+general theme that Rat is hinting at is that the war changes people
+irreversibly. In the case of Mary Anne, that is an extremely broadened
+cultural point of view to the degree that she switches sides and begins
+to live in the Vietnamese country side.
+
+The song {\it The Edge of Darkness} describes, in homage to {\it
+Apocalypse Now} with a similar theme, the war changing (often damaging)
+one's sense of normalcy. The song says, at the end, ``Here I am, the
+knife in my hand/ And now I understand.'' This describes the change in
+norms that involvement in the war causes, and is related to Mary Anne's
+or even Fossie's change from the war because killing becomes so
+normalized in the war that it permanently changes one's point of view.
+
+Other parts of the book refer into this part, with the ``main
+character'' of the song wanting a ``mission'' ``in the jungle,'' and the
+book paralleling that with the author cowardly giving in and becoming
+one of the soldiers who participates willingly despite the bizarre
+and unseemly nature of the war. They both point to ``your soul beginning
+to bend'' because of the war, which O'Brien notes isn't always the case
+but even when someone makes it through ``intact,'' the war has a
+lifelong effect regardless.
+
+\bye