AWE (A Woman’s Experience)
Keywords
female autonomy, monstrous feminine, Vietnam War-era horror
Abstract
During the Vietnam War era, cultural fears intersected with evolving gender roles, particularly as women gained greater autonomy and visibility in public and private spheres. Fears such as these are realized and explored in the horror genre. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried explores this societal tension in its short story, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” through Mary Anne Bell, a young girl whose transformation from innocent girlfriend to the monstrous Other subverts traditional femininity. I will explore this short story and its significance by contextualizing it alongside other media from the horror genre of the Vietnam War era, such as the films Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976). Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject and Barbara Creed’s concept of the monstrous feminine, I examine how Bell’s narrative in “Song Tra Bong” both rejects and reinforces common female tropes in popular horror films of the era—particularly the tension between passive victimization and monstrous femininity.
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Regan
(2026)
"The Horror of Female Autonomy: The Transformation of Women in Vietnam War-Era Fiction and Film,"
AWE (A Woman’s Experience): Vol. 12, Article 15.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/awe/vol12/iss1/15