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Student
Dr. Joan Kennedy
ENGL 1302.P11
05 February 2010
Selfish Desire
Desire is the key element in what compels individuals to defy conventions, to take a leap
of faith, to step out into the unknown. Although desire—pure, uncorrupted longing—is mainly
harmless in its own right, desire, when corrupted, can quickly transform into selfish desire.
Selfish desire festers like a gaping wound. It wraps around the minds of those who harbor it
within themselves and ultimately consumes them. In all three short stories—Joyce Carol Oates’
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Tim O’ Brien’s “Sweetheart of the Song Tra
Bong,” and Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem”—the authors create characters
who make choices centered entirely on personal gain. Although the three protagonists could not
be further apart in most ways, they all share one unifying personality flaw that ultimately leads to
their downfalls. All of these main characters are hindered by their egocentrism overpowering
their abilities to make rational choices. Though the specific, fatal desires that subsequently
consume these protagonists differ, the feeling of selfish desire—the desperate, wanting, pining
sensation that constantly nags at Connie, Mary Anne, and Jackson—is undeniably common
among the three. This lack of control—so prominently featured among these characters—leads
to destruction and pain. Thus, the reader must assume that in the future no good can come from
the desire-inspired actions of Connie, Mary Anne, and Jackson.
In Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the reader takes
a glimpse inside the life of Connie, a fifteen-year-old rebel whose family’s apathetic behavior
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toward her results in her lack of intuition. From her compulsion to get away from her indifferent
family to her longing to stay out late with boys, Connie’s desires to be wanted and loved are
blatantly obvious from the start. Connie’s internal cry for help seeps through to her exterior in
the way she is constantly primping and “checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was
all right” (Oates 1368). Taking note of her insecurities, habits, and hangouts, Arnold Friend—an
older man with an unnatural obsession for Connie—stalks the unassuming girl. One day, when
Connie is all alone, Arnold takes advantage of the protagonist’s selfish desires to be adored and
cared for by visiting her house and offering to whisk her away. Although Connie knows innately
that Arnold is a sick man with even sicker motives, her passionate desires to be cared for and to
escape her uncaring family overcome her knowledge of the fact that Arnold is a wicked person
who can offer her nothing except grief. After choosing to go with this man, the reader can
speculate that Connie’s actions—fed by her selfish desires—lead to a terrible future. After being
taken by Arnold Friend, it can be assumed that he rapes and quite possibly kills Connie. If
Connie had been able to think of other things beside herself and her desires during the pivotal
time of her abduction, perhaps she could have saved herself from a fiend like Arnold Friend.
Perhaps, if her desires had not clouded her judgment, Connie would have had a future to
anticipate. But because of her selfishness, all is, most likely, lost.
In Tim O’Brien’s “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” the reader follows the
metamorphosis of Mary Anne Bell, a central character in the story, who has a profoundly lifealtering experience during her time in war-ridden Vietnam. At the beginning of the story, we are
introduced to the young Mary Anne, “seventeen years old [and] fresh out of Cleveland Heights
Senior High” (O’Brien 1383). Shipped in by her loving boyfriend, Mark, Mary Anne quickly
grows accustomed to life in Vietnam. In the beginning, Mary Anne and Mark share the same
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desires. They both want to “be married, and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and
have three healthy yellow-haired children, and grow old together…” (1383). But, as Mary Anne
begins to become “one of the boys” instead of just the beautiful, bubbly blonde whom Mark
Fossie brings to the war, her desires—concerning both Mark, and life, in general—take a drastic
change for the worse. Mary Anne grows distant from her boyfriend and goes out on midnight
ambushes with rough, secretive men known as the Green Berets. One night—when Mark can
take no more of his girlfriend’s indifference and ignorance—he seeks out Mary Anne, only to
discover how “her eyes… [were] utterly flat and indifferent. There was no emotion in her stare,
no sense of the person behind it….At the girl’s throat was a necklace of human tongues” (1392).
Seeing how the only desire his once-loving girlfriend now has is blood-lust, Mark Fossie
estranges himself from Mary Anne, and Mary Anne, in turn, disappears with her violence-loving
Special Forces team.
Although the Mary Anne who is present at the beginning of the story would have had a
wonderful life, with all of her positive desires fulfilled, she willfully chooses to transform into a
grotesque apparition of a once charming girl. Her desires to grow old with Mark and live the
American dream are replaced with new, eccentric, selfish desires: desires to live alone, to hunt
and kill, and, eventually, to alienate herself from humans, in general. Because of how abnormal
the change in Mary Anne is, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” has the darkest view of human
nature. Mary Anne goes from being a sweet-natured, friendly, All-American girl to being a
rogue, gore-worshiping mercenary. If Mary Anne’s behavior at the end of the story continues on
into the future, I cannot see how she can survive. Her animalistic behavior cannot be sustained
without repercussions. Mary Anne’s disgustingly unhealthy, selfish desires can only lead to
misfortune—and possibly death—befalling her in the future.
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In Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem,” the reader is introduced to an
extremely unique character named Jackson, a homeless Indian who goes through great struggles
in order to earn enough money to buy his grandmother’s regalia back from a pawnbroker.
Jackson, determined to gain back what is rightfully his, attempts to accumulate approximately
one-thousand dollars—the price the pawnbroker has set for Jackson’s prized heirloom—in
twenty-four hours. But each time Jackson comes into some money throughout the day, he
immediately proceeds to squander it on drink for himself and for his fellow Indians. Although,
by the end, Jackson succeeds in attaining his grandmother’s regalia, if it had not been for the
kindness and pity that the pawnbroker had for him, Jackson would never have acquired the
heirloom. Jackson’s single, most sought-after desire is for alcohol. Jackson tries so hard to
accomplish his goal of obtaining one-thousand dollars, but every single time that he receives
some cash, his selfish desire to drink it all away overpowers his ability to make the rational
choice—to save up the money he acquires until he has enough to purchase his grandmother’s
regalia. Jackson’s future—as with all of the other characters—is bleak, because, although he
obtains his grandmother’s sacred item, his self-focused desire to drink is still more important to
him than anything else, including the very regalia that he sacrificed so much of his time and
money to get.
The futures of Connie, Mary Anne, and Jackson are most likely going to be exceedingly
dismal. Because of the hold that their selfish desires—love and attention in Connie’s case,
destruction and seclusion in Mary Anne’s case, and desire for alcohol in Jackson’s case—has
over them during each story, respectively, the reader can only presume that the futures of these
characters are going to be self-destructive. The journeys that the protagonists take are focused on
self-discovery. Connie tests herself to see how far she will go in order to satisfy her longing to be
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wanted; Mary Anne puts herself through increasingly challenging situations in a foreign land in
order to lose the person that she once was, only to take on a darker persona of herself; Jackson
defies all preconceived notions that he had for himself and that others had for his culture by
trying, really trying, for the first time in his adult life. These characters have admirable qualities,
but once their selfish desires get in the way of their capability to make rational decisions, their
ruinations come swiftly. And, thus, if they all follow the same pattern that leads them down
undesirable roads in the stories, it is only reasonable to assume that the future of Connie, Mary
Anne, and Jackson will be just as bleak.
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Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology
for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Schlib and John Clifford. 4th Ed. New York:
Bedford/St. Martin’s 2009. 1396-1412. Print.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Making Literature
Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Schlib and John Clifford. 4th
Ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2009. 1367-1380. Print.
O’Brien, Tim. “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for
Readers and Writers. Eds. John Schlib and John Clifford. 4th Ed. New York: Bedford/St.
Martin’s 2009. 1380-1395. Print.