Seeking Spiritual Salvation

Tim O’Brien has been a famous Vietnamese novelist since1990s. He is popular toreaders for his works. After the publication of The Things They Carried, it has caused greatattention to other scholars. However, most of them focus on the writing styles of the novel andthe trauma of soldiers. It seems that no one has made comprehensive analysis of the novel andhas discussed the topic of how soldiers have got their spiritual salvation after the war. But thisis the main point in Tim O’Brien’s works.In this essay, it is based on theory of the treatment of literary anthropology, Ye Shuxian,from the point of the post-modern witchcraft, the myth-ritual treatment, literary narration tomake an analysis of all soldiers to get their own spiritual salvation and “treat” their owntrauma.The essay can be divided into five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction to TimO’Brien and his work, the literary review of the present research at home and abroad and thethesis significance of the essay. Chapter two is the theory of the literary anthropology.According to the primitive function of literature, it is the cultural integration and the functionsof treatment including treating illness and relieving the victims of disasters, aiming toconstruct the basic theoretical part from the point of the post-modern witchcraft, myth ritualsand literary narration. Chapter Three aims to make an analysis the trauma of the author andold soldiers and the reflection of post-modern witchcraft in the novel. In Chapter four, itfocuses on the importance of rituals and the literary narration, through different kinds ofrituals, like the war, death and survival, which have brought different kinds of traumastowards soldiers and their different ways of spiritual salvation. Feeling the trauma of the war,Tim O’Brien hoped to express his thoughts towards the war through his own mouth and hiswriting so that everyone could know what great influence the war has brought soldiers and gettheir inner spiritual salvation. Through the comparison of other soldiers having no ability tomake literary narration to human beings, O’Brien focused on the great affection of literarynarration. Chapter five is the conclusion part, everybody is able to see every soldier’s effortstowards their spiritual salvation, but the process is difficult and the result is not satisfying. Thetrauma is still there for most soldiers but their efforts should be praised by human beings.