The Spiritual Exile In The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien is a well-known Vietnam War writer in America.His autobiographical novel The Things They Carried has attracted extensive attention since it was published in 1990.Studies on The Things They Carried mainly concentrate on Tim O' Brien's unique traumatic narrative techniques and trauma and recovery of the soldiers,and little attention has been paid to the spiritual exile of the soldiers in different spaces.This thesis employs Lefebvre's space theory in interpreting The Things They Carried in order to reveal the fundamental factors that lead to the Vietnam War soldiers' spiritual exile by analyzing the powerful influence of spaces on these soldiers.This thesis firstly introduces Lefebvre's space theory and why it is employed in interpreting The Things They Carried.In physical spaces,it explores the soldiers' wandering in the physical spaces of Prewar America,Vietnam,and Postwar America,and physical spaces' imposing spiritual anxiety and strong discomfort on the soldiers,which causes the soldiers' spiritual exile and trauma.In social spaces,it examines how and why the soldiers are excluded and marginalized in social spaces,demonstrating the spiritual exile from which they cannot escape because they fail to fulfill their recognition and identification of their own social identities.In spiritual spaces,it makes an exploration of the soldiers' spiritual pain of not returning to the spiritual homeland which causes the soldiers' loss of identity,and how the soldiers make efforts to recover from the spiritual trauma by rebuilding the spiritual homeland for surviving veterans and reconstructing their marginalized identities by making the dead people “present” in stories.This thesis concludes that O'Brien explores the fundamental factors which lead to the soldiers' spiritual exile,the soldiers' great efforts in identification,and their strong desire to return to the homeland by representing the soldiers' spiritual exile in physical spaces,social spaces,and spiritual spaces.It is of significance for people to recognize the marginalized identity of American soldiers and to re-examine the pain of the war.