O' Brien And The Thought of Getting Away From Exile

The Things They Carried is perhaps a more realistic and in depth look at the many forms of exile that arise when a soldier returns "home" from war. The book explores and discusses the many leading causes to these various types of exile; what seems to be most outstanding is O' Brien's constant self-reassurance that he is not in exile, that everything that he is telling and perhaps feeling (as a result of his experience in Vietnam) is only a result of his wonderful imagination or mainly made up. It seems like writing things down is his door to amnesia, and a way to clear his memory from the many reoccurring images that he may have in his mind. Through writing O'Brien allows himself to say what he wants to say, and to be who he wants to be, and how he would like his feelings about war to be."But it's not a game. It's a form. Right here, now, as I invent myself [...]" (O' Brien 179). In his book, he creates a character that supposedly is able to distance himself from the reality of feeling alienated from home, after returning from war, perhaps the "ideal soldier". It seems obvious that even his "ideal soldier" fails to distance himself from the circumstances because he constantly repeats and gives clear images of the things that occurred during war, and has a tendency to go over the occurrences or telling them all the time.