Krebs also withdraws into his room because of the consequence that returning from war has left him and Berlin feeling lost, insecure, and out of place. Krebs “would have liked to have a girl but he did not want to have to spend a long time getting her.” In the army, Krebs got German and French girls without many complications because you couldn’t talk much with them, nor did you need to talk. It was much simpler, and now that Krebs is back, he is scared to jump into his society for a girl. It is evident that the war has taken away the transitional period from dependency to independency from his parents. He joined while he was still a boy and now that he has returned he is expected to move on and get a job and girl, “Charley Simmons, who is just your age, has a good job and is going to be married.” Like
Ernest Hemingway “Soldier’s Home" is an outstanding short story that shows the tragic impact of war on the life of a young soldier who returns home. The story paints a vibrant picture of a soldier’s life after coming back from a shocking experience. Hemingway shows impacts of war on a soldier with the main character being Harold Krebs, who faces hostility in his hometown after his return from fighting in the war. The main character in the story is Kreb with the author making usage of repetition, characterization, and symbolism to bring out the message in the story.
In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “A Soldier’s Home”, Krebs, a soldier, returns to his hometown from fighting in World War I. As indicated throughout the story, “home” for Krebs is not unlike the war front: confusing, complicated, and restless. Hemingway uses the setting in Kansas, during World War I, to convey Krebs post-war life in comparison to his pre-war.
This is an essay on the short story “Soldier’s Home” by Hemingway. Will the life of a soldier ever be the same after returning from war? Many generations of young adults have gone from their homes with tranquil settings to experience war and come home to a different world. Many have witnessed the devastations and atrocities that occur with war. Harold Krebs, a young man from a small town with a loving family is no different from those before him and those to follow. The anguish of what war is however cannot dispel the thoughts and memories of what many young men come home to face in the real world. Many have trouble coping in the new world known as home.
A “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway is an intriguing story about a man by the name of Krebs who enlists in the Marine Corps during his attendance at a Methodist college in Kansas. After serving for two years at the Rhine, he returned with the second division in 1919 but Krebs wasn’t in the same state of mind as before he left. The reason why Krebs was so distraught when he returned home was not because of the fact that no one wanted to listen to his war stories but because him and other soldiers were without any real benefits such as medical, education, extra remuneration, or anything to help him get back into the real world. This reason stated is the reason that Krebs and soldiers alike came home from war with nothing to show for
As a young man coming back from the war, Krebs expected things to be the same when he got home and they were, except one. Sure the town looked older and all the girls had matured into beautiful women, Krebs had never expected that he would be the one to change. The horrific experiences of the first World War had alienated and removed those he had cared about, including his family, who stood naïve to the realities and consequences only those who live it first hand would comprehend.
Numerous people all over the states join a military branch. Some are forced with war and others are not. Soldiers that have war experience might experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when returning home. In the story of “Soldier Home”, Harold Krebs seems to have quite a few symptoms of this disorder. Prior to his war services, Krebs experiences conformity, connections, and his faith; however, after the war he has a difficult time adjusting back to civilian life.
Soldiers Home and The Great Gatsby show some aspect of the society at their time, though not as a major intent of the books, and we can see how the trend of the society influenced people. Both pieces of work have settings in the same time period, 1920s, but slightly different interval. In Soldier’s Home, Krebs returned to his hometown about one year after the war. The celebration has already ended and people get to their daily life, after enough talks over the events experienced by the returning soldiers. There’s a scene about Krebs sitting on the bench, seeing the pretty girls on the street, He has the thought “Nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up. But they lived in such a complicated world ...that Krebs did not feel the energy or the courage to break into it.” (Hemingway 2) The girls in the town apparently triggered Krebs’s thought. “The young girls in town are...unaffected by the war. They were a nice pattern to
In Soldier's Home, Ernest Hemingway paints a vivid picture of Harold Krebs return home from World War I and the issues he confronts while trying to shift his way back towards the ordinary life he once lived. After his battling over seas took place, it took Krebs over a year to finally leave Europe and make his way back home to his family in Oklahoma. After finally finding the drive to come home, Krebs found that it was difficult to express his feelings towards all he had seen during his tour of duty, which must be attributed to the fact that he was in the heart of some of the bloodiest and most crucial battles mankind has ever seen. Therefore, Krebs difficulty in acknowledging his past is because he was indeed a “good soldier” (133), whose
Soldier’s Home is a story about the experiences of a soldier returning from war. The narrative starts with a description of an image or photograph of Harold Krebs. Krebs is the main character of this story. He was a young man who was attending the Methodist College in Kansas before he had to enlist in the Marines to find in the war (Hemingway 111-116). The opening picture is an increasingly significant source of contrast between the young man who went to war and the one who comes back who has become silent and alienated after coming home. Krebs comes back in 1919 even though the war ended in 1918. His return is not marked by celebrations and parades that were often given to the young soldiers who had managed to come home early. Rather, Krebs finds out that the people are not overly excited about his news of the war unless he lies and exaggerates about his role during the war (Hemingway 111-116).
Is there a pattern for life? Maybe not, but in Ernest Hemingway’s short story “A Soldier’s Home”, the main character Harold Krebs finds that he needs to live his life through a series of patterns. In this story, the series of patterns associated to Krebs results in an explanation of his character’s desire for an uncomplicated life. The series of patterns can be found through Krebs’s involvement in college, the Marines, and even in his personal relationships.
When people think of the military, they often think about the time they spend over in another country, hoping they make it back alive. No one has ever considered the possibility that they may have died inside. Soldiers are reborn through war, often seeing through the eyes of someone else. In “Soldier’s home” by Ernest Hemingway, the author illustrates how a person who has been through war can change dramatically if enough time has passed. This story tells of a man named Harold (nick name: Krebs) who joined the marines and has finally come back after two years. Krebs is a lost man who feels it’s too complicated to adjust to the normal way of living and is pressured by his parents.
“The Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway is a short story that tells the story of a soldier who returns home but realizes that war has changed his life. Hemingway ensures that the readers fully understand the purpose of the short story by using a detached tone, brief sentence structure, and a lack of imagery help develop the short story. The use of these literary techniques in Hemingway’s story allows him to develop his plot without losing his audience’s attention and include a message in the story. The story is told in third-person which allows for the reader to have a clear image of the soldier Krebs and his return home.
World War I was a time of constant worry and woe for the destruction caused to the European countryside. Ernest Hemingway depicts the life of an American ambulance driver working for the Italian army through the Great War in the semi-autobiographical A Farewell to Arms, incorporating elements of his own experience in the war into that of his narrator Fredric Henry. One of the most effective tools to display the destruction and chaos of this war was Hemingway’s writing style, clearly seen in the opening of Chapter Twenty-One. This passage, while introducing a devastating point of the war to the reader, demonstrates Hemingway’s dark but witty style through the discursive and wistful tone, varying figures of speech, and repetitive and brutal diction in order to effectively convey the current state of the narrator and the war.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is a well-crafted novel that teaches its readers about the causalities of war and the reality of life itself through a tragic love story that captivates the audience’s attention from the first line. I was cheering on Catherine and Mr. Henry’s relationship from the time they met in the villa garden where she and Helen Ferguson were waiting. This work contained multiple themes, including the reality of war, love and the games involved, and many motifs such as masculinity and femininity. After reading this novel, my understanding of how harsh war is changed. As readers learn about the many deaths that occur on the front and the heartache that soldiers and their loved ones feel as a result of these causalities. This well written book had its fair share of symbols, like countless other works of literature, which added depth to the storyline.