Analysis of Hemingway's 'Soldier's Home'

In “Soldiers Home”, Krebs was affected by the war emotionally because when he gets back from the war he realizes that he doesn’t belong in his childhood home and decides to leave. Krebs’s also realised along that he can’t relate to anyone back home. “ I don’t love anybody” (Hemingway 7). When Krebs tells his mother that he doesn't love anybody, he doesn’t mean that he doesn't love his mother. In The Things They Carried Jimmy Cross is wracked with guilt because he believes that his preoccupation with his unrequited love for a girl named Martha and his tendency to follow orders despite his better judgment caused the deaths of Ted Lavender and Kiowa, two members of Alpha Company. The war affected Kreb’s and Jimmy emotionally.

Krebs “felt the need to talk but no one wanted to hear about it. His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities.” Krebs own family lacks support for his yearning to talk to someone about what he has done and gone through. “She [Krebs’ mother] often came in when he was in bed and asked him to tell her about the war, but her attention always wandered. His father was non-committal.” It is obvious why Krebs decided to sleep all day and lock himself in his room, his town and his family have locked him in there with nothing but his thoughts. Krebs cannot leave the room because he is unable to let out all that he carries from the war.

The story, A Soldiers Home, is about a man in conflict with the past and present events in his life. The young man’s name is Harold Krebs. He recently returned from World War 1 to find everything almost exactly the same as when he left. He moved back into his parents house, where he found the same car sitting in the same drive way. He also found the girls looking the same, except now they all had short hair. When he returned to his home town in Oklahoma the hysteria of the soldiers coming home was all over. The other soldiers had come home years before Krebs had so everyone was over the excitement. When he first returned home he didn’t want to talk about the war at all. Then, when he suddenly felt the urge and need to talk about it no one

Krebs soon comes to isolate himself and oppose discussing his war experience and the influence it had on him. For Krebs, living in a town that has moved past the war, was his reason to reminisce on his war experiences and the women who would walk the streets in Germany and France. After spending two years in World War I, adapting to the real world was asking Krebs to let go of everything that has shaped him since he has been gone. “He sat there on the porch reading a book on the war. It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done.” Even after arriving home, attempting to adapt to the fact that the war was over, he studied war events he was part of; routes and war sites he had taken and fought at.

Imagine coming back home after being away for three years and trying to adapt to a new environment. It's almost like not being able to sleep in a hotel bed because you are used to your one at home. For Krebs’ it is the other way around. In the short story “Soldier's Home” by author Ernest Hemingway, Harold Krebs the main character is having trouble getting used to his hometown and the life it follows.. He has been at war for several years and is trying to get used to his home. Krebs joined the marines and went to war in 1917 and came back to the United States in 1919. The war ended in 1918 and two other kids from his town came back a year earlier than him. Because of this no one one wanted to hear any war stories and it was hard for Krebs. One of the most important themes that is represented throughout the story is adaptation. Krebs has to adapt to his home back in Oklahoma after fighting in the war for years. In the course of the short story, “Soldier’s Home”, Ernest Hemingway uses literary elements of setting and conflict to represent one of the themes, adaptation.

The war experience forces Krebs to question all the assumptions and beliefs that had previously guided his life. Having killed men in battle, Krebs sees no chance in reconciling his actions with God. He discusses the war and how carefree it was as if the soldiers had expected to live their life after the war not having to deal with the consequences and horrific memories of their actions. His faith had been stripped and morals lost. Krebs is quoted saying “I’m not in His Kingdom.” Krebs’s lost faith is also apparent when he and his mother kneel down to pray but Krebs can’t and asks his mother to pray for the both of them. The war had been hell and it seems as though Krebs was left there to face the consequences. I think this is one reason why he doesn’t “want any consequences” in his life anymore. Krebs has chosen to rid his life of all possible consequences he could face in the future. This includes his choice to stay away from finding work, girls, and even loved ones. This distancing is seen further when Krebs tells his mother he doesn’t love her. Love in his mind leads to consequences and the army has taught him that you don’t need love, or look for a girl to marry. These

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.

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).

Several different readers pointed out that Krebs is having difficulty because he no longer shares a common interest with the people in his hometown. Response 12 in "Reader Responses to Soldier's Home" suggest that Krebs is struggling "to fit in after coming back from war" and response 14 in "Reader Responses to Soldier's Home" points out that Krebs "seems to feel an outcast". What I see is Krebs has just spent two years of his life in battle, something he never imagined he would be involved in, something that most people could never imagine. Upon his arrival to his hometown,

Hemingway begins by saying Krebs went to a Methodist college fraternity where they wore, “exactly the same height and style collar,” (272) indicating that they were neatly dressed and proper. This is an indication that Krebs came from an environment that required uniformity. In the next paragraph, Hemingway also describes how Krebs is seen in a picture near the Rhine river soon after his enrollment where, “Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms,” and, “The Rhine does not show in the picture,” (272) which leads the reader to believe that there is no solid proof that Krebs was ever in Germany during the war.

This book is an account of how miserable, heartbreaking, and hard it is to live during the time of war. Anonymous has said “Back in the attic apartment, I can’t really call it a home; I no longer have a home”. With these words, we can see and feel that people who have witnessed and lived the war have experienced a difficult life that is beyond words, and not being able to feel that she belongs anywhere. “Home” is an

In a sense, he loses his role but tries to find it by telling stories about the war. However, the role of a soldier in his hometown is no longer “sensational” and he lies in order to find the pattern of soldier. Still nobody listens to Krebs’ pattern and he begins to search out the role through war books finding it “interesting reading”. It seems that Krebs tries to find another pattern to replace this new complicated life of a former soldier.

He was highly interested in the book even though he had just come from an actually war. “He looked forward with a good feeling to reading all the really good histories when they would come out with good detail maps. Now he was really learning about the war” (3). This shows that Krebs is still in touch with his war life and he even wished to stayed in Germany rather than coming home. “On the whole he had liked Germany better. He did not want to leave Germany. He did not want to come home. Still, he had come home. He sat on the front porch” (3).

Throughout “Soldier’s Home”, the author establishes Kreb’s character to be dishonest, languid, and emotionally disconnected. To begin, Krebs originally has a tendency to lie about and embellish his experiences in the war because he feels a sense of inadequacy. Krebs also lies to avoid ramifications, and he continues to do so throughout the entire story. When the author describes Krebs’ disposition towards women, it is obvious that he is languorous and lethargic not only in regards to courting women but also in regards to his daily life. When faced with typically emotional situations later in the story, Krebs remains unemotional, but he reacts primarily to appease others with the

This is why he could not love anymore; the mere thought of it nauseated him. He could not assimilate back into living a regular life with the thoughts of regular men. In seeing so much that should be out of the ordinary, he never wanted to deal with common human issues again, not to mention consequences. Krebs relationship with his sister is probably his best with anyone in the house. This is most likely due to the fact that she is around 11 years old and is infatuated with her older brother. When she talks about telling her friends where she learned to pitch a ball, she says “I tell them all you’re my beau. Aren’t you my beau, Hare?”(139). This type of talk does not bother Krebs in this situation, unlike the girls whom he refuses to talk to in his town. His sister is pre-pubescent, so she has unlikely developed the body of a woman and also, she shows improbable signs of having sexual urges by asking him if she is his girl and if he will “love [her] always”(140). By observing the problems Krebs has with his own family members after the war, one can understand why his problems communicating in the outside world, with strangers, exists.