Harold Krebs In A Soldier's Home

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.

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.

“Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway and “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien both address the difficulties faced by veterans returning from war. Krebs and Norman Bowker both have endured trauma, and have many similarities in their experiences once they’ve returned to their hometowns. Both have a dissociated view of their own lives, as well as the lives of those around them, lack an outlet, and have endured trauma in their time at war. However, the two also have some differences. Krebs lacks any sort of emotion, whereas Bowker has too much bottled inside.

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.

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

Even his mother, despite her wanting him to talk about the war by asking questions, never really pays attention. As a result he resorts to lying about his experience, forcing Krebs to isolate himself and oppose discussing what he had needed to discuss and get off his chest.

After all those things done from the mother and father of Krebs, he eventually did not changed because the core logic behind the ideology of his life was to not to make the life full of complex issues while keep it simple while telling lie to his mother in the end about his professional aims. The feature of the Krebs’s was also associated with such alienations came from the conventional institutions as per the soldier’s home after the World War 1 from the generation that would lost, for example, Nick Adams or from point of view of the Great Gatsby.

He needed to be heard by the others in his town, but “His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities” (Hemingway 133) that they did not want to listen to Krebs stories. The community did not care what Krebs was thinking in his mind, or how he was feeling. Krebs had no choice but to tell small lies about the war because the community could not capture what actually happened during the war. Krebs stories would have too much information that the people were unprepared to listen or know about. Perhaps he did not want to discuss the war with others because he felt guilty of all the massacres he has witness in the

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).

The initial reaction I received from reading Soldier's Home, and my feelings about Soldier's Home now are not the same. Initially, I thought Harold Krebs is this soldier who fought for two years, returns home, and is disconnected from society because he is in a childlike state of mind, while everyone else has grown up. I felt that Krebs lost his immature years, late teens to early 20's, because he went from college to the military. I still see him as disconnected from society, because there isn't anyone or anything that can connect him to the simple life that his once before close friends and family are living. He has been through a traumatic experience for the past two years, and he does not

Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldiers Home” is about a young man named Krebs who is learning to adjust to society after his experience in Europe during World War I. Hemingway’s purpose for writing this story can be confusing and also very telling. I believe Krebs was not a soldier at all and in fact, deceives his family, his friends, and his community into believing he was an experienced soldier in World War I. At first glance, Krebs may be seen as a war hero. However, by observing the characteristics such as Kreb’s background, actions, motivation, and the author’s Implied Evaluation, we see that he is not a war hero at all.

“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.

The dynamics of his family are vague. Although he does not say a lot about his relationship with his mother or father, he does express a strong disliking for his brother. No reason or specifics is given for the two of them not getting along, but as far back as my dad can remember, they never did anything together; not even played with the same neighborhood kids when they were

Although it provides an important perspective into the lives of post war veterans, Hemingway’s novel is merely a fictional story and the events that occur in the book are not representative of any real life occurrences. Hemingway is able to accurately able to depict the shift of morale views that occurred after the war.  People went from emotional and restrained and god fearing, to liberated, materialistic, and pessimistic. Following the First World War, Veterans lost a belief in objective morality and correspondingly lost the belief in love and capacity to make deep connections with people. The characters within this novel face social and personal problems, whether it be physical ailments or mental disabilities, both of which impede their lives completely. Hemingway’s ability to capture and and present the overwhelming emotions that encompassed the Lost Generation is what makes his novel effective and historically

In Soldier’s Home, Ernest Hemingway depicts Harold Krebs return home from World War I and the problems he faces when dealing with his homecoming and transition back towards a normal life. After the fighting overseas commenced, it took Krebs a year to finally leave Europe and return to his family in Oklahoma. Once home, he found it hard to talk about all he had seen in his tour of duty overseas, which should be attributed to the fact that he saw action in some of the bloodiest, most crucial battles towards the culmination of the war. Therefore, Krebs difficulty in acknowledging his past is because he was indeed a “good soldier” (139), whose efforts in order to survive “The Great War,” were not