Krebs 'Struggle In 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.

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.

to tell his war story to people, but he finds out no one is interested in listening to him. Krebs

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

The mere mention of the title leads to a main point of the story. Krebs had just returned after 2 years serving in one of the most deadly wars America has seen. The title “Soldier’s Home” suggests more of a

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).

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

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.

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.

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.