Krebs ' Relationship With His Closest Family Members Essay

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.

This is similar to what happened to Krebs in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home”. Krebs has returned home to find that it is not that everybody and the world around him has changed, but he was the one that had changed. He has fought in some of the worst wars there were and he didn’t want to come back home. Krebs dreaded coming back to the states, and would have preferred to stay overseas. Krebs was once used to a normal life. He went to a Christian school and was a part of a fraternity. His perception on life had changed drastically after enlisting in the military and fighting in a war. When he returned home, the girls that he saw on the street were the same as when he was there years ago. His father still parks his car in the same spot day in and day out. His mother tries to encourage him to get a job, but he doesn’t care. He was so accustomed to the repetition of a soldier’s life. He couldn’t adjust to the typical lifestyle that other soldiers made. Somehow you can see the struggle he is going through. After the physical war, there was a war going on internally. Krebs had lost his emotion and will to care. The horror he experienced actually seeing first-hand life and death situations were incomprehensible to his parents. There was no way they would be able to identify with him.

Overseas females were either not present or presented as prostitutes. This corruption of women in Krebs mind remains, but he still thinks about them frequently. He states, “That was all a lie. It was a lie both ways.”, this demonstrates how, like many other facets of home life, was disenchanted by his service in war. Ernest uses repetition to demonstrate the revision of thought. For Norman, he only wishes he could’ve had what he almost had before he went away. His old sweetheart, Sally did not wait for him and, “...had her house and her new husband, and there was really nothing he could say to her.” O’Brien writes this as a list to convey that Norman feels overwhelmed by how much change has occurred during his absence. Once again, these soldiers feel isolated by their experience, Norman by the time spent away, and Krebs by the things he saw while he was

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.

Krebs learned to lie about his experiences and added details into them that most formal soldiers thought as common knowledge of a soldier; however, it was not easy for him. The small town in this story and society in general is the antagonist in this story for not welcoming him home as they had the other returning men. “Krebs found to be listened to at all he had to lie and after he had done this twice he, too had a reaction against the war and against talking about it” (185), and withdrew from society more because of the distaste of war and the lies he had to tell. The town folk thought of his stories as unimportant. Krebs withdrew from society.

Other than the personnel who lost limbs, there were others who were affected just as bad and will endure their pain forever most likely due to their mental state because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Mayo Clinic definition of PTSD is, “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.” Even though back during World War I which is the time that Krebs had served this was a huge factor for returning soldiers. As stated by Jones and Wessely they say that PTSD “these features lead to avoidance and impaired social interaction.” Other than PTSD, soldiers were affected by “shell shock” which is caused by a traumatic event that will affect a person’s everyday by making them have symptoms such as “uncontrollable diarrhea to unrelenting anxiety” (Bourke). In my opinion, this could have been a problem that Krebs had since he was

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.

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).

While the disconnection allows the soldier to adapt to the brutal war environment, it inhibits them from re-entering society. When he takes his leave, he is unable to feel comfortable at home. Even if Paul had survived the war physically, he most likely would not have integrated back into society suitably. The emotional disconnection inhibits soldiers from mourning their fallen friends and comrades. However, Paul was somewhat less than able to completely detach himself from his feelings, and there are several moments in the when he feels himself pulled down by emotion. These rush of feelings indicate the magnitude to which war has automated Paul to cut himself off from feeling, as when he says, with unbridled understatement, “Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army (p. 269) .”

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,

The final conflict with his mother forces Krebs to face the fact that he cannot stay.  He lies to his mother to make her feel better after he has hurt her with the truth, but is "sick and vaguely nauseated" by his duplicity.  As his mother prays over him at the end of the story, Krebs resolves to go away to Kansas City and start his life again, away from the home and family to which he can no longer belong.

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.

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