Solder's Home Hemingway

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

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.

O 'Brien illustrates to us the necessity for each man to be connected to their old life, telling a story of Mark Fossie flying in his girlfriend to ease his loneliness (104-05). Each soldier found himself facing insurmountable barriers throughout the war, and these small effects and coping mechanisms were often the only necessity that would give them reason to return home again. They needed personal methods of coping with the war, and this primeval survival was the only way to remain a man.

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.

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 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) .”

Krebs’ relationship with his closest family members also shows substantial signs of adverse deterioration. During the entirety of the whole story, he only interacts more freely with his youngest sister, Helen. His mother also shows up occasionally and tries to engage him in conversations about his experiences in World War I. For his part, Krebs is extremely resentful and prefers staying away from people’s company partly because nobody seems to understand where he is coming from. Krebs’ mother does not comprehend the extent to which her son has drifted away from the rest of the Oklahoma community. His mother refers to him as her “dear boy” but in an unexpected turn of events, he responds that he is incapable of loving her back (Hemmingway 4). Krebs, just like many war veterans has gone through an extremely difficult phase of life. Therefore, he may require comparably more time to figure out their next courses of action in life. The injustices and destructions he witnessed during the war probably had a significant impact on him. Now he has to rediscover himself and learn how to love in a genuine manner again. Soldiers who take an active role in military missions usually display signs of post traumatic stress disorder, which greatly interferes with their behavior patterns (Litz 3). His mother’s crying serves to demonstrate the fact that her son’s current attitude towards his loved ones surprises her. Furthermore, we do not see Krebs interact with his father upon his return

Second, what is the mood of this story trying to portray with the setting. The importance of setting could add atmosphere and tone. Another really great point made by Meredith Bond, “atmosphere and tone: it gives a feeling to the story. It establishes an atmosphere so you know what kind of story it is going to be (Bond).” The setting created a very somber and regretful mood for Kreb’s. This young man’s parents feel that he has lost his ambition that he possibly once had before the war. A different setting could have changed this mood and feelings of the story. Hemmingway wanted to prove that people change with war and he did with the setting. He set the mood of the story with the happiness of the fraternity pictures and college. Then he changed the mood very quickly with the horrible stories the town had heard about the war. Smaller,

In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Soldiers home”, written in 1965, the main character Harold Krebs, returns from war and it’s nothing like he sought it to be. Hemingway tells this story in third person point of view, as if he was telling it as he watches Krebs, giving his readers a chance to visualize the characters perspective. The setting takes place in a small town in Oklahoma, where Krebs does not feel welcomed, he does not want to be there.