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Theme Of The Homecoming

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War, with all the loss, pain, and horror, is an event no one ever survives without being scarred. The scars can be physical, emotional, or psychological, they can be deep and take years to heal, if they ever do. The short story “The Homecoming” shows an example of how war can change a person, and how it can be difficult to leave a war behind, and detach oneself from one’s experiences. The theme of the story is how a person is affected after fighting in a war, this is clear to see thanks to the main character and his actions, the narrative technique, and finally the structure of the story.
The protagonist is mentally wounded by the war he fought in, visible through his changed social relations and loss in connection to his surroundings. He …show more content…

The structure shows that the story consists of two environments, which the story revolves around in a pattern, along with the ending showing that the protagonist has experienced a development. The main character’s home is in Bangladesh, in 1971, the war he fought took place in the same year, on “the Eastern Front, in Dinajpur” (p. 40, l. 2). The structure of the story’s consists of the physical and current environment the narrator is in (his home), and flashbacks to the past (the war), triggered by things happening in the current situations the protagonist is in. The structure is circular, because there is a repetitive pattern between the two environments in the story, and there is a clear difference between the physical and psychological setting of the story for the main character, because he cannot detach himself from the things that happened in the war. The ending of the story shows a character development for the protagonist, compared to the beginning of the story. In the start and throughout the middle, he wonders about the other people’s opinions, and attempts explaining things to himself by putting things in perspective: comparing them to the war. However in the ending, the protagonist has developed, and now understands that “He did not know how to fit it all together” (p. 44, l. 39), he accepts that the world cannot make sense, especially because he has gained a new perspective. In summary, the structure shows the character is divided, however he develops and accepts his new perspective in the

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