Existentialism in Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway

544 Words2 Pages

The saying “Existence precedes essence” is the slogan of existentialism. This element of existentialism is displayed throughout the short story “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway. Of the different elements of existentialism, existence precedes essence is most evident in “Soldier’s Home”. Harold Krebs was a soldier in World War 1 who got back afew months later than the rest of the men from his town. He was forced to tell lies about his war experiences in order to get along and fit in with the people in his town. “His lies were quite unimportant lies and consisted in attributing to himself things other men had seen, done or heard of, and stating as facts certain apocryphal incidents familiar to all soldiers” (Hemingway 654). Even though the lies did not really matter in the overall scheme of things, the lies impacted Krebs. The lies Krebs made changed him and devalued his actual war experiences. Krebs was aware that if he continues to lie he would no longer be true to himself. “In ‘Soldier’s Home,’ Hemingway uses conflict to show how society demands conformity and the unfair struggl...

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Soldier's Home 'And' In Another Country

    1853 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “Soldier’s Home,” the main character Krebs exhibits grief, loneliness. When he returns home with the second group of soldiers he is denied a hero's return. From here he spends time recounting false tales of his war times. Moving on, in the second page of the story he expresses want but what he reasons for not courting a female. A little while after he is given permission to use the car. About this time Krebs has an emotional exchange with both his little sister and his mother. Revealing that “he feels alienated from both the town and his parents , thinking that he had felt more ‘at home’ in Germany or France than he does now in his parent’s house”(Werlock). Next, the story ends with his mother praying for him and he still not being touched. Afterwards planning to move to Kansas city to find a job. Now, “The importance of understanding what Krebs had gone through in the two years before the story begins cannot be overstated. It is difficult to imagine what it must have been for the young man”(Oliver). Near the start of the story the author writes of the five major battles he “had been at”(Hemingway) in World War I- Bellaue Wood, Soissons, Champagne, St.Mihiel, and Argonne. The importance of these are shown sentences later that the

    Read More

  • Tim O’ Brien’s How to Tell a True War Story

    602 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many times readers lose interest in stories that they feel are not authentic. In addition, readers feel that fictitious novels and stories are for children and lack depth. Tim O’ Brien maintains that keeping readers of fiction entertained is a most daunting task, “The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination- to vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer” (Tim O’ Brien 623). Tim O’ Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” examines the correlation between the real experiences of war and the art of storytelling. In O’Brien’s attempt to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction, the narrator of the story uses language and acts of violence that may be offensive to some.

    Read More

  • Emotional Detachment in "Soldier's Home"

    511 Words  | 2 Pages

    A photo of Krebs during World War I shows him with a corporal and two German girls on the Rhine River. One's first thought of this picture may be of a lighthearted sightseeing trip on leave from the front. However, in the photograph, Krebs and the other corporal are described as "too big for their uniforms," the German girls as "not beautiful," and the Rhine does not even appear in the photograph (154). This is how Ernest Hemingway begins "Soldier's Home," the story of a young war veteran named Harold Krebs who has recently returned home. Everything that Krebs says and does is to make his life as smooth and have as few complications as possible, more than likely a stark contrast to his life in Europe.

    Read More

  • Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...tories dedicated to many more heroes of “the greatest generation.” He mentions a man by the name of Jack Hemingway, who parachuted into France behind enemy lines, where he was taken prisoner by the Germans, and a woman named Helen Strauss, who was nominated as New Jersey’s Psychologist of the Year in 1997 for her hard work and dedication to children and low-income families. She was also known as a great woman for her service in the Navy. Brokaw also mentions Bill Mauldin, a writer who “shared with those on the front lines as well as those at home the hard truths and dark humor of life at war.”(p381) With Brokaw’s use of “hard truths,” again, the image of savage fighting appears to the reader. Another picture comes forth in the reader’s mind from Brokaw’s use of “dark humor.” A picture of a bleak and cloudy memories that the soldier’s mask with a sense of humor.

    Read More

  • Stories of Insanity in How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O´brien

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    Author Tim O’Brien in “How to Tell a True War Story” uses the physical and mental mindset of isolation in the Vietnam war to create a story with many literary devices that makes a captivating story. The author uses point of view, verbal irony, and the character Tim O’Brien to enhance his written experiences of the Vietnam War. This story teaches the reader that experiences that were lived by the reader can be altered by the mind to a certain extent, where they can be questioned as true or not. Perhaps at a sports game or in a heated situation such as a police chase or court case. Tim O’Brien’s experiences have captivated many readers, but are they true? Or just a product of insanity from war? Well, Tim O’Brien leaves that up to the reader to decide.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Soldiers Home By Hemingway

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Hemingway’s short story “Soldier’s Home”, Hemingway introduces us to a young American soldier, that had just arrived home from World War I. Harold Krebs, our main character, did not receive a warm welcome after his arrival, due to coming home a few years later than most soldiers. After arriving home, it becomes clear that World War I has deeply impacted the young man, Krebs is not the same man that headed off to the war. The war had stripped the young man of his coping mechanism, female companionship, and the ability to achieve the typical American life.

    Read More

  • Society's Conformity is a "Soldier's Home"

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    When Krebs was in the army, he had a defined identity as a soldier and when he returns home Krebs’s reluctance to take the defined identity of the everyday joe shmoe that is awaiting him. Krebs difficulty to involve himself with the girls in his hometown reflects his refusal to conform to society’s expectation of him. Krebs associates his hometown girls as death to his individualism. All the girls in Krebs hometown look alike with their “round Dutch collars above their sweaters... their silk stockings and flat shoes,” (Hemingway; 49) and “their bobbed hair and the way they walked” (49). The strict uniformity of the girls that Krebs observes can be interpreted to resemble the uniformity of soldiers. Hemingway utilizes diction to illustrate Krebs’s opinion on the army’s forced conformity; “but they lived in such a complicated world of already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or the courage to break into it” (49). In context of war, “alliances” is a word used between countries and in World War I it meant The Allies. Krebs using word “alliances...

    Read More

  • The Role of Storytelling in The Things They Carried

    2570 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...n amnesiac nation into “working through” its troubled past.” (Bly ,189) Story telling was the soldier’s salvation, their survival method. Being able to tell their stories let them express everything they were feeling and ultimately cope with the horrors of war and the guilt the carried.

    Read More

  • Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms - Hopeless Suffering

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hopeless Suffering in A Farewell to Arms Near the end of A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway has Fredrick Henry describe the time he placed a log full of ants on a fire. This incident allows us to understand a much larger occurrence, Catherine's pregnancy. Combined, both of these events form commentary on the backdrop for the entire story, World War One. After he finds out his son was stillborn, Lt. Henry remembers the time when he placed a log full of ants on a fire.

    Read More

  • Jean-Paul Sartre and Radical Freedom

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    The key belief of existentialists is that existence precedes essence. In order to understand that claim we must first understand what Jean- Paul Sartre means by the term “essence.” He gives an example of a person forging a paper-cutter. When an individual sets out to make any object, he/she has a purpose for it in mind and an idea of what the object will look like before beginning the actual production of it, so this object has an essence, or purpose, before it ever has an existence. The individual, as its creator, has given the paper-cutter its essence. Using the paper cutter example, Sartre argues that human beings cannot have an essence (or purpose) before their “production,” becaus...

    Read More

  • Jean-Paul Sartre: The Third Force Movement

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the core of Jean-Paul Sartre’s views was that existence precedes essence. This contrasted with the Aristotelian and Scholastic views that individual existence is an expression of essence or being (Brennan, 2003). Instead, Sartre believed that existence defines the essence of an individual such ...

    Read More

  • Distortion of Truth in Tim O’Brien's The Things They Carried

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    Several stories into the novel, in the section, “How to tell a true war story”, O’Brien begins to warn readers of the lies and exaggerations that may occur when veterans tell war stories.

    Read More

  • Importance of setting in Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemmingway

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story has different elements that make it a story, that make it whole. Setting is one of those elements. The book defines setting as “the context in which the action of the story occurs” (131). After reading “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway, setting played a very important part to this story. A different setting could possibly change the outcome or the mood of the story and here are some reasons why.

    Read More

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Hemingway's Soldiers Home

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a first hand observer of the Civil War, the great American Poet, Walt Whitman once said,"The real war [of the mind] will never get in the books."Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a horrible mental ailment that afflicts thousands of soldiers every year. Besides the fact that it is emotionally draining for the soldier, it also deeply alters their family and their family dynamics. Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier's Home” illustrates how this happens. Harold Krebs returns home from World War I. He has to deal with becoming reaccustomed to civilian life along with relearning social norms. He must also learn about his family and their habits. The ramifications of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have a ripple effect on the lives of not only the victim, but also the friends and family they relate to.

    Read More

  • Use Of Existentialism In Ernest Hemingway's A Clean Well-Lighted Place

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    Existentialism is a philosophical term that comes from the 19th century and at the time used to describe philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sarte 's and Simone de Beauvoir 's writing themes. It is a term of many vague definitions but does not contain synonyms. It is a unique concept, but could define as one 's reaction to human existence as a whole, and the difficulty finding/lacking a purpose in the world. Without experience and walking in one another 's shoes, no one will ever fully understand someones complications or situations in life. "The Clean Well-Lighted Place" is a story that is not bias, and consists of the viewpoints of an existentialist and the opinion of

    Read More

More about Existentialism in Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway

Open Document