Analysis Of A Soldier's Home By Ernest Hemingway

1251 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Hemingway and his masculinity

A Soldier’s Home is a short story written by Earnest Hemingway and published in 1925. One of the most compelling features of the work is its brevity and omission. Lamb notes “The short story’s lack of space leads to prose that relies heavily on suggestiveness and implication, allowing the reader a greater role in bringing the narrative to life. (Lamb 2016). As a former journalist, Hemingway learned to write in concise style that put the maximum information into every word, to the point of omitting information that could be inferred or discovered. According to Earnest Hemingway:
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. (Rosen 2009, Hemingway 1964)
In the Soldier’s Home, Harold Krebs comes home a year later than most of his comrades from …show more content…

Is this some lascivious desire on his part, or is she a refuge from responsibility, or personal shortcoming. We must guess. We know he can’t begin to see his father, yet we are never told why. Much is made over his father allowing him to use the car as if the car is a symbol of adulthood and freedom, but looking under the surface, the car is also a symbol of the father’s responsibility to his family as the car allows him to take care of his real estate business. We can assume that the father was an uncaring brute to his son, or surmise that he is merely a clueless, but well-meaning man of early 20th century America. A father that can’t understand his son is the obvious implication, but Hemingway leaves open another interpretation, that the son is so ashamed of himself that he can’t bear to see his father lest his father suspect his

Show More
Related

  • Emotional Detachment in "Soldier's Home"

    511 Words  | 2 Pages

    Krebs is a detached being who just wants to keep his life as uncomplicated as possible. He doesn't receive the same hearty welcome as his fellow soldiers, thanks to his returning home so much later than the rest. At first he doesn't want to talk about the war, presumably because of the atrocities he experienced there, but when he later feels the need to talk about it, no one w...

    Read More

  • The Soldier's Home Hemingway Analysis

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some stories, talk about people who went through pain and fear (war), but this story shows what the outcome is. “The Soldier's Home” is a short story that was written by Ernest Hemingway that talk about a man who came back home after three years from the end of the war and want to live a simple life without any lies about war or consequences (responsibility). This story demonstrates the impact of war.

    Read More

  • The Common of Ellison's Battle Royal and Hemingway's Soldier's Home

    1172 Words  | 3 Pages

    The authors have created these characters in the short stories to undergo changes, which help make it through tough events. The character development in the stories is important because it shows the changes and events that help shape and create the main characters of the story. Both authors shape the characters through contrasting events, making the characters change from a static to a dynamic character by the end of the story. The authors tie in both the past with the present to create a twist on the future of the main characters. “Soldier's Home,” by Ernest Hemingway, and “Battle Royal,” by Ralph Ellison, are both short- fictional stories sharing a common literary characteristic of character development, influenced by the other characters and events in the story.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Soldier's Home And Speaking Of Courage By Ernest Hemingway

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway and “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien are about two soldiers who have experienced war now coming back home, yet uncelebrated. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. These two short story's themes explore the effects of war and how impactful war is on a young person's life, from when the soldiers return home to the overall hardships and loneliness war has put upon them. The Soldiers Harold Krebs from “Soldier’s Home” and Paul Bowker from “Speaking of Courage” have many similarities and differences. Paul Bowker had fought in the Vietnam War, while Harold Krebs fought in WW1. Both Krebs and Bowker hold stories of their experiences in war and are sure they will be heroes when they come home, telling their heroic tales

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Soldiers Home By Hemingway

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first area of symbolism in “Soldier’s Home” is Krebs false war stories. Krebs false war stories represents his need to cope with the realities of war. Krebs

    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

  • Soldier's Home Sparknotes

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a “Soldier’s Home” we find the main character, Krebs, back in his home town trying to figure out how to relate appropriately with the opposite sex. Krebs enlisted in the Marines while a student at a Christian college in Kansas. He served two years from 1917-1919. This was at the end of WWI. The story does not say why Krebs left college to fight in the war but it does later mention that other boys from his home town were drafted for the war. It seems a bit odd that he voluntarily leaves college to go to a war where he may get killed. One can only guess the reasoning for this decision as the author does not tell why. There may have been social pressures or a feeling of patriotic duty. Maybe Krebs was not doing well in school or maybe

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Erway Hemingway

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hemingway’s dialogue reveals the difficult nature of a relationship between a man and a woman, as it focusses on incompatibility of their relationship and their different values on abortion. The reader witnesses a deep conflict between them on the issue as the decision will affect both their relationship and the rest of their lives.

    Read More

  • Comparing A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    "After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain" (332). This last line of the novel gives an understanding of Ernest Hemingway's style and tone. The overall tone of the book is much different than that of The Sun Also Rises. The characters in the book are propelled by outside forces, in this case WWI, where the characters in The Sun Also Rises seemed to have no direction. Frederick's actions are determined by his position until he deserts the army. Floating down the river with barely a hold on a piece of wood his life, he abandons everything except Catherine and lets the river take him to a new life that becomes increasing difficult to understand. Nevertheless, Hemingway's style and tone make A Farewell to Arms one of the great American novels. Critics usually describe Hemingway's style as simple, spare, and journalistic. These are all good words they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence. His writing has been likened to a boxer's punches--combinations of lefts and rights coming at us without pause. As illustrated on page 145 "She went down the hall. The porter carried the sack. He knew what was in it," one can see that Hemingway's style is to-the-point and easy to understand. The simplicity and the sensory richness flow directly from Hemingway's and his characters' beliefs. The punchy, vivid language has the immediacy of a news bulletin: these are facts, Hemingway is telling us, and they can't be ignored. And just as Frederic Henry comes to distrust abstractions like "patriotism," so does Hemingway distrust them. Instead he seeks the concrete and the tangible. A simple "good" becomes higher praise than another writer's string of decorative adjectives. Hemingway's style changes, too, when it reflects his characters' changing states of mind. Writing from Frederic Henry's point of view, he sometimes uses a modified stream-of-consciousness technique, a method for spilling out on paper the inner thoughts of a character. Usually Henry's thoughts are choppy, staccato, but when he becomes drunk the language does too, as in the passage on page 13, "I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you

    Read More

  • Ernest Hemingway and Masculinity

    2244 Words  | 5 Pages

    Ernest Hemingway, viewed as an American hero of his time, wrote novels that enrich the minds' of his readers, creating a lasting image that goes far beyond the actual content of the story. But while reading Hemingway, I learned that his style was far from complex. Through pre-meditated sentence structure, he creates a rhythm that parallels the action in the story. He wants the sentences themselves to be easy to understand, so the reader can use more energy focusing on the symbolism Hemingway's stories create. He skillfully places symbols and metaphors throughout his novels. In his own writing, Hemingway doesn't explain in detail his metaphors. Rather, he forces the reader to discover the deeper meaning hidden in his stories. His use of the "Tip of the Iceberg Theory" leaves the reader searching deeper into Hemingway's writing to find its true meaning. [VGC1]

    Read More

  • Reader-Response on Soldier's Home

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 6th Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2002. 152-57.

    Read More

  • Diction In Soldier's Home By Hemingway

    177 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the short story “Soldier’s Home” by Hemingway, he uses the style phrase diction to show the way in which he believed certain events that take place in one’s life may alter his or her attitude and tone. During the times in which people are speaking in the text, during the times in which Krebs is speaking in a curt and short way saying things such as “Yeah?’ You bet’ ‘I don’t know’ ‘Uh, huh’,”Hemingway) while the other the other characters have longer lines to go between his. From his past history in the war, Krebs seems to have been affected by such a traumatic event and shows so from his lack of normality. Again, Krebs shows his contrasting speech as he says in response to his mother giving a long speech, “Is that all?”(Hemingway). His hostility

    Read More

  • Biography Of Ernest Hemingway

    770 Words  | 2 Pages

    Known for his works, full of masculinity and adventure, Ernest Hemingway became one of the greatest writers of the twenty-first century, he wrote novels and short stories about outdoorsmen, soldiers and other men of action, all of these, characteristics of his own persona. Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Clarence Edmunds and Grace Hemingway, both strict Congregationalists. Hemingway's early years were spent largely in combating the repressive feminine influence of his mother and nurturing the masculine influence of his father. He spent the summers with his family in the woods of northern Michigan, where he often accompanied his father on professional calls. He started writing as a teenager by writing a weekly column for his high school newspaper. He also began to write poems and stories during this time, some of which were published in his school's literary magazine. After graduating high school in 1917 Hemingway started his career as a reporter for the Kansas City Star covering city crime and writing feature stories. The position helped him develop a journalistic style which would later become one of the most identifiable characteristics of his fiction. In 1918, Hemingway signed up to be an ambulance driver on the Italian front in World War I. He arrived in May and by July he was badly injured by mortar fire. While being injured, he carried an Italian soldier to safety and by doing so Ernest received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery. After coming home in 1919, he spent time on camping and fishing trips and one week in the back-country of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This trip became an inspiration for his short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” Later that year he became a freelancer and staff writer ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms

    1395 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his novel A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway transfers his own emotional burdens of World War I to his characters. Although considered to be fiction, the plot and characters of Hemingway’s novel directly resembled his own life and experience, creating a parallel between the characters in the novel and his experiences. Hemingway used his characters to not only to express the dangers of war, but to cope and release tension from his traumatic experiences and express the contradictions within the human mind. Hemingway’s use of personal experiences in his novel represents Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory regarding Hemingway’s anxieties and the strength and dependency that his consciousness has over his unconsciousness.

    Read More

  • The Presence of an Iceberg in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

    2304 Words  | 5 Pages

    Morris, Kevin. B and Elizabeth M. Owens. The Iceberg Theory: How Earnest Hemingway’s Principle of Omission is Reflected in his Literary Works. 2010. Web. 26 May 2011.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of A Soldier's Home By Ernest Hemingway

Open Document