Comparing Soldier's Home And Old Man At The Bridge

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With Nihilism and Hopelessness Comes Cynicism and Disillusionment When you look into Hemingway’s stories, it may seem like they’re all tied together by war time and the aftermath of. While this is true, there are also many themes that bring together and define Hemingway’s style. One aspect that I noticed a lot was the idea of nihilism- the loss of the things that give life meaning, many of his main characters possess this attitude. His characters have developed these attitudes as a result of war and these attitudes are what defines their present life. When looking at Soldier’s Home and Old Man at the Bridge, you can see a lot of similarities despite the fact that one is a 76 year old man displaced by the Spanish civil war and the other is …show more content…

Beliefs make you, you, they make you part of a family and of a bigger outside community of society. One common belief that ties people together is religion. When people come to hardships they often either turn to religion as a way of coping or they turn away from it because they think it has deceived them. In Soldier’s Home, Krebs tells his mother that he is “not in His Kingdom” (page 151) after she tries to tell him that he has a god given meaning to his life. When his mother asks of him, “Now, you pray, Harold”, his only response is “I can’t” (page 152) not I won’t, but I can’t, as if he couldn’t allow himself to, even if that was what he wanted. I thought that this was a clear demonstration of his rejection of beliefs and values that were a part of his life pre-war. This has to do with not seeing a point in withholding one’s faith, it goes along with a common argument against religion that if there were a God, he wouldn’t let thing like this happen, that he wouldn’t let the tragedy of war ensue. This seems to be what Krebs is getting at when he says this to his mother, and although he feels embarrassed that he is going against his upbringing, he does believe it’s true. I think that Hemingway made the choice to include Krebs’ rejection of religion because it’s such a common theme in all tales of war. and it’s a hard point not to be brought up. It’s difficult to accept things without having proof and evidence. This is constant throughout history and is even more true of our modern society, there’s so much conflict in the world that it’s hard for many people to believe that there is any control or reason for things to

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