In Soldier’s Home, Ernest Hemingway is a story about a young soldier returning to his home town, bring home some drama to his life that he collected in war. Trying to find himself within his family members, despising the lies he is hearing. Having some sort of trouble to fit back into the society, living the life he once lived before he was sent to war. Harold Krebs suddenly felt trapped in his own world. The main theme of the story was the change Krebs made during his permanence in war, his emotional roller coaster that he saw at war that would affect him permanently. The writer described Krebs as a person who lost it all when he came back home, he has to choose isolation by detaching himself from social relations, love, religion. The writer wrote this story out of his experience and emotion in Krebs personality, which illustrates the insights into his arrival home and his understanding of the dilemmas of the returned war veteran.
To me Krebs experience in war was such a nightmare to be in and coming back
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In my opinion I believe that people passing through this phase need to get there thoughts together, Krebs wants to demonstrate the hurt of soldiers life’s that is having so much pressure dealing with wounds, gun shots, and killing. So in other words it may affect them mentally in showing affection, treating their family members like a random stranger, not getting the help their families would want them to attend. Krebs here is tired of people showing sympathy towards him. His response didn’t mean that he didn’t love his family, but in other words he want no affection showing towards him as he believe he is not worth to be loved. This emotion show how burnable Krebs is felling and not caring that is actions is hurting those around
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
This Newberry award nominated book, written by Irene Hunt, tells the story of the “home life” of her grandfather, Jethro, during the Civil War. Not only does it give a sense of what it is like to be in the war but also it really tells you exactly what the men leave behind. Jethro is forced to make hard decisions, and face many hardships a boy his age shouldn't have to undergo. This is an admirable historical fiction book that leaves it up to the reader to decide if being at home was the superior choice or if being a soldier in the war was.
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...
He arrives back at his town, unused to the total absence of shells. He wonders how the populations can live such civil lives when there are such horrors occurring at the front. Sitting in his room, he attempts to recapture his innocence of youth preceding the war. But he is now of a lost generation, he has been estranged from his previous life and war is now the only thing he can believe in. It has ruined him in an irreversible way and has displayed a side of life which causes a childhood to vanish alongside any ambitions subsequent to the war in a civil life. They entered the war as mere children, yet they rapidly become adults. The only ideas as an adult they know are those of war. They have not experienced adulthood before so they cannot imagine what it will be lie when they return. His incompatibility is shown immediately after he arrives at the station of his home town. ”On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"—She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it.” He is now aware of what she is
War is often thought about as something that hardens a soldier. It makes a person stronger emotionally because they are taught not show it and deal with it internally. People say that death in war is easier to handle because it is for the right reasons and a person can distance themselves from the pain of losing someone. However, there is always a point when the pain becomes too real and it is hard to maintain that distance. In doing so, the story disputes the idea that witnessing a traumatic event causes a numbing or blockage of feelings. Rat Kiley’s progression of sentiment began with an initial concern for the buffalo, transforming into an irate killing of the animal, and then ending with an ultimate acceptance of death. These outward displays of feeling suggested that witnessing the death of a close friend caused him to become emotionally involved in the war.
... he doesn’t love her but he eventually says sorry. This shows Krebs is really confused on what to say now. He no longer wants to tell lie to the people around him and he stills feels like life will just be too complicated with the lies he’ll have to tell and the job he doesn’t want. “He had felt sorry for his mother and she had made him lie. He would go to Kansas City and get a job and she would feel all right about it” (7). Krebs may forever feel alone in this world that seems stuck in time. He may never feel how he felt before joining the marines. Krebs is living a life that he feels is much too complicated for him. He is no longer the same person he was two years ago. The person he once was is now somewhere buried deep beneath the lies he tells every day to bare the things he has done. Krebs is still fighting a war, not a physical war, but a war within himself.
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.
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...
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.
In the novel The Wars, Robert Ross is a sensitive nineteen year old boy who experiences first-hand the horrors of battle as a Canadian Soldier in the First World War in hopes of trying to find who he is. Being named a Lieutenant shortly after arriving in Europe, Robert is thrust into combat. War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Timothy Findley shows the effects wars have on individuals in his novel The Wars. Findley suggests that war can change a persons behaviour in many different ways, however it is seen to be negatively more often then not. Robert Ross, the main character of The Wars, shows symptoms of what is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in today’s society.
Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 6th Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2002. 152-57.
...though people believe that, those on the home front have it just as a bad as the soldiers, because they have to deal with the responsibilities of their husbands, there is nothing that can compare to what these men have gone through. The war itself consumed them of their ideology of a happy life, and while some might have entered the war with the hope that they would soon return home, most men came to grips with the fact that they might never make it out alive. The biggest tragedy that follows the war is not the number of deaths and the damages done, it is the broken mindset derives from being at war. These men are all prime examples of the hardships of being out at war and the consequences, ideologies, and lifestyles that develop from it.
The short story “In Another Country” by Earnest Hemingway is a story about the negative effects of war. The story follows an unnamed American officer and his dealings with three other officers, all of whom are wounded in World War I and are recuperating in Milan, Italy. In war, much can be gained such as freedom and peace, however war also causes a plethora of negative consequences. Cultural alienation, loss of physical and emotional identity, and the irony of war technology and uncertainty of life are all serious consequences of war that are clearly shown by Hemingway.
Theme is a literary element used in literature and has inspired many poets, playwrights, and authors. The themes of love and war are featured in literature, and inspire authors to write wartime romances that highlight these two themes. Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms deals with the collective themes in the human experience such as love and the reality of war. A Farewell to Arms is narrated from the perspective of Fredric Henry, an ambulance driver in the Italian army, and pertains to his experiences in the war. The novel also highlights the passionate relationship between Henry and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse in Italy. Henry’s insight into the war and his intense love for Catherine emphasize that love and war are the predominant themes in the novel and these themes contribute to bringing out the implicit and explicit meaning of the novel. Being a part of the Italian army, Henry is closely involved with the war and has developed an aversion to the war. Henry’s association with the war has also made him realise that war is inglorious and the sacrifices made in war are meaningless. Specifically, Henry wants the war to end because he is disillusioned by the war and knows that war is not as glorious as it is made up to be. The state of affairs and the grim reality of the war lead Henry towards an ardent desire for a peaceful life, and as a result Henry repudiates his fellow soldiers at the warfront. Henry’s desertion of the war is also related to his passionate love for Catherine. Henry’s love for Catherine is progressive and ironic. This love develops gradually in “stages”: Henry’s attempt at pretending love for Catherine towards the beginning of the novel, his gradually developing love for her, and finally, Henry’s impas...