Compare And Contrast Norman Bowker In A Soldier's Home

Norman Bowker, “otherwise a very gentle person” (9), carried a diary and a human thumb that Mitchel Sanders gifted to him. The diary is representative of his gentle or even compassionate nature. Whereas, the severed finger of the sixteen-year-old boy represents his need to toughen up in the reality he was living in—where innocent looking sixteen-year-old kids carry rifles and ammunition. Rat Kiley is the medic and carried comic books, brandy, and a medical supply satchel with morphine, plasma, malaria tablets, surgical tape and M&Ms. Kiley’s youth is captured in his desire for comic books and candy. Kiowa is an American Indian steeped in tradition. A devout Baptist, Kiowa carried an illustrated New Testament from his father, a feathered-hunting hatchet from his grandfather, moccasins, and his grandmother’s distrust of white men. Lee Strunk’s slingshot and tanning lotion are representative of an outdoorsy, adventurous boy. This is further shown when he comes out of the dreaded tunnel “grinning” (8). Finally, protagonist Jimmy Cross is the platoon leader and carried a compass, maps, code books, binoculars, a .45 caliber pistol that weighs almost three pounds, strobe light, two photographs of Martha, a good-luck pebble, and the responsibility for the lives of his men. Jimmy Cross is sentimental and his love for Martha, whom he hoped was a virgin, represented Cross’ youthful innocence.

Krebs “felt the need to talk but no one wanted to hear about it. His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities.” Krebs own family lacks support for his yearning to talk to someone about what he has done and gone through. “She [Krebs’ mother] often came in when he was in bed and asked him to tell her about the war, but her attention always wandered. His father was non-committal.” It is obvious why Krebs decided to sleep all day and lock himself in his room, his town and his family have locked him in there with nothing but his thoughts. Krebs cannot leave the room because he is unable to let out all that he carries from the war.

Numerous people all over the states join a military branch. Some are forced with war and others are not. Soldiers that have war experience might experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when returning home. In the story of “Soldier Home”, Harold Krebs seems to have quite a few symptoms of this disorder. Prior to his war services, Krebs experiences conformity, connections, and his faith; however, after the war he has a difficult time adjusting back to civilian life.

War changes people in many ways, especially the lives of the soldiers in the army. The changes that the soldiers go through are told in many novels, such as The Red Badge of Courage. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is a coming-of-age novel because Henry Fleming changes from an immature adolescent to a mature man by the end of the novel.

“Even though war and fighting have been common throughout history; no two soldiers are affected the same way”. In the stories “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty and “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy” by Tim O’Brien, the two main characters are both war soldiers, but they differ according to the environment, personalities, and their emotional reaction to the war. Private Paul Berlin and the sniper are in very different environments . Private Paul Berlin's environment is in a dense South Vietnam jungle during the Vietnam War.

Young men who are sent to a war learn the reality in a very harsh and brutal way. Both the stories, ‘The Red Convertible’ and ‘The Things They Carried’ portray the life of a young soldier and how he psychologically gets affected from all the things he had seen in the war. Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried,’ is more specific on the experiences of a soldier during a war where as Karen Louise Erdrich focuses more on describing the post war traumatic stress in her short story ‘The Red Convertible’. One thing similar in both the narrations is the Vietnam War and its consequences on the soldiers. From the background of both the authors it’s easy to conclude that Tim O’Brien being a war veteran emphasizes more on the

Krebs soon comes to isolate himself and oppose discussing his war experience and the influence it had on him. For Krebs, living in a town that has moved past the war, was his reason to reminisce on his war experiences and the women who would walk the streets in Germany and France. After spending two years in World War I, adapting to the real world was asking Krebs to let go of everything that has shaped him since he has been gone. “He sat there on the porch reading a book on the war. It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done.” Even after arriving home, attempting to adapt to the fact that the war was over, he studied war events he was part of; routes and war sites he had taken and fought at.

As a young man coming back from the war, Krebs expected things to be the same when he got home and they were, except one. Sure the town looked older and all the girls had matured into beautiful women, Krebs had never expected that he would be the one to change. The horrific experiences of the first World War had alienated and removed those he had cared about, including his family, who stood naïve to the realities and consequences only those who live it first hand would comprehend.

A “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway is an intriguing story about a man by the name of Krebs who enlists in the Marine Corps during his attendance at a Methodist college in Kansas. After serving for two years at the Rhine, he returned with the second division in 1919 but Krebs wasn’t in the same state of mind as before he left. The reason why Krebs was so distraught when he returned home was not because of the fact that no one wanted to listen to his war stories but because him and other soldiers were without any real benefits such as medical, education, extra remuneration, or anything to help him get back into the real world. This reason stated is the reason that Krebs and soldiers alike came home from war with nothing to show for

The new desire for an uncomplicated life also stops him from developing a relationship with the opposite sex. Instead of pursuing females, he admires the “pattern” of their clothing from their “round Dutch collars” to their “silk stocking”. Krebs’ view of females is that they live “in such a complicated world” full of relationship issues. These issues keep him away because he does not want “any consequences” from the complications of a female. Krebs sees the girls as a “nice pattern. He liked the pattern”, but he cannot break into their pattern because it would deal with emotions. He believes that breaking the emotional pattern would not be worth the results.

This is similar to what happened to Krebs in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home”. Krebs has returned home to find that it is not that everybody and the world around him has changed, but he was the one that had changed. He has fought in some of the worst wars there were and he didn’t want to come back home. Krebs dreaded coming back to the states, and would have preferred to stay overseas. Krebs was once used to a normal life. He went to a Christian school and was a part of a fraternity. His perception on life had changed drastically after enlisting in the military and fighting in a war. When he returned home, the girls that he saw on the street were the same as when he was there years ago. His father still parks his car in the same spot day in and day out. His mother tries to encourage him to get a job, but he doesn’t care. He was so accustomed to the repetition of a soldier’s life. He couldn’t adjust to the typical lifestyle that other soldiers made. Somehow you can see the struggle he is going through. After the physical war, there was a war going on internally. Krebs had lost his emotion and will to care. The horror he experienced actually seeing first-hand life and death situations were incomprehensible to his parents. There was no way they would be able to identify with him.

Overseas females were either not present or presented as prostitutes. This corruption of women in Krebs mind remains, but he still thinks about them frequently. He states, “That was all a lie. It was a lie both ways.”, this demonstrates how, like many other facets of home life, was disenchanted by his service in war. Ernest uses repetition to demonstrate the revision of thought. For Norman, he only wishes he could’ve had what he almost had before he went away. His old sweetheart, Sally did not wait for him and, “...had her house and her new husband, and there was really nothing he could say to her.” O’Brien writes this as a list to convey that Norman feels overwhelmed by how much change has occurred during his absence. Once again, these soldiers feel isolated by their experience, Norman by the time spent away, and Krebs by the things he saw while he was

Another book that I have discovered is from a different viewpoint and is perhaps more effective. The book, Homecoming, is a history, in the veterans’ own words, of what it was like to return to the United States after the most controversial war in the nation’s history. This book embodies both ethos and pathos since it does not

Krebs learned to lie about his experiences and added details into them that most formal soldiers thought as common knowledge of a soldier; however, it was not easy for him. The small town in this story and society in general is the antagonist in this story for not welcoming him home as they had the other returning men. “Krebs found to be listened to at all he had to lie and after he had done this twice he, too had a reaction against the war and against talking about it” (185), and withdrew from society more because of the distaste of war and the lies he had to tell. The town folk thought of his stories as unimportant. Krebs withdrew from society.

Norman Bowker keeps his thoughts to himself, because of his difficulty expressing his emotions. He could not find the words to show and tell others how he felt from his experiences from the war. In doing so Bowker carries all the damage that war can do to a man during and after the war. The crucial healing process that includes telling one’s stories and thoughts of the war was something he could not do properly. Bowker had a possible chance of some therapy through the story in the book from O’Brien, but the story is not told in the correct way to Bowker’s true feelings, and leads to his emotional burdened death.