Ernest Hemingway Soldier's Home Analysis

To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who

Ernest Hemingway “Soldier’s Home" is an outstanding short story that shows the tragic impact of war on the life of a young soldier who returns home. The story paints a vibrant picture of a soldier’s life after coming back from a shocking experience. Hemingway shows impacts of war on a soldier with the main character being Harold Krebs, who faces hostility in his hometown after his return from fighting in the war. The main character in the story is Kreb with the author making usage of repetition, characterization, and symbolism to bring out the message in the story.

In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “A Soldier’s Home”, Krebs, a soldier, returns to his hometown from fighting in World War I. As indicated throughout the story, “home” for Krebs is not unlike the war front: confusing, complicated, and restless. Hemingway uses the setting in Kansas, during World War I, to convey Krebs post-war life in comparison to his pre-war.

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 mere mention of the title leads to a main point of the story. Krebs had just returned after 2 years serving in one of the most deadly wars America has seen. The title “Soldier’s Home” suggests more of a

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.

Not everyone has a support system like Krebs does in Hemingway’s story but accepting a new train of thought and continuing life is necessary. Krebs was a young, religious, and loving man before the war. After returning home he found himself wanting to talk and read about the war, which trapped him emotionally in a negative place in his life. Krebs’s family offered suggestions like barrowing the car and inviting him to a indoor softball game get him out of the house and to ultimately turn his focus to something besides the war. Krebs’s mother personally suggested getting a job and starting a family while putting trust in her faith.

In Soldier's Home, Ernest Hemingway paints a vivid picture of Harold Krebs return home from World War I and the issues he confronts while trying to shift his way back towards the ordinary life he once lived. After his battling over seas took place, it took Krebs over a year to finally leave Europe and make his way back home to his family in Oklahoma. After finally finding the drive to come home, Krebs found that it was difficult to express his feelings towards all he had seen during his tour of duty, which must be attributed to the fact that he was in the heart of some of the bloodiest and most crucial battles mankind has ever seen. Therefore, Krebs difficulty in acknowledging his past is because he was indeed a “good soldier” (133), whose

Soldier’s Home is a story about the experiences of a soldier returning from war. The narrative starts with a description of an image or photograph of Harold Krebs. Krebs is the main character of this story. He was a young man who was attending the Methodist College in Kansas before he had to enlist in the Marines to find in the war (Hemingway 111-116). The opening picture is an increasingly significant source of contrast between the young man who went to war and the one who comes back who has become silent and alienated after coming home. Krebs comes back in 1919 even though the war ended in 1918. His return is not marked by celebrations and parades that were often given to the young soldiers who had managed to come home early. Rather, Krebs finds out that the people are not overly excited about his news of the war unless he lies and exaggerates about his role during the war (Hemingway 111-116).

In war, a soldier's entire future is unpredictable. This unpredictability leads to the constant fear that the things closest to them will be gone in any second. Many soldiers lose the comraderies they cherish the most. As a result, it is common that a soldier will not want to attach himself to anything or anyone due to the scaring images of soldiers dying one by one. After the war Krebs found being compassionate and

The initial reaction I received from reading Soldier's Home, and my feelings about Soldier's Home now are not the same. Initially, I thought Harold Krebs is this soldier who fought for two years, returns home, and is disconnected from society because he is in a childlike state of mind, while everyone else has grown up. I felt that Krebs lost his immature years, late teens to early 20's, because he went from college to the military. I still see him as disconnected from society, because there isn't anyone or anything that can connect him to the simple life that his once before close friends and family are living. He has been through a traumatic experience for the past two years, and he does not

This short story is about a guy named Krebs, who fought during WWl. Even though he returned home from the war in his mind, he was still at war in a sense with himself. "The war, however, is never distant from the protagonist's mind as he struggles to come home again."(Hemingway) Once, Krebs returns home it is as though he was alone because the townspeople had become bored of listening to all the fellow soldiers' war stories that returned home before Krebs did. Krebs stories were not thrilling enough so he began to lie, and even after lying about the war stories they become boring as well. The conflict in this story is that Krebs has changed so much since being in the war and it seems to him as though the people had not changed any." Nothing

In the story, “Soldier’s Home” it is told from the third person narrator point of view. Hemingway, having been a former journalist is able to show how distant Krebs is because of being the type of journalist who is detached just like Krebs was detached by his experience in World War I. As Hemingway writes he shows how Krebs holds his emotions in that he knows his mother will not understand. When Krebs calls his mom “Mummy” he is trying to comfort her by acting like a child. At the end Krebs makes a decision to leave and go to Kansas City because he feels he may not ever reconnect with his family.

Hemingway demonstrates love 's illusion of safety through the inability to find solace from the physical and mental anguish caused by war. The brutality of war is visible through the endless

Nonetheless, traumatic events like the many Hemingway experienced during the war leave an impact on the witness. In most cases, soldiers leave warfronts with a form of post traumatic stress disorder, or ptsd ("Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" 1). Often those diagnosed with ptsd are also diagnosed with depression (“PTSD: National Center for PTSD” 1). Clearly, Hemingway had undiagnosed depression and his suicide confirms it ("Ernest Hemingway” 3). The combination of ptsd and depression could have led to Hemingway forming his own “alter ego.” The alter ego would allow him to, in his mind at least, become another person with another temperament, similar to what a method actor does (Rodgers 3). This could explain the great adventures Hemingway had in between his writing, anything adventurous from bullfighting to deep sea fishing, he did it ("Ernest Hemingway” 2). The coming and going of these adventures may have been the result of his mental state, the “good” days were the grand adventures, and the “bad” days were the ones at home, revisiting the war, swallowed up by his ptsd (“Depression” 2). Perhaps on these days at home he imagined what could have been if he had done one thing differently, that’s how Frederic Henry came along.