Harold Krebs, the main character of the Ernest Hemingway’s story “Soldier’s Home”, has become a shell of a man. After the war, he can’t quite find his place of belonging in the world. Nothing comforts him anymore and surely no one understands him. By not being what his parents and society expect him to be, the void between them only deepens. On the contrary, Charley Simmons is everything people want him to be. He is the desired ideal of a young man, which makes him and Krebs nothing alike. They are two fragments of the same town but very different worlds.
Hemingway depicts Krebs as a man who is stripped down from all of the beliefs and hopes that ever existed inside of him. The main culprit for it is the war. The war experience has become an
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. . he fell into the easy pose of the old soldier among other soldiers: that he had been badly, sickeningly frightened all the time” (Hemingway). It is obvious that all of the things that happened to him completely drained him. Now, he is an empty person without any desires, someone who only wants to be left alone. Furthermore, one of the important contrasts between past-him and present-him is his belief in God. When talking to his mother he says that he is not “in His Kingdom” (Hemingway) which is contrary to him attending a religious college before the war. He completely lost a sense of it, of all the religious values he once had. Also, his numbness emerges onto the surface when he says to his mother that he doesn’t love her. He simply came back from the war as a different man who “did not want any consequences ever again” (Hemingway). Being quite the opposite, Charley Simmons “has a
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.
By reading the story we know Harold no longer feels at home anymore. He has been traumatized by life and death situations that his parents simply do not understand. We know that he has changed because he feels he no longer fits in. In the story, we find out Krebs attended a Methodist college in Kansas. He was not out of place during that time. Hemingway says, “There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar.” (185) Hemingway is telling us that by stating that Harold once fit in the town. He fit in with his friends. He is meaning in the story that most soldiers are traumatized by the war, and when they return they are different people.
“Soldier’s Home” is a story by Ernest Hemingway that symbolizes how a World War 1 veteran is faced with many difficulties when transitioning into society after war. Real life finds its way into Hemingway’s writing often mirroring some of his own challenges giving the reader a sense of familiarity. Most notably, Hemingway’s description of getting used to a life without the backdrop of war in “Soldier’s Home” shows credibility, most likely from his own experience of returning home from the battlefield.
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.
This is an essay on the short story “Soldier’s Home” by Hemingway. Will the life of a soldier ever be the same after returning from war? Many generations of young adults have gone from their homes with tranquil settings to experience war and come home to a different world. Many have witnessed the devastations and atrocities that occur with war. Harold Krebs, a young man from a small town with a loving family is no different from those before him and those to follow. The anguish of what war is however cannot dispel the thoughts and memories of what many young men come home to face in the real world. Many have trouble coping in the new world known as home.
In Earnest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home,” Krebs comes home from the marines in 1991, far after all the men that were drafter came home. In the beginning, Krebs didn’t like having a conversation that had anything to do with the war, then when he felt like talking about it no one wanted to listen. Too many stories have been heard for anybody to care. Krebs thought that the only way to be heard was by spreading lies. Krebs wanted a girl, but he didn’t want one bad enough to work for one.
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.
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).
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
Harold Krebs is a man who has gone through a life-changing event and has experienced many consequences made by his own choices and decisions. He then has to come to the understanding that he has to try and rebuild his life as he knew it. Things weren’t working out at his family’s house so he decided to move to Kansas City where he would get a job. This war was a hundred years ago and Krebs came back and had no clue what to do with his life when he got back. The
When people think of the military, they often think about the time they spend over in another country, hoping they make it back alive. No one has ever considered the possibility that they may have died inside. Soldiers are reborn through war, often seeing through the eyes of someone else. In “Soldier’s home” by Ernest Hemingway, the author illustrates how a person who has been through war can change dramatically if enough time has passed. This story tells of a man named Harold (nick name: Krebs) who joined the marines and has finally come back after two years. Krebs is a lost man who feels it’s too complicated to adjust to the normal way of living and is pressured by his parents.
“The Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway is a short story that tells the story of a soldier who returns home but realizes that war has changed his life. Hemingway ensures that the readers fully understand the purpose of the short story by using a detached tone, brief sentence structure, and a lack of imagery help develop the short story. The use of these literary techniques in Hemingway’s story allows him to develop his plot without losing his audience’s attention and include a message in the story. The story is told in third-person which allows for the reader to have a clear image of the soldier Krebs and his return home.
Although it provides an important perspective into the lives of post war veterans, Hemingway’s novel is merely a fictional story and the events that occur in the book are not representative of any real life occurrences. Hemingway is able to accurately able to depict the shift of morale views that occurred after the war. People went from emotional and restrained and god fearing, to liberated, materialistic, and pessimistic. Following the First World War, Veterans lost a belief in objective morality and correspondingly lost the belief in love and capacity to make deep connections with people. The characters within this novel face social and personal problems, whether it be physical ailments or mental disabilities, both of which impede their lives completely. Hemingway’s ability to capture and and present the overwhelming emotions that encompassed the Lost Generation is what makes his novel effective and historically
Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea is the quintessential “Hemingway Hero”-a type of fictional character created by Hemingway in all of his books whose basic response to life appealed very strongly to the readers. The Old Man begins the narrative with all the elements of such a hero despite his senescence and poverty. He shows strength, determination, and dedication to himself despite his struggles. Santiago relates back to readers as a strong failure who picks himself up repeatedly.