Ernest Hemingways Soldiers Home - Book Report/Review Example

?Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s short story Soldiers Home Introduction “Soldier's Home” is part of a collection of short stories called In Our Time, which was written by Ernest Hemingway and was published in the year 1925. The book consist of many well-known short stories including “The Nick Adams Stories,” “Indian Camp,” “The Battler” and importantly “Soldier’s Home,”. “Soldier’s Home” is about the former marine, Harold Krebs, who after serving in the First World War, returns to his childhood home in a small Oklahoma town. In the town, he feels ‘out of place’ and faces difficulty in adjusting to a normal life, ‘holding on’ to his past war experiences. This paper will first analyze the main characters of the story, then will focus on the symbolic element in the story and will analyze it, finally ending with an analysis of the setting in the story. Character Analysis Harold Krebs: He is the protagonist and the story chronicles his war experiences, and his problem in adjusting to his home place. Krebs gets enlisted in the army and moves to Europe during the First World War, where he undergoes both enlightened and at the same time traumatic experiences. Tormented by those war experiences, Krebs reenters his home town but finds it difficult to live a normal life and interact with the people there. His dejection further accentuates, when the people in the town, avoid listening to his wartime stories. Due to pressure from his mother to marry and have children, Krebs becomes further disillusioned and even decides to move out of the town. However, towards the end of the story, he understands that he cannot keep on holding on to his war experiences, particularly when that negatively impacts his current life. He calmly decides not to think about his past as well as future, and instead take things as they come, and goes to see his sister play a baseball game. Thus, his character undergoes various transformations, from a war hero to a depressed soul, and then finally a nonchalant person. Mrs. Harold: Harold's mother is portrayed as a very religious woman, who feels for his son’s difficulty in adjusting to the normal life in the town. She tries her best to aid her son to come out of his post-war trauma, but that did not work out favorably. However, her efforts were more of pressure to Krebs than being constructive. Without understanding the trauma her son underwent in the war, she continuously nags Krebs to discard his war experiences and start living a normal life immediately. “Krebs' small-town mother cannot comprehend her son's struggles and sufferings caused by the war.” (Imamura 102). In addition, she further pushed him to get a job, marry a girl and have children, by comparing with other boys in the community. “The boys are all settling down; they’re all determined to get somewhere… Charley Simmons, who is just your age has a good job and is going to be married” (Hemmingway 115). Thus, the character of Mrs. Harold is of a mother, who although wants a good life for his son, mistakenly pressurize him. Mr. Harold: Harold's father never makes any kind of direct appearance in the story, and instead he is mainly ‘referred’ by Mrs. Harold during her conversations with Krebs. Mrs. Harold uses the character of father mainly to validate the advices she gave to Krebs to make him return to normal life. “Your father thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven't got a definite aim in life.” (Hemingway 115). However, it seems that Krebs did not have much of a father-son relationship with Mr. Harold, with the mother being the only communicator between them. Thus, the character of Mr. Harold does not have a major role to play. However, this “non-committal” presence of the father’s character in a way reflects the mindset of Krebs. As stated by Baerdemaeker (32), “in an extra Oedipal twist, Krebs becomes exactly like his father: non-committal.” Helen Krebs: Harold's younger sister, Helen is an indoor baseball player, and although she does not have a close relationship with Krebs after his return, she always looks up to her brother. Before going to war, he was affectionate to Helen, and she also never forgot the fact that it was Krebs who taught and coached her on how to pitch the ball in a game. However, after his return, his depressed state also negatively impacted his relationship with his sister, with Helen feeling for their lack of communication. However, in the end of the story, Krebs having understood what he needs to do, go to watch Helen’s baseball game only, thus showing the importance of the sister’s character. Symbolism The key symbolic element in the story is the book about wars, which Krebs keeps on reading with great interest, after his return to his home place. “He sat there on the porch reading a book on the war. It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements. It was most interesting reading he had ever done.” (Hemmingway 112). He found everything in the town depressive, and only got excited when reading that book. Although, the name of the book is not revealed, it acts as the symbolic element because of its content of war, and how Krebs by reading that book still wants to hold on to his past experiences. Majority of the people may not live a ‘static’ life, and instead will keep on moving through various ‘phases’ and importantly to various places. Places in the sense, individuals due to their education, profession and other commitments, will move from their homes to ‘foreign’ places and will return back to their homes after some passage of time. This is when the problem of adjustment could happen. As they would have lived in the foreign land for a long time and would have experienced many events and issues there, they will carry that ‘baggage’ to the homeland. It is a natural process, and sizable individuals will let loose that baggage and merge with the life in their home place. However, there could be certain individuals who will strongly hold on to their past life and even find things in their present life, which will be symbolic of their early life, thereby finding it difficult to adjust and merge with the life in their home place. This exactly happens to the character of Krebs. “"Soldier's Home" symbolized the veteran's isolation from postwar American surroundings and his reluctance to join the national mission of getting ahead.” (Sanders 136). Although he has retired from the army and has returned back to his home, he still carries the ‘baggage’ of past experiences, and so some part of him still wants to hold on to that soldier’s mindset. As the book on war provides that ‘connection’ to his wartime experiences and the soldier’s mindset, he becomes immersed in it and does not get excited by other non-war related things. He even suggests that the book could have been a better read, if more maps are incorporated. “He wished there were more maps.” (Hemmingway 112). Thus, it is clear that the book about war that Krebs reads with such optimum interest, is symbolic of his inability to let loose his past wartime ‘baggage’ and live a normal and happy life in the present. In a way, although Krebs is at his home in Oklahoma, he does not feel it as his home. Setting “Soldier’s Home" can be equated to a depressive story because of the depression the protagonist goes through, after his return from the war. “Krebs acquired the nausea...he had been badly, sickeningly frightened all the time. In this way, he lost everything.” (112). One opinion is Hemmingway by setting depressive historical events in the background made Krebs a depressive character, mainly to reflect real happenings of that time. “His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities” (Hemingway 111). Hemmingway wrote this short story during the First World War and also when the Great Depression was prevailing in America and some other countries. Authors will normally come up with written works after being ‘seeded’ by some real life events. They would write about those real events as it is in a non-fictional way, or in other cases will use those events as the setting and will come up with a fictional story and characters. In addition, the authors will also incorporate certain features of those events as part of the character’s personality. On those lines only, Hemmingway ‘seeded’ by the historical events of First World War and Great Depression, came up with “Soldier’s Home”, using those events as the setting. He even incorporated the depressive feature ‘derived’ from Great Depression, as part of the characteristic of the protagonist, Krebs. Many thinkers and critics mined how much of “sociological and biographical content” was in the works of Hemmingway particularly “Soldier’s Home”. (Lamb). The struggling and the depressive conditions that were prevailing then got outputted in Hemmingway’s works including “Soldier’s Home”, even acting as the settings. The war was presented as the backdrop or setting against which all of Krebs’s experiences, including past and present, gets laid out as well as measured (Petrarca 664). Works Cited De Baerdemaeker, Ruben. “Masculinities that Matter: Reading Hemingway and Lawrence with Judith Butler.” n. p, n. d. Web. 11 Nov 2011. Hemingway, Ernest. The complete short stories of Ernest Hemingway. Simon and Schuster, 1998. Imamura, Tateo. “'Soldier's Home:' Another Story of a Broken Heart.” The Hemingway Review 16.1(1996): 102. Lamb, Robert Paul. “The Love Song of Harold Krebs: Form, Argument, and Meaning in Hemingway's 'Soldier's Home.'” The Hemingway Review, 14.2(1995). Petrarca, Anthony J. “Irony of Situation in Ernest Hemingway's "Soldier's Home"” The English Journal 58.5 (1969): 664-667 Sanders, David. “Ernest Hemingway's Spanish Civil War Experience.” American Quarterly 12. 2 (1960): 133-143 Read More