Soldiers Home by Hemingway - Essay Example

 Introduction Many authors, through years of tough discipline, and in many cases with inborn aptitudes, develop their own style of creating characters. Hemingway has certain set standards for his protagonist, and he creates an indestructible template. He achieves something very special by his unique approach that has not been successfully attempted by any other author. In “Soldier’s Home” he has chiseled Krebs. Hemingway creates indomitable challenges before his protagonist, and portrays how successfully he tackles them to emerge ‘victorious.’ Well, what is this permanent happiness after all, which Krebs and Nea are trying to search in the respective stories? Sages mediated for Ages, wise men wrote millions of pages, about this joy and happiness, that has eluded the mankind in the known history—how to solve this profound mystery? These two stories make yet another effort for search and identify happiness from the point of view of the protagonists of the stories. Hemingway gives the first twist/break to the character to give the different mold to the story that demands inquisitive attention of the readers. Krebs returns home from World War I. The mind-set of a soldier returning home, after seeing the heroism as well as the cruelties of the war, can never be the same, as it was when he took the first drill for being drafted into the army. He now finds the assimilation into the society difficult, and there are several unexplainable psychological barricades in his mind. A reader would expect that life in the Marines is tough than the life in the normal society. With Hemingway’s characterization, it is the other way. The domestic lifestyle looks complicated to Krebs. "Ironically, Krebs is disillusioned less by the war than by the normal peacetime world which the war had made him to see too clearly to accept" (Burhans, 1975, p.190) Krebs withdraws from the ‘civil’ society and develops the attitudes of a loner. Hemingway realizes "that with the disappearance of the transcendent and the absolute from man's consciousness, the universe becomes empty of meaning and purpose..." (Burhans, 1968, p. 284) In the post-war society that he is trying to adjust, he finds women and love as issues related to certain procedures, and recalls the war days when he could talk and become intimate with a French or German girl, without any procedural hassles or blockades imposed by the society for initiating relationships. American relationships counted on consequences. But he loved obligation-free relationships. Howsoever cleverly the author may try to avoid, some revelation about personal life and experiences does reflect in the stories emerging from their pen. Mind and the pen of the authors are connected by an invisible wireless circuit. Hemingway must have learnt a lot from his four separate marriages. Krebs transformation from a believer to non-believer has something to do with Hemingway’s personal life. According to Hemingway one has to live true to one’s beliefs, even tough it is not acceptable as per the societal norms. Hemingway’s protagonists are not afraid to wage a ‘losing’ battle in life. According to him, life is to be lived in its trials and tribulations, its duty and beauty. Victory or defeats are not important. What matters is permanent effort to live through the challenges thrown by life. Hemingway calls it “grace under pressure.” Those who are victorious in life are heroes; those who are defeated, according to Hemingway, are also heroes, provided they have fought the battle of life to the best of their ability and judgment, under the circumstances in which they were placed in. In the story, he is trying to depict the clashes of the truths of the inner world and the secular ideas of the outer world that one is compelled to experience much against one’s will. In “Saving Sourdi,” by May-Lee Chai’s the clash is between the levels of understanding of the two sisters. Through born and brought up together in the same family, similar set of circumstances, the issues confronting them create barriers between them. Nea, is the subject, around whom the story weaves. Nea is greatly worried about the deterioration of the sisterly bond between them. She wishes to save Sourdi from her adventurous relationships with men. She desires her total love and attention and craves that she should not share her feeling with anyone else, except her. She is so possessive about her sister and wishes that the sisterly bond remain absolutely intact. The core of the story is relationship between the two sisters. Nea is seriously and genuinely concerned about her sister’s well-being. Sourdi, for obvious reasons will not discuss her true feelings with Nea. This complicates the situation further for Nea and she imagines the worst scenario as for the relationship of Sourdi, with her husband. What actually is going on within the mind of Nea as for Sourdi? Is it selfishness or jealousy? Her mind seems to be a bundle of confusion, as for the dispositions of Sourdi, with men, and in no case she wishes to see her as a loser, as for her sister’s love. Her emotions are based on unselfish reasons. She does not genuinely resent the attitude of her sister. All her anxieties reveal her own personal need for her sister and for her own happiness. She does not understand, with the changed circumstances and as they grow, the intensity and direction of love also changes. Love does find alternative routes in demand with the needs of the situations. If you love and regard someone else, that does not mean that you do it at the cost of the existing love-relationships. But Nea does not understand the nature of the flow of love. She wants to block that flow at a particular point, for ever, for her own sake. Chai has written a complex story relating to a complex situation. It begins from the migration of a family from the war-torn country to another country with entirely different set of cultural values. Nea, the little girl, is growing disenchanted by the real world around her in America. She came here, in forced circumstances, and at the same time weaving beautiful dreams about the free life in America. But the grass root realities in this adopted country are entirely different. She is frustrated with the ugly realities of the life totally devoid of idealism. Sourdi has accepted the changed circumstances in her own style and this process of change greatly worries Nea. Recollection of their sweet past association, at a much younger age, adds to the worry of Nea. A sense of long ago closeness transpires as Nea recalls early on, “We used to say that we’d run away, Sourdi and me.” The sisters shared the same dream once, a dream of escapism. She remembers how they used to “lie awake all night whispering back and forth,” about wishing upon California stars and going to Cambodia “to light incense for the bones of [their] father” (Chai, 2005, p. 123). Nea can not tolerate or accept even the minor cracks in the once strong bond between her and Sourdi. When someone interferes between them she resents that position. Of all, they were unreliable men out to destroy their union of minds and hearts. Those drunken men, loud music and angry boys! She hates the stark realities of life and is mortally afraid that Sourdi will be caught in such vicious traps! Chai has depicted calculatively, the difference in the attitude of sisters towards life. Sourdi accepts life as it happens to her; Nea does not. How can the simple girl at the age of eleven understand the trickeries of the world! She becomes cynical. It is but natural that one day a man would take Sourdi away from Nea, and along with her departure a void will be created in the life of Nea. She is shocked at Sourdi kissing Duke! The stunned girl feels that she has permanently lost her place in the heart of Sourdi. When another man, Mr.Chhay arrives in the life of Sourdi, she is totally confused. Has this man also come to rob Sourdi from her? Nea unnecessarily complicates the issues further. She creates a desperate situation for herself, which is actually not there! Sourdie must go from her life, and one can not resist the reality of life. But who will make Nea understand this position? Throughout the story Nea feels and conducts herself as the rescuer of Sourdi. Actually she is not and Sourdie does not want that position. Nea is creating more complications in the life of her sister. Conclusion: Hemingway is hailed as the natural descendant of Checkhov. He creates dialogues which are subtle in meaning. They imply something latent than what they say on the surface. He is thus, a master of understatement. His prose style has been lauded by the Nobel Prize committee and his “zero endings,” are exceptional. The endings are unexpected, appeal to the emotions of the readers, and therefore they become great. Being a war veteran himself, he has depicted the plight of the disenchanted, lost group of post-World War I expatiates with telling effect. He has left an inedible mark on an entire generation of writers. As for the short story “Saving Sourdi” by May Lee Chai, cultural and social identities play the dominant role. She has cultivated distinctive Cambodian-American voices. The conflicts between the two feminist perspectives have been depicted tenderly. One feels pity for both the sisters, not a word of condemnation will ever sprout in the mind of the reader. It is a classic exploration of psychology of two sisters from the point of view of cultural and generation gap. Though she is nowhere near the Hemingway style, in some areas of description and style, Hemingway is peeping through her prose! ========= Works Cited: Burhans, Clinton S. Jr. "Hemingway and Vonnegut: Diminishing Vision in a Dying Age." Modern Fiction Studies (1975): 173-191. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol 8. Eds. Dedria Bryfonski, Phyllis Carmel Mendelson. Detroit: Gale Research Company. Burhans, Clinton S. Jr. "TheComplex Unity of 'In Our Time'." Modern Fiction Studies 14 (1968). 284-285. Michael, Meyer, comp. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Saving Sourdi by May Lee Chai, 7th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2005. Read More