You Can Never Go Home Again
Here in 'Soldier's Home' all the 'should-have-been's' turn into 'could-have-been's' for Harold Krebs. Krebs is the main character in Ernest Hemingway's commentary on the old adage 'you can never go home again.' We find in Krebs the irony of the experience of war from a personal perception and the personal reality of it. Krebs is a returning World War I veteran trying to fit back into the normal routine of small-town life. World War I's reality weighs heavy upon him as his townsfolk expect more from him than he can give and he realizes their perceptions are wrong. Weighing Krebs down even more is the reality that he cannot live up to his own experiences and perceptions. Being personally unfamiliar with Hemingway's works [that is not having read any of his novels completely], but being very familiar with Hemingway's persona, one finds this short story displaying his masterful use of irony in his characteristically machismo vein. Here is, I feel, the kernel of Hemingway's story. The contrast between perceived 'manly' attitudes toward war and its effects versus the reality of war sapping the very life from its participants. In our day we call what Krebs was going through psychologically, post-traumatic
This was especially disconcerting to his dear old mom. After lying twice, he also had begun to dislike war stories and was turned off by it. ' First, we find this in the commentary about Krebs war photo. This theme is evident in the progression of Krebs in his lies. Vicariously, through Krebs, he expresses the fact that returning veterans were often faced with ambiguity, falsehood and propaganda surrounding their experience. In expanding upon that theme, his point is revealing. He would sit on his porch, and watch women walk by. Hemingway had been in World War I and the Spanish Civil War. " Before the war he had gone from his small town in Oklahoma to a Methodist college in Kansas. Two statements succinctly sum up the theme of 'Soldier's Home' pertaining to the lies of life and war, especially Krebs 'self-lie. He felt the urge to talk about his experiences, but no one wanted to listen.
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Acceptance Essays
