SOLDIER'S HOME
             By: Ernest Hemingway
            
            
             Soldier's Home is a short story by the author Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway uses the setting of this story to enhance the dull mood throughout it. Beyond this gloomy setting lies also a theme, which is wrapped around the main character and his dilemma. Without these tools, Soldier's Home wouldn't have the effect it does on the audience's perception of what these characters, especially Krebs, are feeling.
             Soldier's Home takes place in a small Oklahoma town. Hemingway doesn't directly describe for the reader enough of this town to visualize it in any exactness. Although, he did give a picture of Krebs' reaction to this place as he returned and also of the occupation this character held when he came home from war. With these things in mind the reader is able to put together their own picture of how this place must have looked to him. When Krebs returned to his hometown, he noticed that, "Nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up." If you can imagine a typical small town atmosphere, that must have been what Krebs was surrounded by. There is mentioned an ice cream parlor, a library and the pool hall. Accompanying them were maybe surrounding stores; a grocery store and a cozy diner. Krebs' occupation was merely sitting on the porch and reading. With the occasional walk into town where he would find another book to read at the library or stop to play a game of pool. When the reader puts all these details together, it isn't difficult to sense the dullness of this place, which Krebs used to call home. It is radically simple, this Oklahoma town, which is parallel to the life he lived there and to the nothingness that he felt inside.
             It's fairly obvious in Soldier's Home the overall concept Hemingway was portraying. The traumatic experiences of war affected every part of this character&ap...