Ernest Hemingway's "Soldier's Home"

Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home”

By Jimmy Jackson

A person’s return from war is always a frustrating experience. Facing the normalcy of everyday life while the memories of the gruesome struggles still rage inside a person’s mind can wreak emotional havoc on a person’s well being. The situation becomes much more dire when the environment he is coming home to tries to push him towards the routine of day-to-day living without letting him adjust gradually. This situation is all too real in Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” (World). The main character of the story, Harold Krebs, has just returned home from a two-year stint in war-torn Germany. Through his brief tale of life, back at home in Oklahoma, one can clearly see a man struggling to find his place in a difficult world. His family, like so many others, tries to help him get on with life without dealing with what he has just gone through. His town seems to be a completely different place to Harold, although it seems to be the ex-soldier himself who has changed so much. Perhaps the most difficult hurdle to cross is the fact that there is no one Harold can comfortably share his feelings with; without that, his growth as a person will be limited severely. Because of the pressures exerted upon this character, both externally and those self inflicted, the struggle to return to normalcy can be just as difficult as the threats faced in wartime (Time 68-77).

When Harold arrives back home, there is no fanfare to greet him, no cheering crowds or tickertape parade to welcome home another soldier. In fact, “By the time Krebs returned to his home town in Oklahoma the greeting of heroes was over (Time 69).” It seems as though the world had already pushed the hell that was World War I out of its mind and wanted nothing more than to move on. Krebs seems to be trying to copy this attitude by spending his days rather leisurely: reading and hanging out at the local pool hall. The simple fact that he enlisted in the Marines, rather than being drafted like so many of the other young men in his hometown, initially isolates him from the community. Harold also seems to share a different version of how the war was fought and how his fellow veterans speak of it (Time 69-71). He wishes to tell the truth behind the engagements he fought in, while they bask in the glory of their fictional, tales of war, and “detailed accounts of German women found chained to machine guns in the Argonne Forest (Time 70).” This forces the young character to modify his stories to gain the approval of the majority, and this form of story telling offers him no comfort.

“The willful ignorance displayed by Krebs’ community contributes more to the protagonist’s lassitude and alienation than any other factor, unable to find an audience for the truth, the ex-soldier resorts to lies, an act that only leads to self-loathing and further isolation from others (Rovit 73).”

Because Krebs is either ignored or forced to lie in order to relate to his peers, a great amount of dispute develops in the troubled soldier’s life (Time 69-77).

There is a very unusual relationship between Harold and the young women of his hometown. He seems to want a girlfriend, for ...

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Because Krebs is either ignored or forced to lie in order to relate to his peers, a great amount of dispute develops in the troubled soldier’s life (Time 69-77).

There is a very unusual relationship between Harold and the young women of his hometown. He seems to want a girlfriend, for certain obvious reasons, but feels that the complexities of the female species are too much to handle. His attitude seems one of shyness and a lack of self-confidence; he likes to look at them from a distance, and that is all. The narrator mentions a picture of himself and another soldier standing on the Rhine with some females, who were not pretty, implying that he has had relationships in some form in the past. German girls appear much less complex; there was no possible way to communicate through speech, and therefore, they were more accessible to Krebs than their American counterparts (Bernardo). This feeling of simplicity above all else pushes young Harold to state at one point that, “He did not want to leave Germany. He did not want to come home (Hemingway 572).” This self-imposed barrier against complication he has built around himself is only adding to the difficulty of his new life at home, though he does not see it this way (Bernardo).

The community Krebs resides in is obviously one filled with deep Christian beliefs, as was most of 1920’s America. Krebs himself attended a Methodist college, and his mother is a woman firm in her religious faith. “She devotes herself to her religion and never questions her own values; she manipulates her son” (Bernardo). The war has stolen any religious faith Harold might have had. His mother fails to see the lack of faith that resides in her son, urging him to pray, and spouting religious slogans at him in a poor effort to comfort him. According to her, “God has some work for everyone to do... We are all of us in His Kingdom” (Time 75). Her use of belief as a weapon to push her son in the direction she has chosen for him does no more than move Harold further away from her. Her idea that Harold has a place in the Kingdom of God sharply contrasts with his own; he believes there is no place for him. From his words, one can see that his relationship with his mother, and with the world in general, will be forever changed because of his loss of belief (Encarta).

The Krebs family is perhaps the last great refuge for the young soldier. If nowhere else, home should be a place where a person is able to heal and cope with the horrors of war and learn to live a fulfilling life. Unfortunately, Harold’s family fails to be that sanctuary for him; even though they intend no harm for the young man, they offer little in the way of real aid. Mrs. Krebs tries to force Harold to talk about the war, although her knowledge of battle consists of only a few stories told to her about her grandfather’s experiences in the Civil War. “Krebs’s small-town mother cannot comprehend her son’s struggle and sufferings caused by the war” (Bernardo). She feels that Harold just needs to settle down, get married, and find a good job like all the other boys. Mr. Krebs is little more than an image in this story; never once does he appear directly, and his words are messaged down from his wife. His attitude lies parallel to his wife’s, and his only real offer to Harold is the use of the car in the evenings, so that he may go driving with the girls. It is painfully obvious that Mr. Krebs has no concept of what his son has gone through and can offer little in the way of real comfort (Time 73-77).

Harold remarks that he has more than one sister, though we are introduced to only one, Helen. It is from her that Harold finds the most satisfaction. She is, after all, his favorite. Although never his close friend, her role is the giver of unconditional love. It is her uncomplicated world that Harold finds most appealing, and she is perhaps the only person who makes him happy. Although she is as talkative as her mother, Helen’s invitation is to a simple world (Time 74-77). It is unfortunate that Harold cannot make peace with himself through his family. Although they mean well in their intentions, their acts do little to help Harold adjust and ultimately force him away. By the end of the story, he decides, “He would go to Kansas City and get a job and she would feel all right about it” (Hemingway 77).

The tragedy of war can affect a person very deeply. Past the physical danger, a person’s mental capabilities can be forever changed by the brutal acts he has witnessed or participated in. Ultimately, these mental woes will heal if they are dealt with in an appropriate manner and given a proper amount of time. However, when a soldier’s homecoming is met with disbelief and an insensible public grows weary of hearing about his experiences, those scars will not heal. When a person has lost faith in his religion and is not met with understanding. The attempt to heal inside will stop for lack of desire. If Harold cannot take comfort in being with his own family, let alone any of the local girls, he cannot be expected to join the flow of day-to-day life. Although the story of Harold Krebs is one of fiction, it can be looked upon as a guide to how a person’s experiences after war can be just as tragic (Bernardo).