'Soldier's Home': Of Broken Hearts and Souls - Ernest Hemingway

'Soldier's Home': Of Broken Hearts and Souls

In the works of Ernest Hemingway, that which is excluded is often as significant as that which is included; a hint is often as important and thought-provoking as an explicit statement. This is why one must read and reread him to enjoy the true flavor of his writing. ‘Soldier's Home’ is a prime example of this art of echo and indirection.

Harold Krebs, the protagonist of ‘Soldier's Home’, is a young veteran portrayed as suffering from an inability to readjust to society - Krebs suffers from returning to the familial, social, and religious "home". Moreover, the story is also about a conflicted mother-son relationship. Krebs' small-town mother cannot comprehend her son's struggles and sufferings caused by the war. She devotes herself to her religion and never questions her own values; she manipulates her son. She is one of the Hemingway ‘overbearing mothers’ who also appear in ‘The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife’ and ‘Now I Lay Me’. Her sermons to her son lack any power to heal his spiritual wounds. She has determined that Krebs should live in God's "Kingdom," find a job, and get married like the o

As Tim O’Brian writes in his ‘How to tell a war story’:

Ironically, Hemingway uses the terms "alliances" and "feuds," words better suited to conflicts between nations and families, to describe the girls' complicated world. Moreover, he uses related terms to describe Krebs' feelings towards that world: "He did not want to get into the intrigue and the politics." By emphasizing discord and friction, such terms suggest a conflict already experienced by Krebs, a conflict further revealed as follows:

Harsh realities of the ‘real world’ have altered Kreb’s perspective in life. Ironic is the fact that an idealistic young boy from a Methodist school who enlisted in the army to serve and protect his family, friends and countrymen, now considers him an outcast. Ironic is the fact that this young man with a religious upbringing for most of his life can’t bring himself to utter even a false prayer. The exposure to the world of pain and sufferings of war has drastically redefined Harold Krebs as a human being. Hemingway, to better illustrate this point, therefore bears reference to his protagonist as Krebs rather then his first name, Harold – as one would be referred to in the army (by only his last name).

Some topics in this essay:
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