STUDY OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S SOLDIER'S HOME

1. Prepared by
Dr Sheelu Singh Bhatia
Jazan University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

2. SUMMARY
Krebs went to the war in 1917 from a Methodist college in Kansas.
There is a picture of him with his fraternity brothers all in the
same collar. He came back from the war in 1919, after he had been
in the Rhine. There, a picture was taken of him, a fellow corporal,
and two German ladies. When Krebs returns, no one celebrates.
He comes back after most everyone else, so he misses the
hysteria. He also cannot get anyone to listen to his stories.
Everyone has heard too many gruesome stories to care. To get
people to listen, he has lied twice. But he is disgusted by that so
he has stopped talking about the war. Even his lies bore people,
anyway.
During this time, Krebs is sleeping late and hanging around all
day. He is a hero to his younger sisters and to his mother. She
sometimes asks about the war, but she gets bored. The town has
not changed in his absence except that some of the girls have

3. Krebs likes to watch them, but he does not want to be a part of
their lives. He does not want to get involved in the politics or
the lying involved in a courtship. Krebs does not want any
consequences. The army had taught him that he did not need a
girl, even though many men claimed that they could not live
without one. Krebs likes the looks of the girls, but does not want
to have to talk. That was one nice thing about the French and
German girls: not so much talking. Krebs had not wanted to
come home, but he had. Now, he watches girls walk by and
thinks that they are made out of a nice pattern. He starts
reading a book about the war, about all of the battles he was in.
He is finally learning about the war. Krebs' mother tells him that
he can take the car out at night. Krebs goes downstairs for
breakfast and starts to read the paper.

4. His mother tells him not to muss it. His sister, Helen Krebs,
tells him that she will be pitching in an indoor baseball
game that day. She asks if he'll come. Their mother shoos
her away and tells Krebs that he should think about finding
a job. She tells him that she prays for him and the
temptations that he must have faced. But, she says, he must
find a job. After all, she says, the other boys his age are
getting jobs and wives. She asks if he loves her. He says no,
meaning that he cannot love anyone. She is only hurt, so
Krebs tells her that he did not mean it. Krebs tells her that
he will try to be good. She asks him to kneel with her and
pray. She prays, but he cannot. He leaves, thinking that he
will get a job in Kansas City and get out of the house
without too many more confrontations. He only wants to
have his life go smoothly, which it is not. He goes to watch

5. PLOT
The plot of "Soldier’s Home" involves Krebs as the protagonist in
conflict with the abstract antagonism of peacetime adjustment.
Obviously, those around him expect him to be the little boy he
was, and to be unchanged by the war. They therefore assume that
he can begin life again as though nothing has happened. The
crisis of the story is his conversation with his mother, and the
climax is his promise to be a good boy for his "Mummy"
(paragraph 86). This portion of the story indicates that his
disaffection is approaching total alienation. The resolution, in his
decision to go to Kansas City and in his going to watch his sister
play ball, suggests a compromise with his disaffection. Though he
will continue to feel like an outsider, in other words, he will keep
his misgivings to himself, and will fit in, at least externally, with
life at home.

6. CONFLICT
In "Soldier's Home," Hemingway uses conflict to
show how society demands conformity, and the unfair
struggles of those who do not fit the mold.

7. CONFLICT
Krebs does not wish to talk about his war experiences.
This gives insight into the conflict raging inside of Krebs
When the time comes for him to finally speak of his
experiences, no one wants to listen. This extends the
conflict from within Krebs to his community.
He wants to be a participant, and gain acceptance, but
cannot deal with the guilt of the lies. This sets him apart
from the other men who have come home from the war,
and deepens the conflict between him and the people of
the town.
The main conflict is to show through, one where Krebs
must decide if he should give in and be like the others or
attempt to regain the self he knew in the war.

8. CHARACTERS
Krebs - Krebs is the main character of "Soldier's
Home." He returns home to Kansas after being in the
war, feeling disoriented and empty inside.
Helen Krebs - Krebs younger sister, she plays indoor
baseball and looks up to Krebs as a hero.
Krebs' mother reflects the typical view of women
during this era; she is a God fearing mother, and a
housewife. She attempts to persuade Harold that he
should find a job and be more like the other boys.

9. THEMES AND MEANINGS
One of the story’s central concerns might be described by a
term that was once fashionable: “the generation gap.” In
“Soldier’s Home,” the gap is more like a chasm that
separates the ex-Marine from the townspeople. Krebs
returns from the war, changed by his experiences, but the
local citizenry are exactly what they were before the war—
sure of themselves and their values. To stay in the town, to
survive this time warp, Krebs must compromise his
integrity; he must lie if he is to live among people who do
not want to hear the truth.

10. POINT OF VIEW
Told in the journalistic style of a third-person
narrator, the story appears to be a simple, objective,
disinterested report of Harold Krebs’s return from the
war.
SETTING
Time: A Summer of 1919.
Place: A town in Oklahoma, US.