The "Soldier's Home" is a short story written by Ernest
Hemingway which has attracted much attention especially among the baby boomers
of the Vietnam era. Like most of his literary works, it is a story that is
highly complex than its surface appearance. Hemingway is well known for his
intelligent use of language especially in the use of a descriptive language
which is a subject of criticism in the story “Soldier’s Home” as being too
simple. On close examination, the story turns out not to be just a simple tale
of a young man coming home after the war, but it is a story about the struggles
in a commonplace as portrayed through the eyes of young Krebs. This style of
implied meaning and simplicity is Hemingway’s trademark, which sets him apart
from other authors.
The
Soldier’s home which is a story of Krebs is one that has its basis in the life
experience of Hemingway. Hemingway was a veteran of the WWI and had to face the
same problems as those of Krebs after returning home from war. He returned home
to the welcome of soldiers had long past, and he lost faith in institutions of
tradition, family values, and religion. As a result of the author's unique link
to Krebs, the story has an easy flow, and it comes to life as the readers read
it. Hemingway’s liberal utilization of vague passages is one of his unique
traits that are part of his stories that is noted in his writings. Such
passages are incorporated to show the mindset of Krebs. For example, the author
spends plenty of paragraphs to show the thoughts that Krebs has about girls.
Most specifically his believe that even though he admires them, he does not
want to bother them. It is found in the twelfth paragraph whereby Krebs informs
the reader that he does not want to face the consequences of having a girl then
goes on to discuss men and what ladies mean to them. It is an example of a
vague passage which has no any impact in contributing to the plot of the story.
However, it helps the reader to get to understand the main
character. We also get to find the author’s point of view through his alter ego
Krebs in that they are both emotionally traumatized after the war and are
finding it difficult to adjust back to their normal lives. They are both
haunted by the sounds of gunshots, bomb alarms and the sight of torn arms and
limbs. They also could not believe that what they saw during the war is
seething than any ordinary man could believe or understand especially in their
reluctances in telling the stories of the war. However, they found sympathy
from their fellow soldiers whenever they had to escape for a short moment.
Michael Reynolds who is the author of the biographical series of Hemingway
indicates that Hemingway was not able to inform his parents concerning his
thoughts about his bloody knee. He could not tell them how scared he was in
another in another country where the surgeon could not speak English on whether
his leg was healing or coming off. It is a reflection that is portrayed in
Krebs ability to narrate about the war with ease among soldiers of the war but
not with his parents.
Also, both men as a result
of the emotional trauma considered women to be accessories. Krebs throughout
the story repeatedly indicates that women are inferior to him even though they
are an object of his desire; they are not worth the effort and time of wooing
them to establish a relationship. Also, he did not see the need of having a
girl. That is a lesson he learned from the Army (p 346, para2). For the case of
Ernest, he was engaged to a nurse Agnus during his service in the military, but
she devastated him badly by leaving him for another soldier. To my opinion, it
is an emotion that came about as a result of his numerous failed marriages
whereby he was the one opting out of marriage to defend another heartbreak he
suffered at Agnus hands. Thus since Hemingway was not able to communicate his
thoughts and feelings verbally, he ended up embodying his experiences in Kreb’s
story.
Narrating this story of his
experience through Krebs is an aspect that influences Hemingway's
characteristic stylistic features that utilize a narrative voice in talking
about his experiences. The Soldier’s Home” shows this feature in an interesting
way despite the fact that the vocabulary and sentence structure is consistent
all through the novel. We, however, note a change in voice from the start to
the end. It starts with a voice that can appear to be omniscient, objective
third person point of view to one which is highly subjective almost becoming
the first person internal narrative. Hemingway’s narrative style is
particularly interesting and is a subject of criticism. For example, Thomas
Strychacz, who wrote the Cambridge Companion to Hemingway indicates that the
“Soldier’s home “ has a narrative voice that shows remarkable achievement of
artists. He states that “to understand the behavior of Kreb it depends partly
on how one reads the striking stylistic performance of Hemingway’s.
Particularly, how the homecoming of Kreb is delivered with obsessive
repetitiveness in a neutral flat prose which closely sounds scientifically
detached”. At the beginning of the story, the narration seems to be nearly
voiceless, and there is a wide range of declarative statements that describe in
flat detail the various photographs of Krebs. However, later in the narration,
there is a shift in voice in that the author begins to describe the thoughts
happening in Kreb’s mind.
Also because the prose is almost elliptical, the narrative ends up
leaving, out too much for its almost close to the stream of consciousness and
interior monologs as shown in the writings of modernist authors like James
Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Hemmingway’s voice is one that is sympathetic towards
Krebs and at the same time relies on dialogue to carry the story’s weight.
Conclusion
"Soldier's Home" is a short story
that is autobiographical for it reflects the experiences of Hemingway that he
choose to focus on the soldier returning home from war as his main theme.
Work cited
Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home," Scribner, 2003, pp.
67-78
Strychacz, Thomas. "In Our Time, Out of Season," in The
Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway, edited by Scott Donaldson, Cambridge
University Press, 1991, p. 74-75.
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