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Themes And Characters In Soldier's Home By Ernest Hemingway

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In the story “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway the protagonist, a marine, “Krebs” returns to his hometown years after the war is over. To his surprise the town remained static since the day he left, the only thing changed being Krebs himself. By addressing Krebs’s disconnect to his hometown, using careful diction structure and expressing loss in faith the author highlights the physiological impact war can have on an individual, how past events can twist one’s reality, ultimately changing an individual from the inside out. Upon his late arrival, Krebs truly becomes isolated from his hometown realizing that the welcoming hands of home-comers have long been closed. Initially, he seeks attention, telling his war stories to the townspeople. Sadly, they show no interest towards Krebs as the war hysteria died down. His stories seem dull, as the town is over saturated with similar reports of the war life. Krebs resorts to desperate lies that exaggerate his experience, making up for his late arrival. This marks the weakening of Kreb’s ego as his desperate ways lead him into a deeper hole of despair, “A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told.” Even his lies seem to lose their effectiveness, as …show more content…

any of the soldiers he talked to, “were not thrilled by his stories.” The lies he told set him back mentally as well as physically, as he “acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration.” Before the war that are hints of normality and unity between Krebs and his mates, “There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar.” The

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