Who Is The Protagonist In Soldier's Home

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In Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Soldier’s Home” Krebs is portrayed as a character that is terribly afraid of making a mistake. Throughout the story the narrator talks about Krebs not wanting to mess up and deal with the consequences. Hemingway wrote the story to display that people come back from war different people, but they can not be afraid of change or life will pass them by. After coming home from the war Krebs realizes that the world he left has changed. Krebs left for war in reserved time period, and he comes home to parties and flappers of the “Roaring Twenties”. The adjustment of coming home from a war to the way it was left is tough enough, but Krebs was set up for failure coming back to the complete opposite world he left. …show more content…

The narrator constantly talks about how he sleeps in late, or does not have a desire to actually do something. This could have come from him feeling neglected on his return home from war. Hemingway writes, “ People seemed to think it was rather ridiculous for Krebs to be getting back so late, years after the war was over” ( 1 ). Basically every other soldier had a warm welcome home like they deserved, everyone has seen pictures of the old country-wide celebrations when the soldiers returned home from both World Wars. However, Krebs did not have a warm welcome home like he deserved. Because of that, he easily could have went into a depression or felt like fighting in the war was worthless, causing him to lose all motivation. Often in the story, his mother asks him if he has decided what he’s going to do, but all he tells her is no over and over again. All of Krebs old friends are settling down and having kids, but Krebs just sits at home all day everyday. Like most people, Krebs does not realize it’s time to grow up until he hits rock bottom. Once he breaks his mother’s heart he figures out that he has to do something with his life or he is going to hurt the people he