“Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway and “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien are about two soldiers who have experienced war now coming back home, yet uncelebrated. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. These two short story's themes explore the effects of war and how impactful war is on a young person's life, from when the soldiers return home to the overall hardships and loneliness war has put upon them. The Soldiers Harold Krebs from “Soldier’s Home” and Paul Bowker from “Speaking of Courage” have many similarities and differences. Paul Bowker had fought in the Vietnam War, while Harold Krebs fought in WW1. Both Krebs and Bowker hold stories of their experiences in war and are sure they will be heroes when they come home, telling their heroic tales …show more content…
of heroism, but when the Soldiers return home from war, no one celebrates. Yet, the wars had big impacts on both Krebs and Bowker’s lives. Krebs returns long after the other soldiers come home missing the celebration. “By the time Krebs returned to his hometown in Oklahoma the greeting of heroes was over. He came back much too late” (844). Ernest Hemingway reveals right away in the story that Krebs war experience was far from romantic as it was persuaded in movies and advertised. “Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful” (844). Krebs is considered an antihero, type of protagonist, who gives in to disillusionment and hopelessness. Krebs changed so much from his experiences, however, when he returns the town is still the same. “Nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up” (845). At first, Krebs did not want to talk about the war considering it had changed him “… did not want to talk about the war at all. Later he felt the need to talk, but no one wanted to hear about it” (845). Neither townspeople nor Krebs family want to hear the truth about the war instead, they only want to hear lies about the heroics of war. Krebs finds himself telling these lies because dishonesty is the path of least resistance, even though it causes “nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration” (846). Krebs spends his days relaxing, reading, and playing pool. Krebs makes no effort to talk to women because he does not want the complications or consequences of a relationship. Krebs knows he is home, but feels like the home, he has returned to is no soldier’s home. After a while, Krebs makes some effort in trying to talk when his mom asks him about the war, but she would get bored, therefore, Krebs did not want to talk much. Krebs’ mother initiating a discussion with Krebs about religion and a job leads Mrs. Krebs to ask the question, “don’t you love your mother, dear boy” (847). Krebs responds honestly, “I don’t love anybody” (847). The response from Krebs causes Mrs. Krebs to cry and revealing her unwillingness to hear the truth. The only way to stop Mrs. Krebs cries was for Krebs to lie and tell her he did not mean what he said and was merely angry at something. Mrs. Krebs reminds Krebs she held him next to her heart when he was a baby, reducing Krebs to tell the lie “I know, Mummy… I’ll try and be a good boy for you” (847). After Krebs emotional lie, he decides to leave the town, go to Kansas City for a job. Krebs wants to live his life simply and smoothly without any hardships. In some similarities, Bowker is the same way to Krebs, in a different war, yet still experiencing the horrible effects of war. Soldiers who came home from the Vietnam War were not celebrated since; the war was not a popular war on the home front.
Bowker was never given appreciation or celebration for coming home. “Nobody was there to listen, and nobody knew a damn about the war at all. It was not a war for war stories, or talk of valor” (1201). Bowker is driving around the lake in his father’s Chevy. “In high school, he’d driven round and round and round with his friends and pretty girls… there had not been a war” (1197). However, Bowker surrounds himself with the sound of the engine, the radio, and air conditioning, “driving slowly, feeling safe” (1197). The reader can infer the noisy atmosphere is securing to Bowker because the noise reminds him of the war atmosphere which Bowker has become familiar with. Bowker makes no effort to talk to anybody, just drives around the lake silently. ‘’His father would not talk. He had been in another war, so he knew the truth already, and there was no one left to talk with’’(1197). Ironically, because Bowker cannot speak about his war experience with anyone, he cannot leave it
behind. Bowker goes to the A&W, unfortunately he does not realize things have changed and is supposed to order from an intercom now. Suddenly, the intercom starts to talk to Bowker, asking if he has anything to get off his chest. Bowker says no, there is nothing. Realizing now Bowker will never be able to talk about war he goes to watch the fireworks. The Fourth of July fireworks start. Bowker wades into the lake and stands there while he watches them thinking it is a pretty good show. The Soldiers Harold Krebs from “Soldier’s Home” and Paul Bowker from “Speaking of Courage” have many similarities and differences. Few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home how no one really listens to what the soldiers have to say or what they have experienced. These two short story's themes show how nothing good comes from war and how impactful war is on the life of a soldier. The Soldiers Harold Krebs from “Soldier’s Home” came back from war just wanting to talk to someone about his experience and want to relax. Paul Bowker from “Speaking of Courage” came back from war also wanting to talk to someone yet, had no one who would. Bowker was extremely brave, but not as brave as he wanted to be. Leading Bowker to believe he was not as good as others.
For Vietnam veterans, nothing could replenish the zest for life they had before the war. According to O'Brien's text, upon their arrival home the veterans imagine, even hallucinate, what things would have been like if they had not suffered through the war. Examples of such occurrences exist in the stories "Speaking of Courage" and "The Man I Killed." Norman Bowker in "Speaking of Courage" dreams and fancies of talking to his ex-girlfriend, now married to another guy, and of his dead childhood friend, Max Arnold. He lives out over and over his unfulfilled dream of having his Sally beside him and of having manly conversations with Max.
According to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, this fictional novel is a group of short stories that blended reality and fiction. Tim O’Brien’s storytelling evokes emotional responses from the audience, and it makes them empathise with the characters’ experience throughout the Vietnam War and after the war. In general, veterans who fought in the war change, and they experience disconnection with their friends and family after the war. Norman Bowker is a teenager who was drafted into the war, and he was one of the only good characters in this story. Through this character, we can see Norman Bowker change as the novel progresses and how war can affect people even when the war is over.
In the book Soldier's Heart By Gary Paulsen the main theme is how war changes a person.
Tina Chen’s critical essay provides information on how returning soldiers aren’t able to connect to society and the theme of alienation and displacement that O’Brien discussed in his stories. To explain, soldiers returning from war feel alienated because they cannot come to terms with what they saw and what they did in battle. Next, Chen discusses how O’Brien talks about soldiers reminiscing about home instead of focusing in the field and how, when something bad happens, it is because they weren’t focused on the field. Finally, when soldiers returned home they felt alienated from the country and
Norman Bowker was a soldier who embodied the damage of a long term war after it was over. During the war Bowker was a quiet and a humble soldier, and the death of his friend Kiowa brings a huge impact to his life after the war. In the chapter Speaking of Courage, time has past by and Bowker had returned to Iowa. Bowker drives his dad’s Chevrolet around the lake, and realizes he has nowhere to go. He thinks about multiple things as he drives around the lake like thinking about his highschool girlfriend, his friend drowning in the lake, and also thinks about his father where he would bring home medals from the war. As the sun goes down he imagines telling his dad that he did not have the courage to save Kiowa and was imagining that his father
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
When Norman Bowker returns to his hometown after the war things seem to have moved on without him. It seems that while his life was put on pause, his friends and family had moved on to their lives. His simple wish is for the past to be the present once again. He speaks of his friends Max Arnold and Sally Kramer. Now, Max was dead and Bowker refers to him as an idea. He talks of how things would be different if Max was around to listen to all his stories and how Max would have enjoyed them. The irony is that Max is gone. At one time Bowker had carried a picture of Sally in his wallet. He talked of how he would stop and talk to her when he saw her while driving. He decided that he might impress her with his knowledge that he had acquired during the war such as his ability to predict the time at any point during the day within 10 minutes. He repeatedly said "if she was to listen". Just like the others she did not want to think about the war, it was in the past. Page 143 makes a clear point that "The town could not talk, and would not listen.. It (the town) did not know shit about shit, and did not care to know".
Today, we have a lot of veterans who are coming home from war that are being displaced. In this chapter it talks about a Vietnam War soldier named Norman Bowker who arrives home from the war. In the chapter, Speaking of Courage from the book ‘The Things They Carried’ written by Tim O’Brien, Norman feels displaced from the world and everyone there. A returning soldier from the Vietnam War is driving around a lake on the 4th of July in his fathers big chevrolet, but then realizes he has nowhere to go. He starts to reminisce about his father, ex-girlfriend, and his childhood friend. Norman talks about all the medals he had won. He starts to think about his fathers pride in those badges and he starts to have a recollection about how he had almost own the silver star but blew his chance. He continues to drive around the lake again and again. He continues to imagine telling his father about the story of how he almost won the silver star, but failed to do so. This paper will analyze Speaking of Courage with the new criticism/formalism lens.
The Vietnam War was not a “pretty” war. Soldiers were forced to fight guerilla troops, were in combat during horrible weather, had to live in dangerous jungles, and, worst of all, lost sight of who they were. Many soldiers may have entered with a sense of pride, but returned home desensitized. The protagonist in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible,” is testament to this. In the story, the protagonist is a young man full of life prior to the war, and is a mere shell of his former self after the war. The protagonists in Tim O’Brien’s “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” and Irene Zabytko’s “Home Soil,” are also gravely affected by war. The three characters must undergo traumatic experiences. Only those who fought in the Vietnam War understand what these men, both fictional and in real life, were subjected to. After the war, the protagonists of these stories must learn to deal with a war that was not fought with to win, rather to ensure the United States remained politically correct in handling the conflict. This in turn caused much more anguish and turmoil for the soldiers. While these three stories may have fictionalized events, they connect with factual events, even more so with the ramifications of war, whether psychological, morally emotional, or cultural. “The Red Convertible,” and “Home Soil,” give readers a glimpse into the life of soldiers once home after the war, and how they never fully return, while “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” is a protest letter before joining the war. All three protagonists must live with the aftermath of the Vietnam War: the loss of their identity.
The story has different elements that make it a story, that make it whole. Setting is one of those elements. The book defines setting as “the context in which the action of the story occurs” (131). After reading “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway, setting played a very important part to this story. A different setting could possibly change the outcome or the mood of the story and here are some reasons why.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
Bowker spends his days after Vietnam driving around in circles, unable to find that road that would steer him to a meaningful future. Bowker’s depression and inability to adjust to life after Vietnam leads him to the only path he could find. Suicide.
Many individuals look at soldiers for hope and therefore, add load to them. Those that cannot rationally overcome these difficulties may create Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tragically, some resort to suicide to get away from their insecurities. Troops, notwithstanding, are not by any means the only ones influenced by wars; relatives likewise encounter mental hardships when their friends and family are sent to war. Timothy Findley precisely depicts the critical impact wars have on people in his novel by showing how after-war characters are not what they were at the beginning.