Ernest Hemingway was a renowned author for his exploration of masculinity, by the way he acted and portrayed himself in real life and how he expressed his characters in his novels and short stories. Through his characters grappling with war, love, and self-discovery. Hemingway weaves a tapestry of masculinity that reflects both societal ideas and personal struggles. The texts A Farewell to Arms, Soldier’s Home, and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber all represent the portrayal of masculinity, exploring its manifestations, contradictions, and consequences. Across these texts, Hemingway portrays masculinity as multifaceted, often entwined with notions of courage, vulnerability, and disillusionment. Through characters like Frederic Henry, Harold Krebs, and Francis Macomber, he navigates the complexities of manhood, shedding light on the fragility and resilience inherent in the male psyche. …show more content…
Krebs returns home from World War I to find himself disconnected from the rest of society and expectations of masculinity. This short story illustrates the disillusionment experienced by Krebs when he comes back home, and his struggle to reintegrate into civilian life again. Hemingway highlights the psychological scars of war by expressing Krebs’ inner agony through spare text and subdued conversation. One example shown is when Krebs expresses his desire for a simple, unremarkable life. “Don’t you love your mother, dear boy?” “No,” Krebs said. His mother looked at him across the table. Her eyes were shiny, and she was a snob. She started to cry. “I don’t love anybody,” Krebs said. It wasn’t any
In “Soldier’s Home,” the main character Krebs exhibits grief, loneliness. When he returns home with the second group of soldiers he is denied a hero's return. From here he spends time recounting false tales of his war times. Moving on, in the second page of the story he expresses want but what he reasons for not courting a female. A little while after he is given permission to use the car. About this time Krebs has an emotional exchange with both his little sister and his mother. Revealing that “he feels alienated from both the town and his parents , thinking that he had felt more ‘at home’ in Germany or France than he does now in his parent’s house”(Werlock). Next, the story ends with his mother praying for him and he still not being touched. Afterwards planning to move to Kansas city to find a job. Now, “The importance of understanding what Krebs had gone through in the two years before the story begins cannot be overstated. It is difficult to imagine what it must have been for the young man”(Oliver). Near the start of the story the author writes of the five major battles he “had been at”(Hemingway) in World War I- Bellaue Wood, Soissons, Champagne, St.Mihiel, and Argonne. The importance of these are shown sentences later that the
A photo of Krebs during World War I shows him with a corporal and two German girls on the Rhine River. One's first thought of this picture may be of a lighthearted sightseeing trip on leave from the front. However, in the photograph, Krebs and the other corporal are described as "too big for their uniforms," the German girls as "not beautiful," and the Rhine does not even appear in the photograph (154). This is how Ernest Hemingway begins "Soldier's Home," the story of a young war veteran named Harold Krebs who has recently returned home. Everything that Krebs says and does is to make his life as smooth and have as few complications as possible, more than likely a stark contrast to his life in Europe.
Masculinity Gone Awry: Hemingway’s Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises From the beginning, Robert Cohn’s name defines himself－he is essentially a conehead in a society where concealing insecurities and projecting masculinity is paramount. Although he tries in vain to act stereotypically male, Cohn’s submissive attitude and romantic beliefs ultimately do little to cover up the pitiful truth; he is nothing more than a degenerate shadow of masculinity, doomed for isolation by society. In the incriminating eyes of people around him, Cohn is a picture-perfect representation of a failure as a man. Through Cohn, Hemingway delineates not only the complications of attaining virility, but also the reveal of another “lost” generation within the Lost Generation:
Hemingway's "Soldier's Home" depicts a young man in his early twenties after his return from World War I. The young man, Krebs, has arrived home too late. Thus, he doesn't receive the adulation of the town as the others did. This first loss was the beginning of a long inward journey for Krebs. His unwillingness, then inability, to discuss his part in the war with others immediately had an effect on Krebs. He was unable to get some form of closure, something which he direly needed. Due to the extravagant stories foretold by others, Krebs was forced to lie in order to fit in.
Hemingway deals with the effects of war on the male desire for women in many of his novels and short stories, notably in his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In this novel, the main character Jake, is impotent because of an injury received in World War I. Jakes situation is reminiscent of our main character Krebs. Both characters have been damaged by World War I; the only difference is Jake’s issue is physical, while Krebs issue is mental. Krebs inwardly cannot handle female companionship. Although Krebs still enjoys watching girls from his porch and he “vaguely wanted a girl but did not want to have to work to get her” (167). Krebs found courting “not worth it” (168). The girls symbolize what World War I stripped from our main character, a desire that is natural for men, the desire for women.
The adjustment from years on the frontlines of World War I to the mundane everyday life of a small Oklahoma town can be difficult. Ernest Hemingway’s character Harold Krebs, has a harder time adjusting to home life than most soldiers that had returned home. Krebs returned years after the war was over and was expected to conform back into societies expectations with little time to adapt back to a life not surrounded by war. Women take a prominent role in Krebs’s life and have strong influences on him. In the short story “Soldier’s Home” Hemingway uses the women Krebs interacts with to show Krebs internal struggle of attraction and repulsion to conformity.
Throughout the Nick Adams and other stories featuring dominant male figures, Ernest Hemingway teases the reader by drawing biographical parallels to his own life. That is, he uses characters such as Nick Adams throughout many of his literary works in order to play off of his own strengths as well as weaknesses: Nick, like Hemingway, is perceptive and bright but also insecure. Nick Adams as well as other significant male characters, such as Frederick Henry in A Farewell to Arms and Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises personifies Hemingway in a sequential manner. Initially, the Hemingway character appears to be impressionable, but he evolves into an isolated individual. Hemingway, due to an unusual childhood and possible post traumatic injuries received from battle invariably caused a necessary evolution in his writing shown through his characterization. The author once said, “Don’t look at me. Look at my words” (154).
The story, A Soldiers Home, is about a man in conflict with the past and present events in his life. The young man’s name is Harold Krebs. He recently returned from World War 1 to find everything almost exactly the same as when he left. He moved back into his parents house, where he found the same car sitting in the same drive way. He also found the girls looking the same, except now they all had short hair. When he returned to his home town in Oklahoma the hysteria of the soldiers coming home was all over. The other soldiers had come home years before Krebs had so everyone was over the excitement. When he first returned home he didn’t want to talk about the war at all. Then, when he suddenly felt the urge and need to talk about it no one wanted to hear about it. When he returned all of the other soldiers had found their place in the community, but Harold needed more time to find his place. In the mean time he plays pool, “practiced on his clarinet, strolled down town, read, and went to bed.”(Hemingway, 186) When his mother pressures him to get out and get a girlfriend and job, he te...
Hemingway’s characters exemplify the effects of combat because World War I had a negative impact on them; the veterans lead meaningless lives filled with masculine uncertainty. Jake and his friends (all veterans) wander aimlessly throughout the entire novel. Their only goal seems to be finding an exciting restaurant or club where they will spend their time. Every night consists of drinking and dancing, which serves as a distraction from their very empty lives. The alcohol helps the characters escape from their memories from the war, but in the end, it just causes more commotion and even evokes anger in the characters. Their years at war not only made their lives unfulfilling but also caused the men to have anxiety about their masculinity, especially the narrator Jake, who “gave more than his life” in the war (Hemingway). Jake feels that the war took away his manhood because he is unable to sleep with Brett as a result of an injury. Although he wants to have a relationship with Brett, and spends most of his time trying to pursue her, she rejects him because he cannot have a physical relationship with her. At several points in the novel, Brett and Jake imagine what their lives could have been like together, had he not been injured during the war. Thus, his physical injury gives him emotional distress because he cannot have a relationship with the woman he always wanted. The traditional American perception of...
Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” is a short story that shows how a soldier copes with civilian life after war and the struggles that Harold Krebs, Hemingway’s protagonist, experiences throughout his familiar, but new life. With changes in his view about the world it adds to his problem with adjusting to his life. “Soldier’s Home” uses the setting and characters to explain the theme of the story of a soldier’s transition to normality. Several symbolism is used by Hemingway to explain the story. The title “Soldier’s Home”, symbolizing a soldier’s toughest challenge to change his way of living since the job is done.
Ernest Hemingway’s ambiguous “Soldier’s Home” stirs not only the emotions of the readers, but also Hemingway himself. While reading his work, one cannot ignore the substantial amount of historical references that Hemingway was subject to while he served in the war. The setting of “Soldier’s Home” is an important distinction. Taking place in the early 1900’s, the short story revolves around Krebs: a young soldier who has returned to his hometown after fighting in WWI, just as the author did in 1918. As it did for many other soldiers at the time, the war changed Krebs.
Upon Harold Krebs' homecoming from an extended time at war, he expects his small town to be the same as he remembers it being. For the most part, it is, except for one thing: himself. Due to his many war experiences, Krebs feels alienated from society, which causes him to be seen as an outsider. Krebs remains frozen between the past and the future in Hemingway's "Soldier's Home". Hemingway conveys Krebs' inability to embrace the past or the future through plot in exposition, conflict, and climax.
In the novel, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the author captures the harsh realities of war and the limitations between relationships during war. Part of what may have influenced him to write for this time period was the health conditions of his brother at the time, suffering a similar fate to the made-up character Catherine Barkley. Focusing on these factors and drawing from his own personal experience, Hemingway creates the idea of love to seem as though it is only temporary. Key themes such as abandonment, war, and even death play a crucial role in laying out the plot of the story and development of characters because it serves as an escape. War essentially is something that all mankind wishes to suppress, however is inevitable
In “ The Farewell to Arms,” Hemingway uses love and sex as the main point for his anti-war message. The reason for this is said because love and sex is the sturdiest part Hemingway himself uses in the story. Hemingway demonstrates how war has generated the heart-breaking relationships on throughout the
Ernest Hemingway uses a range of techniques within language and linguistics to distinguish distinct roles of gender in A Very Short Story. The characters conform to early twentieth century archetypal positions of masculine and feminine stereotypes. The author provides insightful issues towards women for both the original generation the story was intended and the modern reader. Hemingway uses the tools of language for a more progressive stance on the sexes than the content of the narrative itself.