Harold Krebs Soldier's Home

“His lies were quite unimportant lies and consisted in attributing to himself things other men had seen, done, or heard of…” (187) “Soldiers Home” is a fantastic story which relays the problems that many soldiers have when they return home. The story takes place in a small town in Oklahoma, where nothing ever seems to change, almost like living under a dome. Krebs, our main character, is one of the last to return home, and is jarred that nothing has changed except him. Krebs then spends his days sleeping, reading the paper, and playing pool. The story of Krebs is interestingly told due to the character himself, the author’s oddly setting driven style, and the story’s overall theme.

Krebs, from the first word of the story, was seemingly your
From a 3rd person point of view, the story flows almost like military report of Harold Krebs’s return from the war. The first paragraph in the story sets this up by explaining that Krebs was from a Methodist College from Kansas, and that the description of the photograph included that all men wore the same height collar. Another form that the author includes is the lack of imagery in the story. It does make sense however, as the more imagery he would include, the more bloated the story would feel. You wouldn’t want a report to be bloated. All in all, the author’s style creates a story that defiantly makes it feel unique among other stories. Though “Soldier’s Home” could have many possible interpretations, the one I found most glaring is the “adaptation” theme. In this story, Krebs returns from the war, but everyone else behaves exactly before the war started, due to the small town “bubble” effect. The line, “Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate” best describes Krebs; His heart had hardened by the war, and he knows that he must move from this old way of life into the modern world, where he can thrive. Overall, the message is that if you cannot adapt, you cannot thrive. Ultimately, “Soldiers Home” is a delightfully lean and simplistic story that tells the tale of a soldier’s struggle to adapt to the old ways of the world. Even though that the plot of the story may be an annoyance to some, the overlying