Response To A Soldiers Home

The character I chose for my character Analysis response paper is from the short story “Soldier’s Home” written by Ernest Hemingway, and is a soldier named Harold Krebs. Krebs has just returned to his hometown in Oklahoma after serving in the Army in World War I. I am going to address Krebs conflicts, what causes his conflict, and how it is resolved. I am also going to go over Krebs specific character changes over the course of A Soldier’s Home. The point of view of this story will also be reviewed and how it affects how readers interpret as well as react to Krebs actions. A Soldier’s Home story setting also helps readers to better understand Krebs. Finally, I will go over the Critical Reading Strategy I think applies to this story and would best help readers interpret Krebs.

In the short story A Soldier’s Home, the conflict the main character Krebs is facing results from him returning home from World War I, in which he fights in five different battles. Krebs returns to his small town in Oklahoma after serving in the Army for two years, he does not get a welcome home parade or a thank you for his service. He is having a hard time readjusting to his “normal” life, family, and childhood home due to how much war has changed him. Krebs is also experiencing an inability to love, in the

story Krebs states “I don’t love anybody” (pg. 170) when speaking to his mother in the kitchen after she asks, “do you love me?” (pg. 170). His cold experiences in the war left him with post traumatic stress disorder, a feeling of being numb and the inability to be in touch with his feelings. Krebs feels like he is unable to tell his family he has changed and to let them know he needs help dealing with the negative effect the war had on him. In my opinion Krebs hopes to resolve his conflicts by moving to Kansas where he can be free of everyone’s opinions and his past. Unfortunately, I do not feel like Krebs conflict will be resolved by fleeing from his problems.
Over the course of the story Krebs character does go through some extreme changes. At the beginning of “Soldier’s Home”, the short story starts off by describing a picture of Krebs in his fraternity at a Methodist college in Kansas. In this picture he fits in with those around him and considers them friends. After Krebs goes to war and returns home, he is not the same person anymore. Krebs does not feel like he belongs in his hometown anymore and thinks his family home is strange. He feels as if no one understands him and wants to listen to him talk about his time spent serving his country.
The point of view in this story is told in the third person and does affect how readers interpret as well as react to Krebs actions.

“Soldier’s Home” being told in the third person gives readers the ability to see things from the town and family’s perspective while also letting us see Krebs point of view. In the story Krebs gives us insight to the battle he is fighting within himself after returning from the war that outsiders can’t see and does not understand, which allows the reader to have empathy for the soldier and what he is going through. The style of the point of view is known as journalistic. (Wikipedia pg. 5) This means it is written as if a journalist was writing the

story.
The setting of the story “Soldier’s Home” helps the reader to better understand Krebs character in the story. The first example to help understand Krebs is the setting of the story is in Krebs hometown in Oklahoma after World War I in the early 1920’s. During the beginning of the story some background information is given about the battles he fought in Germany, and France, to give readers an idea of how Krebs has changed, and his hometown has not.