Soldier's Home Sparknotes

“Soldier’s Home”
The story, “Soldier’s Home,” is an appropriately titled story, that explains the trials and tribulations of a soldier that had been to war and is now returning home. Throughout the story, the main character, Harold, is struggling significantly to re-adapt his lifestyle from what he was before leaving for the war, and what he is as he returns from the war. Harold repeatedly compares the lifestyle of people in his society, in America, to the lifestyles of people in Germany and France. The complications that Harold struggles with every day, are the same struggles that soldiers returning from the war still face today.
There are soldiers returning home from the war every day, much like Harold, that are expected, by society,

to go back and resume living the peaceful lifestyle they lived, before spending an undisclosed amount of time fighting a war. This can certainly prove to be a challenging task for many soldiers returning home. It is a sad truth that many soldiers simply cannot spend several months, or longer, fighting in an intense environment, such as a war, and then return home to live a normal life. Some soldiers, much like Harold did, will return home and put on a false smile for everyone to see. All the while, bottling up their true emotions.
The argument could be made that a soldier’s inability to cope with society, could directly cause soldiers to develop mental illnesses, such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some veterans may find themselves drinking too much, unable to sleep or waking from unspeakable dreams, lashing out at friends and loved ones. Over time, some will struggle so profoundly that they eventually are diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Fields of combat. Sadly, a vast majority of returning war soldiers suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.
In more recent years, doctors have begun to attempt to come up with treatment programs for patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. However, functional awareness is rarely assessed or targeted in PTSD treatments, which instead focus on symptom reduction. Trauma related contributors to diminished functioning, including guilt, shame, and anger resulting from morally compromising or loss-based war experiences, are also under emphasized. (Psychosocial rehab). A study was performed on returning soldiers to see if social skills intervenes as a mediator between post traumatic stress disorder symptoms, and intimate partner aggression. Prior research with veterans has focused on PTSD related deficits at the decoding stage of McFall’s (1982) social information processing model, and the current study adds to this literature by examining social skills deficits at the decision stage.(social skills deficits)
A returning soldier can develop post traumatic stress disorder from a number of ways. It may be caused from something the soldier saw, or did, while they were fighting in a war. It could be caused by a personal injury the soldier sustained while in the war. It is not uncommon for a soldier, while fighting in a war, to sustain minor to major injuries. The injury could be as minor as a simple scratch, or as major as the soldier losing a limb. Regardless, there is no doubt that fighting in a war comes with the risk of having serious health issues. We found that deployment was associated with a decline in both physical and mental function. The demographic, psychosocial, psychological, and deployment experiences of OEF and OIF veterans are multifaceted and highly varied, and the effects of factors on physical and mental function appear to be complex. (pre deployment health)
The main character, in the story, “Soldier’s Home,” Harold, deals with these same complications when he returns from the war. Once Harold returns from the war, it is abundantly clear that he is exhausted, both mentally and physically. Harold describes how he felt as though he wanted to have a woman, but did not want the complications and drama that came along with actually having a woman. He continuously reverts back to how the military had taught him that even though he may want to have a woman, he did not need to have a woman. It would seem that Harold is perfectly content on just watching the girls in his hometown walk down the street, all the while reminiscing of the women that roamed the streets of Germany.
There are several instances in the story, “Soldier’s Home,” that the reader can sense that Harold seems to feel isolated from the rest of his hometown, after he returns from the war. There’s this profound sense of alienation that you feel when you come home from the war. Life after war. Harold seems to just keep to himself, as much as possible, instead of trying to talk to his friends and family. Harold even refuses to go talk to his father at the end of the story.
That certain sense of alienation is portrayed even more when Harold describes his coming home celebration, or lack thereof. Harold tells of how the other returning hometown soldiers had a big celebration, with the whole town, and had told everyone all the stories of the war. Since Harold returned home much later than the other soldiers, he did not receive a big celebration. Some people in his hometown had even wondered why it had taken Harold so long to return home. Harold mentions that when he is forced to interact with people, and tell them war stories, he has to lie to alter the story. Even then he can tell that the person is not really interested in what Harold is saying, because they have already heard the stories from the other soldiers. After a few times of having to alter the war stories, Harold actually nauseates himself, after he is finished. Since he can tell that no one really seems interested in what he is saying anyways, Harold tries to just be alone as much as he can.
Throughout the story, it is clear that Harold is not only struggling with isolating himself from the rest of the town, but he appears to just have an altered mental status all together.

It is shown whenever Harold’s mother asks him if he loves her. Cold heartedly, Harold replies no and that he cannot love anything anymore. Once seeing that it had broken his mother’s heart, Harold lies to her and says he does love her he was just aggravated at something else and had taken it out on her. Harold’s mother also asks Harold to pray, in which Harold replied that he could not pray and wanted his mother to pray for him. It is clear during the entirety of the story that Harold is struggling with

himself.
It is abundantly clear throughout, “Soldier’s Home,” that the biggest personal issue Harold is experiencing is his attempts and inability to conform to what society thinks he should be. After returning home from the war, Harold himself had changed, but his hometown and family had remained the exact same as they were before he left. Harold discovered that society did not really wish to hear about the ugly truths of the war, but rather just hear of the extraordinary heroics of the soldiers while fighting the war. This is the leading reason why Harold feels it to be necessary to lie to the townspeople, when speaking of the war, and overall, why Harold would rather just be by himself, instead of interacting with the townspeople.
It is obvious to see, that, while people may not have known it then, Harold exemplified the common sign and symptoms of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Harold felt as certain sense of solidarity, anger, and languishment once he returned home from the war. Harold became irritated, and somewhat belligerent, when he conversed with his mother. Harold felt the need to lie to everyone in his hometown about what the war was really like. While Harold enjoyed watching the women walk down the street in his hometown, he continuously reminisced on the women that had been in Germany, and how being in the military had taught him how he did not need to be with a woman. All of these actions, by Harold, are a significant indication that Harold was actually suffering from post-traumatic stress

disorder.
The story does lead the reader to believe that there is a possibility that Harold may be getting better, in the future. Harold has a conversation, with his sister, about coming to watch her play a game at her school. Once Harold leaves his parents’ house, he decides he will move to Kansas City and find a job like his mother wants him to. While he decides he will not go and see his father at work, like his father wanted him to, Harold decides that before he leaves for Kansas City, he will go and watch his sister play in her game. This shows that Harold is going to attempt to start to live a lifestyle that agrees with how society believes that he should live.
“Soldier’s Home,” proves to be an appropriate title for this story, as it portrays the trials and tribulations, of a soldier returning from war, faces as he returns to his hometown. Although Harold’s friends, family, and hometown remained the same in his absence, Harold himself had changed significantly, during his time in the war. Post-traumatic stress disorder could be heavily influenced by a soldier’s inability return to a peaceful society, coming from an intense and hostile environment, such as a war. This argument is proven accurate in the story, “Soldier’s Home.” All of Harold’s actions and emotions accurately describes a modern-day soldier being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. While there are treatments now for post-traumatic stress disorder, in Harold’s time there were no such treatments. It does seem however, that Harold has decided to move to Kansas City and find a job and try to begin to live a more cyclized lifestyle that conforms to the kind of lifestyle that is agreeable with the rest of society.