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Setting

In: English and Literature

Submitted By laurenelizabeth4
Words 1488
Pages 6
Setting in Soilder’s Home In the story ‘Soldier’s Home’ by Ernest Hemingway, the setting throughout the story helps us better understand the main character and why he acts the way he does. In stories the setting helps us build a frame around the characters about the environment they live in and what they go through in their life. “In most stories they also serve as more than backgrounds and furnishings. If we are sensitive to the contexts provided by the setting, we are better able to understand the behavior of the characters and the significance of their actions (Meyer131).” In this story, the author gives us glimpses of Harold, the main character, and what he is going through in his life once he returns home from war. After the earlier wars, many soldiers would return home to no good welcomes, and people would scold them for going and fighting for their country. Many of the soldiers had very hard times getting back to reality when they came back. They had hard times getting work and being able to do things normally because of the horror they faced at war. In this story, the opening scene talks of Harold, also referred to as ‘Krebs’, going to war after being a student at a Methodist college in Kansas. It talks about a picture of him in a fraternity, with all his fraternity brothers being the same height and wearing the same kind of collared shirt. Opening the story in this setting tells us that before the war, Krebs was just a normal college student who had many friends. They all dressed the same and were alike. He went to the Marines in 1917, not returning until the year 1919. The next scene talks about a picture, with him and two German girls along with another Marine. This setting is in the Rhine, that is not shown in the photograph. This sets the framework that being in Germany, he is more likely to be with woman from there and they are attracted to young soldiers. There are many stories of young men in the military back then of being with the woman from the countries they had to go and fight in. Krebs returns home from the war years after it had ended, so people were not as welcoming because they did not understand why he had come back so late when everyone else had returned much earlier. The setting shown is people shaming him from staying over there for what they believe is no reason. It shows you that a soldier returning from war, being welcomed by no one, could make an impact on the soilder much worse than those returning to people actually caring. Krebs is hesitant to talk to anyone when he returns. He had been to “Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and the Argonne..(Hemingway133).” These were all sites of the war that the Marines had to fight the Germans to push them back. During these battles, many lives were lost and the fact that Krebs had been to all of them must have made it hard for him to remember them and be able to talk about them. He ends up wanting to talk, but can’t find anyone who wants to listen to him. “Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie, and after he had done this twice he, too, had a reaction against the war and against talking about it (Hemingway133).” This illustrates that telling stories about the war that would intrigue people ended up making him hate what he had done. The lies he would tell would make him seem ‘cool’ but really made the truth of what happened even worse. It brought back the memories of all of the fallen soldiers and the men he had to kill, it made people resent the soldiers for going to war and becoming killing machines. He would talk about how the German woman would be in the forest chained to machine guns unable to comprehend what was going on. Krebs would come to realize that people would not want to hear these stories because they are simply barbaric to the men that did not go to war. It also would bring back bad memories to the soldiers that did see those woman and how it made them feel. “Krebs acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration, and when he occasionally met another man who had really been a soldier and they talked a few minutes in the dressing room at a dance he fell into the easy pose of the old soldier among other soldiers: that he had been badly, sickeningly frightened all the time. In this way he lost everything (Hemingway133).” This scene shows how when Krebs would actually meet a soldier who went through what he went through and they talked about what actually happened, he would fall into the past of what he saw and went through. Post Traumatic stress disorder is what is being shown here happening to Krebs. When this happens, veterans of the war become very depressed and feel empty inside from what they did in the past war. Adding this scene in the story shaped Krebs to feeling lost and feeling like their was no reason for him to be on earth. He would sleep late and take walks down the street to get a book at the library and then go on the porch until he got bored. It’s almost as if once the war happened, the things he had seen and done had made him feel like there was nothing good back home either. When Krebs returned home from war, the town he grew up in was just the same as when he left, except that all of the girls are now grown up. Krebs would like to look at them, but he did not want to ever pursue a relationship with any of them. He felt that it would be too complicated and he did not want to have to deal with the effort it takes to get one of them to be with him. “He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again. He wanted to live alone without any consequences. Besides he did not really need a girl. The army had taught him that. It was all right to pose as though you had to have a girl. Nearly everybody did that. But it wasn’t true. You did not need a girl (Hemingway 135).” The setting set in this scene shows Krebs is afraid to get close to anyone. He does not want to have responsibilities and go through the feelings he dealt with during the war back home. He convinces himself that he does not want to be with a woman or find love because in the army they were taught that you do not need anyone in your life. He was very afraid to go through any hard times, and he was convinced that getting involved with a women would make things worse for him. In Germany, it was easier to find a women, the language barrier made it easy to avoid all the talking and they could easily be friends. The ending scene is the setting of Krebs and his mother in the dining room. Krebs younger sister was also there. The setting in this scene helped us better understand how hard Krebs life was after the war. He was very distant from his family and his parents were both worried that he would not move on with his life. “Your father is worried, too,” his mother went on. “He thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven’t got a definite aim in life. Charley Simmons, who is just your age, has a good job and is going to be married. The boys are all settling down; they’re all determined to get somewhere; you can see that boys like Charley Simmons are on their way to being really a credit to the community (Hemingway 137).” This scene shapes the way life is like for Harold in his parents eyes. They do not like seeing him suffering and want him to be happy and successful like the other boys he grew up with. The wars negative impact on Harold has made it hard for him to be able to live a normal happy life. The story ends with stating that Krebs went to Kansas City and got a job, he stayed unmarried and without saying goodbye to his father, but that his mother was slowly becoming to be okay with Harold and his life. He goes to his youngest sister's indoor baseball game, as almost to set the scene that life was okay and good when he really was still broken from what the war had done to him.

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