Critical Analysis of "Soldier's Home": Before, During, and After the
War (with bibliography)
Many of the titles of Ernest Hemingway's stories are ironic, and can be
read on a number of levels; Soldier's Home is no exception. Our first
impression, having read the title only, is that this story will be
about a old soldier living out the remainder of his life in an
institution where veterans go to die. We soon find out that the story
has nothing to do with the elderly, or institutions; rather, it tells
the story of a young man, Harold Krebs, only recently returned from
World War I, who has moved back into his parents' house while he
figures out what he wants to do with the rest of his life. And yet our
first impression lingers, and with good reason; despite the fact that
his parents' comfortable, middle-class lifestyle used to feel like home
to Harold Krebs, it no longer does.
Ernest Hemingway in Milan, 1918
Ernest Hemingway's house- Key West, FL
krebsHarold is not home; he has no home
at all. This is actually not an uncommon scenario among young people
(such as college students) returning into the womb of their childhood
again. But with Harold, the situation is more dramatic because he has
not only lived on his own, but has dealt with -- and been traumatized
by -- life-and-death situations his parents could not possibly
understand. Hemingway does not divulge why Krebs was the last person
in his home town to return home from the war; according to the Kansas
City Star, Hemingway himself "left Kansas City in the spring of 1918
and did not return for 10 years, [becoming] 'the first of 132 former
Star employees to be wounded in World War I,' according to a Star
article at the time of his death" (Kansas City Star, hem6.htm).
Wherever he...