Friday, January 30, 2009
SSRJ #2 Soldier's Home
This short story me feel as though I know this person and drew compassion form the reader. All of the emotions of the main character are clearly portrayed. The city and house where he lives play a big part of how the reader connects with the story. As I was reading the story I started to sympathize the solder who has served hard only to come back home with not so much as a thank you or the deserved welcome. This was the one thing that stood out to me as the most impotent part of the story, since as a result it caused Krebs to lie about the war just to get some attention. It reminds me of my friend who served in Iraq as a marine. The same sort of thing happened to him. When he first came back from the war he did not want to talk about it and what happened there. The people, for which he jeopardized his health and life for did not respect him and his dedication for this country. He was very frustrated with the ignorant people running their mouth about things that they had no idea about. I think that is partly why I liked this story.
Hemingway used atmosphere throughout the story to draw on emotions of the reader. Both the town and family settings are used for this purpose. We can tell it is a smaller town since Krebs would "walk down town to the library to get a book, eat lunch at home, reading on the front porch until he became bored"(186) and then again walk into town to play pool. The smaller town should theoretically treat its citizens better then a huge city, but that is not the case in the story. Hemingway purposely makes it so to gain sympathy for the returned solder. We can tell that he has a close family because "He was still a hero to his young sisters"(186) and his mother would make him breakfast and serve it to him in bed if he wanted it there. If the family was not close then their interactions with would be lacking the care for each other. Reading the story and feeling sorry for the solder who is unwelcome back to his own town you respect the fact that at least his family is close and caring to him. We can see this in the story when Krebs mother talked to him about his depressed condition "your father is worried too"(189) and "you know we love you"(189). The very end of the story when he said that he does not love anyone causing his mother to cry also drew on the emotions of the reader.
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I think it's interesting to note, that even now soldier's come home without so much as a thank you. Our government seems to not do much in the way of helping our returning veterans adjust back to home life. At least back in those days, we would at least congratulate our returning soldiers with a parade or some sort of party. Now we have our men returning on the daily and not so much as a thank you from either the public or our government is given to these people. It's a sad state of affairs if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteI think you brought up a very good point when you mentioned the fact that his sister looked up to him and his mother would take him breakfast in bed, yet he still felt isolated.
ReplyDeleteHis family may have felt they were being there for him, but they didn't seem to bother understanding his feelings on the matter. It seems cold that they could understand so little about their own son - it's as if they want everything back to normal rather than adapting to the fact that war may have changed him quite a lot.
This story made me feel hardly any compasion for the family at all. I liked the sister somewhat, but over the majority of the text, I sympathized much more for the soldier who no one took the time to understand.
You had brought that to light for me regarding the un-thank yous Krebs received. Krebs came back home years after the war, after the town had made their dramatic appreciations towards the returning soldiers to find none left for him.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to agree with Patrick on his comment above. It was sad then, as it is quite disappointing now how our soldiers are not treated as they should be, when they return home.
I agree with Patrick. We have soldiers returning home daily and not much is being done afterwards to say thank you. They receive a few benefits and have to adjust back into life.
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