Initial
Personal Reaction: Upon reading A
Soldier's Home,
I was instantly drawn into Hemingway's world of a quaint small town.
The story gave me greater insight into what a person feels like while
readjusting to life after war. Throughout the story, Krebs was trying
to forget the consequences of war and deal with society's pressures
of conformity. It was particularly interesting to me that Krebs lost
all motivation for having a girl. I would think that having a girl
would help take his mind off war, but Krebs felt the opposite way. He
didn't want to have to go through the process again, and he didn't
want to talk to her. I also though it was interesting that Krebs
couldn't say that he loved his mother. How couldn't he love the woman
who gave him life and was nothing but loving and supportive of him?
LiteraryElement/
Thematic Analysis: Through the image of Dutch collars contrasting
with Kreb's uniform, Hemingway highlights the idea that Krebs doesn't
fit in with society. Before Krebs went off to war, he went to a
Methodist college. We learn from a photograph that all his fraternity
brothers wore the same height and style collar, which emphasizes
conformity. The picture of Krebs wearing a matching collar is a stark
contrast to the photograph of Krebs in his uniform. No longer was he
a part of the fraternity, but he had moved on and now identified with
his fellow soldiers. When Krebs came back home, he noticed that all
the girls were wearing their hair differently, and that "they
all wore sweaters and shirt waists with round Dutch collars. It was a
pattern." Hemingway is showing that things had changed since
Krebs had returned home. All the girls at home dressed similarly,
reaffirming the view that they had already formed their social
connections, and Krebs wasn't a part of it. When Hemingway
wrote, "but the world they were in was not the world he was in,
it showed that he felt alienated; however, he did like the pattern of
them. The pattern was visually reinforced through the repetition of
the Dutch collars.
Questions/Comments:
Why
don't you think Kreb's father never spoke in the story?
Do
you think that one of the girls in photograph taken in front of the
Rhine was Kreb's girlfriend?
Why
could Krebs tell his sister he loved her, but not tell his mother he
loved her?
This is what I visualized when Hemingway talked about the short bobbed hair cuts that ladies were wearing.
Today's quote comes from Alice In Wonderland, one of the strangest books I have ever read. I am a huge Disney lover, and I think the Tim Burton film version was absolutely wonderful; however, I think the "madness" of the caterpillar is captured better by the book. Score one for literature! Anyways, back to the quote: 
