You Can Never Go Home Again

A detailed Summary of You Can Never Go Home Again

Here in 'Soldier's Home' all the 'should-have-been's' turn into 'could-have-been's' for Harold Krebs. Krebs is the main character in Ernest Hemingway's commentary on the old adage 'you can never go home again.' We find in Krebs the irony of the experience of war from a personal perception and the personal reality of it. Krebs is a returning World War I veteran trying to fit back into the normal routine of small-town life. World War I's reality weighs heavy upon him as his townsfolk expect more from him than he can give and he realizes their perceptions are wrong. Weighing Krebs down even more is the reality that he cannot live up to his own experiences and perceptions.

Being personally unfamiliar with Hemingway's works [that is not having read any of his novels completely], but being very familiar with Hemingway's persona, one finds this short story displaying his masterful use of irony in his characteristically machismo vein. Here is, I feel, the kernel of Hemingway's story. The contrast between perceived 'manly' attitudes toward war and its effects versus the reality of war sapping the very life from its participants. In our day we call what Krebs was going through psychologically, post-traumatic

So in the subtle irony we find Hemingway's theme, the lies of life. His point is that under closer scrutiny, in all our levels of relationships, interactions and perceptions, its true, things are simply not what they seem. As shown in 'Soldier's Home,' the character Krebs will never again be the same person he was before World War I. His experience points out that old saying, 'you can never go home again.'

His World War I experience and Marine 'tough-guy' creed left Krebs emotionally detached. The Marines had taught Krebs that no man needs a woman. Trying to get a girlfriend involved a 'real Marine' [hence a 'real man'] in too much work. It wouldn't be worth going through the pain of heartbreak or rejection. He would sit on his porch, and watch women walk by. He wanted a girl, but he didn't want to go through the stress and pressure of trying to get a girl. "He did not want any consequences." Here we see Krebs fall into the 'dating lie.' He fell out of a boat of borrowed Marine machismo into a pool of pity without a lifejacket.

Two statements succinctly sum up the theme of 'Soldier's Home' pertaining to the lies of life and war, especially Krebs 'self-lie.' First, we find this in the commentary about Krebs war photo. "There is a picture which shows him on the Rhine with two German girls and another corporal. Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does not show in the picture." In other words, two American farm-boys transplanted to a far off war find neither glamour, nor heroism.

In Krebs day, through the pen of Hemingway, we find him conveying his feelings of frustration and shame upon returning home to a town and to parents who still had a romantic notion of war and who didn't understand the psychological impact the war had had on him. They would never be able to comprehend what war was all about. The character of Krebs obviously represents Hemi

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Approximate Word count = 1300
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English