SSRJ #2- Hemingway

One of Hemingway’s famous quotes was “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” and one of my favorite personal quotes is "A man's greatness is determined by how much it takes to discourage him". As we know Hemingway was one of the 20th century’s most famous writers but he lived what some could call a tragic life. Hemingway was in World War I, was wounded, and had trouble adjusting to life when he returned (184). He was also at the D-Day landing in World War II so he had seen his fair share of bloody battles and other atrocities. The one battle he could not win was the battle within himself and eventually let life defeat him. I have read of how not only he committed suicide but his father, brother, sister and granddaughter also took their own life.
Knowing Hemingway’s life story, I read “Soldier’s Home” constantly thinking of Krebs being a part of Hemingway himself, struggling with life. What first struck me about the story was its title, Soldier’s Home. The title wasn’t “A Soldier’s Home” or “A Soldier is Home”, which led me to think that Hemingway was trying to convey a sense of what it was like for Krebs isolated life after the war. After all words mean things, or do they? Krebs seems to have come from an average middle class family in Oklahoma. There is no indication prior to him going off to war that he had a troubled past or that his family struggled. His family had good values which included religion in their lives whereas we read that Krebs went to a Methodist college and his mother was a spiritual woman. One revealing absence in the story is Krebs’ father. He is prevalent in the story as we read how his mother is relaying information to Krebs from his father but there were no direct quotes from his father. When you read about Hemingway’s youth it tells how his mother was known as abusive to his father, so I wonder if he was reflecting his mother’s dominant presence in this story. When Krebs went off to war in Europe he did not return the same, he returned hardened and introverted, not unlike many who go off to war. There is a quote that is said to have been attributed to General Sherman during the Civil War that said “"Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!". I have a sense that Krebs and many other young men going off to war at that time thought it would be a great experience and they would come home as conquering heroes and tell stories of adventure and the women they loved. The war officially ended on Armistice Day in November of 1918 so Krebs’ extended deployment in Germany (he came home in the summer of 1919) following the ending of the war delayed his chance to come home and be vetted as a hero like many in his hometown. This seemed to afflict Krebs to the point that he did not want to become a part of society again, he only wanted to sleep late, play pool, read books on the front porch and practice his clarinet. His hometown had not changed, but he had changed. He did not want to relate with any of the girls in town even when his mother would encourage him to take the car out on the town. Krebs was worn out with consequences and complications in the war so he did not want any complications or consequences in his life. So therefore the conflict was Krebs battling himself, warring against what he should do with what he wasn’t willing to do.
I don’t think Krebs’ family really understood what happened to him in the war; they lived a simplistic small town life and were never exposed to the trauma and distress of war or conflict. They assume that he should just return home and be the same person he was when he left. That meant getting a job and being a normal person. Maybe the way they treated him, like he was a young boy, was their way of closing their eyes to the darker man he had become. If he was in college and was at war for two years he had to have been in his mid 20s by then.
There was the exchange between him and his sister Helen that I didn’t quite understand. I took their banter as innocent jabbing between siblings when she called him “her beau”, but when she asked questions like “Am I really your girl?” and “Will you love me always”, seems more like the way a girlfriend would act toward her boyfriend. I was not sure of that exchange other than maybe his sister was trying to convey her love for him and to make him realize that his family loves him.
In the end his encounter with his mother where she asked him to pray, he refused, and she offered to pray for him, was the turning point. He eventually said “yes” to her prayer request and got up from that prayer a different person. Krebs doesn’t want to confront and deal with his troubles and prayer is a way to ask for help when you feel helpless. He did not want to feel weak but at the same time, he was at his weakest and gave in. He finally realizes that he must leave his hometown in order to move forward in his soul. If he stays he will only become more bitter and heartless. He musters the will to leave behind not only his town but his conflicts within his soul. He then could start living his life, but not there in his hometown but in Kansas City. He could start anew and hopefully deal with the consequences and complications that all of us face in life.
I have never been to war but in some respects I can relate to Krebs’ returning home after being away for some time. I was raised in a small town in south Alabama, a town that does not change. I moved to California for 14 years and then moved back to my hometown in 2002 and lived there for four years before moving back to California in 2006. My experience was not as dramatic as Krebs, but I did feel like an outsider and a stranger in my old hometown. Many childhood friends had moved away but many had stayed and it was difficult for me to relate to their attitudes and their way of life. I was not accepted back into that isolated world by many who believed I had come back a different person, no longer one of “them”. They even remarked how I now had a California accent. My old friends and I had very different views on life. I felt I had experienced a diverse people and different cultures in California and back home little or nothing had changed. They liked it that way. So I could see how Krebs came home and desired to be back in France or Germany. I have had conflict with myself ever since I moved back out here to California though. The time I spent in my hometown made me appreciate a simpler lifestyle but at the same time I enjoy all that living in California offers. At times, I am not sure if I feel more at home in California or Alabama. Each of them holds a part of me, each one different. It is those sorts of conflicts, consequences, and complications that all of us face in life and we can’t let those elements overtake us, but we must overcome them and keep moving forward. I would wonder if others have had a similar experience.