Torn in Conflict

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Torn in Conflict

I interpret that Ernest Hemingway presents the character of Harold Kreb in "Soldier's Home" as a man in conflict. I believe that Krebs is torn between his conscience and what he believes others either expect of him or what they think of his changed attitude and actions. This internal and external opposition makes for the central theme of the story.

A narrator made up by Hemingway presents this story in third person point-of-view. This narrator tells the story of a changed Krebs who comes back from World War I confused by his small hometown and society as a whole.

Krebs seemed like a normal American boy before he went off to war. He attended a Methodist college in Kansas and was depicted as a fraternity boy, which seemed to be normal. Krebs did not get drafted in the war, but enlisted as a Marine. This shows that Krebs was honored to serve his country, not just to join the military, but to join the hardest core of the military. His work ethic must have been good and he was a very motivated man before he went off to war.

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When Krebs comes back from the war, he does not get a greeting of a hero; in fact the town is confused at why Krebs comes home "years" after the war. Since the town has already heard such horrifying war stories, Krebs does not want to bore the people with actualities. He tells people of real war stories, but tells them that these stories are his own stories.

Krebs knows that lying is wrong, "Krebs acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration" (para. 5). Krebs is in conflict with his mother over love because of the remark he makes about not loving her. He lies when he sees his mother crying "I didn't mean it," he said. "I was just angry at something. I didn't mean I didn't love you" (para. 77). Krebs also lies to his little sister about being her boyfriend and loving her just because he is trying to ignore her because he is involved in reading the Kansas City Star sports section. In these examples Krebs tries to determine if his thoughts should be spoken, or if he should just lie to make his family feel better.

Krebs is in internal conflict when he thinks about American girls. When Krebs was away in Germany, he found time to meet with women and go out with these women. When Krebs comes back from war, he realizes that even though the German girls and French girls are not as good looking as American girls, he likes the language barrier because he does not want to get involved in talking. The American girls "lived in such a complicated world of already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or the courage to break into it" (para. 10). He liked this pattern of the clothing the American girls wore. "He liked the round Dutch collars above their sweaters. He liked their silk stockings and flat shoes. He liked their bobbed hair and the way they walked" (para. 10). He knows that he can not get involved with these girls. "They were too complicated. He would have liked to have a girl but he did not want to have to spend a long time getting her. He did not want to get into the intrigue and the politics. It wasn't worth it" (para. 11). You can see that Krebs is in conflict with girls because he thinks of them often but does not want to go through the complication with getting an American girl. Krebs believes that you can live without girls if you do not think about them, but many of the other soldiers though believed that you can not live without girls, "Then a fellow boasted that he could not get along without girls, that he had to have them all the time, that he could not go to sleep without them" (para. 1). Krebs knows this statement is false because he learned in the army that you do not need a girl unless you thought about them. In this story there are many sentences that explain the American girls and that Krebs does not want to get involved because of the talking and the complication.

Therefore, he is in conflict because he really wants to have a girl but does not want to go though all the complication with the American girls. When Krebss sister asks him questions about being her beau, he is very quick with her and answers the questions the way his sister would have wanted to hear them. He would want a girl as simple as his sister, but one that does not talk as much.

Krebs also shows that he is a changed man after the war by the way he tells his mother that he can not pray with her, and that she can pray for him if she would like. He also implies that his faith is lost because of his mother's comment "God has some work for everyone to do, his mother said. There can be no idle hands in His Kingdom" (para. 6). Krebs responds, "I'm not in His Kingdom" (para. 6). This shows that he does not believe in God. He grew up in a very religious family and attended a Methodist college, so the story implies that he was faithful, but after the war his religion has changed.

Krebs states that "nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up". The decision that Krebs was allowed to take the family car was also a change. Krebs thinks that his mother convinced his father to let him take the family car, but the mother denies it. I believe that the mother and father feel that Krebs needs to get on with his life. His mother wants her son to be like the rest of the boys that are back from the war, as she states "Charley Simmons, who is just your age, has a good job and is going to be married. The boys are all settling down; they're all determined to get somewhere; you can see that boys like Charley Simmons are on their way to being really a credit to the community" (para.6). His mother wants him to get out and do well in life so it will make her look like a better mother. His father also wants him to get out and get a job. That is why the decision about driving the car has changed since he has got back from the war.

The war has changed Krebs life forever, he has been though fierce fighting in Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and the Argonne. These horrible memories make him a lonely, depressed man. He could never tell anyone what he had seen in war. When he tries to tell his mother about his war stories, his mother dazes off into space and just ignores him. Even if he wanted to tell anyone else the truth about his stories, he is afraid of rejection so therefore he keeps his own visions and thoughts of the war to himself and makes up lies to try and forget about his past.

Krebs tries to get into a routine when he gets home from the war because that is what he was accustomed to in the war. His routine in late summer was "he was sleeping late in bed, getting up to walk down town to the library to get a book, eating lunch at home, reading on the front porch until he became bored, and then walking down through the town to spend the hottest hours of the day in the cool dark of the pool room" (para. 7).

"In the evening he practiced on his clarinet, strolled down town, read, and went to bed" (para. 8). These activities that Krebs would occupy himself with were almost the same in the days and the evenings. Krebs thinks that these activities are acceptable, but his parents thought different of them and wanted him to get a job. Once again he is in a state of conflict.

In the final paragraph of this story, Krebs just wants life to be simple "so his mother prayed for him and then they stood up and Krebs kissed his mother and went out of the house. He had tried so to keep his life from being complicated" (para. 5). Krebs has changed drastically from the war and even though everyone around him wants him to change back, he knows that he can never change but tries to act normal so things are not complicated. "He wanted his life to go smoothly. It had just gotten going that way. Well, that was all over now"(para.5).

Krebs conflict in the story will never leave him because of the way he does not except change. He wants everything in his life to be simple again so he is unsure whether to listen to his family and society, or to listen to himself and not change. He decides to go to Kansas City and get a job to try and make things normal again and so his parents will except him. Therefore he is in internal and external conflict throughout the whole story.

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