Ernest Hemingway’s Short Story, “soldier’s Home

In Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Soldier’s Home”, Hemingway introduces the theme of adaptation through the way Harold Krebs comes home after a traumatic experience and has to find a way to continue his life, rebuild relationships, and adapt to his surroundings back at home. After Krebs saw death and destruction in the war's most bloody battles, he returns home where his parents try to get him back to his normal routines. His view of the world has changed drastically since the war. He no longer feels love in his heart and cannot lie to his mother when she asks if he loves her. One of the famous lines Hemingway wrote described how “Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate”(6). Like bacon, his heart has been hardened by what he had seen in World War I and he knew he must get far away from his parents to be able to get his life back. This story is told from the third person narrator point of view to demonstrate the view that others have of Krebs and display how much he has changed. Hemingway, having been a former journalist is able to show how distant Krebs is because of being the type of journalist who is detached just like Krebs was detached by his experience in World War I. As Hemingway writes, he shows how Krebs holds his emotions in that he knows his mother will not understand. When Krebs calls his mom “Mummy”(7) he is trying to comfort her by acting like a child. At the end Krebs makes a decision to leave and go to Kansas City because he feels he may not ever reconnect with his family.