In “Soldiers home” by Ernest Hemingway, there also appears to be differing presentations of conformity. In this short story, the main character Krebs, a soldier returning home from World War Two, has a difficult time adjusting himself back to his life in Oklahoma. He no longer fits in to the society that he left behind. Still trying to cope with the experiences of the war, Krebs wishes not to speak about it at first. After a while, he finally realizes he must be talked about sooner or later. But with such a late arrival, Krebs war stories were no longer knew to any of the townspeople. The soldiers, who arrived promptly after the war was over, already told the stories. Therefore, no one was really interested in the new stories he had to tell. To make them listen, he figures he must spin the stories a little. However, this does not work out when former soldiers take notice of his exaggerated stories. Having knowledge of what is true and false, they “were not thrilled by his stories.” Hemingway …show more content…
He would rather read or play in “the cool dark of the pool room,” than assimilate back into such a “complicated world.” Krebs did not mind being different from everyone else, rather he enjoyed it, he was comfortable with his situation. It was his family that was not okay with his lack of motivation to change. The clarity of their insistence is depicted towards the end of the story. The mother is especially forceful, when she makes an offer to him to take the car out. Having an ulterior motive, as most mothers do, she is just trying to get him back into a routine of what a man his age might do, for example, going out. Her purpose to conform him into the lifestyle of an average person can demonstrate at least one positive aspect of conformity. In Krebs case, adaptation to a normal lifestyle may be needed, in order for him to live his life as a healthy
A storyteller invents comprehensible facts to fill in a story’s missing aspects. O’Brien continues to elaborate by explaining how “The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brien 67). Again, as a soldier, especially in the Vietnam War, it proves difficult to realize what actually occurs and find the ability to remember specific details to completely and precisely retell it some time afterwards. Tim implies imagination’s role when he writes, “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head.
A multitude of books in all generations, from Anthem by Ayn Rand to Divergent by Veronica Roth, often revolve around one simple topic: the power of being different from everyone else. In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the reader is introduced to Guy Montag, who ostensibly is conformed to his indoctrinating society, but inwardly knows something is missing from the society. However, Montag’s meeting of one person—one “different” person—leads him to truly discover the aspect of life that society has tried to hide and destroy from the population; the spread of creative ideas. Fahrenheit 451 elucidates how the mindless pull of sameness can degrade a society, and how one individual who can escape complete conformity to a mind-numbing
In life, people face the pressures of conformity in their everyday lives from school, to just going shopping for clothing. Throughout literature, protagonists face the pressures of conformity in their lives no matter the age of the character. Both The Giver by Lois Lowry and Number Twelve looks just like You by John Tomerlin deal with pressures of conformity, but they do so in different ways. Both texts are similar because both protagonists want or try to escape the conformity that is within their communities. “In Number Twelve looks just like You”, Marilyn knows that conformity in her community is wrong.
Through this story, O’Brien describes a True war story and is able to prove the point of telling them. As a soldier named Rat Kiley tells the story, the other men comment on it. When Rat asks them what they think will happen, the men point to the details Rat described and say, “...all that had to be there for a reason. That’s how stories work, man” (O’Brien 102).
Hemingway begins Krebs’ story in a Methodist college in Kansas when the war starts off in 1917. When the war ends Krebs chose to stay in Germany for the next six months and when he comes back he realizes that the town moved on about the war and didn’t get the welcome he thought he deserved. This leads to the theme of not being able to find an outlet for pain. He wanted people to listen to his stories so they would be able to see the pain of what he went through throughout the war and the heroic actions he accomplished while fighting
Krebs life is forever changed. He needs to move on but has a difficult time doing so. He lives in his childhood home when he returns home. Krebs battles a sort of depression, staying in bed often, never going out, and just being detached. At one point when asked by his mother if he loves her he says no.
Conformity is something that humans have been doing for a long time. Such conformity has lead to negative outcomes. This idea is explored through “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden. In these two texts conformity eliminates individuality and causes the society to be weakened.
1) Renaldi states to Frederic, ”Oh yes. All my life I encountered sacred subjects. But very few with you. I suppose you must have them too … I am the snake.
Conformity, while it comes easily to many, is an unavoidable and dangerous factory mold that people unfit for society are crushed into so they can become another misshapen product of
Social Conformity in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest “He Who Marches Out Of Step Hears Another Drum” (Kesey 154). In this modern world, to come to terms with society is to conform to its standards. When a person does not fit the standard mold of a society, they are scrutinized for their divergence.
Telling a true war story can be hard to do, because soldiers are tempted to change some traumatic aspects to make the story easier to comprehend, and not so traumatic for the listener. For the readers who prefer the brutal and gruesome stories,
Moral Lense Literary Analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest The 1950s, the context of which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel by Ken Kesey, was written, was called the Era of Conformity. During this time, the American social atmosphere was quiet conformed, in that everyone was expected to follow the same, fixed format of behavior in society, and the ones who stand out of being not the same would likely be “beaten down” by the social norms. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey argues that it is immoral for society to simply push its beliefs onto the people who are deemed different, as it is unfair and could lead to destructive results. First of all, it is unjust for people who are deemed unalike from others in society to be forced into the preset way of conduct because human tend to have dissimilar nature.
This also informs of the internal conflict of loved ones such as Krebs mother and even returnee soldiers themselves. The use of the theme of conformity by Hemmingway paints a picture of stark differences that bring out conflicts to the central character Krebs. Readers are also informed by the difficulty of adapting to conflicting social norms such as religion and marriage that most people fit into. Krebs truly knows that he has been traumatized by the war, and even the conformity of family and religion cannot seem to understand that the best way for him to conform is taking no responsibilities and consequences such as those of
Krebs thought girls were “not worth the trouble.” (85) Although he may not have had the motivation to pick up the girls, he “liked looking at them.” (85) This is in no way the girls’ fault, however it shows how the war affected Krebs’ drive to do tasks that involve socialization. Perhaps if the townspeople were more open to listen to Krebs’ story then he would be more comfortable with girls. His mother is an example of how he interacts with women.
Her son would return home with her help and he would be back into society. She would give him the tools to succeed and finally return home. She and his father came up with a plan that Krebs could borrow the car and go out and perform activities so that Krebs would get out of the house and enjoy life, but he must also find a job to which she described it as a place in life (Hemingway 170). Kreb’s mother was providing him with the tools to become a key component for his future. She understood the struggles he went through but wanted to make sure that he would eventually find a way to