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Theme Of Harold Krebs In Soldier's Home

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"Soldier's Home" tells the story of Harold Krebs, a Marine who returns home from World War I. While Krebs does not struggle from physical injuries he does suffer mentally. Harold Krebs struggles with post traumatic stress disorder once returning home from World War I. The characters and incidents in "Soldier's Home" are factual to Ernest Hemingway's own experiences because, similar to the main character, Harold Krebs, Ernest Hemingway struggles after returning home from the war.
First and foremost, similar to Ernest Hemingway's own experiences, Krebs in "Soldier's Home" displays a significant amount of distance and disconnection between him and everyone around him. In the story, Ernest Hemingway refers to Harold as Krebs to symbolize distance …show more content…

He liked her. She was his best sister." (27-28 Hemingway). Throughout the story Helen is the only person Krebs feels close to. The only person Krebs finds acceptable to pick things right back up is his little sister. Krebs only finds his sister's actions acceptable because she is young and innocent. Helen does not know any better. Another sign of Krebs showing distance between everyone around him is no longer having a desire for a girl. "But the world they were in was not the world he was in. He would like to have one of them. But it was not worth it." (Hemingway 168). Krebs is in a completely different world. He sees everything in a perspective the girls never will. As for Ernest Hemingway, "Hemingway was badly wounded at the war--wounded inside as well as outside. The war left him with a fear of night, a fear said to relate to his abrupt confrontation with his own mortality. It gave him insight into the fragility of the world, and it fostered a deep skepticism towards the grand abstractions that the First World War rendered bitterly ironic" (Stewart). Ernest Hemingway is not the same man he was before entering the war. After returning home from the war, however, Krebs ends up losing all of his faith. Consequently,

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