There are several symbols in this story of the traumatized soldier Harold Krebs. He comes home from World War I to his small town in Oklahoma and does not find anyone who can understand him or what he has been through.
In the first paragraph, the photo of him with his fraternity brothers all wearing "exactly the same height and style collar" symbolizes that Krebs is an "everyman"—he is meant to represent or symbolize the experience of many, many soldiers of his age and social standing who went to fight in World War I and came home as the "lost generation." The idea put forth here is that he is not unique in his experience.
In the second paragraph—in which Krebs and his colonel look "too big" for their uniforms, the German girls aren't pretty, and there is no Rhine in the picture—the photo symbolizes how out of place he...
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and others Americans like him were in Europe.
At the end of the story, Krebs going to watch his sister Helen play indoor baseball symbolizes his love for her. She had said earlier "If you loved me, you'd want to come over and watch me play indoor." Most of the time, Krebs wants to do next to nothing, so his willingness to rouse himself to see his sister play is important. He feels a connection to at least one other person, which offers a glimmer of hope for him.
The title of Hemingway's story is symbolic. For, the title can be interpreted in two ways:
- as "[the] soldier is home" (soldier's as the contraction of soldier is)
- as [a] soldier's (possessive) home, meaning the retirement home for old, worn-out soldiers--an old-fashioned name for what is now a veterans' home.
Moreover, the place to which Krebs returns is actually both of these: Krebs, the soldier, is home; and, Krebs, the soldier, exists as though he is in an old soldier's home,
...he was sleeping late in bed, getting up to walk down 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.
Krebs is also not very interested in women because "[T]hey were too complicated." He cannot bear thinking of the complications involved in dating a woman since "...the world they were in was not the world he was in." Like an old man, Krebs justs
....He liked to look at them all, though. It was not worth it.....He had tried so to keep his life from being complicated.
Krebs is dead inside. By establishing some routine, some order, Krebs can live--if he creates a "soldier's home," a place of order, simplicity, and routine with no anticipation of anything changing. But when his mother asks him to do more, Krebs realizes he cannot stay because he must, then, lie. "Well, that was all over now, anyway." The house is no longer a "soldier's home," a refuge from the world where Krebs can be detached; now, Krebs must leave.
What is the significance of the setting in "Soldier's Home"?
Ernest Hemingway's double entendre in his title is a key to the significance of the setting. For, a soldiers' home is a veteran's hospital where old soldiers just sit and wait to die. And, of course, "soldier's home" also means "the soldier is home."
And, for Krebs to be home is much like the old soldiers' home: a setting of stoic holding on against his despair. For,
A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told. All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he though of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves.
At home, Krebs can no longer relate to his family or be truthful with them. While "[N]othing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up," Krebs cannot return to what he was before the war; "he did not feel the energy or the courage to break into it." He does not want to have a relationship with a girl because so much of a relationship is a lie or is "too complicated." Besides, the world that the girls are in is "not the world he was in." Krebs "had been a good soldier," but he does not make a good civilian. He feels alienated, and the little rituals of remembering often lead him to thinking about disturbing things that he has experienced as a soldier.
Truly, as Thomas Wolfe wrote, Krebs "cannot go home again"; he cannot be the son who calls his mother "Mummy"; he must lie if he stays at his old home. So, because he wants order, "he wanted his life to go smoothly," Krebs decides to go to Kansas City and get a job where he can hold on against the odds. "Soldier's Home" is too confining, with either meaning.
What is the symbolism in "Soldier's Home"?
Let us remember that symbolism can be related to objects but also actions and characters. The major symbolism in this story relates to how Krebs lives his life once he has returned from war and how he spends his time at his family's house. We are given quite a detailed description of how he spends his days:
During this time, it was late summer, he was sleeping late in bed, getting up to walk down 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. He loved to play pool.
We can see that Krebs lives his days free from responsibility and involvement with others. He essentially lives an isolated life where he does what he wants to do and does not have to answer to anybody else or to "conform" to society's expectations of him and what he is expected to do and how he should be living his life. Note how, later on in the story, when refering to his lack of interest in pursuing a relationship with girls, the text tells us:
He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again.
We can see that how he spends his time is symbolic of this inner desire within him. Having seen and endured the horrors of war, Krebs now never wishes to become involved in life to such a degree that there would be consequences. His actions symbolically show this attitude, pointing towards someone who is emotionally exhausted and desperate to avoid commitment.