Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, USA, and is a writer and journalist. Hemingway has won many awards in his life. He was awarded the Silver Brave Medal during the First World War. Hemingway’s feelings in his life were complicated and he had four marriages. He was the “lost generation” of the United States. His works show confusion and embarrassment to life, the world, and society. He has always been known as the tough guy in the literary world. He is a spiritual monument of the American nation. Hemingway's work marks the formation of his unique style of writing, and plays an important role in the history of American literature and even in the history of world literature.
‘Soldier’s Home is a short story by American writer Ernest Hemingway, included in the novel 'In Our Time.' The novel tells about the return of American youth Krebs from the European battlefield. It is said that he should be elated and smug, but he was disheartened and unhappy. He does not talk about war, does not look for a girlfriend, does not want to work, and even claims that he is not a person in the Kingdom of God, he does not love anyone. The novel shows the alienation of the relationship between man and God and between people.
In 1917, Krebs joined the Marine Corps and did not return to the United States until the summer of 1919. It was too late for him to come back. The story of the war atrocities in his hometown was too much, and he was tired of it. The enthusiasm for paying tribute to the heroes of the triumph was outdated. In order to arouse people's interest, he always uses lies to categorize what happened in the war, or to describe some nonsense as a fact. But the feelings caused by the exaggeration of lies and lies made him feel sick. He has lost the frankness of the age of soldiers, in the morbid fear, he lost everything. In order to kill time, he reads books, walks, and plays marbles every day, and the family follows him. Before joining the army, the car at home never allowed him to drive. After returning home, one morning, my mother came to tell him that he could drive the car out and hope he could bring a girl out to play. For the girlfriend, he vaguely felt that he needed to find one, but he didn't want to pay more attention for his friends. He only hoped to live without contention.
When the protagonist Krebs returned to the home town of Oklahoma, He found that people have heard too much about the atrocities of war, but the real situation cannot attract people's interest. He had to lie in order for people to listen to him. As a result, the lie made him resentful of the war and he did not want to talk about it anymore. Because of lying, everything he experienced in the war has now bored him. He found that he could not integrate into the life of the town. He began to become indifferent to everything and to isolate himself from society. Until the end of the story, when his mother persuaded him not to do nothing, and asked him to go out to find a job, he found that he had lost the ability to love, even including his mother. The veteran who had just returned from the war knew that he had to leave.
The United States entered an era of unprecedented prosperity in the decade after the 1919 war, which was before the Great Depression of the 20th century. The rapidly developing society has also made many young soldiers returning home after the war dizzy. The cruelty experienced in the world and in war has made many people lost, creating the so-called 'confused generation', these people have lost faith in life, and the loss of this belief makes them incompatible with traditional society. In the novel, the contradiction between Krebs and his parents' family is a portrayal of this conflict of ideas. His parents hope that he can find a stable job and start to do some certain thing, but Krebs does not do it. He perfunctorily responded to the mother's request.
The lost generation is the general name of a class of American writers who appeared during the First World War to the Second World War by American literary critic Gertrude Stein. What they have shown together is a disappointment and dissatisfaction with the development of American society. They are confused because the traditional values of this generation are no longer suitable for the post-war world, but they cannot find new living standards. They believe that only reality is the truth, but reality is cruel. So they can only act according to their own instinct and senses, try to rebel against their previous ideals and values, and use rebellious thoughts and behaviors to express their dissatisfaction with reality.
As the author wrote in the novel, Krebs lost his motivation to life when he got home. He wants to do nothing every day, and in the article he shows a very tangled mood about whether to find a girlfriend. On the one hand, he does not need to find a female partner for himself, but because of the inertia of society, he has reached the age of finding a girlfriend. The parents at home want to help him in order to find the direction of life. They even agreed to Krebs driving out to play, and it is best to find a girlfriend with him. But in the end Krebs returned to his calm but boring lifestyle. After talking to his mother, he even discovered that he had lost love for everything.
