Post per Dan K.
After reading “Soldier’s Home” I was given a false representation of what it was like for all soldiers coming home from the war. I do believe that many of the soldiers feel a dismembered feeling from the general public, but I also think that many are oriented with some aspects of themselves.
“Seney was burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter. It could not all be burned” (135).
“[Nick] was happy” (134).
Another thing that I noticed was a sense of direction from Nick, who was made out to be emotionally lost. At first I read it as a geographical sense of direction, but interpreted it to be more.
“He did not need to get his map out. He knew where he was from the position of the river” (135).
“Nick kept his direction by the sun. He knew where he wanted to strike the river and kept on through the pine plain…” (136).
“The sun was nearly down… He knew it could not be more than a mile” (137).
Although Hemingway portrays his characters to be melancholy lost souls, but also hints that some come from the war with direction, is this a clever literary trick by Hemingway to neutralize our feelings about WWI?
7 comments:
I think that what a soldier feels post war is all based upon experience. It doesn't seem like Hemingway is trying to trick us and make us feel a certain way, merely that certain people absorb the shocks of war in different ways. Also, we don't necessarily know how long it has been since Nick was in the war, with Krebs the timeline seems more evident. This factor alone shows that Nick may have had months or even years to mature from his war experiences.
I like to take a more simple route and not read into this too much. I feel Nick is a man that has now escaped from a very complicated and unappreciative world. The worries seem to be for the insects being eaten by the trout in the stream. Again a very peaceful non-war imagery.
In "Big Two Hearted River" we have a chance to see Nick Adams in an environment free from the influence of man. We see that Nick takes comfort in the company of the great outdoors.
"He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was a good place to camp. He was there, in the good place" (139).
Rather than Nick having a sense of direction now from his war time experiences I believe Hemingway was trying to convey Nick as finding peace in an environment without the pressures of society. Nick has a chance to be in a place where he doesn't have to think about the past, where he can distance himself from others (similar to the way he journeys farther up the river than he needs to) and through this he gains serenity.
I do not believe that Hemingway was using this in anyway except that he wants to show Nick going somewhere. I think he wants to contrast the lives of Nick and Krebs and wants to also compare the lives of all soldiers returning. I believe that he wanted to make a statement showing how some soldiers are ready to do something when they get back and how some do not want to at all, like with Krebs.
The quotations shown were good evidence of Nick's goals and determination. The non-use of verbs as with Krebs was evidence of his stationary life.
I belive that Hemingway is showing a sort of contrast in "Soldier's Home" and "Big Two-Hearted River". After making it seem that someone who comes back from war is just a hollowed out version of their previous self, he comes back and shows someone coming back from war who is an improved version of themselves. I think it is an important contrast to note because thats how war veterans really seem to come. Everyone is different and handles themselves differently after difficult experiences. It is important to understand that although some people let themselves fall apart after fighting in a war, some people come back and have a new lease on life and appreciate everything more. Hemingway accurately portrays that and gives readers a realistic contrast between the two.
I think Nick's a product of his generation post-war. It may not be that he's psychologically as scarred as say Krebs, but he none-the-less reflects how certain things were (the way his probably deceased comrade made coffee) while more or less ignoring the town's destruction. He also seems to want to go back to nature, fishing and being self-reliant. He uses and trusts his instincts while out alone, as he must have done while at war. The way he sort of focuses his mind on where he is rather than on the things going on back in the world make him a little like Krebs too.
After the war Nick is obviously changed. He went from loving his father, his girlfriend and friends to much rather being alone in the outdoors. I dont think Hemingway is trying to show us how its like after fighting in a war but show that Nick has changed and is finally at peace after the horrors of the war. He found his niche after the war, unlike Krebs in soldiers home.
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