Shreya Parikh FCWR 101-W02

Professor Patterson 11/13/16

In Ernest Hemingway’s “A Soldier’s Home,” he goes through the life of the protagonist,

Krebs. Krebs is a soldier who comes home from the war unexpectedly and is left feeling out of

place when he returns. Throughout the story, Krebs has three identities. The narrator calls him

Krebs, whereas his mother calls him Harold, and his sister calls him “Hare.” These three names

give him three different identities. The name Krebs refers to the military part of his life, whereas

the name Harold is said from a mother to her son, and the name Hare addresses the compassion

and warmth between a brother and sister.

The narrator gives the identity of Krebs to the protagonist to represent his time as a

soldier. He enlisted in the war when he was in college and his fraternity brothers wore the same

height and style collar. He went into the Marines in 1917 and didn’t return until the summer of

1919. When Krebs returned to his hometown in Oklahoma, all the other soldiers returned. These

soldiers were welcomed grandly with a great sense of hysteria. Due to Krebs returning years later

after the war had ended, people thought it was ridiculous. When Krebs returned home, he was

against discussing the war. When the time came for when he wanted to talk about the war, no

one wanted to listen and to get them to listen; he had to lie. Due to the numerous lies he told, he

disliked everything that happened to him in the war. He feels left out when conversing with

others about the war, who weren’t thrilled with his stories. However, despite all of his feelings of

feeling left out, when Krebs starts to read a book about the war, he begins to feel like he was the

best soldier he could be.

His mother calls him Harold because it symbolizes the relationship between the both of

them. The relationship between the two seems jagged, with Krebs, aka Harold giving off the

sense of feeling bitter. When his mother mentions to him that he talked to his father about letting

him take the car out, Harold tells her that his father only agreed because she made him. Also,
when his mother tells him not to mess the paper up because his father can’t read it, it seems like

Harold is just tired of being told what to do and what not to do. I also think that Krebs is tired of

being compared to other guys that are of his age by his mother and this makes him feel more out

of place after his return. After the war, it seems like he has become more distant and cold

towards his mother, even telling her that he doesn’t love anybody.

Krebs’s sister, Helen calls him Hare, because it represents the warmth and compassion

between the two. It seems that out of his family, which includes an absentee father, she is the

only person he loves and cares. For instance, he says he liked her and was his best sister. Also,

they seem to have a joking nature when talking to each other. For example, she says “…You old

sleepy-head. What do you ever get up for?” The duo has a loving relationship because she talks

about how he taught her to pitch well compared to the boys and brags about it. She also tells

everyone that he is her beau even though they are brother and sister and they have a cute banter

about it. Also, at the end of the story he goes to watch her play after she mentions to him that if

he loved her, he’d come to see her play indoor at school.

I think Hemingway gives him three different names to correspond to how he feels

throughout his life. From feeling out of place to creating a place in the world by going to find a

job at the end of the story. His names also show how he has evolved after returning home from

the war.