Author

Characters

Summary/ Plot

Historical background

Irony

Theme

1. Author
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

(1899 1961)

Place of birth

Place of death

Clarence Edmonds Hemingway

Grace
Hall Hemingway

KANSAS CITY
1917
graduated from high school. 1st job: reported for Kansas City Star for a few months.

ITALY
WORLD WAR I
joined the Red Cross Ambulance Corps.
1918: was seriously wounded and returned home

PARIS
1922
worked as a foreign correspondent. fell under the influence of the modernistwriters and artists of the 1920s Lost Generation" expatriate community. => The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first novel, was published in 1926.

SPAIN SPANISH CIVIL WAR

worked as a journalist for the North American Newspaper Alliance.
=> For Whom The Bell Tolls was published in 1940.

CUBA 1945 - 1960

The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952. won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in 1954.

Works
* 7 novels
* 6 short-story collections * 2 non-fiction works
Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously.

Novels: The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1952),. Short-story collections: Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), Men Without Women (1927), Winner Take Nothing (1933), Non-fiction works: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Green Hills of Africa (1935), A Moveable Feast (1964),

STYLE
plain grammar easily accessible language few adjectives short, rhythmic sentences that The Iceberg concentrate on action rather than Theory reflection.

THE ICEBERG THEORY

"If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing ." The hard facts float above water, while the supporting structure, complete with symbolism, operates out-ofsight. The readers have to feel the whole story and fill the gaps left with their feelings.

2. Theme/ Historical background

Theme:

Experience of war changes a person so much that he may never be able to fit back into the life he had before

Historical Background
- "Soldier's Home" was written in 1924 while Ernest Hemingway was living in Paris with his wife Hadley Richardson (at that time). - The story was first published in 1925 in Contact Collection Of Contemporary Writers, an anthology that included works by such important writers as Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound before appearing in Hemingway's exceptional first short story collection, In Our Time.

Historical background
Soldiers Home is Hemingway's subliminal confession of his life serving on the Italian front during the World War I.

 After the loss-making battles had been ceased, many of the soldiers returned to their home countries by ship. On their return there were usually a big welcome celebration because they were the ones that ended the war and brought glory for the United States

During the war they had to face death countless times and saw how their comrades died in the battles. Some of the minds of these people just could not process these visual impacts. Many of them were not able to find a place to work because of the instable economic conditions after the war which negatively affected the labour market

The realization of the fact that all the great sacrifices they had had to make brought little honour or attention made many of the soldiers depressive and disillusioned.

Methodist College KANSAS CITY Belleau forest Argonne Wood

Several places and dates mentioned in the story are factual places where the European battles were fought.

3. Characters

Harold Krebs, a young man who is tormented fromahis Helen Krebs, Harold's Harold's mother, experiencessister.war. He Harold's father, whoin theShe tries younger is religious woman. She absentcomesgetindoor baseball most to the realization that to of the plays her son out of his he does not trauma by post-war up to in his time. He never makesbelong her and looks a anymore. childhood on getting a job focusing home

direct appearance in brother. and the story. finding a girl.

 He returns from World loses the too the conflict HeHarold feels late for the of War I purity of experience whichheroes welcome, and finds a he encountered at is his belief in God, andtimes in unsure of interested only in the society how to dealnow war. >> Harold Krebs lies not the realities of war finds himself adrift in a society with this. The longer feels he that he notrue stories he tells of Krebs is differ dramatically the war belongs in. an observer, from the a participant. rather thanlies that the Krebs others tell. >> Heinto the has been thrust He embellishes town America, is of small his stories >> confines always looking and watching, but doldrums He cannot deal with and all the culturalrarely the guilt of the that go with it. The town was interacting. lies >> The never conflict between him not as affected by the war, and the people of the town

Krebs had been.

Harold's mother
Krebs' mother reflects the typical view of women during this era: she is a God fearing mother and a housewife. She attempts to persuade Harold that he should find a job and be more like the other boys.

Helen Krebs
Harold's younger sister She plays indoor baseball and looks up to her brother

Harold's father

He is absent most of the time and never makes a direct appearance in the story

4. Summary

 The name of the story: A soldiers home -Home: the place we return when life is too rough -The ironic meaning: A place full of sadness and sorrow

IRONY

The return of Krebs when the greeting of heroes was over

put the story in a down spiral for the lead character => Krebs seemed disappointed in coming home late missing a hero welcome. Nobody shares Krebs' experiences He cant justify his actions in war. =>War was a bad dream for Krebs

You didnt need a girl unless you thought about them.

War has taught him to control his desire, which was why he didnt like doing anything at home.

 his obstacles were too big and unnecessary to give an effort to overcome. He liked girls. He would have like one if she had just come to him Unlike other tradition heroes, Krebs was an antihero who didn't want to do any big task

Now he would have liked a girl if she hadnot wanted to talk. But here at home it was all too complicated.