The Importance Of Setting In Soldier's Home

Setting plays a vital role in literature. From short stories to novels - setting is almost always relating back to something. In Ernest Hemingway's “Soldier’s Home”, Krebs - or Harold- is a soldier that has just gotten back from the war in Oklahoma, 1919. The author presents the reader with a setting that is in summer “During this time, it was late summer…” Late summer suggests heat, heat conveys the feelings that he may be feeling being back from the war. Not angry feelings - but more of detached and empty feelings. The summer, being late, emits that it is the end of an era. Such as it was the end of his time in the war and he was beginning his life of trying to be normal again. He was failing at trying to be normal again, though. Therefor, late summer can suggest that it was too late for him to be saved the heat of war had taken him under its wing. …show more content…
It is almost like his body came back, but his brain and heart did not. This shows he misses the war and feels hollow at his actual home or “world”. Krebs is very distant from his family, “he sat there on the porch reading a book on the war.” He reads of his home, or what he thinks is still his home. Sitting on the porch conveys that he does not go out much, but that he still wants to be outside, in the heat that he knew when he was at war. A Soldier’s Home setting relates to Krebs through sort of hidden words that the author has hidden throughout the story. Setting is something you have to look for and really read something to understand it. Setting in Soldier’s Home emits Krebs character of being back from the war and shows the atmosphere within the