"How to Tell a True War Story" and "Soldier's Home"

Introduction

For centuries, literature has served as the prime source for individuals to reflect, represent and highlight the various happenings, events and occurrences of their era. Authors over the years have used literature writings to express their opinions on various realities such as life, death, pain, separation and so on. However, one of such realities that are very often discussed in the literature is the war and its consequences on the lives of the soldiers and other individuals. There exists a significant amount of literature on the topic. However, “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O'Brien and “Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway are the two short stories that have discussed wars in a unique and interesting way.

Discussion

Although, the authors of the two short stories offered relatively different morals through their writings. However, both the stories, in particularly "Soldier's Home" focus on how the life and personalities of individuals are severely affected by the war and its cruelty. Both the stories focus on how the intensity and extremity in war can have an impact on the sanity of the person. War makes individual alone, edgy and used to of being without companionship. The frustration that is depicted in the actions of the characters of Rat Kiley and Krebs can be served as the prime proves (Calloway, pp.256).

Krebs's character in the "Soldier's Home” comes back to his home however a little late after participating in the war. It has been depicted that the war is undoubtedly the most significant chapter of Krebs's life. Initially Krebs is disappointed to find that nobody is interested in his war stories. To seek attention, Krebs even used gruesome stories and incidents for his audiences that never occurred. However, as the time progresses, Krebs isolates ...