Soldier’s Home

Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway is a story about 2 men that do not fit into the world like all the other men do in the army.  In the story Hemingway describes the two men, Krebs and the corporal, as not fitting into their uniforms like all the other men do in the Marines.  Krebs often says that he is not attracted to females like the other men are, and that if a women were to folow him around then he would like her to never speak.  When you read further into the biography of Hemingway you see that there are many issues surrounding his gender orientation.  And that is very evident in the short story Soldier’s Home.  Krebs and the Corporal are ntoo acceted into everyday society because they do not like females in the same way that the other men do, and do to this they must deal with different problems in the world.  Krebs and the Corporal are said to have had a picture taken with 2 females on the Rhine in Germany.  There is no picture of the Rhine in teh background so you are not sure if that is, infact, where they are, and the females are not very attractive, suggesting that Krebs and the Corporal did not care very much about who they had the picture taken with.  Also Krebs and the Corporal did not retern to the United States for 2 years after the war had ended, that sets them apart from every other male in the Marines.  Throughout Soldier’s Home you are shown that teh Soldier doesn’t really know where his home sooms to be, or at least thats how I interpreted it.  Because Krebs did not go home for 2 years after the war, it seemed that eh did not want to go home.  At home, he was not accepted for his sexual orientation so maybe if he was to explore Europe, maybe he would find his home where he is accepted for who he is.  That sounded really cheesy, but its late-ish.

I Stand Here Ironing

I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen is a short story set in the Depression after the war.  I had to do a presentation on how this story reflected the views of Marxism.  I did not happen to see how this story reflected such a view even though they tell me how it does in the back of the book. 

This story seems to be one of those mother-daughter stories, where the mother is reflecting on her daughters life and how she was hardly there for her daughter.  Her daughter was not being raised how the mother had intended and now the mother in conflicted as to whether or not she did the right thing for her daughter.  The mother, ot the other hand, had no choice as to how her daughter was to be raised because she was poor and had to survive on her own after her husband decided he did not want to deal with the responsibility of having a family. 

The daughter, being away from the caring hands of her mother, had started to loose her innocence and become ‘hard’ with how the world was working at this time in history.  In this time life was very difficult, as many of us know.  But everything was made a lot worse for women during this time, if their husbands decided to leave the family.  As with the woman in this story her husband didn’t want to deal with the responsibility of family anymore and the woman was in a horrible position in society.  During this time women were considered people but they were still not very accepted in the workplace and woman would have a hard time getting a job.  The woman in the story took a job working nights to stay with her daughter and try to raise her to be innocent and pure in the harsh world of the depression.  This story just shows how hard it was to live each day, and how difficult it was for children to retain their innocence and youth during this hard times.

The Story of an Hour

I quite enjoyed this short story by Kate Chopin.  Since I do not watch alot of movies with the twists in the ending, I surprised by the twist in this ending.  After I read this story for the first time it reminded me of a fairy tale that I heard, about a Princess who would not be satisfied by any gift that any prince could give her, she only loved her doves and wanted nothing to do with anything else but her doves.  One of the Princes became jealous that the Princess would not accept his gift and he let her doves free.  The Princes discovered her missing doves and locked herself in her room, she later died of a broken heart.

This short story reminded me of the fairy tale because it seemed like Mrs. Mallard did die from a broken heart, she saw her husband alive and knew she could never be free and freedom was all she wanted.  The doves in the fairy tale symbolise the freedom that the princess wants and also the freedom that Mrs. Mallard seems to want when discribing the view of nature from her window.

I can definately see how this story represents the time it was written in.  During the 1800s women wore bodices and chin to toe clothing, nothing accept your face was really allowed to be see.  Women were very much posessions to the man, and would stay at home to cook, clean and take care of their many children.  Mrs. Mallard would have been one of these wives living at home and dreaming of freedom would have most definately been a part of a womans life at this time, in Mrs. Mallard’s case she would have died for her freedom.

Anyhow, this was a good short story and I loved the twist in the ending.

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