The Car
The family motor car in “Soldier’s Home” symbolizes ambition and direction. At the time of the story’s setting, automobiles were major symbols of status and wealth. In fact, Krebs’s father uses the car to take…
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Pictures
Pictures symbolize both the attempt and ultimate failure to represent or contain the past. At the beginning of the story, Hemingway mentions two important pictures of Krebs. The first shows him with his fraternity…
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The Girls
Upon returning home, Krebs spends a significant amount of time sitting on his front porch and watching the local girls walk by. Lacking any individual character of their own, the girls broadly represent the “normal”…
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The Porch
Krebs’s front porch symbolizes passivity and stagnancy. From the porch, he watches and observes people walk by, such as the girls, and yet he remains on the periphery. Being on the edge of the…
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