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Ernest Hemingway's story Soldier's Home, part of his collection entitled in Our Time, is about a World War I soldier's return home and the mental anguish he experiences. As he attempts to reintegrate himself with the present, he finds himself always being interrupted by the past. Being unable to connect with the town, due to the fact that he has lost an emotional connection to the culture, the soldier moves on, giving up on society.
This semi-autobiographical story shows the internal conflict one faces when returning to somewhere familiar after being gone for a significant time, only to find that it is no longer familiar. Essentially, this epitomizes the phrase "you can never go home again." During several passages, the soldier refers to the feeling of being lost. For example, "In this way he lost everything" (Hemingway, p. 348). Again, "Your father is worried too...He thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven't got a definite aim in life." (Hemingway, p. 351). These references to being lost resonate to the Lost Generation, of which Hemingway is often cited as being the spokesman for. After returning from the war, these individuals felt disillusioned with a society that, they felt, was out of touch with the reality of the world. Thus, they felt alienated, or lost, from society.
A similar theme of alienation from society is found in the Andre Dubus short story entitled the Fat Girl. This story's alienation from society comes from being fat. In a world where skinny is everywhere, people who do not meet this prototype are ostracized, or feel lost from their community. Interestingly enough, the story opens with "Her name was Louise." (Dubus, p. 1). This tells the reader several things, one being that Louise was and is no longer and, second, that despite her title "The Fat Girl," she does in fact have a real name. Despite this, society, which the reader seems to become a part of, simply sees her as being "the fat girl." Thus, the alienation of Louise starts from the mere title of the story.
Bibliography
Dubus, Andre. The Fat Girl. Adultery and Other Choices. New York: Godine, 1999.
Hemingway, Ernest. Soldier's Home. In Our Time. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.
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