“Soldier’S Home” And “Speaking Of Courage?

“Soldier’S Home” And “Speaking Of Courage”Many people worry about what happens during war but no one realizes what happens to the young people coming back from war. The young people that go to war will change them dramatically when they come back. In the short story “Soldier’s Home”, by E. Heimingway, he writes about a young man’s after war experience, returning home and into society. In another short story called “Speaking of Courage”, by Tim O’Brien, he too, explores the after effects of war and how it can impact a young person’s life. The short stories, “Soldier’s Home”, by E. Heimingway and “Speaking of Courage”, by Tim O’Brien are more differences than similarities.

There are a lot of similarities between the two stories. First of all, both of the stories share the some theme. The theme of both stories is, war makes people engaged at war hard for them to reenter society. Both stories demonstrate this theme because the two stories are about a guy who comes back from war and is lost and doesn’t know where to go. Also the two stories deal with the disillusionment of the people returning home from war. A quotation from “Speaking of Courage”, “He drove slowly. No hurry, nowhere to go.” (162) demonstrates the point that the main character has nowhere to go. They had fought and they have just reentered society. The morals in war are very different from the society that they had just left before they went to war. Also, young people returning from war, lose feelings that they once had about things and people. Krebs, the main character from “Speaking of Courage”, loses his feelings he had for his mother, “’Yes. Don’t you love your mother, dear boy?’ ‘No,’ Krebs said” (99).

Another similarity between the stories was that both stories had characters in them, which affect the character’s position and reveals something about their personality. Krebs had lost his desire to go out and get a girl, “Now he would have liked a girl if she had come to him and no wanted to talk. But here at home it was all too complicated. He knew he could never get through it all again.” (94). This revealed that he was probably lazy and put forward no effort to get a girl. From “Speaking of Courage” the quotation “On his third day home he’d seen her out mowing the lawn, still pretty in a lacy red blouse and white shorts. For a moment he’d almost pulled over, just to talk, but instead he’d pushed down hard on the gas pedal.” (159) also demonstrates the similarity. Also the point of view in the two stories are the same. Both stories have the point of view of third person, as we have a narrator describe what each character is doing.
Aside from the many similarities there are also a lot of differences between the two stories. One difference between the two stories is the plot. “Speaking of Courage” is about a guy who circles around a lake twelve times while imaging scenes in his head that could have possibly taken place. In the other story “Soldier’s Home” it was about a guy that goes home and sits around all day watching girls walk by on his front porch. The story reveals his feelings about girls throughout the first half of the story. Then finally in the end he has a complicated conversation with his mother.

Another difference between the two stories is the setting. The short story, “Speaking of Courage” took place after the main character, Norman Bowker, returned to his home after the Vietnam War. While in “Speaking of Courage”, the story took place a few years following World War I. “Speaking of Courage” took place in Norman Bowker’s van most of the time as he was making revolutions are the lake. In “Soldier’s Home” the story was mostly on the front porch of Krebs home and inside his kitchen. The dialogue and structure of the two stories are also different. In “Soldier’s Home” the first half of the story contained no dialogue and in the second half of the story, it contained a whole conversation to the end of the story. In “Speaking of Courage”, the whole story was mixed up and contained dialogue throughout the whole story. The two stories contained many differences.

Both of the stories had a lot of differences but there were more similarities. The main plot of both stories were different, but the theme of the two short stories were similar. The dialogues contained in both stories were also different and the short story “Speaking of Courage” contained much more dialogue than “Soldier’s Home”. The point of view, and the characters in the story’s meaning were similar but the structure and dialogue were different between the two stories. In the end, both stories were trying to convey the message that war changes your life dramatically, for the worse.

English Essays