Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Literature - Essay ExampleIn other stories, particularly childrens books, background knowledge hardly plays any role at all. The prospect of three short stories Ernest HemingwaysSoldiers Home, ColettesThe Handand Katherine MansfieldsMiss Brill will be discussed in this essay. I will consider at the public and private aspects of each setting to show that even when setting is not integral to the plot, it can reveal important truths about the characters. Soldiers Home, from its very title, alerts us to the setting of the story (Meyer). However, it is not so much the physical positioning of the story that the title refers to as a genuine philosophical question, which can be asked of anyvirtuoso whose travels irrevocably change them, state of war or no war when a person changes, how can their home still be good enough?The Hand, alternately, is one of those stories mentioned above in which the setting is almost irrelevant, as the action is almost entirely internal, externally restrict ed to the couples bed. InMiss Brill, the protagonist focuses on and is enchanted by the setting. The three authors overcharge their setting with different levels of importance the seaside park features as a place of enjoyment in Miss Brills routine, and her presence there directly causes the completion of the plot.Krebs house inSoldiers Homeexacerbates his feeling of despair without actually causing it Colettes protagonist remains unaware of her physical surroundings as she focuses exclusively on her new husbands monstrous hand (reference). In each story there is a public setting and a private setting. This essay will set apart these settings for each story before contrasting the ways in which this literary device is used. In 1925, Ernest Hemingway published a collection of short stories calledIn Our Time, one story of which wasSoldiers Home. This story features Krebs, a young man who returns to America from World War I in 1919, a year after the war has stop and long after other local soldiers have returned home. He did not want to leave Germany (Hemingway), and now feels like an outsider. The public and private dichotomy of settings inSoldiers Homeis complicated, because Krebs experiences degrees of privacy in his bedroom, he admits to himself that he did not really need a girl when on the front porch, he liked to look at them but when in town, their appeal to him was not very strong (Hemingway). In the privacy of his bedroom and the pool room, Krebs can escape the changes and simplybe, thoughtlessly. In the public areas of his house and the local town, he mustcome face-to-face with manifestations ofhow the war changed him. In the settings beyond his private bedroom, Krebs is unable to handle other people, their unavoidably and personalities. He is unable to participate in a romantic relationship because he did not want any consequences the German and French girls, possibly prostitutes, with whom he fraternized in Europe characterize simple relationship s (Hemingway). This crisis runs so deeply within him that, in the kitchen, he tells his mother that he does not love her, by which he means he cannot love anyone. The war has taken so much of him that he cannot deal with other people.