"While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you'll only keep me from getting killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everyone in the world you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus. The shelling moved farther up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa with about Jesus. And he never told anybody."1
This is the interchapter before "Soldier's Home in Chapter VII. This passage is interesting because it provides the reader with a vivid emotional picture of a soldier fighting in a trench during WWI. It is interesting because in this soldier's time of need he desperately turns to religion when he feels devoid of hope. It seems implied in this passage that the soldier is not otherwise a religious man, but now that he finds himself in the most hopeless and frightening moments of his life, he turns to Christ. While considering these things, here is an exerpt from "Soldier's Home" that follows:
" 'Would you kneel and pray with me, Harold?' his mother asked. They knelt down beside the dining-room table and Krebs's mother prayed. 'Now, you pray, Harold,' she said. 'I can't,' Krebs said. 'Try, Harold.' 'I can't.' 'Do you want me to pray for you?' 'Yes.' So his mother prayed for him and then they stood up and Krebs kissed his mother and went out of the house. He had tried so to keep his life from being complicated."1
This passage shows a different soldier's sentiments about religion that strongly contrast with the first passage. In this case, Krebs finds it difficult to pray with his mother because, perhaps, he feels strongly he should not lie when he evidently does not believe in praying.
This raises several questions:
First, why did Hemingway choose to juxtapose these two stories. What relationship do these two stories have, if any?
Second, in the first passage, why do you think the soldier pleaded to Christ so adamantly when he apparently feels no connection to Him? Do you believe that in the soldier's moment of need he truly felt some connection to Jesus? How do you explain his feelings at the end, when he is safe again?
Third, how do you explain Krebs's reaction to his mother's request of prayer? Why do you think Krebs chooses not to pray with his mother, rather than to give in and pray with her? Additionally, what do you think Krebs is implying when he says "He had tried so to keep his life from being complicated"?
Finally, what do these two passages together say about the role of religion in a soldier's life?
1. Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time (New York: Scribner, 2003), 67-77).
I think these two stories express much the same sentiment about religion: that the characters are unable to believe in God and are also unable to communicate that lack of belief to others. In the first story we find the solider praying to Jesus out of fear, not because he believed a merciful god was at work in that moment but because he was desperatly afraid for his life. I think it's implied that he cannot believe in god after the terrible things he's seen both by the relative vulgarity of his acts afterwards (the day after he's saved he doesn't go to church but instead sleeps with a random stranger) and by the fact that he never talks about it to anyone. We see the same total lack of belief in Krebs, so much so that he can't even pretend to believe for his own mother. We notice also that he cannot explain to her why he doesn't believe, simply stating 'I can't'". I think together these two stories show two soldiers who were and are extremely scarred from their experiences who can no longer believe in a lot of things they may have taken for granted before, such as a merciful god.
ReplyDeleteI think that these stories both show that after the war soldiers stopped believing in religion. Even though in the interchapter the soldier turns to Jesus in his time of need, afterwards he never tells anyone else that he prayed to him. He did make it out alive after asking for Jesus to protect him, and by not telling this story it suggests that he doesn't believe that Jesus was the reason for his survival. Krebs is simply too scarred to believe in religion anymore. I believe that the first soldier turned to Christ in his time of need because he was so terrified that he needed to believe that there was something out there that could help him. Many people before they die get scared of the afterlife, and he probably wanted to at least try to form a connection. Krebs will never be able to pray for himself anymore. He saw too much in the war and can't believe that God could tolerate that much evil. Krebs does end up praying with his mother, he just can't lead. He wants to keep his life uncomplicated and now that his mother knows that he can't pray, being a religious woman, she will want Krebs to find the lord again and won't be content until he does. Krebs wants to be alone and not be bothered. These passages both support the fact that even if you are a religious person going in to war, the massacres and brutal things that you see "scare the religion out of you" because one can't believe that people can actually do these things to each other.
ReplyDeleteI think these seemed-to-be-conflicted pieces actually understandable. It describes an incremental change in emotion and religion of soldiers. When the 1st soldier in grave condition, he tried to hold on to his last hope, namely religion, not because that he believed in it but because that is last hope. And when we look at the second soldier, he may not be able to pray anymore because when he's at war and religion failed to deliver him.
ReplyDeleteBoth soldiers after wars realize that their faith in religion shattered because of all the pain they have gone through, and God was not there to help them.