The story starts with seventeen paragraphs without a single line of dialogue. These paragraphs serve as insight into Krebs’s life before and after his time in the war. By structuring the beginning this way, Hemingway helps his audience to understand why Krebs responds and acts towards his family. After acquiring background information about Krebs, Hemingway finally has Krebs interacting with his family through dialogue, of which it has its own structure. The conversation between Krebs and his mother follows a pattern of an exchange of dialogue, mostly of his mother, with breaks in between to inform the reader of what he is doing or how he responds. For example, while his mother expresses her concern for him and asks about his plans, Krebs’s attention turns to “the bacon fat hardening on his plate” or says nothing (Hemingway). Hemingway decides to proceed with this pattern for a portion of his story because these actions shows as if he is trying to avoid speaking about the subject at hand and how Krebs is not motivated to start his life now that he is no longer in the …show more content…
Throughout the conversation with Krebs and his mother, the narrator notes that Krebs feels “embarrassed,” “resentful,” sick,” and “vaguely nauseated” (Hemingway). As a former soldier, he has, more than likely, experienced times where he was embarrassed by the drill sergeant or feels nauseous as he witnesses a fellow soldier bleeding to death on the battlefield, but he is feeling these emotions during a heart-felt conversation with his mother. Hemingway selects theses certain words to reflect how coming home from the war has had a negative effect on