After-effect of War on Characters in Ernest Hemingway's "Soldier's Home" and Katherine Mansfield's "The Fly"

Abstract

This paper tries to explore the representation of the First World War and its lingering effects on the life of people in two different modern short stories. The stories are written by different modern writers: The first story is entitled Soldier's Home. It is written in1924 by a male American writer Ernest Hemingway who witnessed several great wars such as World War I and World War II. The Second short story is entitled The Fly. It is written in 1922 by a female writer from New Zealand, Katherine Mansfield who lost her brother in World War I. The study compares the after effect of war on characters in these two different short stories. It focuses on how the war shapes the life of characters even after it ends. It shows how different characters struggle to cope with the trauma, stress and psychological pressure inflicted on them due to the violent experience of war. It also shows how war plays a destructive role in the life of combatants and non-combatant. The study sums up that both writers represent the horror and dark side of war and its destructive power on post-war generation through the brutal effects on the life of characters.