Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proo

Soldier's Home" and "Anthropology."

1. Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it (192). It's tempting to dismiss Hemingway's point as simply humorous, but take him seriously. What does he insist that a good writer must be able to do? How might Krebs in "Soldier's Home" be seen as having a similar kind of "shit detector" and "radar" upon his return to Oklahoma?

Ernest Hemingway insists that a good writer must be able to detect lies and normal social trends that have little value to the life of individuals. People often exaggerate or belittle life events, stories, and other things in life to gain social recognition and a good writer must be able to understand these trends. The society today has people distorting information so that it can grab the attention of their friends and members of a community and for this; they get the social appeal to make people happy (Hemingway, 192). Ernest Hemingway suggests that to be a writer, one must, therefore, identify how information has been distorted and make an attempt to reveal the original information that has been changed. An individual cannot be a good writer if they are absorbed into believing distorted information as other people present it because in doing so, they risk introducing wrong information in their writing which is supposed to influence many people.

Krebs in "Soldier's Home" can be seen as having a similar kind of shit detector and radar upon his return to Oklahoma because he can identify the average trends of the community there that was there even before he left (Hemingway, 193). Krebs can locate the very little change that has occurred since he left and did not pretend that things are okay. Krebs is also able to detect that going after girls in this city could be a waste of time because he feels that his time is yet to come (Hemingway, 194). Also, Krebs can detect lies told by men who had been in the army in the time of war about events that were told to gain the appeal of residents of this town.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest, and Robert Young. Soldier's home. Learning in Focus, 1976.