I’m Coming Home

by OchoCinco85

The homecomings of soldiers from combat has been something that we have looked a lot at in class. Once a soldier has done all of his time, and comes back to the normal world, it is normally not a smooth return home. Although people would assume everyone is going to be excited for the return of their loved one, the marriage of many of the homecomings we have studied do not always work out. In “Tips for a Smooth Transition,” Evie has a very tough time with her husband, Colin’s homecoming. This goes to show that its not always the soldier who has the hard time adjusting to the new world, because Evie was the wife of a soldier. Their relationship is very awkward due to the separation during Colin’s deployment. In Hawaii, they want to do completely different things, and Chris’s experiences in combat make him fearless in the real world. This attitude really bothers Evie when Chris jumps into the water, which was infested with sharks. Overall, none of the “transitions” went that well, Colin had to transition from a warrior to a husband, and a soldier to a civilian. On the other hand, Evie had to transition from an independent women to a “wife”. The absurd expectations of everything being completely back to normal from when Colin left is obviously not realistic, and the awkwardness and lack of communication is clear. In the end of “The Hurt Locker,” Sergeant First Class William James is not entertained when he returns home. His job was to dissemble bombs which was a very stressful job, however when he returns home to normal civilization he seems bored and wants to, and eventually does go back to the war. This is all the contemporary world’s homecomings, however in Odysseus’s homecoming, which was the classical past, his situation was much different. Odysseus had to dress up and pretends to be someone else when he returned home from his 20-year absence. The key line that makes Penelope realize it is actually Odysseus is when he yells at her about moving the bed. The homecoming in the classical past was more of a dramatic realization of if Odysseus was even Penelope’s wife, but after this the homecoming was much smoother than the contemporary world homecomings we studied.