Southern California

Southern California is the place where Krause briefly imagines a home with Evelyn, and later the place he asks to leave when their marriage has become irreparable. Its sun-baked beaches and barren hills frame both the growth of his attachment and his decision to face the rest of his life with duty as his sole companion.

A Place Becoming Home

During the weeks Krause and Evelyn shared a house in Coronado, he felt roots beginning to sprout. Southern California, with its beaches and barren hills, began to be home to him. The landscape matters through this change in feeling: it is not presented as an established homeland, but as a place acquiring the meaning of home during a concentrated period of love and happiness.

Separation and Duty

That sense of belonging is bound to Krause’s relationship with Evelyn. His judgment of her failure to understand the significance of his service’s “fitted and retained” assessment deepens his hurt and contributes to the bitter quarrels between them. Later, when Evelyn tells him about the black-haired lawyer and the marriage proceeds toward its painful end, the house in Coronado and Southern California become part of the life he cannot recover.

Krause asks BuPers for an assignment to the Atlantic seaboard, away from Southern California and the house in Coronado. He understands the move as tearing off the fragile roots that had begun to grow there. The request does not conflict with his duty; instead, he resolves to continue with duty as his sole companion. Southern California thus marks both the possibility of a private home and the deliberate relinquishing of it.