How does Soldiers’ Pay portray soldiers returning from World War I?

In his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay (1926), William Faulkner portrays the experience of soldiers returning from World War I as one of profound alienation. The novel captures the struggle of these veterans as they attempt to reintegrate into a civilian world to which they no longer feel they belong.1

This sense of detachment and disillusionment was a common theme in the literature of the era, reflecting the broader cultural impact of the war on the Lost Generation of writers. While Faulkner’s work is stylistically ambitious, it effectively evokes the psychological distance between the combatants' wartime experiences and the reality of post-war civilian life.21