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Hemingway Code Hero Essay

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Ernest Hemingway, author of The Sun Also Rises, brands his main character Jake Barnes, a Hemingway code hero. The Hemingway code hero is defined as one who faces several problems yet faces them with undeniable dignity; when under pressure he deals with it with so much poise, it is hard to detect he is faced with a challenge. Also according to Hemingway, this man must accept that the world can bring misery upon anyone and while realizing this must learn to enjoy life (Melvin C. Miles). This man will also fear the dark because it represents the “nothingness” of life after death. Hemingway provides his main character Jake, with the problem of impotence which causes a hindrance between Jake and Brett – the love of his life. Brett is the one …show more content…

Jake acknowledges this even more when he says he was "a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would be the next time.” When Jake tries to defeat this problem, he faces it directly and tries to pray, he gets sleepy. In the text, it describes Jake praying: "I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself and all the bullfighters separately for the one I liked and humping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again and while I was getting sleepy." It is evident that Jake does not have a deeper connection with God or his religion as he would like to have. Instead, he is repeatedly trying to confront his non existing spiritual life. Jake’s satisfaction is not derived from religion but rather from the pleasure he derives from partaking in activities such as drinking. Hemingway believed that satisfaction must come from physical and material things likewise such as “good food, drink or sex” (Miles). In addition to this, Hemingway involves his heroes in unreasonable wounds or losses that they should not focus on. Rather, they should deviate from focusing on their flaws and enjoy life. Since Jake is impotent, he must abstain

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