Money And Masculinity In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Often times, violence is prevalent in literature. It is captivating, it enhances the plot, and it creates feelings of suspense and tension within the reader. However, in well-crafted works of literature, scenes of violence serve an even greater purpose. Violence is frequently used in order to contribute to the meaning of the complete work, and Ernest Hemingway utilizes violence in order to highlight the meaning in The Sun Also Rises. In the novel, Robert Cohn verbally attacks protagonist Jake Barnes and his friend Mike Campbell after questions arise pertaining to the whereabouts of widely-coveted Lady Brett Ashley. Jake then strikes Cohn, and a fistfight between the three men ensues. Hemingway utilizes the violence between the men in order

In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, we are taken back to the 1920’s, accompanied by the “Lost Generation.” During this time, prohibition was occurring in America. Hemingway uses alcohol as an obstacle that causes distresses between the main character, Jake and his life. Along with alcohol, promiscuity is prevalent throughout the novel. The heroine of the novel, Brett, displays the theme of promiscuity throughout the novel. She uses her sheer beauty and charming personality to lure men into her lonely life. The themes of alcohol and promiscuity intertwine with the Lost Generation in this classic love saga.

In today’s society, people are judged by their values or are frightened to take sacrifices to better benefit their lifestyle. Characters like Gatsby, Tom, Daisy and Myrtle are shown as evidence of greed and how wealth surrounds their values. Fitzgerald uses social commentary to offer a glance of an American life in the 1920s. He carefully sets up his novel into distinct groups, but in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving powerful ideas for readers to adapt(add morals characters inhabit). By creating distinct social classes, old money, new money, and no money, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the elitism running throughout every perspective of society. F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays characters like Nick,

The Jazz Age was a time of entertainment and recklessness, due to the booming success and happiness of the nation as a whole. What generated from such factors were illegal plots and bribery from the wealthy with an ability to not face charges. The tyrannical leisure and expenses the higher class were spending created them into egocentric individuals who felt a sense of obligation for consequences to their actions. Throughout a novel based on the 1920’s, characters of wealth like Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, and Daisy Buchanan from both West and East Egg,

Fitzgerald depicts displays of wealth as more significant to people of the East Coast than in the Midwest. In the exposition, Nick Carraway expresses that his father told him,“‘whenever [he] feels like criticizing someone...just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages [he] had’”(Fitzgerald 1). The author characterizes Nick’s father, a native to the Midwest, as someone who understands that money should not be the defining factor to judge people, because not everyone has grown up with wealth like Nick and his family. In contrast, Fitzgerald describes the East Coast population as people who need to show off their money in order to exhibit their worthiness of attention to others. After Tom “left Chicago”, he goes “East in a fashion that rather took your breath away; for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest”(Fitzgerald 6). Fitzgerald exaggerates the extent of Tom’s need to show off his money by declaring that it would make others lose their breaths if they saw the amount of luxurious items, such as

However, Jake is not married, nor does he live with a woman in Paris. The characters of the

Almost everything in the world we live in, depends on money. Education, work, family, and even things necessary for survival, require a certain amount of money. However, most people don’t focus on these things. Most people with wealth focus on what they want, and not what they need, nor have. In Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, wealth is a very important detail. For Jay Gatsby, his wealth is used to hold parties on a weekly basis. He buys so much stuff, for people he doesn’t seem to care about. He seems to just want to fill his house with people, with faces. For the Buchanans, wealth is something that brings cruelty and deceit. For example, Tom seems to think that Daisy loves Gatsby because of his money. He belittles Gatsby for having so much money, yet with little to no explanation for it. For Nick, money seems to be a tool, used for personal gain, and nothing more. Nick never complains about his financial status, nor does he really talk about it that often. However, he quietly listens to everyone who speaks about their own money. Money is almost a curse in this specific novel. Yet it’s portrayed as something to define who a person is.

At first glance, Ernest Hemingway’s The  Sun Also Rises is an over-dramatized love story of bohemian characters, but with further analysis, the book provides a crucial insight into the effects of World War I on the generation who participated in it. Hemingway’s novel follows a group of expatriates as they travel Europe and experience the post war age of the early 1900’s. The protagonist is Jake Barnes, an American war veteran who lives in Paris and is working as a journalist. Jake was injured during the War and has remained impotent ever since. His love interest, Lady Brett Ashley, is an alcoholic englishwoman with severe promiscuity, which is representative of women and the sexual freedom that emerged during the Progressive Era. Jake and Brett

   The imagery of bulls and steers pervades Hemmingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises. Bullfighting is a major plot concern and is very important to the characters. The narrator physically resembles a steer due to the nature of his injury. Mike identifies Cohn as a steer in conversation because of his inability to control Brett sexually. Brett falls for a bullfighter, who is a symbol of virility and passion. However, there is a deeper level to the bull-steer dichotomy than their respective sexual traits. The imagery associated with bulls and steers is more illustrative than their possession or lack of testicles. In their roles and in the images associated with them, bulls are glorious,

Jake is not a wealthy man; however, his ego gets the better of him. Time and again, he keeps a tight check of his bank account balance. But when Brett starts hanging out with Count Mippipopolous, Jake is not averse to offering up his money when they all go out together. Money takes a back seat to Jake's ego. Once, Brett sends the Count out for champagne so that she could be alone with Jake. Whereupon she talks to him about her fiancé, Michael and this shoots down Jake's already bruised ego to its lowest. However, For Jake, just to be with Brett is pure happiness. He is so blinded with love for her that he doesn't even flinch when she does

putting someone else down. Jake also uses Bill Gorton just to keep himself busy and not get bored. Near the end of the book Jake states, “Next morning I tipped every one a little too much at the hotel to make more friends...I did not tip the porter more than I should because I did not think I would ever see him again. I only wanted a few good French friends in Bayonne to make me welcome in case I should come back...” This statement show what friends really meant to Jake. They were people that would be some type of service to him.

Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises has his male characters struggling with what it means to be a man in the post-war world. With this struggle one the major themes in the novel emits, masculine identity. Many of these “Lost Generation” men returned from that war in dissatisfaction with their life, the main characters of Hemingway’s novel are found among them. His main characters find themselves drifting, roaming around France and Spain, at a loss for something meaningful in their lives. The characters relate to each other in completely shallow ways, often ambiguously saying one thing, while meaning another. The Sun Also Rises first person narration offers few clues to the real meaning of his characters’ interactions with each other. The

The characters in Hemingway’s stories reveal much about how he feels about men and the role they should play in society. Most of Hemingway’s male characters can be split into one of two groups. The first of which is the “Code” Hero. This is the tough, macho guy who chooses to live his life by following a “code of

The characters in Hemingway’s stories reveal much about how he feels about men and the role they should play in society. Most of Hemingway’s male characters can be split into one of two groups. The first of which is the “Code” Hero. This is the tough, macho guy who chooses to live his life by following a “code of honor,

Disillusionment does not merely occur in only novels; every single individual to walk the Earth will experience mental displeasure at some point within their lives. Nevertheless, many choose to let unfortunate events circle within their souls and become encrypted into their memory. Once this happens, the role of aimlessness takes its course, adverse fate reigns, and the feeling of disenchantment dwells in the mind. Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, grasps this very subject in a subliminal way; one must accurately analyze Hemingway’s somber tone and sparse writing style in order to find the hidden symbolism and themes captured within this literary work. His protagonist, Jake Barnes, has certainly experienced prodigious pain, but