Searching for Meaning While Avoiding Confrontation of the Self

A feeling readily distinguishable for Charlie, who became scarred off his reflective experience in the library. This purposelessness is apparent in a moment in our lives where we are short of ideas with what do with it. Associable with Charlie’s reaction on reading the horrific atrocities committed by people like Edgar Cooke notorious for his unreasonable, random, ruthless murder of people. And of Sylvia Likens, who is inhumanely abused like being, “made to live in the cellar with the dogs.” Page 111. Apart from Charlie, how would you have feel hearing that? Doesn’t that flame of resignation burn within you? Well, it clearly did for Charlie who suddenly experiences a surge of uncertainty and ponders to himself,”I don’t know what to do with myself... I wish you could unknow all I’ve learned. “ Charlies’s pondering could be considered Silvey’s warning to us the audience of these depressive moments postponed for us. Unfortunately, many of us have remained under the radar of Silvey’s notice. With over 13.3% of youth unemployed, according to Trading Economies. These are people like us aged 18-25 years whose has been denied a future motion into life, serving as an obstacle to their desires of prosperity. A denied prosperity forces both us, the readers and Charlie into a state of, “I don’t know what to

Ernest Hemingway, one of the most notable writers of the Lost Generation, encountered heinous acts of war which were seared into his mind, this assertion is evident with every page

Sadness, frustration, or discontent, however it’s put, there is an obvious difference with the characters in, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway, and their ideas of mortality and old age. The short story shows the concept of “nothingness,” displayed through a very depressing view on life. This suggesting that all people, even those who are happy and content, will eventually end up lonely, drunk, or unhappy. By allowing a reader to view this from three diverse perspectives, Hemingway is able to render how someone’s attitude of their own life can go from one extreme to another. Allowing suicide as a final option to surface for some.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway writes a novel centered around Jake Barnes and his post war lifestyle in Europe. Seán Hemingway wrote an introduction for the novel long after the original publication that Jake Barnes was written as a representation of Ernest Hemingway, Cohn was a representation of Harold Loeb, and Brett was a representation of Duff Twysden (1). Hemingway wrote this novel in order to showcase what it means to be lost in life, and part of Gertrude Stein’s lost generation. When reading the novel, it is clear to see that the characters, including Barnes, are lost in what they want from life. The audience primarily witnesses long nights of drinking and partying, but within those nights, often times the characters found themselves alone.

In Hemingway and the Dead Gods (Killinger, 1960), the connection between Hemingway and the Existential philosophers of the time is explored. Contrary to Tung and Meyers’ more recent research, Killinger states: “`There has been no known liaison between him and the existentialists, either personally or intellectually and neither has ever formerly recognised a kinship to the other” (Killinger, 1960).

He uses symbols effectively, which helps him to explore the theme of disillusionment and death. Death in his stories has many names; for example 'nada' or 'nothingness' – it may be assumed that it is always present. “Hemingway and the Lost Generation thereby explored more than just death, but the possibility of escape from the corruption of the old dreams – of being able to “resume again unknowing” – without returning to the past” (Currell 2009: 39). His short stories contains an excellent portraiture of society struggling with their personal waste lands. Even though they are not literally about the Great War, they display the inner significance of the Roaring Twenties; they show society's mentality and confusion. “Themes of Hemingway’s works have their roots in journalism and in topic or events that he believed were representative of the post-war world his grown-up characters and his readers alike had to confront” (Stewart 2001: 31). Further-more, in Hemingway’s fiction all the values seem to be no longer valid; a reader encounters disappearance of religion, which failed to provide emotional support for traumatised socie-ty. It also does not present valid answers. Finally, in Hemingway’s short stories appears a very important theme of anomie – the state where there are no law or norms. It can be also defined as an individual’s alienation (Idema 1990:

‘’I felt so lonesome, all of the sudden. I almost wished I was dead,’’ a quote from the classic novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger which relates to how some teens felt at one point in their life.The novel was published to attract adult readers and has become popular for its themes, motifs, and connections an individual has with the main character, Holden Caulfield.We tend to feel a connection to the struggles of Holden Caulfield as we put ourselves in his shoes and see life through his perspective. The book is still pertinent due to Holden facing challenges such as loneliness and the inability to make a connection to make with a purpose thus the readers see themselves in Holden. Furthermore, the book also relates to teens with the

In the pages prior to Book I of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway quoted Gertrude Stein: “You are all a lost generation”,

Throughout the short stories of Ernest Hemingway, alcohol inevitably lends its company to situations in which desperation already resides. In an examination of his earlier works, such as In Our Time, a comparison to later collections reveals the constant presence of alcohol where hopelessness prevails. The nature of the hopelessness, the desperation, changes from his earlier works to his later pieces, but its source remains the same: potential, or promise of the future causes a great deal of trepidation and lament throughout Hemingway's pieces. Whether the desperation comes from trepidation or lament depends on the view point from which it is observed, or rather, experienced.

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Chicago, Illinois. Hemingway was an American author and journalist. Kemen Zabala author of “HEMINGWAY: A STUDY IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY” states that Hemingway was commonly known for portraying the sterile and disillusioned environment created by the massive human loss of World War I. Perhaps his exposure to the atrocious nature of war as a Red Cross ambulance driver in the Europe during World War I aided and further influenced his literary capturing of warfare and how it had affected the “Lost Generation”. Hemingway himself popularized this term, it indicates the coming of age generation during World War I. Ashley Torres, author of “Gender Roles Shift in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises” claims that the “Lost Generation” mirrors the disenchanted and hopeless attitudes generated by the war. Although the war resulted in the loss of millions of men, changing the social and cultural customs, the youths of the “Lost Generation” were “battered but not lost” (Gerald, Kennedy “American Literature Vol. 63” (Jun. 1991), p. 192). As a result, the strict gender roles set by the preceding Victorian era, did not apply anymore, as women now took on many jobs meant for men. With a newfound sense of experimentation, the men and women of the “Lost Generation” could reverse gender roles freely. This paper will analyze the shift in gender roles found predominantly in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

Once World War I ended in 1918, the following 1920's experienced an aftershock due to tragedies that were experienced. The mindset for many Americans changed from being hopeful and hardworking to having a bleak outlook on life. Writers such as T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway captured this post war attitude in their works, "The Wasteland" and The Sun Also Rises respectively. Both writers considered the state of Western Civilization to be battered and depressing, which can be seen through their use of symbols and motifs. An aimless population and an uncertainty of the traditional ways of life are analyzed in their works.

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

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

It has been called one of Hemingway’s greatest literary works as it is the “quintessential novel of the Lost Generation.” Its strong language and subject matter portray a powerful image of the state of disenchantment felt in the 1920’s after the war. The interactions between the characters in this novel display a society living without convictions, affirming Gertrude Stein’s quotation at the beginning of the novel, “You are all a lost generation.” To paint this vivid picture of discontentment and disillusionment Hemingway tears away traditional ideas and values by stifling the appearance of God and religion. Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is a poignant take on how the consequences of war can limit or diminish the presence of God and religious faith amongst those living in a post war society.

Hemingway's world is one in which things do not grow and bear fruit, but explode, break, decompose, or are eaten away. It is saved from total misery by visions of endurance, by what happiness the body can give when it does not hurt, by interludes of love which