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Similarities Between The Sun Also Rises And The Great Gatsby

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Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises was written during the same time as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. A key part of both of these authors writing was the effects of World War I and the Lost Generation. The two famous authors were good friends and both experienced the lasting effects of the Great War. These effects come out in both of their novels, especially with the social scene, morality, and relationships. In The Sun Also Rises, the protagonist, Jake Barnes, an American veteran, narrates the story and explains the pain each character feels and masks behind parties and jokes. All of his friends lack stability and happiness, to numb the pain of loneliness and inadequacies they party by night, and eat during the day, moving bar to bar, room to …show more content…

The best example is in Gatsby's idealisation of Daisy, his inability to see her as she truly is. To block out the horrors of the past, the lost generation would drink or, in the case of The Great Gatsby, throw lavish parties. Tom and Daisy are also a major representation of the lost generation. They randomly float about drinking and partying without any real purpose. When they are first introduced, Nick says “They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.” The two novels have several underlying themes including: disatisfaction, the lack of morality, and love . Dissatisfaction drives the plot for both novels. In The Sun Also Rises, Robert Cohn is constantly looking for the next big adventure to bring some level of meaning to his monotonous life. “Listen, Jake," he leaned forward on the bar. "Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live

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