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The Sun Also Rises By Ernest Hemingway Essay

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Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises presents an interesting commentary on the fluidity of gender roles and the effects of stepping outside of the socially constructed binary approach to gender. Jake’s impotence and his inability to win Brett romantically results in a struggle with masculinity and inadequacy. Brett, possessing many masculine attributes, serves as a foil and embodies the masculinity the men in the novel lack. The juxtaposition of Jake’s struggle and Brett’s refusal to adhere to conventional feminine roles begs the question that gender, as a binary opposition, is simply a social construct and nothing more than a hypothetical truism. Brett’s assertion of masculinity over Jake further emphasizes the problem of his lack thereof. Lady Brett Ashley contradicts every notion most have about women in the early twentieth century. She is strong, assertive, promiscuous, masculine (her name, hair, clothing and personality having masculine qualities, to name a few examples) and generally holds power over the men who surround her. Most women around this time at her age, 34 years old, would have been married with children performing the role of a common house-wife. However, Brett is not ashamed of her character nor does she make any attempt to hide under the veil of classic feminism; she is out front with her seemingly scandalous behavior and proud of it. She is the embodiment of a New Woman emerging after World War I and opposes the standard binary classifications of

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