The Sun Also Rises Movement

“Oh, Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together.’ ‘Yes, Isn’t it pretty to think so?”. Their final discussion is right where they started in the back of a cab. Brett has just dug a hole even deeper into the abyss of disappointment that Brett has already given him. Jake has lost his masculinity in more ways than one. He has to live without Brett, and with his disability, denying him any chance at all with women. He has finally accepted the loveless relationship that has become of them, and will push forward knowing how it will never be.

“Why? What’s the point?”. Jake has a wife and a daughter and he hasn't spoken with his kid in months. His daughter refers to him as “the man that used to live with us” and he doesn't like speaking with his

In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” one of the main characters asks the other “That’s all we do isn’t it- look at things and try new drinks?” (Hemingway 476). In Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, the characters could also claim that this was their lives. At any point in the story they are essentially doing nothing but looking at things and trying new drinks. Critics are right to say that the novel presents motion that goes nowhere and that it is a novel of stasis and despair.

After suffering a war injury that renders him impotent, Jake desperately tries to rekindle his romantic relationship with Brett to manage his trauma and avoid loneliness, but eventually realizes that he himself must deal with the lasting effect of the war. From the beginning, Jake shows his attraction to Brett when he sees her in a bar and notes that she “was damned good-looking” and “was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht” (30). Jake’s particular attention to Brett hints

Brett is a solid, generally autonomous lady. She applies extraordinary control over the men around her, as her excellence and moxy appear to beguile everybody she meets. In addition, she declines to focus on any one man, leaning toward extreme autonomy. Be that as it may, her freedom does not make her upbeat. She much of the time grumbles to Jake about how hopeless she is—her life, she claims, is purposeless and unsuitable. Her meandering from relationship to relationship parallels Jake and his companions' meandering from bar to bar. Despite the fact that she won't focus on any limited, she appears to be uncomfortable being without anyone else's input. As Jake comments, "She can't go anyplace alone."

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.

after the loss of her first lover Brett has been sleeping around stating she has "been so miserable" (Hemingway 95). Although Brett’s promiscuity is not a secret to any character within the novel Jake is the only one male or female that she trusts enough to reveal such personal feelings to. Her honesty with him once again surfaces when Jake asks "Couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?" and Brett responds "I don’t think so. I’d just tromper you with everybody. You couldn’t stand it" (Hemmingway 212).

4. The price that Jake thinks he must pay for Brett’s friendship is the bills and the exchange of their personal values.

The value of monetary exchange extends to his relationships, particularly with Brett: “I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on” (Hemingway, 152). In this instance, Jake is referencing that his friendship with Brett, has given him the benefits of having as much of a romantic relationship as he can, which makes him feel he has cheated Brett of deserving payment. This explains why Jake supports Brett’s sexual promiscuity, as other men are capable of giving her what he cannot, sexually.

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

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

Jake also at times seems to realize how bad his life is, but then never regrets it. He is in love with Brett Ashley, but she is always with other people, including Robert Cohn, which makes Jake jealous. This jealousy turns to anger when Jake gets into a fight with Robert and is then knocked out.

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

He goes from thinking about Brett nearly all the time preceding the fiesta to only thinking about her when necessary. While swimming in San Sebastian, Jake observes a couple laughing in the water (239). Jake does not equate the couple’s relationship to his own, a giant leap from his compulsion we observed in previous chapters. When Brett experiences trouble and needs Jake’s assistance he responds. However, in the thoughts Jake expresses after responding to Brett’s letter, he finally understands Cohn’s reasoning for calling him a “damned pimp” (193). Jake realization that he fits the insult begins in the passage when he remarks, “Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back,” (243). This realization prompts Jake’s standoffishness in the car on the last page. When Brett tries to be idealistic he shrugs it off simply commenting, “Isn’t pretty to think so?” (250). The ruckus in Pamplona forces Jake to view Brett in the realm of realism and not in one of