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The Sun Also Rises Themes

Decent Essays

“We are all a Lost Generation”; is the opening epigraph to the Roman A Clef styled novel The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway has many different themes throughout the book, some of them being Robert Cohn’s guidebook The Purple Land, and the alcohol presence in Jake’s life. Many times throughout the book these themes can and do collide.

Many people, when they are 34, have life figured out, but not Robert Cohn. Robert grew up in America to wealthy Jewish parents. During college, he was the middleweight boxing champion even though he hated the sport, ( even if he was good at it), after Robert finished college, he married a nice lady, then divorced a few years later. After Cohn’s divorce, he met Francis, who convinced Cohn to go to Paris with her. “I found myself once more in that Purple Land where we had …show more content…

While in Paris, Cohn finds W.H. Hudson’s book, The Purple Land. Cohn’s friend and the narrator of The Sun Also Rises, Jake states that this book “is a very sinister book if read too late in life” (Hemingway 17). For some this book may seem strange, how can a book be sinister? Well, for Cohn, it gave him fantasies about far off places and this book became his guidebook for life. The Purple Land, gave Cohn ideas about going to South America, to get away from everyone especially Francis. “the seven to eight months of somewhat troubled happiness we had there; and, finally, the secret return to Buenos Ayres in search of a ship to take us out of the country. Troubled happiness! Ah, yes, and my greatest trouble was when I looked on her, my partner for life, when she seemed loveliest, so small, so exquisite in her dark blue eyes that were like violets, and silky black hair and tender pink and olive complexion–so frail in appearance” (Hudson 4). When in

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