Captivity In The Sun Also Rises

A person can be anywhere in the world, yet remain in the same place—inside a head. In The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, this sense of captivity is the source of many behaviors that prove to be problematic. Discontent sets in at every new location, and it is rarely considered by the characters that their lack of contentment is rooted inside themselves as opposed to their current environment. Running from one café to some bar, then to another country and city, sleeping in a drunken string of hotels, the characters seem to think that their feelings of loss and disillusionment can be fixed by the outside world or some other third party, like alcohol or a partner of sex. Hemingway plants a queue to this theme early in the textual dialogue
and expands on that queue with scenes holding sex and death undertones that add to the understanding of that same theme, accomplishing in the end a fully realized hidden truth, which answers many questions for the reader, but not necessarily the characters involved in the compounding plot. The novel begins with a description of Robert Cohn, allowing the reader to understand the narrator, Jake Barnes, as an observer and thinker first and an active character second. In the description the reader learns about Jake’s mixed feelings about Robert, and then soon after the two have a discussion. It is in this discussion that the reader gets the thematic queue from the author. The two are at a bar and Robert is speaking to Jake, telling him that they have both lived over half their lives and that in another thirty-five years they will be dead. This plants the thoughts of death—the ultimate disillusionment—inside of Jake’s head. Robert’s plan to escape that feeling is to ditch his current train of thought and hop on one that takes him to South America, to which Hemingway through Jake replies, “Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that” (19). Jake seems to know intellectually that going from place to place does not change things. He probably has this psychological insight due to his condition, for it does not change based on his location. With Jake, it is not just about his place in geography; it is about his mental state, and so he falls in line with those who need a drink or some other distraction, as opposed to those who just need a new location to have the short-term effect of fulfillment. He understands that the only thing people cannot get away from is their thoughts, but that does not stop him from doing his best to numb his thoughts and alter them in the form of distraction so that his focus is on other things besides his feelings of powerlessness and loss. The reader takes this and goes on to the next line of dialogue, as Robert replies “But you’ve never been to South America” (19). Hemingway, with tongue-in-cheek, shows the reader that this problem is still set in denial with some of the characters—as they are unable to understand why the next location is not the next best thing—and so, whatever unfolds from here on out is poised to be a treat doused in an embittered coating. Hemingway expands on this theme of loss and discontentment through imagery set in one outstanding dynamic: a prison-like sense of loss and bafflement, which is followed by a brief sense of ecstasy and fulfillment that is emptied once more and just as quickly. This dynamic is like that of sex, as it is the underlying animation behind every activity with a beginning and end. After a night of drinking, Jake is at ends with his confusion. He is in his hotel room, hopping from one train of thought to another, just as Robert—physically, in the real world—wishes to hop from one system of transportation to another. He looks at the arrangement of the room, and then he tries to decide which bull-fighting newspaper to read, dangling and distracting thoughts over his head like he is a baby and his thoughts are singing mobiles over his crib. All of these thoughts are locking him in a state of pin-ball befuddlement until the truth starts to sink in and the thought game is over. It is Brett, his lover with whom he cannot love, that triggers his emotional climax, mirroring the sexual undertone of the scene, as he is “thinking about Brett and [his] mind stopped jumping” and then “all of the sudden [he] began to cry” (39). He secreted fluid. Jake, not unlike any other human, still uses reaching a state of climax as a way to fall asleep and achieve some sort of dreamlike ecstasy before waking back into confusion and beginning the daily foreplay-ic tasks again. He was able to just briefly unlock himself from the normal thoughts of his mind, but it could not last. For as much as sleeping is a connection to the scientifically unknown, church and religion is unknown to any sort of science and can only be explained in terms of intangibles and spiritualities. Hemingway uses this as a tool to further expand his ideas on both religion and feelings of loss and aimlessness. Jake, while in Pamplona, decides to visit a cathedral. He enters and begins to pray for everyone he can think of, and this was making him sleepy—which is perhaps a nod to the first encounter the reader has with Jake needed to reach a climactic state. He prays for good bull-fights and money to come his way, and then he feels “a little ashamed” and regrets that he is such a “rotten Catholic” (103). The reader is never told why he thinks he is such a rotten Catholic. It can be inferred by his line of thought, but it cannot be definitively concluded. He is, in fact, being a good Catholic and praying as he thinks this, which can only point to his feelings of confusion and inner-contention. Unknowingly however, Jake is reframing his thoughts into sexual terms. This is what he is really feeling ashamed about. Prayer to him is mental-masturbation; he does it so that he can feel good, but the confusion comes from him instinctively knowing that this is not the proper way of doing things. Evidence of his mental reframing comes when he “realized there [is] nothing [he] could do about it” (103). What exactly is he talking about, when he says “it”? He could be referring to his currently rotten state as a Catholic, but he could be talking about something else. Hemingway uses this scenario of multiple-interpretation to talk about religion, sex, and the human condition of confusion all at once. Jake says “it [is] a grand religion, and [he] only wished [he] felt religious” (103), but seeing that the reader does not really know what he is exactly referring to, and given the prior evidence that he tends to use other thoughts as a distraction for what is really on his mind, the reader can infer that this “grand religion” is sex—a religion in which almost everyone else is practicing ritually, as if it were the bedtime prayer and activity he earlier mentions imagining his friends participating in. He wishes he felt sexy. This is all in line with the subsequent images in the passage, where “the forefingers and the thumb of [Jake’s] right hand [are] still damp” (103). The twofold interpretation of this imagery is simple. Either his hand is damp because he achieved his orgasmic state through the only means he can, which is tears. Or his hand is damp because he put it in the holy water. It is left up to the reader with the information Hemingway provided—or withheld, rather—to decide. And so, Jake tried again to get out of his thoughts and into something bigger than himself, but he could not do it for long before having to return to his cell of thoughts. In the middle of the novel, Jake finds some sort of peace within himself.
This suggests that the form of the novel as a whole is like that of a major storm, such as a tornado or hurricane. Geographically, Jake is going fishing in Burguete, but through his observer mentality, the reader can see how he takes his physical location and translates it to inform his mental state. Jakes says that “up here [Burguete] the country [is] quite barren and the hills [are] rocky” (111). While in Burguete, Jake catches fish, has light-hearted philosophical talks with Bill, and he sleeps well and takes naps in the grass. He can only enjoy himself in a barren land. He can only enjoy himself in the eye of the storm, where the animations and dynamics of sex are quelled by the definitions of the world around him. Robert is not around to let him know that he is dying, and Brett is not around to let remind him that he cannot love. Jake is only fishing. The metaphors surrounding fishing are endless. Fishing is a contemplative act, and its very nature of bating something, putting it into the unknown, and then bringing it back with something new is at the core of the process of obtaining knowledge and alleviating confusion. In a dialogue with Bill, Bill asks Jake if he is a Catholic, and Jake says “Technically” (129) and then is able to fall right asleep. Upon waking, Jake retorts to Bill saying he had a lovely dream with “I don’t think I dreamt” (129). Jake does not need to dream in a barren land. A barren land, where new life is not being made and his life is the only one that counts, is his dream. The reader sees Jake in an extended period of euphoria and is prompted to wonder why he and Bill ever left, to which Jake says “We have to go into Pamplona” (132). The preposition “into” is italicized in the text. Nothing good ever lasts in this world. Nothing good can last, and Jake has to go back into the storm. He has to wake up, and Hemingway—choosing to italicize—lets the reader know that
the passage of one time into the next is as inevitable in the real world as it is in one’s head. It is inevitable in the way that night turns to day, as the sun rises.