Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
Savannah Galloway
Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises The exemplary novel of the 1920s, The Sun Also Rises exists as one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces and an example of his potent style. From the beginning of a prominent career, Hemingway blistered with eloquent voice within each of his classics. His career began at the young age of seventeen and thoroughly shaped throughout his years involved in the military. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army and became wounded. Bouncing in and out of hospitals, he started a job as a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover important events. Hemingway relished in the portrayal …show more content…
of tough, at times, primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society. Such people include soldiers, hunters, and bullfighters who, in this confrontation, lose hope and faith. During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises. The 1926 novel chiefly focuses on the lives of Lady Brett Ashley, Jake Barnes, and his friends who all live in the topsy-turvy, hedonistic (sensual and self-indulgent) world of post-World War I Paris. Jake and Brett stab at a construed romance alongside friends while traveling throughout France and Spain. Lady Brett Ashley fancies most of the men during this time
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causing uproars in tension within the group.
Jake and the other characters meet new people and become knowledgeable of each of their own emotions. Although the characters are dragged by a fragmented string of infatuation, along the way they share many drinks and meals, go fishing, and watch fantastic bull fights in Spain during the weeklong …show more content…
fiesta. The romantic relations provided between the characters rapidly change.
While traveling from country to country, relationships form and break, and the adventurers do not establish domestic lives for themselves. In the plot Robert Cohn states, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it” (pg. 18). The character shows he is aware of his aimless way of living after the war and denying finding relations to ground him. The occupations and movements of the characters reflect the purposeless motivation as well as love; both are avoided and ignored. While the insecurities of the males cause their avoidance of love and sex, Lady Brett stays charismatic and lives like the ideal bachelor. The typical attitudes of men and women about love have been upturned by the changes in the war time. The Sun Also Rises concludes that like all the other ideals obliterated by World War I, “it is pretty to think so” (pg. 251) that love, too, is the answer to the emptiness of the lost generation when it remains not. The characters contribute life to the theme expressed within the novel despite the circumstances. Without the motivations of the characters Hemingway formed, the universal message gripped by the plot could not have been molded. For example, although Brett and Jake love one another, Brett’s prioritization of sex and independence above loves, and Jake’s physical limitations prevent them from being together. Cohn’s outdated understanding of love renders him
the perfect scrape goat for Mike, Brett, and Jake, each of whom are insecure in their own
Galloway-3
love lives. Love when mentioned at all in The Sun Also Rises, usually only becomes brought up in the context of accusations and fights, or at best surrounding discussions of sex. Granting that love transcends the message hidden within the novel, The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway’s first big hit. Less than ten years after the end of World War I, the novel helped define his generation: disillusioned young people whose lives were profoundly affected by war. Just like the troubled characters he created in this masterpiece, Hemingway bore the physical and emotional scars of the war. The Sun Also Rises expresses the uncertainty and aimlessness of a lost generation searching for answers such as love.
Galloway-4
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. 1954. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Print.
"Ernest Hemingway - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 27 Sep 2013.
Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises The exemplary novel of the 1920s, The Sun Also Rises exists as one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces and an example of his potent style. From the beginning of a prominent career, Hemingway blistered with eloquent voice within each of his classics. His career began at the young age of seventeen and thoroughly shaped throughout his years involved in the military. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army and became wounded. Bouncing in and out of hospitals, he started a job as a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover important events. Hemingway relished in the portrayal …show more content…
of tough, at times, primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society. Such people include soldiers, hunters, and bullfighters who, in this confrontation, lose hope and faith. During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises. The 1926 novel chiefly focuses on the lives of Lady Brett Ashley, Jake Barnes, and his friends who all live in the topsy-turvy, hedonistic (sensual and self-indulgent) world of post-World War I Paris. Jake and Brett stab at a construed romance alongside friends while traveling throughout France and Spain. Lady Brett Ashley fancies most of the men during this time
Galloway-2
causing uproars in tension within the group.
Jake and the other characters meet new people and become knowledgeable of each of their own emotions. Although the characters are dragged by a fragmented string of infatuation, along the way they share many drinks and meals, go fishing, and watch fantastic bull fights in Spain during the weeklong …show more content…
fiesta. The romantic relations provided between the characters rapidly change.
While traveling from country to country, relationships form and break, and the adventurers do not establish domestic lives for themselves. In the plot Robert Cohn states, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it” (pg. 18). The character shows he is aware of his aimless way of living after the war and denying finding relations to ground him. The occupations and movements of the characters reflect the purposeless motivation as well as love; both are avoided and ignored. While the insecurities of the males cause their avoidance of love and sex, Lady Brett stays charismatic and lives like the ideal bachelor. The typical attitudes of men and women about love have been upturned by the changes in the war time. The Sun Also Rises concludes that like all the other ideals obliterated by World War I, “it is pretty to think so” (pg. 251) that love, too, is the answer to the emptiness of the lost generation when it remains not. The characters contribute life to the theme expressed within the novel despite the circumstances. Without the motivations of the characters Hemingway formed, the universal message gripped by the plot could not have been molded. For example, although Brett and Jake love one another, Brett’s prioritization of sex and independence above loves, and Jake’s physical limitations prevent them from being together. Cohn’s outdated understanding of love renders him
the perfect scrape goat for Mike, Brett, and Jake, each of whom are insecure in their own
Galloway-3
love lives. Love when mentioned at all in The Sun Also Rises, usually only becomes brought up in the context of accusations and fights, or at best surrounding discussions of sex. Granting that love transcends the message hidden within the novel, The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway’s first big hit. Less than ten years after the end of World War I, the novel helped define his generation: disillusioned young people whose lives were profoundly affected by war. Just like the troubled characters he created in this masterpiece, Hemingway bore the physical and emotional scars of the war. The Sun Also Rises expresses the uncertainty and aimlessness of a lost generation searching for answers such as love.
Galloway-4
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. 1954. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Print.
"Ernest Hemingway - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 27 Sep 2013.