How A Traumatic, Gruesome Experience Can Affect A Person's Values

Ernest Hemingway, author of The Sun Also Rises, explores how a traumatic, gruesome experience can affect a person’s view on their own values, and how they view the values that are forced on them by their society. In the novel, the characters no longer value things such as titles and money because the war they had been involved in causes them to question the things they used to value. The characters all have different perspectives on topics such as sexuality, and money. To put it in simpler terms, the characters fail to see the value in basically everything because they can no longer tell the difference between what is valuable and what is not. In the novel, Hemingway explores the ways in which people question their values due to past experiences
through his characters and how considering some things invaluable might affect them. Because of their previous experiences in the war, the characters in The Sun Also Rises have become unattached to their money and are not materialistic. The characters feel detached from their life, and struggle to find its meaning. This lack of meaningfulness causes them to lose the value they put in money since they no longer see what the point of it all is. The characters go on spontaneous trips and spend every night drinking alcohol without any concern for how they are spending their money. For example, when Jake goes out to a restaurant with Georgette he tells the waiter as he's leaving “If the girl I came with asks for me, will you give her this? If she goes out with one of those gentlemen, will you save this for me?”. This attitude towards money is unemotional and he only cares to pay for everything only if Georgette cares enough about him to ask about him. This aspect can also be seen as selfish because the only reason Jake would be willing to pay is that if he is relevant enough that Georgette would miss him. He does not even value the company that Georgette is giving him, and does not care enough to even tell her he’s leaving without her. The war has caused Jake to no longer value his money, and he no longer cares about what happens to it, so he uses it in an irrational manner. The characters have not only lost sight of the value of money in the novel but they also no longer value the standards that are traditional in their own society.
The persona of Brett as a whole is a prime example of this. In a time where women are often oppressed and seen as less than when compared to men, Brett embodies the image of a strong, dominant woman since she questions a women’s place in society. The reader can concur that with Brett, she does not value the idea of sex and being in a relationship, instead, she acts very promiscuously when it comes to her relationships. Brett does not think that having an intimate relationship with someone means that you have to have a serious relationship. Brett does not let her sex life undermine her value as a woman, and this can be seen when she states ““Oh, well. What if I do?” when Jake confronts her about her multiple love interests. Brett’s unfeminine approach to love and relationships allows for her to feel as if they are invaluable, and allows for her to act casually when it comes to her love life. This way of acting promiscuously when it comes to her intimate relationships is due to Brett’s past experience in the war when Brett’s true love died of dysentery. Brett runs away from forming any kind of serious relationship, because she is afraid of facing a loss like she faced in the war, and she uses it as a way to shield people from her real emotions. Also, her subsequent casual outlook toward sex and relationships can be interpreted as an inefficacious way to try and replace the value she previously had with her true love before his passing in the war. Brett rebels against how society thinks a woman should behave in a relationship because she can’t bring herself to commit to anyone because of her terrible loss. Brett not only no longer values the intimacy of sex, but also no longer values the view of what society thinks a woman should be like. She isn’t society’s traditional thought of a picturesque woman, but
rather, she is a manly, alcoholic, confident and emotionally callous woman. Brett does not value the way people perceive because the one person who’s perception of her truly mattered is dead due to the war. Brett even goes so far as to not acknowledge her title as Lady Ashley because it no longer holds any value to her, contrary to society's view on how titles should be used. The war that the characters were involved before The Sun Also Rises takes place also causes them to lose the value of their faith, and they are no longer able to see what the value of their lives is. World War I took away the lost generation’s traditional values of life and faith, because of the gruesome things the war had caused. Because the characters no longer believe or have faith in anything their lives are invaluable. How Jake feels about religion is clear when he visits a church and thinks to himself “I was a little ashamed, and I regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic.“ In the quote, Jake is trying to see the value in his spirituality, and he realizes that he no longer values his identity of being a catholic. Jake’s want to ‘feel religious’ in the quote is understandable because religion explains the mysteries of life, but Jake can not bring himself to believe in a higher power because if there was a God then he would not have let World War I take place. The consequences of the war have caused many problems for the characters since they have had everything and go as far as to examine what they truly value in life. They think and act independently from how people think they should because they no longer value people’s perception of them. They run around throughout Europe drinking their days away and going on spontaneous trips to try and escape their problems since they no longer value money. They act irrationally and put no real value on anything since they are no longer able to tell the difference between what is valuable and what is invaluable.