The Sun Also Rises Literary Analysis

The meaning of life varies from person to person, but the comprehensive goal of finding one’s purpose spreads throughout the entirety of humanity. Life may seem mundane at times, but it is fulfilment that truly matters. In the novel, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, the main characters all struggle with finding their purpose in the world. Instead of searching far and wide for this purpose, they instead fill their days with repetitive drinking and travel, which are both empty activities without true principle. Throughout the story, Jake, the narrator and main character, describes the daily activities of his group of friends. Hemingway writes with description alone, allowing the reader to interpret the intricacies of the story. His emphasis
Brett is a promiscuous girl who constantly needs her own self-reassurance through sexual endeavors. All of the members of the group know of Brett’s promiscuity, including Mike. He is increasingly insecure about her infidelity, yet understands that he cannot act to prevent her ways. So rather than directly coping with this issue and facing is head on, Mike instead fills his days with excessive drinking and constant movement through restaurants, bars, and pubs. For Mike, the alcohol acts as a filter between the realities of his wife’s actions and his personal struggle with his lack of masculinity. One moment that looks beyond this façade into Mike’s character is during one of his verbal attacks on Cohn. Throughout their travels Mike constantly criticizes Cohn, questioning why he is even there at all. During one particularly brutal attack Mike drunkenly says, “‘Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us?... I’m not one of you literary chaps… But I do know when I’m not wanted. Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for God’s sake. Take that said Jewish face away’” (181). Mike directly questions Cohn’s purpose of being with their group in Spain, telling him that he lacks purpose entirely. Mike also plays off of Cohn’s Jewish religion, further ostracizing him from the group for his beliefs. But while Mike is shouting these harsh words, Hemingway leads the reader to understand the Mike should be asking himself these questions instead. In psychology, this action, called projection, is when a person shifts their own qualities and places them on another person. For Mike, he feels out of place among the friend group and remains insecure as he watches Brett’s relationships with many other men and uses Cohn as a scapegoat for these issues, therefore projecting his own personal questions onto Cohn. He fails to see