Category: The Sun Also Rises

The work that I choose to elaborate is called “Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises” which was written by the famous writer Ernest Hemingway and published in 1926, it is written in the first person – Jake Barnes, who is the narrator and the protagonist of the novel as well. The plot of this novel was a group of disillusioned expatriates who wandered in Europe in the mid-1920s , especially France and Spain, where the latter holds the bullfight fiesta every year and it plays a driving role during the novel, Jake thinks that will live the life to the fullest as well. Furthermore, Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes, who are two main characters of this novel, representatives of “Lost generation”, which means the aimless and meaningless life due to they are shattered in traditional values, such as manhood, womanhood and love, also drunkenness and relations between male and female characters can be inferred some stereotypes in contemporary. On the other words, these group of expatriates are portrayed by Hemingway with such extents, also Hemingway utilizes a few allusions to refer the society at that period.

Jake Barnes, as the narrator and the protagonist of this novel, he once served as a soldier in World War I and unfortunately he got wounded and lost male ability. According to his narration at the beginning of the novel, he does not clearly and directly indicate it but subtly implies that he gets impotent and has lost the ability to have sex. Besides, Jake usually hides his inner feeling and does not speak out his mind directly, he is good at talking to others with his trite expression. Also he is full of anxiety of his impotence since other male characters do not need to concern the trouble, even comes with jealousy because he has burden of feeling that he is less of a man than he was before (Sparknotes, 2003). Another female main character – Lady Brett Ashley, a divorced socialite and independent woman, also Jake’s lover, who has short boyish hair with a jersey dressed. She is so charming that be attractive to men and capable of charming men with her beauty and power. But however, Brett does not want to commit to any men at all due to her independence that makes her unsatisfied, because she has liberated sexuality and desire to have affairs with men. In addition to that, she has been with Jake Barnes during the World War I when Brett took care of his wound, whereas separated afterwards, it possibly is due to the war Jake lost male ability as Brett has sexual desire to men. In short, Jake loses masculinity and Brett does not want to give up sex, although she loves him. Hence, sexuality is a determining factor between Jake and Brett, the other characters mostly are men who threatened Jake with this issue.

Despite that Jake does not reveal directly about his corrupted masculinity, he constantly implies that the reason why Brett gives up being with him is the fact that his male insecurity, namely his impotence, which does not satisfy Brett’s sexual desire. Besides, Brett mentions that she can get drunk with her male friends without having affair while Jake thinks those men are homosexuals, then in certain way Jake becomes anxious about his loss of masculinity that makes Brett discontent. Moreover, his friend Robert Cohn is interested in Brett but unlike him, Cohn does not concern about the trouble in male insecurity, in addition to the last man Pedro Romero, who is a nineteen-year-old bullfighter, it possibly is because Romero is so pure and full of strength in masculinity that fascinates Brett, in other words, he entirely shows his masculinity when a bullfighter successfully kills the bull. Then, Brett falls in love with Romero at once as Brett never feels affectionate with such a young and confident man since in the past she is only with those experienced men. Summarily, male insecurity drives gender relations and also presents a kind of trite stereotype.

Failed communication also could be a part of stereotype at that time, for instance, one of the characters in the novel, Robert Cohn who is one of Jake’s friends, committed to go to Spain with Jake and act everything nicely as a usual friend. But gradually, he had a crush to Brett without revealing to Jake clearly, even having affair with Brett in Spain, and also Jake depresses his unspoken jealousy of Cohn instead of speaking out. Despite the fact that the characters hang out often, their gatherings are not delightful because they never honestly and faithfully communicate with each other from the bottom of the heart, this kind of disloyal communication is in vain, it is a failure of relationship. However, Bill Gorton, another friend of Jake’s, is a hard-drinking, humorous and respectful veteran, he is good at using humor to cope with the emotional and mental drawbacks of postwar. Bill has great and strong connection with Jake since they are both American veterans. Moreover, their communication can be said that it is genuine and direct surprisingly as Jake never discusses faithfully with any other friend, also Jake hides his real feeling and thoughts with his trite expressions all the time, or in other words, Jake thinks in one way but behaves in another. Thus, lack of communication ruins everything, in certain degree it is seemed as a triteness in contemporary.

Excessive drinking leads to another climax. All characters especially the veterans of the war, they frequently drink alcohol to distract from their uncomfortable feelings that related to the war, they wander from a place to another, from bar to bar, drinking has occupied most of their time. Because of excessive alcohol, many things are ruined eventually, for instance, Brett breaks her appointment with Jake and explains that she forgets due to drunkenness. Besides, certain violence is fueled by hard-drinking, the expatriates always have meaningless fight for women and sex which are nonsense and could be avoided. It is believed that Jake and his acquaintances are mentally, morally and emotionally lost (Bracken, n.d.), as with Lost Generation. There be an aspect that sense versus reason: the alcohol is a fuse that their inner feelings are hidden and being rational, but then drunkenness drives them to be sentimental and deprived of reason. After the war, members of lost generation do not believe in anything, lost in value and want to escape from cruelty of reality.

After World War I, an obvious change happened to women. In the early 20th century, a new name – “flapper” which is used to describe a new type of women (Benner, 2004). Compared to men who prefer to smoke the strong tobacco and cigars, women are inclined to hold a cigarette in hands and smoke the relatively mild and clean cigarettes in public, danced with a new style and have sexual freedom, even divorce is a common thing to women. This kind of women are remembered as “new women” in early 1900s. In the novel, the independent and liberated Lady Brett Ashley who is a typical example to show what a modern woman is. Another instance, Cohn’s girlfriend – Frances Clyne who overpowers over Cohn: On one hand, she does not permit Cohn to take weekend trip when Jake asks Cohn to meet his female friend; On the other hand, she has strongly desire to let Cohn marry her in a hurry but refused and broke up with Cohn afterwards, because she is getting old and does not waste time spending on the one who never wants to marry her, Cohn ends up enduring Frances’s assaults. Furthermore, Brett, who frequently pours out emotion trouble to Jake but breaks promise with him and having fun with other men instead, Jake never feels uncomfortable and discontent, or in other words, he cheats on himself and is willing to be abused. It can infer that women’s status at that time is no longer as inferior as before the World War I, even much more superior than men as they confidently have chance to exercise their rights and duty, not being led by someone’s nose anymore. In this case, women’s issue threatens the stereotype contemporarily since men are supposed to be dominant in the society.

Basically, World War I brought a huge change to Europe undoubtedly, after the war the society was full of decadence and people got mentally and emotionally lost that was called “Lost Generation”, which referred to members who are lost in love and traditional value, also did not know the significance of the major conflict that had brought them much depression. Gender relations had partially altered, of traditional notions in the prewar, masculine was supposed to be stoic, brave and tough. But later the gender status was altered mostly, women did not take place in some industries until the war was over since in the past they exclusively were capable of bearing children, for example, women took part in politics actively from then on as they had rights to implement. In addition, women had to be responsible for the whole households because of the loss of breadwinners who died in the war so they faced varied difficulties in economic, albeit with some occupations or professions could be taken place, the unfair and limited salary was a stumbling block for them to retain a basis of domestic life. On the other hand, divorce was made easier and women were unsatisfied with staying at home as housewives when the numbers of women went up and joined workforce, but still most women were not as free as men, they made good contribution in keeping home intact when men were absent, in this way, due to all households’ work which were handled by women, such labor work was described as a kind of “do their bit for the war duration” (Grayzel, 2014).

Referring of women’s issue, it reminds me of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and the wife of Bath’s. Wollstonecraft is best known for the work – “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” which advocates that women get rights to exercise and get to the status as equal to men. The wife of Bath, a woman who suggests that women should have more sovereignty over men in marriage, having affairs with other men. Up to this point, the wife is similar to Lady Brett Ashley, they belong to that kind of liberated sexual women who overpowers men chiefly. Hence, the ideology of Wollstonecraft and the wife of Bath’s are different and the latter alike Brett’s behavior which more likely threatens the trite stereotype.

In conclusion, gender relations in Hemingway’s “Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises” are influenced by World War I, which destroyed the spirituality of Europe. For most men, the major problem of the war was loss of masculinity because most warfare and conflict led men lost sense of chivalry inevitably, men are no longer knights that defending women as when women went up and more women joined in workforce. The gender relations among lost generation – Jake and Brett, the demand for carnal experience thwarts them since Jake lost masculinity and Brett has liberated sexuality; Robert and Frances, broke up terribly due to Robert’s romantic view of love and his desire for acceptance that flatters his ego. Furthermore, failure of communication is also sort of trite stereotype that the male bondings are convenient, Robert and Jake do not like each other as they get used to hiding their true feelings but later coming out with fights that fuelled by alcohol which is shown that drunkenness ruins things. However, Bill and Jake are the genuine friendship, they honestly and faithfully show real empathy. What’s more, the bullfighting not only determines the presence of masculine but also as female behavior, a picador takes risks to spear the bull is seen as a seduction, alike the picador’s coming to the bull like fliration which refers Brett as the teasing bullfighter destroying men. Above all the aspects mentioned, this novel chiefly threaten contemporary stereotypes.

The inspiration of this novel was a trip made to Spain in 1925. The characters are based on real people, friends very close to Hemingway’s, and some of the situation that happened are based on real experience. Hemingway explores themes such as love and death, the power of nature and the concept of masculinity. The Old Man and The Sea tells the story of a skilled fisherman call Santiago and a big marlin. Basically, is about the battle between them, but it is so much deeper than that. In order to understand this, it is important explain the iceberg theory. The iceberg theory is a writing technique that Hemingway use in his novels.

The Sun Also Rises centers around the evolving times of the 1920s. This generation featured consisted of younger people who were reaching adulthood following World War I. This generation began to lose their faith and morality with the effects of war. After seeing many deaths and violence, they realized that life can be fragile and short, so they began to live their life and have fun. Some of the most typical behaviors of this generations included decadence, an altered view of the American Dream and the confusion in the roles of gender. These events were based on the real events that Hemingway dealt with, “We know the fact that Hemingway is interested in the present and so he writes about things he has been, known or experienced himself”.

Many of the people during this time began to lose their faith after their involvement in the war. Dealing with the aftermath of the war, they began to lose their innocence which lead to them losing hope in religion. This begins a domino effect as the characters try and escape from their problems. One of the many problems that this generation turned to was alcohol. Hemingway uses alcohol as a main part of his novel and uses it to show how the use of alcohol was centered around all activities that this generation was participating in.

We can see how the involvement in the World War I had affected the main characters. Jake suffers both mentally and physically from his battle wound. Even though he felt the same way as other people of this time, he is aware of how the war has affected him and stumbles into religion to try and help him. “I only wished I felt religious, and maybe I would the next time”. Even though Jake appreciates the idea of prayer and religion, he feels that he cannot turn back to it since God has failed him in so many ways through war and his relationships.

Brett on the other hand, has lost all faith in religion. Like Jake she has seen violence and traumas and has also lost her husband during the war. She begins to lose the feminine standard and begins to act much like a man. She starts to go out to bars and clubs to drink with other men. She flirts and has casual sex with men. Brett is used to having people do anything for her, but during this time she feels as if God is the only one who will not help her, “He never worked very well for me (Hemingway 249). She feels that God has abandoned her when she needed hope with that she has endured.

Ernest Hemingway uses the verse from Ecclesiastes “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries around to rise again” as the title of his novel to depict the journey of the Jake and Brett as they try to find the meaning to the world around them, as it seems to be falling apart. Hemingway uses the verse to show that this generation has seen the sun rise and the light shines over them. The title also brings some hope as the sun will regenerate as a new generation is born.

Ernest Hemingway‟s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926 is one of his best novels. The novel is widely regarded as the definitive account of the epoch that followed World War I. The Sun Also Rises tells the story of a group of expatriates mired in postwar disillusionment and despair.

The story centers on the narrator, Jake Barnes and his love interest, Lady Brett Ashley, with whom he is unable to sustain a romantic relationship due to a war injury that has rendered him impotent. According to W.M. Frohock, “Jake‟s physical disability is in large part a symbol for the general feeling of frustration and pointlessness of life” It portrays and celebrates the empty bohemianism of the „lost generation‟. It provides a peep into the life of restless American expatriates settled in Paris in the early 20s, and below the surface of the main textures runs yet another quest, that is, quest for meaning to relationships.

The mood of emotional impotence dominates the whole novel. According to David Savola, the novel ultimately celebrates the relationship between human kind and natural world. In support of his view he says, “The Sun Also Rises is profoundly concerned with ecological considerations, as the passage of Ecclesiastes echoed in its title. The novel presents the main characters as aimless, displaced persons without a secure sense of meaning or value and suggests that the characters could find that meaning and value in cultivating a more intimate connection with the natural environment.

The novel criticizes conventional depiction of nature and calls for a literature that offers a more complex picture of the connection between humanity and the natural world”. While making biographical study of the novel, Young asserts that, “The characters in The Sun Also Rises are recognizable people taken from real life and the hero has a peculiar psycho-biographical approach”.

Critics with biographical inclination towards Hemingway‟s works observed that there was a close affinity between Hemingway and hero. To quote Young again “The novel The Sun Also Rises 34 is an expression of Hemingway‟s obsession with the wound he had received during World War I. He views Jake as physically as well as psychologically wrecked who is humorless and passive”.

Philip Young terms Jake‟s wound as an “objective correlative” for a spiritually lost post war world. Thus, the reader might laugh at Jake and his friends. Young contends that “Despite a lot of fun The Sun Also Rises is still Hemingway‟s Wasteland, and Jake is Hemingway‟s Fisherking”. He was articulating, what has become a familiar—and in some quarters at least—an orthodox reading of the novel. It is widely held that The Sun Also Rises is a prose version of The Wasteland, its theme of the sterility of life in the modern world.

Jake Barnes is a representative victim of this world and his famous wound, received in the Great War, is a symbol of the general impotence of the times. Young stretches the psycho-biographical approach to its extremity when he observes that “Jake projects qualities of the man who created him, many of his experiences are still either literal or transformed autobiography and his wound is still the crucial fact about him”. Baker also focuses on the manhood prevalent in the novel but he also traces the symbols throughout the novel.

According to Baker, much of the strength of The Sun Also Rises may be attributed to the complicated interplay between two points of view which it embodies. According to one of them the novel is a romantic study in sexual and ultimately in spiritual frustration. Besides this more or less orthodox view, however, must be placed with the idea, that it is a qualitative study of varying degree of physical and spiritual manhood, projected against a background of ennui and emotional exhaustion which is everywhere implicitly condemned.

Baker also traced the importance and significance of symbols in The Sun Also Rises. Rain is one of the symbols in the novel and while usually rain stands for life, for fertility, for vegetation and growth it stands for destruction or dislocation, for lost hopes and for bad weather in The Sun Also Rises. Apart from the masculine attributes and the presence of symbols, Carlos Baker praises Hemingway‟s truthful depiction of things in his works. In his own words Hemingway once stated “I only know that I have seen”. Thus Baker concludes “It is clear that the strongest conviction in 35 Hemingway the aesthetician—the principle underlying his sense of place and fact and scene, the principle supporting his discipline of double perception—is the importance of telling truth”.

Bhim S. Dahiya‟s main concern has also been focused on the hero but he successfully manages to detach the hero from all types of biographical attachments and finds him to be a developing fictional character. Dahiya states, “Jake is a developing character, and his self awareness as well as his awareness of Brett, is not a matter of sudden realization at the end: his development is built within the very structure of the novel. If he continues to show concern for Brett until the end, it is not because he has any illusion about her. He is fully aware both of Brett and of his own situation from the very beginning”. Dahiya praises the Hemingway hero and says, “The important thing to note in case of Hemingway hero is that his consciousness of death does not make him lose interest in life on the contrary, it makes him all the more hungry for life”. Dahiya deals with each and every aspect of the hero‟s life. But the predominantly accepted notion of the „code hero‟ is described as a misconception in his work.

James T. Farrell‟s critical evaluation of The Sun Also Rises chiefly revolves around the American society and America of twenties after the World War I. Farrell asserts “The mood and attitude of the main characters is that of people on vacation. They set out to do what people want to do on a vacation. They have love—affairs, they drink, go fishing and see new spectacles”. Farrell further says that the novel struck deeper chords in the youth of twenties, which Gertrude Stein called “lost generation”.

The mood of disillusionment portrayed in The Sun Also Rises had been the way of feeling and acting, in fact a social habit in twenties after the World War: “What‟s the matter? You sick?” “Yes” “Everybody‟s sick. I‟m sick too.” (The Sun Also Rises, 16) 36 Hemingway tries to express this mood through escapades, through drinking, fishing, bull fighting and sexual exploits. Hemingway‟s writing was exciting and possessed of an extraordinary power of suggestiveness, it was actually participating in the lives of very real man and woman.

Conrad Aiken reiterates about Hemingway‟s writing: “Hemingway clearly has the ability to make his story move and move with intensity, through his dialogues”. Hemingway maintains his choice of simple words in every aspect of the novel, whether it is the theme of the novel or a scene or facts regarding a character. His use of simple words, arranged in short and simple sentences, can be seen in the novel through out. He tends to express the theme in a nut shell manner : “You‟re an expatriate”, “You‟ve lost touch with the soil”, “You hang around café‟s” etc. Cornad believes that. “if there is better dialogue being written today I do not know where to find it…. It is in the dialogue almost entirely that Mr. Hemingway tells his story and makes people live and act”.

Michael Reynolds too asserts about Hemingway‟s skill of writing : “His writing is so incredible because he tried to show what had happened to him in his life and in his times”. He would take elements from his life and put them into writing. One of the most persistent themes of twenties, death of love in World War I, has been focussed on, in the essay The Death of Love in The Sun Also Rises, by Mark Spilka. Spilka cites : “all major writers recorded it, often in piecemeal manner as part of the larger post war scene, but only Hemingway seems to have caught it whole and delivered it in lasting fictional form”.

Ernest Hemingway occupies a towering place among the twentieth century post-war writers. The alienation in this century was the direct result of World War I that caused an all-pervasive destruction material, spiritual and moral. The Sun Also Rises exposes powerfully the theme of alienation in a very faithful manner. It is an authentic account of the sense of aimlessness; nihilism, despair and, above all, the sense of alienation.

The Sun Also Rises presents the story of young people of what Gertrude Stein has aptly called ‘Lost Generation’. It is a group of wounded people, wounded either physically or psychologically as a result of war. They are American expatriates who are leading a depraved life in Paris after the World War I. The sense of alienation is conveyed to us through the recurrent imagery of feast that always ends with empty glasses and mopping-off of tables. An early instance of Jake’s experience of this feeling is when he is visited by Cohn and Brett. In this way, after making a close scrutiny of the novel, The Sun Also Rises, we can safely and rightly conclude that not that the heroes of Hemingway’s novels are basically unsocial or anti-society, rather they have seen through the realities of social life around them. It is their discovery of their hollowness and vicariousness that has made them disengages their fidelity from the group.

The reality of this world is that faith in religion and God is usually disappointing; the prevailing ethics and social conventions are a sham and virtue and morality are mere cloaks for unashamed defiance of all basic principles of honesty, loyalty and righteousness. Hemingway knew that the entire might of the social machinery comes into action against the innocent joys and aspiration of an individual’s sentiments, which taken singly, every individual member of the social mass, holds dear to his heart.Ernest Hemingway is one of the prominent novelists in the history of American fiction. As a novelist, he occupies a towering place among the twentieth century post-war writers. Twentieth century has been interpreted by various writers as an age of disillusionment, full of death, despair and total alienation. The alienation in this century was the direct result of World War I that caused an all-pervasive destruction material, spiritual and moral. Hemingway’s first novel The Sun Also Rises exposes powerfully the theme of alienation in a very faithful manner. It is an authentic account of the sense of aimlessness; nihilism, despair and, above all, the sense of alienation.

The Sun Also Rises presents the story of young people of what Gertrude Stein has aptly called ‘Lost Generation’. It is a group of wounded people, wounded either physically or psychologically as a result of war. They are American expatriates who are leading a depraved life in Paris after the World War I. The expatriates’ group takes its stand squarely on the principle of an alienation from the society that had been forced upon it by the circumstances of the times. The war injury results in impotency of Jake Barnes, the central protagonist of the novel. Others in the story are less obviously cut off from normal experiences and distracted by violent substitutes. Lady Brett Ashley’s final cry, “We could have had such a damned good time together”, reflects her utter sense of alienation. It was intensity alone that they were seeking and that they found fleetingly in frantic lovemaking, in death in the bull-ring. Nihilism was complete. So, a total denial of values could seem to have only one outcome-alienation. If we go through the novel The Sun Also Rises we find that nearly all the characters suffer and are haunted by this sense of alienation. But in case of three major characters of the novel – Jake Barnes, Brett Ashley, and Robert Cohn this sense of alienation can be seen in its acute form. Jake Barnes, the hero-narrator of the novel, represents the stage next to Frederic Henry in the development of the Hemingway hero. Jake has in his background Frederic Henry’s experience in the World War I. He is like Frederic Henry, “hurt in the war”

He is wounded physically as well as psychologically and, hence, a victim of utter sense of alienation, constantly disturbed by the memories of war. The war has made him an impotent and a sexual cripple. The novel beautifully captures Barnes’ haunting sense of life’s transitoriness, which the experience of war imparts to him. Because of his sense of alienation, he is afraid of death. For him, the last course is always death.

Jake’s strong reaction to the mention of death by Cohn reflects his sense of isolation, and being haunted by the idea of life’s transitoriness. Dominated by the sense of alienation, different characters in the novel take recourse to different desperate remedies. While Mike takes to drinking and counts to sex, Cohn tries to escape into “romantic” places and “romantic” books. Jake has to tell Cohn that “going to another country does not make any difference”, that he has “tried all that”, and that “you can’t get away from your self by moving from one place to another”.

More than any other character in the novel it is Jake who is haunted by an acute sense of alienation of the impermanence of life, which he carries with him as much in Pamplona as in Paris. This sense of alienation is conveyed to us through the recurrent imagery of feast that always ends with empty glasses and moppingoff of tables. An early instance of Jake’s experience of this feeling is when he is visited by Cohn and Brett. Jake stares at the table where there was an empty glass and a glass half full of brandy and soda, “take “them out to kitchen”, and pours “the half-full glass down the sink”

As the feast ends in empty glasses, so does life in death and alienation. Jake’s response to the empty glasses and cups, to their removal from the table, and to the mopping off of the table into perfect blankness reveals a feeling of emptiness and a sense of alienation. Another incident that exposes Barnes’ sense of alienation is the emptiness or isolation which he experiences after returning from fiesta. One recalls here Jake’s remarks that going to Paris would have been another “fiesta-ing”. As long as the fiesta in Pamplona continues, Jake is able to ignore the haunting sense of life’s impermanence and alienation because it meant “something doing all the time”. In this way, Feast and fiesta are used as running analogies to life in the novel. Jake’s relationship with Brett is the central concern of the novel. It is through Brett’s love that Jake tries to overcome his sense of alienation. But as he is sexually disabled, and can not provide her sexual satisfaction, he is filled with sense of alienation. Jake is troubled by Brett’s inconstancy and yet is not able to detach himself from her. What Jake needs to learn, therefore, is to be able to live with, or to overcome the consciousness of, his physical deficiency and to love Brett without the desire to possess her. Wrong, too, is to think, as Jackson Benson does, that Jake’s “awareness and commitment is shaky until the end of the novel, where he is constantly haunted by a sense of alienation”

The hero’s inability to “keep away” from the thought of Brett and his crying in bed reveals his lack of emotional adjustment with the woman, and not a lack of awareness about Brett and himself. It is only on account of his sense of alienation that Jake is constantly asking Brett in Book I: “couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?”

When Brett meets him after her stay with Robert Cohn, she finds him rather different. When she informs him of her recent affair with Cohn, he ironically offers his congratulations. As Jake is uninterested in her, she keeps telling him about it. Here, Jake is “nasty” with Brett because he cannot be indifferent to her, and it is all because he suffers constantly from sense of alienation. He is certainly beginning to compose his sentiments for her, which until now he had rather found unmanageable. It is Jake’s utter alienation that forces him to Sense of Alienation in Ernest Hemingway’s the Sun Also Rise possess Brett’s body because he seeks a kind of comfort and consolation in Brett’s love. Jake’s impotency and his war experienceshave forced Jake to reassess himself and his actions in this alienated situation. Whereas A Farewell to Arms describes Hemingway hero’s sense of alienation with his illusion of becoming the saviour of mankind and his acute consciousness of death, the central concern of The Sun Also Rises is the hero’s subsequent struggle to get over the depression of his alienation and learn to live in a world that “kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially”

Many critics have regarded the novel as a static picture of the modern “wasteland”. Critics like R.W. Stallman; Philip Young etc., consider Jake as a representative of the sterile land, the wasteland; he is viewed as a representative of the “lost generation”, a sun gone down, never hoping to rise again. While, on the one hand, Shakespeare’s heroes and heroines are persons of consequences on whom depends the destruction or reconstruction of order in the whole society. Hemingway’s characters, on the other hand, are modern isolates who destroy or restore their own houses that are their personalities. As we see them at the end of the novel, both Brett and Jake seem to have set their house in order. The climax of the development of both these two characters comes in their self-denial: As Jake denies himself the desire to posses Brett, so does Brett let go Romero whom she so much wanted to have. In the delineation of his themes, Hemingway makes his characters suffer pangs of emotional isolation. They are tormentingly aware of vast communication gap between themselves, and the surrounding mass of humanity.

Misunderstood and spurned, they singlehandedly bear the brunt of a callous social order and a hostile universe. Like Jake Barnes, Brett Ashley, too, has been a victim of World War-I as well as sense of alienation. After her lover had been killed in the war, she married Lord Ashley when the war was still going on. She is 34 now, and is “getting a divorce”, and is going to marry Mike Campbell, but has a great liking for Jake Barnes. She also worked as V.A.D. (Nurse) in a hospital during the war, where she met Jake and fell in love with him. It is all because of her sense of isolation or alienation that she tries to seek fulfillment through drink and promiscuity. She tries to overcome her sense of alienation by means of sex because sex has become a pure physical activity; her nymphomania is as sterile as the homosexuality of the male expatriates; both the activities are unproductive and meaningless. Like all other Hemingway’s characters, Brett, too, suffers from sense of acute alienation. But like all other typical Hemingway’s characters, Brett does not have the insight or intelligence to detect the truth behind the existing facts of social conventions, morality and religion. She takes leave from the institutionalized religion and traditional conception of God; she would hang tortuously in a vast void of nothingness with no hope of support, succor or rescue from any source, however unreal and imaginary. But there are critics like Carlos Baker who assert that “Hemingway’s heroes are not only the knowing and the thinking ones; they also have the courage to defy or to reject society and have also the moral courage to face the alienation they would find themselves in after stepping out of the human multitude”

Brett’s understanding of Mike Campbell is equally accurate. Although she does not have for him the deep liking and regard she has for Jake, she chooses him for marriage because he does not mind her affairs with other man which is a way of overcoming her alienation and finding. Fulfillment through sex as she herself asserts: “He’s my sort of thing”. Brett’s alienation and her subsequent nymphomania is the direct result of her shattering experiences of war where she not only lost her true love, which developed an acute sense of alienation Sense of Alienation in Ernest Hemingway’s the Sun Also Rises. If war has made her a disbeliever in religion, it has also made her a believer in facts. And the result of her honest confrontation of life is that she attains maturity, and up to a large extent overcomes her sense of alienation by deciding to regain her lost dignity, her self-respect etc. At long last, she comes out of the dark night of her moral “lostness”, and rises again like the sun. Robert Cohn is also a principal sufferer of the sense of alienation. He belongs to the preindustrialized life of the rural Spain. Like Pedro Romero, he, too, acts as a foil to the hero. That Cohn has an important place in the novel’s pattern of meaning can be seen from his description in the very beginning of the novel something rather unusual in the Hemingway canon. Like other characters in the novel, he, too, suffers from bitter alienation. He tries to overcome his alienation through reading books which, in Hemingway is a derogatory term, meaning the person is out of touch with reality. He cannot grow because he refuses to expose himself to life. His alienation from the group of expatriates makes him behave in a funny manner even with his friends.

The most prominent cause of Cohn’s sense of alienation is that he is a Jew by religion. Being a Jew, he has something to do with his alienation from the other expatriates. After the World War I, when most of Americans were expatriates living in either Paris or Spain, the number of Jews was very small. And if the persons of a particular religion are small in number, a sense of alienation is inevitably developed in them. As a result of that, they separate themselves from the rest of communities. The same is the case with Robert Cohn who is a man of books rather than experience; he is a man of clothes rather than flesh and blood. In short, Cohn is totally stranger and alienated from life.

Cohn’s failure of marriage also develops in him an acute sense of alienation. He tries to overcome his alienation by indulging himself in fiction writing. Due to this sense of isolation, an inferiority complex and a sense of insecurity is developed in him. He tries to find out comfort in boxing. As a result of this, Cohn has been a failure on all fronts, yet he has been successful in getting a publisher for his first novel. Despite all this, Stallman traces the qualities of a gentleman in Cohn’s character and with all his faults-egoism, sentimentalism, lack of self-respect etc., – Cohn has been viewed by Arthur Scott as an upholder of “heroic values”. Like all other characters, Pedro Romero, too, suffers from an acute sense of alienation. He is the perfect representative of code hero in the novel. He is an example of almost a primitive character for whom Jake’s problems of consciousness are non existent because he himself is victim of sense of alienation. He is not able to pay attention towards the problems of Jake and others in the novel. For Romero, the relationship with a woman is primarily a matter of sex in which he tries to overcome his sense of alienation. In other words, Romero’s experience of life, like that of a circus animal, is limited to one single activity and that is bull fighting. That shows his extreme painful state of mind suffering from alienation and loneliness. It is because of his sense of alienation.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is a novel set in the 1920s and it is a story about a group of American expatriates and their bohemian life in Paris during the prohibition era. The main character is a young man named Jake Barnes and he surrounds himself with characters like his close friends Bill Gorton and Robert Cohn, the beautiful British socialite Lady Brett Ashley and her soon-to-be husband Mike Campbell. Throughout the novel, the characters drink heavily and although drinking is a returning topic in most of Hemingway’s works, many scholars (e.g. Djos, 1995; Moradi, 2013) agree that The Sun Also Rises is the Hemingway novel in which alcohol plays the most central role. However, there are some gaps in previous research concerning what Hemingway´s portrayal of alcohol and drinking symbolises in connection to the political and social situation in which the novel was written.

Therefore, this essay will analyse how Hemingway uses the portrayal of alcohol consumption as a touchstone by which he measures the moral merit of his characters and also as a medium to reflect attitudes towards the social and political situation of the 1920s contribute to this gap, this essay will offer a close study of the symbolism of alcohol in connection to post-WWI America, expatriation, disillusion and the values of “the Hemingway Hero.” The essay argues that the portrayal of alcohol is a key factor in understanding the underlying values and ideas of the novel and the aim of this essay is to identify and analyse the connection between the supposed ideals and attitudes of Hemingway and the portrayal of alcohol and drinking in The Sun Also Rises. More concretely, the research questions that this essay will intend to answer are:

• How is alcohol used as a tool to reflect attitudes concerning the political and social context of the novel?
• How does the portrayal of alcohol consumption serve as a tool to measure the moral and social merit of the characters in the novel?

This essay uses a variety of approaches to offer a nuanced response to these questions. First of all, to approach the first research question it makes sense to turn to a historical approach to connect the constant presence of alcohol in the novel with the controversial position of alcohol in the time that it is set and written. Books and memoirs about the war and its effects on American society and the Lost Generation have contributed insight about the society that The Sun Also Rises depicts and criticises. A book that has been especially helpful in this regard is David M Kennedy’s Over Here: The First World War and American Society. Kennedy’s chronicle of the years leading up to the war, the conditions during the war and the effects of the war gave this essay an understanding of the context of The Sun Also Rises necessary for its analysis of 1920s post-war America and the society of expatriates portrayed in the novel. Secondly, as the second research question concerns the inner life of the characters but also the supposed attitudes of the author, the essay will apply the concept of “the Hemingway Hero” to the close reading of the characters. This concept will be explained further but one can say that the Hemingway Hero is defined by a set of characteristics that most of Hemingway’s male main characters have in common. These characteristics are constructed around a code that is based on Hemingway’s idea of what makes an ideal man and they are reflected in Jake’s relationship to alcohol. By taking an historical approach and by applying the concept of “the Hemingway hero” to the reading of the novel, this essay will contribute to previous research and offer a multifaceted analysis of how alcohol is used as a tool for social and political commentary and to reflect Hemingway’s idea of what makes a good man.

The essay approaches the research questions in three different sections. The first section focuses on the historical context of the novel and highlights the underlying political symbolism behind the portrayal of alcohol. The second section analyses how alcohol is used in the novel to unify and separate different social, political and economic groups. Finally, the third section explores the concepts of the “Hemingway Hero” and investigates how the morality and integrity of the characters in the novel is measured by why and how they use alcohol.

To analyse the portrayal and the importance of alcohol in The Sun Also Rises it is crucial to first understand the political and social context and the controversial position of alcohol in the 1920s. Before World War One, America’s economy was in recession and the Progressive Movement was pushing to address the social and economic issues of the country. The Progressive Movement had begun in 1890 and its goal was to, with the help of the government, address the problem with corruption, regulate big businesses and make the working and living conditions better for the American people. Some progressives also argued that alcohol was one of the biggest reasons for America’s social problems and pro-prohibition groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League were given room in the political debate. In 1917, America entered World War One and this would lead to a shift in American values as well as changes in the economy. As the war took place on European soil, the factories and homes of America were reasonably untouched by the war compared to the devastation of many big cities in Europe. As a result of this, America entered a period of high production during the war and experienced an economic upswing by selling goods to war-torn Europe. To save grain for bread production in an effort to aid the war, the production and importation of distilled liquor had been put on hold and banned. The temperance movement, in an effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of alcohol, grew strong during the war as the sober and moral soldier was presented as a crusader for democracy whilst the European soldier was presented as undemocratic and liquor loving. This created a wave of a puritan patriotism and contributed to the idea that alcohol was the root of America’s problems. Although the drive for prohibition had started many years before the war, the banning of alcohol during the war and the connection between soberness and morality gave the temperance movement a last push in their battle for prohibition and in 1920 prohibition was passed. World War One also meant the end of the Progressive era and the focus that before the war had been on stopping corruption, controlling big companies and bettering the conditions for workers now shifted towards mass production and economic and financial priorities. As an effect of the shift of priorities in the political environment and the boosted economy, America entered a new period called the Roaring Twenties where patriotism, constraint and materialism replaced the values of the Progress.

Although the wealthy people in America enjoyed the economic boom, inflation was high and big companies were forced to reduce wages and lay off employees, which led to social instability, strikes and competition for employment. To add further to the social tension in postwar America, a new American nationalism was born that “favoured the white, Protestant, AngloSaxon, middle-class and excluded what they considered the unsavoury immigrant element in their society” (Schwartz 180-182). Many young Americans did not identify with this new Americanism that was pushed by the older generation and the disillusionment with the effect od the war combined with this new Americanism where racism, consumerism, patriotism and prohibition were in focus left many young Americans with the feeling of disconnection to their home country. The main reasons as to why many of them felt alienated in post-war society were the “American dullness” (M. Cowley 240), the rise of commercialism and the social and cultural restrictions that built on the values of the temperance movement. In his memoir, Malcolm Cowley notes: “life in this country is joyless and colorless, universally standardized, tawdry, uncreative, given over to the worship of wealth and machinery” (77). Furthermore, he suggests that “there seemed to be no reason why the whole process of making, selling, servicing and discarding could not continue indefinitely at an always increasing speed” (216).

Many young writers in America also reacted to the disappointment with the effects of the war and the shift in American values and post-war literature clearly shows a “conflict between generations over the war’s significance” (D. Kennedy 221). For the older generation of writers, participation in World War One is often connected to pride, honour and courage and the moral of their literature is often aimed against the naivety of America before World War One. Moreover, the characters in the stories often go through a transformation in attitude toward the war “from apathy to affirmation” and “from indifference to commitment” (D. Kennedy 221). The younger writers, however, wrote about the feelings toward the war from an opposite angle by focusing on “the devolution of soldiers from a kind of parentally instilled enthusiasm and idealism to bitter disillusionment” (D. Kennedy 221). The disillusion of the young generation in post-war America and the disconnection that American soldiers felt toward the country that they had fought for are central themes in The Sun Also Rises and many other texts produced by young writers after World War One. In his memoir Exile’s return, for example, Malcolm Cowley describes the perplexed emotions of the young men who fought in the war and survived: When we first heard of the Armistice we all got drunk. We had come through, we were still alive, and nobody at all would be killed tomorrow. The composite fatherland for which we had fought and in which some of us still believed […] had triumphed.

[…] But slowly, as the days went by, the intoxication passed, and the tears of joy: it appeared that our composite fatherland was dissolving into quarrelling statesmen and oil and steel magnates. Our own nation had passed the Prohibition Amendment as if to publish a bill of separation between itself and ourselves; it wasn’t our country any longer. (M. Cowley 46-47) A marine in When Johnny Comes Marching Home by Dixon Wecter expresses a similar feeling of disconnection from post-war America: “I know how we all cried to get back to the States… But now that we are here, I must admit for myself at least that I am lost and somehow strangely lonesome. These our own United States are truly artificial and bare. There is no romance or color here, nothing to suffer for and laugh at.” (Wecter 320)

What both these men have in common is the feeling of disillusion and disconnection from the country that they had been willing to sacrifice their lives for. The young American soldiers had experienced a war that people back home were very sheltered from and when they returned to America, the focus on consumption, money and morality felt unimportant, hypocritical and unworthy. At the same time, Europe was presented as the opposite of the puritan and constrained lifestyle of the Prohibition era and promised a life full of adventure including “drinking, dancing, and other behaviour unencumbered by puritan values” (Field 30). As an effect of this, a big number of ex-soldiers and young people that felt alienated by the new America decided to leave their home country behind and go to Europe where they hoped to live a carefree life and forget about the disappointments of the war.

The Americans that expatriated to Europe after the war are now known as “The Lost Generation,” a term coined by Gertrude Stein and made famous in the preface to The Sun Also Rises. The term could be used to describe the whole generation that was left disillusioned by the World War One but refers especially to the group of American writers that expatriated to Paris such as Ezra Pound, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. As a young man Hemingway himself joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War One and was wounded in the field. He later expatriated from America and spent many years in Paris as one of the front figures of the Lost Generation. The Sun Also Rises follows the bohemian lives of the expatriate Jack Barnes and his friends as it depicts the lifestyle of The Lost Generation. Jake Barnes is the perfect representation of the young and disillusioned ex-soldier of post-war America and this connects the novel with the social, historical and political environment of the 1920s. Whilst talking about the novel as a documentation of an era, Hannah S that The Sun Also Rises is “perhaps the most demonstrative of the grapple with post-war society and expatriation” (17).

As Skahill suggests, post-war society and expatriation are two central themes in The Sun Also Rises and alcohol is portrayed in connection with both these themes. The novel portrays Europe as a place where one can drown sorrows in alcohol and where it is possible to access a life that is no longer available in America. It also works as a kind of anti-thesis of the post war America that the expatriates left behind. When one looks at The Sun Also Rises as a political text and a social commentary rather than one of the many fictional and non-fictional bohemian tales of the Lost Generation, it can be argued that the portrayal of alcohol serves as a tool to express certain critical attitudes and views. There are two main reasons that the characters in the novel drink: to cope with disillusion and to protest against the prohibition era. Jake and his friends drink to seek refuge and relief and to cope with their feeling of disillusion and post-war gloominess.

Whilst discussing alcohol as a cure for disillusion, Schwartz suggests that “Jake is either constantly drinking or discussing drinking throughout the novel, revealing […] his desire to escape from the effects of the war through alcohol” (188). Jake is portrayed as a man who sees the world for what it is and who finds no joy in romanticizing the world around him. The war has left him with a war wound that has made him impotent. Drinking is used in the novel as the cure towards his feeling of hopelessness and frustration. Furthermore, he and the other characters use alcohol to numb the disappointment felt with America, the ugly memories of the war or their personal losses or struggles. At one point in the novel, Brett is struggling with how to best handle a personal dilemma concerning how she should handle her drama with Cohn and Mike. She says: ‘I can’t just stay tight all the time” (160), showing that staying drunk is normally how she copes with situations that she does not feel comfortable with. Furthermore, Jake’s meeting with Harvey Stone outside of “The Select” is a tragic example of one character who has completely given in to the comforts of alcohol:

“Sit down,’ said Harvey, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“What’s the matter?” […]

“What do you hear from the states?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I’m through with them. I’m absolutely through with them.”

He leaned forward and looked me in the eye.

“Do you want to know something, Jake?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t had anything to eat in five days.” […]

“Come on. Let’s go eat.”

“There is no hurry. Have a drink.”

“Better eat.”

“No. When I get like this I don’t care whether I eat or not.”

We had a drink. Harvey added my saucer to his own pile. (Hemingway 37)

To indulge in drinking, bars and drunkenness in Paris gives the expatriates in the novel a mental escape from their inner struggles, the disappointment with their homeland and the effects of the war on top of the geographical escape that they have already committed to.

The 1920s was a new era of freedom for the American community. Women gained significant roles in society by their increasing involvement in institutions with associations that were not established on authority, but instead on equality, hence declining the male chauvinism’s coercion. Women’s increasing power was a result of the end of World War I in 1918 because while men were in the war, women took responsibility to independently finance and take care of their own home and life. Soldiers were saved by nurses during the war time, highlighting women’s vital role in the war. Further, literature played a crucial part in social expression during the exploration of women’s liberty and the experimenting of gender performance. The carefree youth rebelled against old world traditions and disputed public’s standards, acquiring the attention of many writers who displayed this transformation of the American society in the 1920s, in their novels.

The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms written by Ernest Hemingway, portray the revolution of gender and sexual equality, which will be examined throughout this paper regarding feminism and gender role in the 1920s. Male preeminence and female inferiority was a strong ideal in the early 20th century. This paper claims that Ernest Hemingway contradicts male superiority and chauvinism by displaying females superior personage in his two novels. Thus, supporting gender equality and promoting female empowerment. This paper will examine the gender roles in the 1900s by introducing male chauvinism and the status of men and women in society. Further, it will focus on the impact of World War I and the lost generation, which the characters in the novel reflect. Frequent motives represented by the lost generation and their consequences, such as weakened masculinity, will be analyzed. The correlations and differentiations of the central male character of each novel will be evaluated, further, the same process will be proceeded with the female gender. Another aspect of reversed gender Hemingway portrays is the male depiction in female characters, consequently, the concept of sexuality will be clarified through Judith Butler’s theory of gender performance. To conclude, the power females and males expose, including the gender revolution will be explored.

The Early 1900s – Male Chauvinism

Ernest Hemingway’s novels reflect literary modernism, which implies the loss of purpose. A great deal of gender prejudice was present up until the 1920s, as men were unjustly discriminating against women by believing they are superior. This discriminating behavior was known as ‘Male Chauvinism’ and was originated from a French soldier named Nicolas Chauvin, who had a great admiration of the Emperor, which led his countrymen to adopt the word chauvinism to signify extravagant patriotism (Shapiro 3). The Englsih adapted this word in 1953 as the “unreasoning devotion to one’s race, sex, etc with contempt for other races, the opposite sex, etc”. Merriam Webster specifically describes it as “a belief of men being superior to women”. Hence, this attitude triggered many feminist authors and journalists to stand up for women and fight for gender equality. Society’s perspective in the early 1900s was straightforward and stereotypical. The male’s role was to work during the day, take care of the family financially and recharge at home by being served by the wife, which is a clear depiction of male chauvinism. The female’s role in the house was to stay at home, keep the house clean, go to the grocery store and take care and educate the children. Gender inequality started in the early stages of raising a child, as the mother was not supposed to have a close relationship with her son. It was expected for the son to grow up with less emotional attachments and to be raised more strictly, as the ideal man represented to be the following by society: more logical, less emotional, independent, intelligent, hard working and able to financially support his own family. These past idealizations demonstrate the objectification of women, viewed as being less intelligent and incompetent to study and have a job to financially support themselves; hence not being able to be independent. Despite women’s fight for equal rights and their accomplishment of authorization in the past decades, male chauvinism is still present today. Justice for both genders are to a great extent more impartial, however, the perception of women and behavior of males are to this day, in the 21st century, still discriminating. For instance, male and female wages are still not equal.

The Lost Generation – Meaning and Origin

The term the Lost Generation was established after World War I and includes everyone who took part in the war directly or indirectly and survived it. Directly affected includes veterans who were physically and mentally wounded. Indirectly implies to doctors and nurses who witnessed and saved severely injured men, and individuals who lost their family members and jobs due to the war. The repercussion they suffered from was mental and psychological traumatizations, which had shattered this generations faith in traditional values such as love, bravery, manhood, and womanhood. Without these values, they found their existence aimless, meaningless and unfulfilling. They were a group of expatriates who lived a life without purpose or hope after the war, being emotionally and physically damaged. Their pre-established perspective of the world and humanity, what gave life meaning had been dreadfully changed. In their eyes, Earth had transformed into a ruthless, unsafe place without the presence and protection of God. Hemingway portrays this through the character’s emotional lives.

Its Impact on the Character’s

All characters in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms are members of the Lost Generation. The Author of “Comparing Ernest Hemingway’s Life to His Characters In The Sun Also Rises,” explains that Gertrude Stein formulated the term lost generation to: describe all the disillusioned young men who had survived WWI and who seemed to end up in France with no real purpose, but because of its relatively low cost of living.” France became the new home to these men, who were known to drink heavily and live “empty” lives because of their physical and mental setbacks caused by the War. They were said to have “lost their faith in the moral guideposts that had given them hope before, [therefore] they were ‘Lost’ (Roach 13). Hemingway agrees to this statement and portrays it through the characters in his novels, such as Jake Barnes. The lost generation believed that life existed so they could make the best out of it while it lasted. Thus, because of the recognition of being alive, they occupied themselves with temporary satisfactions and escapist activites, such as drinking.

Excessive Drinking

Constantly drinking provides a way for the characters to escape their reality. Their surface actions such as merrymaking are joyless and driven by alcohol. Most of their time is spent partying, yet they remain sorrowful and unfulfilled. Drunkness worsens the mental and emotional disturbance that plagues the characters. Jake, avoiding the acceptance of not being able to have what he desires, which is Brett, leads to his alcohol addiction. Moments of honesty solemnly arise when characters feel their worst, such as Jake’s confrontation of his unhappiness with Brett. Despite her constant refusal to be with him, he proceeds to be in her surrounding ready to help. Being under the constant influence of alcohol hinders Jake Barnes to fully distance himself from Brett, who consistently reminds him of his weakened masculinity. The excessive drinking, heavily influenced Robert Cohn’s behavior, causing him to lose his temper and uncontrollably start a fight with Jake and Mike when they refused to tell him where Brett was. This demonstrates the powerful negative effects of alcohol, as it alters an individual’s whole personality and integrity. Additionally, Brett believes to eradicate her feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction by going out every night intoxicated and replace the love and moral values she once had by sleeping with multiple men. Nevertheless, she remains unsatisfied and admits to Jake, while she is intoxicated that she is ‘miserable’, hence turning this into a vicious cycle of frustration and restlessness.

A Farewell to Arms was set during World War I and characters were already part of the lost generation as they experienced traumatic sceneries and also constantly drank to forget about the merciless world they were witnessing. Henry is encountered drinking in every scenario of the novel, for example on the battlefield, in hospital, while escaping, etc. Henry even risked his health condition by drinking while healing from a concussion. Alcohol was also a positive distraction for Henry to avoid thinking about his loss and war and to think about Catherine instead, who gave his life meaning and hope. Catherine, just like Brett, lost her beloved one in war, thus all her hopes and values in life were shattered. The only value she found again was her hope for true love which she achieved throughout her relationship with Henry. Henry’s excessive drinking was clearly higher than Catherine’s, meaning he depends more on intoxication to clear his mind than her, which displays a greater weakness in the male than female.

The Male Gender – Weakened Masculinity

During the 1920s, masculinity was losing social privileges, as women gained the right to vote and began to work and occupy business places. Hence, men believed they had the necessity of reinforcing their manly social status. All men from the lost generation expressed male insecurity as WWI has caused a radical reevaluation of masculinity. Survival depended far more upon luck than bravery, therefore the traditional notions of a ‘man’ versus the reality of war were soon enough uncovered. Jake and Henry are both wounded male characters who display weakened masculinity as a result of the impacts of World War I. As they were psychologically and physically damaged, all their moral values including their self-recognition and identity values were shattered. In The Sun Also Rises Jake Barnes embodies cultural change as war renders his manhood useless due to his injury in war, resulting in impotence. This unveils his male insecurity as he feels ‘less of a man’ than before and because the love of his life, Brett, refuses to enter a relationship with him by virtue of the loss of his penis. Even though his injury restricts his sexual ability, it does not change his mentality and manly desire. However, it is clearly stated that even if Brett loves Jake too, there is no possibility for him to be with her. This is shown in the following conversation: “Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.” Ahead was a mounted policeman in Khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me. “Yes” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”.

The personal principles Jake displays is a manifestation of naiveness. Throughout the novel, his uprightness is always exposed, however, he is exhibited as being constantly used by others and tolerating it. Jake Barnes is the character who most suffers in this novel, who sacrifices for others, receiving nothing in return. For instance, helping Brett find Romero and introducing them to each other, who he is aware that she is sexually interested in and including Robert to his trips, who beat him up because of his jealousy of Brett and later begs him for forgiveness which Jake still grants him. Further, in spite of all that Jake leaves the same night he receives a message from Brett to meet her in Madrid after she had left Pamplona with Romero, who wanted to marry her and who she lastly dumped. Jake’s advice’s and the decision he makes is illustrative of his character. Even though he acknowledges the defects of the world and the ones in his surrounding, he never has the courage or will to resolve these defects. He just tolerates and complies to them, which he advises Robert to do too. Cohn says, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” To which Jake replies, “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”

Jake indicates Cohn that he must adapt to the feeling of dissatisfaction in his life. Robert Cohn, also depicts weakened masculinity. Hemingway highlights Robert’s inner feeling of inferiority as he says, “He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton”. He is physically described as a big and strong man but ironically depicted as being very timid and vulnerable. Therefore, his physical looks reflect the image of what a man was supposed to portray in the 1920s and his inner self-behavior reflected the reality of men from the lost generation. Cohn and other characters in the novels fixate on travel as a solution to their feelings of discontent. Jake expresses his image about Robert and considers him ignorant, pathetic and an inexperienced man as he never fought in WWI. He realizes that Cohn’s unhappiness stems from his personality and lifestyle and further criticizes him as shy, insecure and prone to the control and manipulation of women, thus headlining him as being weak. This judgment reveals Jake’s anxiety regarding his own masculinity. Henry struggles to prove his masculine social position and therefore joins the war to rebuild his masculine identity. However, he runs away from his duty in the battlefield in hope of establishing a household and achieving patriarchal renown to strengthen his masculinity. Hence, Henry’s antipathy for war is clearly depicted, which is understood when he says, “It evidently made no difference whether I was there to look after things or not” (A Farewell to Arms 16). Henry’s attempt to regain his manhood by joining the war had failed. Catherine and her pregnancy gave him hope of proving his manhood through family life. Henry displays weakness as he continuously says, “God please do not make her die. I’ll do anything you say if you don’t let her die” (A Farewell to Arms 330). Catherine calmly complies with her own death and tells Henry, “Don’t worry darling…I’m not a bit afraid” (A Farewell to Arms 330). This demonstrates her heroic moment of bravery and boldness, which Henry thrives to have but never achieves. Therefore, in spite of her being a woman, she is still able to express firm authentic masculinity.

Similarities of Male Character’s

In both novels, Hemingway emphasizes the motif of love and alcohol which are troublesome for the characters, yet their only sources of satisfaction. Ernest Hemingway sets a scene in a train in both novels, where Jake and Henry feel distressed by other characters. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake is bothered by Catholics on the train because they possess a strong faith in God and in the moral order, even though he himself is a Catholic, yet whose mind wanders when he prays. In A Farewell to Arms, Henry had organized a machine-gunner to reserve him a seat on the train and a captain protested against this, which distressed him. Henry ended up unwillingly giving the captain the seat. These two scenes juxtapose the reason for their irritation, which stems from their lost faith in God due to the war and therefore alters their perspective towards Catholics and captains; their respect and mindset towards them had elapsed. Additionally, both characters do not react against them, proving that both conform with dissatisfactions in life instead of taking actions to solve them. Henry is diagnosed with jaundice and Jake is impotent which triggers his biggest feeling of dissatisfaction in life as he cannot be with Brett. Both consciously worsen their condition.