In Ernest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises, the narrator, Jake Barnes, describes Robert Cohn, a rich Jew who graduated from Princeton with low self-esteem, an unsuccessful marriage, and a vanished inheritance. Cohn moves to Paris to write a novel and is accompanied by a manipulative woman named Frances. After selling his novel in America, Cohn returns to his former home with an attitude of arrogance and a hunger for excitement, and frequently pesters Jake. The Sun Also Rises documents the people who came to be known as the “Lost Generation,” a generation of broken dreams and destroyed naivete emerged from the World War I with an outlook blemished by bitterness and aimlessness. Jake and his companions begin to spend their time drinking and partying away their defeats, exemplifying a generation physically and emotionally wounded from the war. Jake and his acquaintances become disillusioned.
The War destroyed the long-established concepts theyd always modeled their lives on loyalty, honor, and integrity. Without these beliefs, the men and women affected by the war began to rely on irrelevant and escapist activities to fill the void left by the beliefs that had previously given their lives meaning. Their lives become seemingly aimless, without a belief in any solid notion or a psychological or moral purpose. Most of Jakes friends are alcoholics. To these people, drinking is a way to escape the harshness and reality of the war. It numbs Jake and his friends to a bitter realization that their lives now lack purpose. Hemingway, however, implies that their drunkenness does nothing but exacerbate the psychological and emotional turmoil from which Jake and his companions are already suffering.
The Essay on Hemingway Book Jake War
Ironic Cycles In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway uses irony and symbolism to illustrate how a group of Americans and English expatriates lived life. They try to forget the war and restore a sense of meaning to their lives, which he would have liked to do. Hemingway's attitudes are expressed in the book, including his idea of, "emphasize the optimistic idea of progress of life's cycle." When ...
While Hemingway never actually states that Jake and his friends lives are aimless, the concept is alluded to through his illustration of their psychological conditions, which contrast with their surface activities, which fail to bring happiness or fulfillment. At best, their partying distracts them from their emotional condition or thoughts about the war. The only thing accomplished by their drinking and dancing is a temporary and fruitless distraction from an aimless life..