Jacob Hernandez
Mrs. Dell
AP Literature
9 October 2017
Related Reading Essay (The Sun Also Rises) In the post World War I era, people were affected directly and indirectly from the war in many ways. In The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Jake faces an insecurity which has affected both his masculinity and love life which Hemingway symbolizes with the steer. He copes with these insecurities through alcohol abuse like the rest of the characters and lack of communication. These insecurities further lead to bad coping skills which include excessive drinking and lack of direct communication and that further creates conflicts.
Bullfighting is one of the symbols in which Hemingway describes Jake. Hemingway portrays Jake to be like the
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This is Jake 's way of proclaiming his preeminent insecurity regarding his masculinity which sparks conflicts throughout the remainder of the plot. “She cuddled against me and I put my arm around her. She looked up to be kissed. She touched me with one hand and I put her hand away. (Hemingway 23)”. When in the back of the taxi with the prostitute, Georgette, tries to come on to Jake but he quickly pushes her away. Jake was indirectly telling us his wound affects his means and abilities to engage in sexual activities. While in the back of the taxi with Brett, she says “You mustn 't. You Must know. I can’t stand it, that 's all . Oh, darling, please understand. (Hemingway 34)” shortly after she stopped being romantic with him. She did this because she cannot be with him because of his disability to sexually please her. This compounds Jake insecurity of his musicality and faces It 's known that Brett does indeed love Jake but can not be with him because his lack of sexual ability, which makes Jake upset at night “This was Brett, that I felt like crying about. (Hemingway 42). Jake finds himself nearly in tears because the girl he loves obviously loves him back but will not be with him because his impotence leaves him not being able to sexually please her, much like a steer. Another example is when Jake has the interactions with homosexuals. Jake says “I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are
Hemingway uses the theme through Brett and Jake, these two characters show love between each other but know they can never find love with eachother. Jakes impotency affects his love with Brett and has a negative impact on him. Brett cannot love Jake as her mentality is that she needs sex to love, while she is also unapologietic. This takes a huge toll on Jake as although he does not show that he is hurt, it does hurt him inside. "You’re getting damned romantic." "No, bored." (3.35). This quote early on shows that a relationship between Brett and Jake is not possible. They cannot find love because they cannot have sex, even when they try to show a little romance with eachother, the other just shuts them down. "Couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?" "I don’t think so. I’d just tromper you with everybody. You couldn’t stand it." (7. 7). This example shows of how they turn eachother down of a relationship. Jake tries to solve the no sex problem with
“Oh, Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together.’ ‘Yes, Isn’t it pretty to think so?”. Their final discussion is right where they started in the back of a cab. Brett has just dug a hole even deeper into the abyss of disappointment that Brett has already given him. Jake has lost his masculinity in more ways than one. He has to live without Brett, and with his disability, denying him any chance at all with women. He has finally accepted the loveless relationship that has become of them, and will push forward knowing how it will never be.
At the conclusion of his novel, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway sends Brett south with Romero to the Spanish capital of Madrid. In Madrid, despite enjoying her time with Romero, Brett, in an action of self-reflection, sends Romero away as she realizes she is a negative influence on the young bull-fighter,and learns to care for the well-being of others, no matter what her personal desires may be. This becomes clear most especially when looking at the setting of where this decision is made. This decision is made by Brett in Madrid, which is south of her hometown, England. When analyzing this, Thomas Foster stated in his book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, that “when
The value of monetary exchange extends to his relationships, particularly with Brett: “I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on” (Hemingway, 152). In this instance, Jake is referencing that his friendship with Brett, has given him the benefits of having as much of a romantic relationship as he can, which makes him feel he has cheated Brett of deserving payment. This explains why Jake supports Brett’s sexual promiscuity, as other men are capable of giving her what he cannot, sexually.
In the novel it is never explicitly said that Jake Barnes is really impotent because of his war
By pushing men away, Brett is really displaying codependent behavior. She acts like she does not need the men to fulfill her emotions, but without men competing for her, her life is empty. Not only does she lean on Jake for emotional fulfillment, but she counts on men obsessing over her. She acts as if she would be alright if no men exclaimed their love for her, but she in fact thrives on it. Her fuel to live is turning men down, and she depends on that behavior to get by in her already empty life.
In Earnest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, we gain a glimpse into the development of Jacob Barnes, an injured veteran of the First World War. This veteran does not seem to have lost any of his perseverance despite his laughable injury to his penis though, as a love-inspired Jake pursues a deeper relationship Brett throughout his time in Paris and Spain. Nonetheless, Jake never gains the relationship with Brett for which he searches, solely due to his injury. Although some may perceive the final lines of this exemplary novel, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”, as an allusion to Jake’s inability to give up on his pursuit of Brett as a lover and sexual partner, he has rather finally recognized that Brett is unobtainable to
Jake is not a wealthy man; however, his ego gets the better of him. Time and again, he keeps a tight check of his bank account balance. But when Brett starts hanging out with Count Mippipopolous, Jake is not averse to offering up his money when they all go out together. Money takes a back seat to Jake's ego. Once, Brett sends the Count out for champagne so that she could be alone with Jake. Whereupon she talks to him about her fiancé, Michael and this shoots down Jake's already bruised ego to its lowest. However, For Jake, just to be with Brett is pure happiness. He is so blinded with love for her that he doesn't even flinch when she does
If Jake was not inhibited from his time in the war, then who is one to deny that he would not have ended with the girl in the end? Yet Hemingway did not write fairy tale endings reflecting sometimes the harshness of reality in his novels. Still, he is able to depict the greater importance of one’s manliness on the inside versus the outside. Hemingway used Cohn, Romero, and Jake to show that to be a real man one must be genuinely masculine internally. One’s looks or false behaviors hold no importance; instead, what truly matters is what one’s genuine character reflects.
Perhaps this is why she takes solace in her relationship with Jake. She knows that because of his impotence, their relationship lacks any meaningful future, and she can seek comfort in him knowing that he is unable to control their relationship in that way. He is unable to exert that sort of sexual dominance over her. That is why it makes the last lines from the novel particularly meaningful: “‘Oh, Jake,’ Brett said, ‘we could have had such a damned good time together.” To which Jake responds, “‘Yes,’…‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’” (Hemingway 251). This quote presents their obvious contrasting illusions of what their relationship could be. Brett seems confident they would have ended up together if not for his wound, but Jake sees what she does not. Over time, with the opportunity to observe Brett’s
We see his insecurity when he says at the Cathedral, “I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it”, which tells us that he is conscious of his condition, but does nothing to fix it. It is evident that Jake doesn’t want to do anything about his problem because when he says, “, at least not for a while, and maybe never”, he knows the problem is there but dismisses it by saying never.
Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises has his male characters struggling with what it means to be a man in the post-war world. With this struggle one the major themes in the novel emits, masculine identity. Many of these “Lost Generation” men returned from that war in dissatisfaction with their life, the main characters of Hemingway’s novel are found among them. His main characters find themselves drifting, roaming around France and Spain, at a loss for something meaningful in their lives. The characters relate to each other in completely shallow ways, often ambiguously saying one thing, while meaning another. The Sun Also Rises first person narration offers few clues to the real meaning of his characters’ interactions with each other. The
Often times, violence is prevalent in literature. It is captivating, it enhances the plot, and it creates feelings of suspense and tension within the reader. However, in well-crafted works of literature, scenes of violence serve an even greater purpose. Violence is frequently used in order to contribute to the meaning of the complete work, and Ernest Hemingway utilizes violence in order to highlight the meaning in The Sun Also Rises. In the novel, Robert Cohn verbally attacks protagonist Jake Barnes and his friend Mike Campbell after questions arise pertaining to the whereabouts of widely-coveted Lady Brett Ashley. Jake then strikes Cohn, and a fistfight between the three men ensues. Hemingway utilizes the violence between the men in order
Jake also at times seems to realize how bad his life is, but then never regrets it. He is in love with Brett Ashley, but she is always with other people, including Robert Cohn, which makes Jake jealous. This jealousy turns to anger when Jake gets into a fight with Robert and is then knocked out.
In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway writes “nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters” (100). Spoken by Jake, this line exemplifies the importance that bullfighting plays in the novel. It's not only portrayed as a sport, but rather as a complex, mathematical art in the form of a dance between the bull and fighter. The matador scene in chapter 18 is perhaps one of the richest in the novel due to it's use of symbols. The choreography between Romero and the bull is reflective not only of the characterization of Brett and Jake, but of the relationship between Brett, her masculinity, and her