Everyone in life has his or her own individual struggles that can impact his or her daily life and can change the way he or she has to live his or her life. In the novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway and The Remains of the Day (1989) by Kazuo Ishiguro, the main characters share the struggle of impotence. The word impotent has two different definitions, one being the inability to take effective action, or helplessness. The second meaning is the inability for a man to have sex. No matter which type of impotence a person may have, it can be a daily struggle for anyone affected by it, which is displayed in both novels. The two novels share a common theme of impotence that not only affects their characters’ lives, but also the …show more content…
In The Sun Also Rises, a big conflict in Jake’s life is his inability to find happiness in his life due to impotence, which causes him to drink heavily and be cynical towards most things in life. Along with that, his struggle creates a storyline with Brett that centers on the fact that they can never be a true couple because of his injury. Another way Jake’s impotence affects the course of the novel is the emasculate feelings it causes him to have. His struggle with his masculinity causes tensions between him and the other men in the novel who have similar emotions. These feelings between Jake and the other men result in many fights and arguments between them all. The course The Remains of the Day is driven by Stevens trying to break through his emotional impotence by traveling to visit Mrs. Kenton and speaking to her about Darlington Hall. The novel’s main conflict is Stevens against himself, as he is fighting his inner battle with impotence. An example of this struggle would be Stevens finding it difficult to adapt to the new progressive and casual essence of Darlington Hall. Dealing with this struggle is what drives Stevens to think about and relive the past. Everything that happened in both novels did so because of the main character being impotent.
If the protagonist of each novel had not been affected by impotence both stories would be drastically different. Without physical impotence, Jake and Brett would
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
Paul Newman once said, “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked” (74). There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, however, being involved in a healthy relationship is essential for a person to feel valued, safe, and happy. Unfortunately, in the situation of Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” and Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of An Hour,” include extreme examples of unhealthy relationships. The essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” shares painful experiences of Sundberg’s physical and emotional abusive relationship with her husband Caleb, while “The Story of an Hour,” shares a rare reaction of a married woman, Louise Mallard, who explores her emotions cautiously when hearing about the death of her husband. Each woman faces their own prison created by their husbands. The two marriages represent the figurative meaning of doors being locked in a marriage. Both pieces of literature convey the theme of confinement by using the literary devices of foreshadowing, imagery, and conflict.
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." (9)
In The Sun Also Rises, during the transition of society from World War I to post-war, values transformed from the “old-fashioned” system of what was morally acceptable to a system that held the basic belief that anything of value, whether tangible or intangible, could be exchanged for something of equal value. This novel specifically pinpoints the transformation of the values of money, alcohol, sex and passion (aficion), friendships and relationships, and even one’s pain.
The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so
In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, we are taken back to the 1920’s, accompanied by the “Lost Generation.” During this time, prohibition was occurring in America. Hemingway uses alcohol as an obstacle that causes distresses between the main character, Jake and his life. Along with alcohol, promiscuity is prevalent throughout the novel. The heroine of the novel, Brett, displays the theme of promiscuity throughout the novel. She uses her sheer beauty and charming personality to lure men into her lonely life. The themes of alcohol and promiscuity intertwine with the Lost Generation in this classic love saga.
In “On the Pulse of Morning”, Angelou uses visual imagery and symbolism to argue that people must learn from the past to eliminate racial injustice in society today. The vivid descriptions found in the poem evoke feelings of injustice through the emotionally painful pictures that they paint. Americans as a whole are described in the poem to have “crouched too long in / The bruising darkness, [...] / Face down in ignorance” (“On the Pulse of Morning” 15-18). The speaker of the poem insinuates that “humans have been hiding, [...] afraid of what they might learn” from history (“On the Pulse of Morning”, 1998, 3: 276). The bestial visual of a person “crouching” takes away the humanity of the subjects, and the description of “bruising darkness” calls to mind the dark times of slavery over a hundred years prior. The image evokes a feeling that Americans have made terrible mistakes in the past that have not yet been corrected. They have committed terrible, animalistic acts in the blackened cover of history. These people refuse to look up and accept what has been done. The shadows of slavery and the pain caused by it are still ubiquitous in modern society, and if humans do not stop hiding from the truth, they cannot right the wrongs that have been committed. In order for the ignorance to end, people must accept the continuing prevalence of injustice. Not only does Angelou use detailed descriptions, but her use of symbolism allows the reader to see the injustice in society through
Evan S. Connell has a unique writing style. While most stories are told from beginning to end, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn (North Point Press, 1984) begins with the aftermath of The Battle of the Little Bighorn. It is then followed by numerous events which led up to this battle. Connell chose this non-linear writing style in order to distribute the details he finds most fascinating and interesting to share with his audience. Using the conclusion of the battle as the introduction of the narrative creates a suspenseful tone.
In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes is a lost man who wastes his life on drinking. Towards the beginning of the book Robert Cohn asks Jake, “Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize that you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?” Jake weakly answers, “Yes, every once in a while.” The book focuses on the dissolution of the post-war generation and how they cannot find their place in life. Jake is an example of a person who had the freedom to choose his place but chose poorly.
One of the major themes of Osamu Dazai’s The Setting Sun is the socioeconomic fall of aristocracy in Japan following World War II. The title itself reflects these core themes: when the Japanese write down the name of their home country in Kanji (one of its three alphabets), it roughly means “land of the rising sun”. The Setting Sun is an allegory that the glory days of Japan have come to an end, specifically their ancient aristocracy and their old families, as well as Japanese culture. The comfortable bourgeoisie becomes the hard-working proletariat and the historical situation changes as the material circumstances changes. This social and economic change is both subtly and unsubtly shown through the main characters’ flashbacks and stories; Kazuko and her family come from a long line of aristocrats but now face the reality of living without power or status. Following three major events -- the death of Kazuko’s father, Kazuko’s divorce to her wealthy husband, and the nation-wide economic crisis caused by the war -- the family finds themselves out of money and out of luck, challenging the way they formerly viewed the world, themselves, and their class. Through their mother’s incompetence, Kazuko’s difficulty in working, and Naoji’s existential crises, Dazai deconstructs the classist ideals that claim the wealthy gained their status and capital because of hard work, strength, intelligence, and personal superiority while remaining sympathetic toward the upper classes.
It has been called one of Hemingway’s greatest literary works as it is the “quintessential novel of the Lost Generation.” Its strong language and subject matter portray a powerful image of the state of disenchantment felt in the 1920’s after the war. The interactions between the characters in this novel display a society living without convictions, affirming Gertrude Stein’s quotation at the beginning of the novel, “You are all a lost generation.” To paint this vivid picture of discontentment and disillusionment Hemingway tears away traditional ideas and values by stifling the appearance of God and religion. Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is a poignant take on how the consequences of war can limit or diminish the presence of God and religious faith amongst those living in a post war society.
In That Evening Sun, William Faulkner approaches the story through an anecdotal style that gives meaning to the story. The narrator uses the anecdote that happened to him to convey the story’s underlying meaning that people are restricted by social class and race, not realizing this meaning himself at the time. The era of racism pertains to the meaning of the story, discussing the aversion of southern white people to help those different from them, focusing on the restrictions that society has placed on social class and race separation and the desire to maintain the division.
The metaphysical era in poetry started in the 17th century when a number of poets extended the content of their poems to a more elaborate one which investigated the principles of nature and thought. John Donne was part of this literary movement and he explored the themes of love, death, and religion to such an extent, that he instilled his own beliefs and theories into his poems. His earlier works, such as The Flea and The Sunne Rising, exhibit his sexist views of women as he wrote more about the physical pleasures of being in a relationship with women. However, John Donne displays maturity and adulthood in his later works, The Canonization and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, in which his attitude transcends to a more grown up one. The
“That Evening Sun” by William Faulkner is a good example of a great emotional turmoil transferred directly to the readers through the words of a narrator who does not seem to grasp the severity of the turmoil. It is a story of an African American laundress who lives in the fear of her common-law husband Jesus who suspects her of carrying a white man's child in her womb and seems hell bent on killing her.
The sun is the largest object in the solar system. It is a middle-sized star and there are many other stars out in the universe just like it. Even though it is only a middle-sized star it is large enough to hold over 1 million Earth’s inside if it were hollow. The temperature on the sun is far too much for any living thing to bear. On the surface it is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit and the core is a stunning 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But don’t worry we are over 90,000 million miles away, the sun could never reach us, at least not yet. The sun is a still a middle aged star and later in its life it will become a Red Giant. In this stage it will get bigger, and closer to us causing a temperature increase and most likely the