Post #4: Paradoxical Nature of War

           The destructiveness of war is usually measured statistically by the amount of casualties or the total property damage.  What these statistics fail to measure however, is the destructive effect of the war on those who survived it.  During the entirety of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, opinions of war are sprinkled throughout, but the effects of war drive every major character’s actions.

            The central conflict presented in this story is the inability for Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley to live happily together.  Although they love each other, as Jake admits, “ ‘Oh, Brett, I love you so much,’ ” they are not able to achieve happiness (61).  Love is not the only recipe for happiness as Brett says, “ ‘I’d just tromper you with everybody.  You couldn’t stand it’ ” (tromper means to cheat on) (62).  Brett admits to being unsatisfied with Jake because of his injury that left him impotent.  This injury, which occurred during warfare, is the root of all other conflict in the story.

            Brett is the center of attention for the majority of the book, as all action seems to revolve around her.  She attracts the attention of every male character she comes in contact with.  Brett has multiple affairs that lead to her male lovers fighting.  Brett is portrayed as a free spirit, but it is her desire for love that spurs her to these actions.  The war is the villain in this conflict as well, as Barnes reveals that, “ ‘[d]uring the war…Her own true love had just kicked off with dysentery’ ” (46).  The war not only destroys Brett’s first choice of love, but also renders her second love incapable of loving her back.

            Although Brett and Jake have had such negative experiences with war, they respect and admire those who have had similar experiences.  Count Mippipopolous who has been in “seven wars and four revolutions” immediately earns their respect as Brett whispers to Jake, “ ‘I told you he was one of us.  Didn’t I?’ ” (66, 67).  Barnes also values the ability to be content in the moment which “certain dinners…from the war” taught him (150).  Jake and Brett were scarred by their experiences with war, yet they are able to maintain a near neutral feeling towards the war.

            These contrasting ideas of war come to play a factor in many of the influential decisions that Brett and Jake make later in the novel.  As Brett elopes with her “young bull-fighter” Pedro Romero, she comes to a realization that ruins their relationship (220).  She narrates, “ ‘I’d have lived with him if I hadn’t seen it was bad for him’ ” (247).  Brett’s fear of corrupting the youth, as the war had done to her and many of her friends, causes her to deny herself happiness for the sake of Romero. 

            As for Jake, he never ends up with his love Brett, but also recognizes the impossibility of them living together.  As the novel comes to an end, Brett says, “ ‘we could have had such a damned good time together,’ ” to which Barnes replies, “ ‘[y]es…Isn’t it pretty to think so?’ ” (251).  Jake reveals that he understands the impossibility of them living happily due to his injury from the war. 

            Hemingway purposefully plants these contrasting ideas of war to illuminate the paradoxical nature of war.  The outside perspective of war consists of turning boys into men and men into brave soldiers fighting for the pride of their country.  However, unbeknownst to many, war can just as easily destroy a man’s masculinity.  For the ‘blessed’ who survive the war, their fight isn’t over; it’s only on a different battlefield.  Returning home from World War One, many soldiers felt lost, or questioned life’s purpose.  This generation became known as the “Lost Generation”.  Hemingway portrays this generation most explicitly through the character’s reactions to the bullfights. 

            Veterans returned home with so much passion as a result from combat that they often found civilian life quite dull and uninteresting.  Jake Barnes fills this emptiness by becoming an avid supporter, or aficionado, of the bullfights.  This passion and energy also filled a hole of masculine insecurity presented by Jake’s wartime injury.  He is able to completely devote the entirety of his emotion to these fights and in return, the bullfights give him a feeling of pure ecstasy and freedom he has not experienced since the war.  Each character struggles with masculinity in their own way and it is paralleled by how they react to the bullfights.  Robert Cohn’s masculinity is challenged further when he claims the fights are a bore and soon after he breaks down not coincidentally, swinging punches at both Brett’s fiancé Mike and Jake. 

            Each character that has a connection to the war is captivated by the bullfights and it confirms the suspicion that war veterans have an emptiness inside relating to masculinity.  By revealing this fact, it seems Hemingway is attempting to point to war’s propensity to strip men of their manliness.  This conclusion, coupled with the opinions of war mentioned above directly clash, leading to the realization that Hemingway believes that war is paradoxical at heart by both granting men of a certain manhood, yet stripping away their masculinity.

Close Reading:

            I was certainly aided by each authors’ close reading suggestions.  Many words were unique to either the French culture or the bullfighting community and so Nabokov’s dictionary suggestion was very useful.  Perrine’s concept that there are interpretations that are more correct pushed me to analyze all of the available details while relying on the least number of assumptions.  Since it was written in first person, Foster’s recommendation that narrators are often unreliable enabled me to view Jake’s actions in a more critical light.

Note: Sequentially reading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway after completing Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried certainly help lead me to my conclusion that Hemingway’s theme dealt with war. 

Recommend:

            The Sun Also Rises was the first novel I read by Ernest Hemingway and it took some time to adjust to his writing method.  Although it wasn’t quite unlike anything I had read before, it was interesting to attempt to understand the techniques Hemingway employed to convey his message. With this being said, I would certainly recommend this book for a plethora of reasons.  First off, it dealt with and enlightened me to the struggles of soldiers in the post World War One era.  Hemingway conveyed that returning home from war was such a drastic change because of how the war changed soldiers and how the war changed society by subtly illuminating the faults and inconsistencies of his characters.  The literary elements also played a vital role to my overall enjoyment of this text.  Although the plot centered on the most recognizable elements, there were many techniques crucial to the ultimate understanding of the text that could easily go unnoticed.  Overall, this book challenged my reading abilities at all times and was a pleasure to read.