Masculinity in Hemingways The Sun Also Rises - Research Paper Example

Masculinity in Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” “The Sun Also Rises”, written by Ernest Hemingway is a story that brilliantly and accurately depicts the lives of American and British expatriates. It revolves around a veteran Jake Barnes, the narrator of the novel, and Lady Brett Ashley, a profligate woman who nursed him during the World War I injury. What makes this an unusual love story is that Jake and Brett never unite despite Jake’s affection for her since old times. But towards the denouement Brett only desires out of regret that it could work. The story starts taking new form because of the disconnection between these two characters. Cohn, another expatriate is now a rich Jewish writer and friend of Jake. His weakness is revealed to the reader in the form of his infatuation for Brett as he, among many others, also falls prey to her licentiousness. Jake, however, thinks Cohn has never been able to prolong a relationship because as a friend he knows he is not happy with his dominant girlfriend Frances Clyne. This judgment might be a result of insecurities Jake himself has regarding his manliness. There is a strong association between the themes and symbols with the lives of each character, masculinity being one of them. The reason why Hemingway chose to highlight the male insecurity in this novel is because he is addressing the case of expatriates and veterans who had been World War I and were both physically and psychologically affected by the war situation. This trauma was rarely understood by their relatives and society. They were shoved into workforce the moment they returned from war and the only time they did have for recovery was the period of nursing they received in the hospital camps meant for such people. Jake was victim of this war and his perception about himself and others allows the readers to assess him as a weak character at the beginning of the novel. He does not express his opinion about Cohn in his presence but thinks about him when he is gone. Cohn visits Jake to convince him to travel with him but Jake has other things on his mind. He considers Cohn to be an unstable man with regard to his relationships with women: “For four years his horizon had been absolutely limited to his wife. For three years, or almost three years, he had never seen beyond Frances. I am sure he had never been in love in his life.” (Hemingway, Ch. 2, 1954) In the quote mentioned above, Jake thinks of Cohn as a failure in love. Frances who happened to be the love of Cohn’s life is now a nagging woman from whom Cohn seeks to escape. But the female character who acts as a mediating force in the recognition of Jake’s problem is Brett, who on the other hand, is too selfish. Jake is rather too secretive about his love life. Being the narrator of the novel it is not very easy to explore the character without intervening in his relationships with other characters. Jake’s impotency drifts Brett away from him because sex plays a very important role in her life and she has no control over her emotions when it comes to men. It is probably because of this rejection and the loss of human sentiments that Jake becomes so cynical about love and relationships. He considers them like bills that need to be paid off as means of transaction. “…I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. 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, Ch. 14, 1954) The way this information about Jake and others establishes the theme of masculinity in the novel is a question that critics address with reference to the time that Hemingway is trying to portray in the novel and the effect of that period on men especially. It is an unavoidable chain of occurrences that give way to the issue of insecurity in the male characters. Through Jake’s reading of Cohn, Hemingway introduces the condition of weakened masculinity in all the veterans as they make an effort to cope with their own fear of being unmanly towards their female counterpart. Another reason why they may be feeling this way is the possibility of the influence of war over the women of the society. Brett not only tries to adopt a masculine outlook but also displays her affection for men the way men would generally be assumed to do. This exchange in the role of gender compelled Jake to contemplate over the loss of generation throughout his narration. In a review of Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity, Del highlights the author’s intent to explore Hemingway’s use of this theme in other novels besides the one under discussion. She exemplifies that the author considers masculinity as a means to showcase the restrictive notion of this theme in modernism. Probably this was another reason why Hemingway chose to bring it up in his novels in the first place (Del 683). Another significant point highlighted by critics is that the “sexual categories and gender roles are cultural constructions” and mutability of these element’s potentiality is rarely understood by any character especially Jake because he has not been able to accept it quite openly (Wagner-Martin 64). Jake reads men as homosexuals by merely observing their behavior and attire at the balmusette. Things like their “jerseys”, “white hands”, “white faces”, “shirt-sleeves” and their “newly washed wavy hair” are the several signs of homosexuality that Jake observes in men around him. This careful style of dressing compels him to associate them with “feminine” “preoccupation with physical appearance” (Wagner-Martin 65). His objection towards this kind of gender-order is directed towards the switching of the roles between opposite sexes. He becomes the mouthpiece of the author himself when he reflects on this perception. Jake considered that the so-called homosexual men not only teasing the opposite sex but also abusing them in awkward fashion such as dancing with the prostitutes at the bar and behaving sheepishly with their “corrupted” sexuality. The same kind of analysis can be done regarding Brett who has adopted a masculine attire and behavior towards men. Jake is not disturbed by her confidence but his own sexual inadequacy along with the “homosexual gender transgression”; both are unable to signify the actual masculinity. This upsets Jake to such an extent that he wishes to bash these homosexuals for displaying such feminine traits. Indirectly this is his catharsis and an urge for re-establishing a proper relationship with Brett which he can never avail. He does; however, seem to feel satisfied to know how Brett senses for him towards the end of the novel when she wishes she and Jake could have been wonderful together. The purpose to highlight the significance of masculinity in Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises” is to appreciate the author’s insight into the serious matters of the society which were a consequence of a historical effect such as war. The reasons stated above evaluate with critical support that Jake and all the male characters in the novel have unconsciously gained an inferiority complex which is in a sense a traumatizing experience post World War I, for both the British and American expatriates. They have lost a whole generation in this war and this has caused a severe damage to their existence in terms of gender and behavior in public. The places they are shown to travel and the purpose of travelling to watch bullfighting is also significant in a unique sense because they symbolize the loss of masculinity in men and feminine-nature in women. The sexual inadequacy in Jake equals the excessive sexuality in Brett. This also brings out another issue of the post-war society where longing and patience has no meaning and no emotionality left to spare. These things combine to represent the weakness in the male characters of the novel that are trying to place them in the right position or trying to replace the wrong that has happened with the society after they have returned home to their families in the nineteenth century. One can see a depth in the depiction of the theme of masculinity in Hemingway’s novel because he has portrayed the cultural constructions in a manner so close to reality that one finds himself a part of the situation where these vices occur. Works Cited Del, Gizzo S. "Hemingway's Theaters of Masculinity (review)." Mfs Modern Fiction Studies. 51.3 (2005): 679-683. Print Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1954. Print. Wagner-Martin, Linda. Ernest Hemingway's the Sun Also Rises: A Casebook. Oxford [England: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print Read More