Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises - Research Paper Example

Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises Introduction The book The Sun Also Rises was written in 1926 by Ernest Hemingway. The main character in the book is a man named Jake Barnes who is the main protagonist and he takes the position of an observer in the lives of his friends. He is a war veteran who was rendered impotent by a war wound and is in love with the lady Brett Ashley who comes across as a selfish and immoral. Brett tells Jack that she is getting married to a Scottish drunk called Mike despite the fact that she is the love of Jake’s life. He later passes this information to his friend Cohn who is taken by Brett and he is not happy about it. Jake and Cohn travel outside of Paris and meet an old friend of Jakes, Bill Gorton, and they wait for Brett who stands them up but Cohn chooses to wait for her, and they later meet up in Pamplona. Brett is taken in by a young bullfighter named Romero and leaves with him though her fiancé critically criticizes Cohn for following where he is not wanted. Cohn does not take this lightly and ends up knocking out Jake and Mike over Brett but apologizes to Jake with in his hotel room. Jake later found out that Cohn also had a fight with Romero, the bullfighter, over Brett. Brett leaves for Madrid with Romero but fearing that she will destroy him and his career, she breaks up with him and asks Jake to pick her up at a hotel in Madrid. She is seen to think that if she had been with Jake they would have turned out well. The life and times of Hemingway Ernest Hemingway is a great American novelist who was born on July 21, 1899 in Oakwood, Chicago. Ernest grew up in his grandfather’s house together with his father and mother; his father was a man in love with nature and always taught his six children the importance of nature and how to appreciate nature. He was an adventurous man who would find some time and cook in the open air outside the house or even teach his children how to use the axe when chipping off pieces of wood. Hemingway’s mother was a musician who made him play the cello that caused conflict between them, but he later admitted that this helped him with his writing. His mother described him as a very brilliant child who would count up to 100 at a very early age and would always show a lot of interest in American history being able to sketch the great men of America and would at least know some of their achievements and their contributions. According to his mother, Hemingway was far away ahead of children of his age and would always stun people by his abilities. Hemingway had two things in mind that he wanted to become: a militia of the American forces and a writer. He was unable to join the militia because he had a disability in his left eye and the army only took the people who had good eye sight and vision and disqualified anyone who did not meet these requirements; thus, he decided to pursue his other passion. Hemingway had developed his passion for writing in high school and enjoyed plays and other samples of creative art that he was taken by his mother to see. Hemingway met a friend, Theodore, a very hardworking and diligent young man, who introduced him to becoming an ambulance driver (Baker, 1969). Hemingway was employed by The Red Cross who requested him to be fitted with glasses to aid with his eyesight problem and prevent possible accidents while on the job. Hemingway and Theodore were later given an assignment in Paris due to the excessive warfare that was ongoing, a result of World War I where they were supposed to move to help with rescue operations as ambulance drivers. On arrival to Paris, they were sent straight to the war fields where they were supposed to carry injured soldiers with the ambulances and take them to medical camps and hospitals. Ernest enjoyed this job and did it with a passion and not fearing any form of attacks from the Australian troops who would attack these areas in an attempt to destroy the Italians while he was on duty. The ambulances played an important role in the war as it helped casualties and ensured that every soldier had access to medical care. After working for sometime in the fields, Ernest and his friend were later transferred to Schio which was calmer as compared to war fields (Baker, 1972). In Schio, Ernest served ordinary civilians instead of soldiers because there was no war in that capital and this bored him due to his great interest in warfare and wanting to be in the army and he, thus, signed up for a canteen job. This was a very risky job as it entailed going to the fields and supplying the soldiers with food depending on the place where they had set their camps. Ernest liked the job because he had the chance to experience explosions and other types of attack when on duty. However, this did not last long as Ernest injured his knee and foot and, therefore, had to return to Milan for hospitalization and could only walk after two months and with the aid of clutches. He was awarded the Silver Medal of Valor and promoted to first Lieutenant as an appreciation for his bravery shown in trying to rescue the soldiers despite the injury suffered during the bombing. As Ernest was in the hospital undergoing treatment, he fell in love with a nurse known as Agnes von Kurowsky. The nurse was, however, quite older than Ernest as she was at the age of 26 when Ernest was at the age of 19. But this did not discourage Ernest as he continued showing love to the nurse by constant writing letters to her. The nurse had also fallen in love with Ernest and would write him almost three times a day. The two had agreed that they would get married on their return to America, but Agnes sent him a letter calling off the engagement because she got involved with an Italian. This had a devastating effect on Hemingway as he then developed a habit of leaving his wives before they left him. He then went back home and was offered a job by a family friend in Toronto and worked as a freelancer, foreign correspondent and staff writer for the Toronto Star Weekly and moved to Michigan and Toronto. He worked for the paper while living with friends. In Chicago, he worked as an associate editor for the monthly journal Cooperative Commonwealth and this is where he met Sherwood Anderson, a novelist, and a red haired woman eight years his senior called Hadley Richardson whom he married and travelled to Paris with living the life he has wished to live with Agnes with her (Bernice, 1998). Hemingway’s Contribution At the Oak Park and River high school, Hemingway was a contributor to the school paper The Trapeze and the year book Tabula and wrote his first piece in January 1916 about the Chicago Symphony Orchestra where he took the pen name Ring Lardner Jr. using the writing style of sportswriters. In his non-fiction book, Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway commemorates the work that he did and the happenings during the war in Paris when they had to collect the fragments of dead women from a building that had been bombed: “I remember that after we searched quite thoroughly for the complete dead we collected fragments”. In 1919 he took fishing and camping trip with some of his high school friends and this became the inspiration for the book Big Two Hearted River that uses the character Nick Adams to explain the solitude that he felt after the return from the war. In 1933 Hemingway and his wife then, Pauline, travelled to East Africa, specifically Mombasa and Machakos in Kenya, and their trip provided material for the book Green Hills of Africa that was published in 1935 and the short stories The Short Happy life of Francis Macomber and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. On his return he bought about that he named Pillar and sailed the Caribbean and it is during this time that he wrote the novel To Have and Have Not that was published in 1937. In the same year, he took a job reporting for the Spanish civil war for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) and wrote his only play The Fifth Column while he was with Martha. Hemingway’s inspiration for his most famous novel, For Whom The Bell Tolls, came from Gellhorn. He started it in March 1939 and travelled to Cuba, Wyoming and Sun Valley as he wrote it completing it in July 1940 and having it published in October 1940. The book sold half a million copies in months becoming a book of the month club choice and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize effectively establishing his literary reputation. In January 1946 he started on the 800 pages book The Garden of Eden while in Cuba and was done by June and also worked on a trilogy that he wanted to name the Sea Book having three parts named The Land, The Sea and The Air, but both of the books stalled. In 1948 he was inspired by an affair he had with the 19 year old Adriana Ivancich to write the book Across The River and Into The Trees published in 1950, but the book received negative reviews which inspired him to write the book The Old Man and The Sea which became a book of the month selection and won him the Pulitzer Prize in May 1952 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 1957. Hemingway combined his manuscripts from a trunk forgotten in Paris at the Ritz hotel in 1927 to finish the book A Moveable Feast in 1959 and also completed work on The Garden of Eden and Islands in The Stream. All three books were stored in a safe deposit box in Havana. Analysis of the Sun Also Rises Jake Barnes: The main character in the book is an imagery of the author himself and his experiences though veiled in the lives of the other characters and the plot of the story. He is seen to be a soldier in World War 1who gets wounded and this speaks to the author’s experience in the battle fields during his job on canteen duty we see that he becomes wounded. Although he does not say so directly, certain times in the novel he implies that as a result of his injury, he became impotent, thus, characterizing subtlety. He is seen to prefer to hint at things though his characters rather than state them openly. It is hence evident that Jake has this behavior of speaking on his impotence. His character trait does represent the lost generation being that he is not cruel towards Cohn. Aimlessness of the lost generation: The effects of World War 1 cut through some traditional aspects such as morals, justice and not forgetting matters that dealt with faith. It is, thus, observed that both men and women who experienced or felt the wrath of the war underwent some form of psychological trauma that has caused a level of hollowness that led to their drinking and partying sprees across the Europe continent. Male insecurity: Jake speaks of his war injury that causes his impotence and leads to his rejection by Brett leaving him feeling that the impotence caused this. Mike is seen to spite Cohn over Brett and he chases her across the continent showing clearly that he is not confident of his position in her life though he is her fiancé. Cohn, on the other hand, fights with Jake and Mike over Brett since he is told that she has left with Romano and he also beats up Romano. He later apologizes to Jake in tears which are a clear depiction of his lack of confidence in himself and his hold her affections. The destructiveness of sex: Sexual tension leads to Cohn violating his social norms and attacks Mike, Jake and Romero. The urge for sex blocks Brett from entering and staying in a meaningful partnership with Jake, even though she was in love with him or Mike though she is engaged to him. Sex has its own negative results since it undermines relationships of all the characters in a negative way. The failure of communication can be observed in the conversations between Jake and his comrades that come across as indirect and honest. The conversations tend to obscure true feelings behind a mask of what would be termed as civility. Excessive drinking: It is evident that most of Jake’s friends are alcoholics as seen in their drinking spree across Europe. It also helps the characters bond even in times of dispute as seen in the confrontation between Jake and Cohn. The fishing trip that Jake and Bill go on can also be termed as a drinking spree of sorts. False friendship: Such forms of friendship intend to initiate failed communication. Most of the friends in this novel have no basis or fundamental that shows affection. Take, for example, Jake meets a bicycle team manager, and the two do have a drink together, they make plans to meet the following morning, but Jake ignored that promise and overslept. This, hence, portrays outrightly the structure of the novel. Cohn also knows that Jake is in love with Brett but goes ahead and meets up with her. Brett on the other hand knows that Jake loves her but she still gets involved with a bunch of other men some of whom are Jakes friends and goes ahead to call him to come get her after she left with another man whom she had just met. Conclusion From the life and works of Hemingway it is evident that women, starting with his mother, had a great influence on his life. His mother developed his love for classical music and the rejection by Brett led to his multiple marriages and divorces. He was an exemplary writer who had developed the art of drawing from his environment for the material for his books and short stories. He, however, made great literary contributions through his works over the years as evidenced by the awards he received. Works Cited Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1969. Print. Baker, Carlos. Hemingway: The Writer as Artist. Princeton: Princeton UP. 1972. Print. Baker, Carlos. “Introduction” in Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917–1961. New York: Scribner’s. 1981. Print. Hemingway, Ernest. Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner’s. 1957. Print. Hemingway, Leicester. My Brother, Ernest Hemingway. New York: World Publishing Company. 1996. Print. Hemingway, Ernest. “The Art of the Short Story” in Benson, Jackson (ed). New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Durham: Duke UP. 1975. Print. Benson, Jackson. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays. Durham: Duke UP. 1975. Print. Read More