Jake Barnes as a Hemingway Hero - Essay Example

Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is an American ic. Like in most of his novels, Hemingway presents a different kind of protagonist. Jake Barnes is a Hemingway’s hero. A Hemingway hero has two traits. The first is an unobtainable love of a sexually promiscuous or unworthy woman. The second is a need to find meaning in life, only to find that the mental understanding of the meaning of life is different than what one actually lives day to day. Jake Barnes fits the criteria of a Hemingway hero.

Jake Barnes’ love interest is Lady Brett Ashley. Brett and Barnes had a past relationship. However, World War I rendered Barnes sexually impotent through a battle wound. Barnes wants a relationship with Brett, but she cannot give up sex, even for love. Throughout this novel, Barnes is the shoulder for Brett to cry on. He is her friend, confident, and admirer. She is engaged to Mike, but cheats on him with Cohn and Romero. While carrying on with these men, she still confides in Barnes.

The pathetic part of Barnes and Brett’s relationship was Barnes knew exactly what she was, but still did not care. Barnes thought:This was Brett that I had felt like crying about. I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing. (Hemingway 60) Barnes knew that loving Brett would not bring happiness, but somehow could not help his feelings for her. Barnes, aside from his feelings for Brett, wanted to find the meaning of life.

He knew that loving Brett was not making him happy, but could not quite grasp what would make him happy. In order to pursue the meaning of life, Barnes decided to go back to the basics with a fishing trip in Spain. By imposing the basics on his life, Barnes wanted to find peace through order. Even though ideally he thought if Brett would love him, then the meaning of life and happiness would fall in line, Barnes found that peace came with order. When Brett suggest they could have been happy together, Barnes replies, “Yes, isn’t it pretty to think so?

” (Hemingway 248) This shows that Barnes realizes that although his desire to be with Brett is nice to think about, peace is only found with order, not confusion. Jake Barnes loved an unworthy woman and searched in vain for happiness. Both of these things make him a Hemingway hero. His survival of unrequited love and journey through life makes him an everyday hero. Barnes faced reality. The ultimate conclusion that only the need of basic essentials to create order in his life allowed Barnes achieve a separate peace.

Barnes found what every person needs to know to gain peace; happiness does not come from others, but only from within. Barnes found his separate peace from within. This is what makes him not only a Hemingway hero, but a memorable character in the annals of literature. Work CitedHemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 2006.