FREE ESSAY ON THE SUN ALSO RISES

THE SUN ALSO RISES

The Sun Also Rises is a novel that depicts the "lost generation" of adults that live
in the years following the Great War. These individuals have lost their belief in God
and
in the after-life. Because of their loss of touch with reality, they seemingly stumble
through their lives, living for each day. The book centers around the Jake and Brett and
their friends. These characters certainly live only for the day that is now. Through
their
actions and the situations that they create, Hemmingway uses them to express the
feelings
that he personally felt during the era.
The first thing that the characters represent is the impotency of life. Through the
character of Jake, who is impotent, Hemmingway shows the hopelessness and
pointlessness of life. In the story, Jake is unable to have Brett, his love, due to the
fact
that he is impotent. Therefore, he tries to support her and help her in her endeavors. 
However, he always maintains his love for her, which shows that his actions have a
superficial quality to them. This represents the feelings of Hemmingway that the period
is
fake and useless. Through Jake and his aims and feelings, Hemmingway is able to
represent the helplessness of the people of the time to deal with their problems and go
through them. Instead, they ran from them and pushed them aside but never out of the
way. Hemmingway himself did this by withdrawing from society.
Because of the general feeling that life was meaningless and did not affect the
future, the people of the period lived for today and never planned for tomorrow. They
felt
that once death came, life was over and there was nothing else. The Great War had
instilled in them that there was no God, or if there was, he was not watching. Thus,
they
lived for only what they saw or wanted today. This is evident in the story through the
fact
that all the characters simply drink to pass time. It is also shown through the way that
Brett has no problem sleeping with several partners during the story. These examples
show that the people of the time were definitely living for the day and that death was
nothing.
Another feeling that the characters of the story were looking for was a feeling of
belonging. They all bonded together in order to pass their time drinking and having a
good time. They felt alienated by the society from which they came from. Because the
Great War had created a "lost generation", which withdrew from the societies and
cultures
that had created the tragedy of the war, many of the people comprising these alienated
groups simply looked for a place to belong. These people searched for those who felt the
same way to live for the day. This is evident in the story through the fact that all the
characters are together to simply live for the day and to belong to a group that enjoys
the
same things. For example, the characters go together on vacation to Spain in order to
watch the bullfights. They all drink together and share many of the same feelings toward
society. Basically, they have bonded together to withdraw from society and live in a way
that reflects the feelings that they have for the culture and the Great War and all the
extra
feelings that come with it all.
These feelings require the quality of courage in order to deal with them. It takes
courage for the characters of the story to go on after all that they have seen and dealt
with
during the Great War. Especially in the case of Jake, who has lost his fertility and with
it
his feeling of manhood. He is forced to redefine what his meaning of masculinity is and
to
deal with the fact that he can never have Brett. It takes Jake tremendous courage to
deal
with all his feelings. It probably takes courage for all the characters to even get up in
the
morning into a world of which they feel alienated. Each character is involved in their
lifestyle due to the fact that they have in some way been affected greatly by the Great
War
and it takes courage for them to go on after all the horror and death that they have seen
in
their lives.
This book effectively represents the feelings of the time and the feelings of
Hemmingway. However, it is difficult to relate the book to today's society due to the
fact
that the Great War occurred over eighty years ago. Therefore, even though it describes
the lives of the characters and their feelings, relating these feelings to what caused
them is
hard. Nevertheless, it is easy to see the correlation between the feelings that are shown
in
the story and the actions that they cause the characters to take in the novel.
Therefore,
despite the fact that I found the book boring at times, in retrospect, I feel that it
effectively
accomplished the mission that Hemmingway intended it to complete. Thus, I feel that the
book was good in the feelings it expressed, but below par in its mode of communication
to
the reader.