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Literature As A Reflection Of Society
Literature As A Reflection Of Society
Literature As A Reflection Of Society
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The Sun Also Rises is a great novel about the “lost generation”, which is the post war generation. Ernest Hemingway was inspired by real life events when writing this novel, basing the events and characters off of his personal experiences with friends and life after war. In this novel there is an abundance of casual sex between characters, and Lady Brett Ashley is the main character that displays these shows of promiscuity, constantly seducing men to get what she wants. Brett is the only woman that is fully developed in the story and her value is of expensive jewelry to the men, yet she uses and treats them differently. Brett has sexual relations with many men in the novel. Ernest Hemingway portrays Lady Brett Ashley as a masculine, promiscuous, and self-destructive.
Brett Ashley come across as a very masculine woman. She has many attributes that would deem her unattractive to most men, yet add to her sex appeal. This would include the way that she dresses and also how we psychically see her. Hemingway writes, “Brett was damned good looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey” (Hemingway 30). She smokes cigars and drinks as much as maybe more than the men in the story, which was not common of women in the 1920’s. Her entire look and personality just came off as more masculine than feminine.
Brett is very promiscuous knowing that she can attain anything she wants out of men. All of the men that meet her become captivated with her. She uses men and then discards of them, like unwanted trash, when they are of no use to her. Robert Cohn, one of ...
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...kes. She is a woman full of pain. Brett even says to Jake, “Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable” (Hemingway 31). She is finally realizing that the decisions she has been making is ruining her life. Brett is digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole and it is only a matter of time until she emotionally breaks down.
Lady Brett Ashley is the beauty of The Sun Also Rises. She causes a lot of trouble for many of the other characters. Brett is promiscuous and likes to sleep around. It is true that she hurts many people along the way as she lashes out in pain, but she hurts herself even more.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 2006. Print.
Fulton, Lorie- Watkins. "Reading around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and THE SUN ALSO RISES." Hemingway Review 24.1 (2004): 61-80. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO Host. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
A Proverb once stated, “Opposites attract.” Scientist, chemist, doctors, and even matchmakers around the world know this statement to be true. However in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the relationship between Lady Brett Ashley and Robert Cohn proves this statement wrong. Throughout the novel, Lady Brett has many types of relationships with a variety of people, most of whom are men. Some of these men include Jake Barnes, the narrator of the story, Mike Campbell, her supposed husband, and Pedro Romero. Lady Brett’s laid back, independent, and rather promiscuous life style creates many foil relationships with the various men she has affairs with. Brett’s foil relationships sometimes bring out the best qualities in people and other times unfortunately brings out the worst qualities. Throughout the book Lady Brett’s foil relationship with Robert Cohn bring out Cohn’s unpopularity, immaturity, and his possessive and obsessive control over Brett.
All the feelings that Brett has, a woman has been through them not because they are women but because they are human. Ladies are judged every day over the simplest things. Women have the potential to do great things but they can’t
After quitting his job flipping burgers, he takes a job with Alfie Moore, the old man that used to clean the pool at his old house. Brett never thought cleaning pools would be this tiring. Worst of all, after a hot summer day of work, Alfie and Brett can’t even take a quick swim in the pool that they just cleaned. At lunch time every day, Alfie would have a new recipe something like “tabbouleh”. He would make Brett try it whether or not he wanted to or didn’t want to. The men became close Brett could talk about his problems mostly with his dad and Alfie wouldn’t judge him, maybe a side comment here or there but not much. Often Alfie would talk about how he left his wife and child and he wishes his daughter would have given him a second chance when she was younger to make up for what he did. While cleaning pools everyday, the men became very close. One morning when Brett went over to Alfie’s house early one morning, as he did everyday, he found Alfie lying on the ground, the door was locked, Brett threw a rock threw the window to brake the glass to get in.
Meter, M. An Analysis of the Writing Style of Ernest Hemingway. Texas: Texas College of Arts and Industries, 2003.
Joseph Goebbels once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” (Goebbels). Joseph Goebbels along with the Communist Party used this to describe their propaganda scheme to draw a whole nation into their control. This action shows a lapse of responsibility and the ability to escape a problem. Like Goebbels, the characters of The Sun Also Rises and The Hollow Men use excuses to get away from the problem. The characters in The Sun Also Rises are also considered Hollow Men as the group continually refuses to care or make a choice because the characters constantly turn to escapism to forget their problems, seemingly cope with changes in their lives but fail to do so, and regularly flashback to the past show a focus on a life already lived.
Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is an interesting piece of literature that has been analyzed and reviewed by many scholars throughout the years. Something that is often brought to attention are the gender roles. In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway makes a stronger woman and a more feminine man, this is something that had not yet been seen in literature. A few authors had made female and male characters in their novels that were different than the norm, but none to the extreme of Hemmingway. In Hemingway’s novel, his female character, Brett, does not care about obeying the societal gender role set forth for her during the time period she lives.
The "Hills like White Elephants" By Ernest Hemingway In Ernest Hemingway's "Hills like White Elephants" the author addresses a subject that was thought to be taboo in the 1920's. The subject that the author addresses is abortion. During the roaring 20's people were consumed with having a good time and living a care free lifestyle. As is evident in the great American classic "The Great Gatsby" which gives a depiction of the lifestyle that people led in the 1920's. During the decade that the story was written, abortion was not talked about nationally, nor was there any education on it.
The Sun Also Rises was one of the earliest novels to encapsulate the ideas of the Lost Generation and the shortcomings of the American Dream. The novel, by Ernest Hemingway, follows Jake Barnes and a group of his friends and acquaintances as they (all Americans) live in Paris during 1924, seven years after World War I. Jake, a veteran of the United States, suffers from a malady affecting his genitalia, which (though it isn't detailed in the s...
The autobiography Night by Elie Wiesel contains similarities to A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. These works are similar through the struggles that the main characters must face. The main characters, Elie Wiesel and Lieutenant Frederic Henry, both face complete alterations of personality. The struggles of life make a person stronger, yet significantly altering identity to the point where it no longer exists. This identity can be lost through extreme devotion, new experience, and immense tragedy.
In The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Lady Brett Ashley is a representative of the New Woman, changing the American landscape. This is shown when she changes from a female to male role, as she pleases. For example, when she takes the place of a male role she demands that people please her such as, when she ordered Jake to “kiss” (Hemingway, 15) her “once more before [they] get there.” (Hemingway, 15) Although changed back to her female role when “she gave [Jake] her hand as she stepped down” (Hemingway, 15) For a man to help a woman out of a car is known as a chivalrous and an expected action, especially in the past, in addition, the man is suppose to initiate the kiss. Brett is a woman who wants to display a secure, stable, satisfied and independent life to the point where readers are not able to
Circe was a greek goddess that turned men into pigs when they came to her island, but she was so beautiful that the men were so attracted to her that they trusted her just to be turned into beasts. This is an accurate comparison because brett h=attracts all the men that she meets and she turns them against each other which in turn is turning them into beasts that want to fight over the chance to be with her. Brett likes all the attention that she is getting from the men but all she wants is love. Jake is willing to love her but she isn’t willing to give up sex for a relationship.
Lady Brett Ashley is one of the most complex characters in the novel and is a perfect example of a shattered gender role. Her character contains a mixture of strength and vulnerability and she possesses both masculine and feminine traits. Her masculine traits reflect on her short hair, low moral conduct, high alcohol consumption, and her masculine first name Brett. She also has a masculine attire such as hats and jersey sweaters. She has a lot...
In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants we follow a couple’s conversation as they wait for a train. The majority of their dialogues evolve around abortion. He perfunctorily tries to convince her to abort the child while she reluctantly tries to please him. As the story goes along the female protagonist continually consumes alcohol, although she is presumed pregnant. I claim that her volition to keep this baby strongly can be argued, since it is common knowledge alcohol can harm an unborn child. We will try to find the source to why she is so ignominious to her actions. First and foremost, the girl is the one who initiates the drinking, “let´s drink beer”(106), suggesting a carefree attitude. Her male companion quickly responds to her request. Barley a moment after the beer has arrived, the girl finds a new drink, Anis del Toro. “Could we try it?” (106) Why could she not? Her actions are a footloose woman´s, there is no second thought to whether she should, or should not intake alcohol. At one point she gets upset and he offers her another drink, “all right” (107) is her quick response. The American also consumes alcohol, but his actions are of no significance. However, he never objects to whether her behavior is appropriate or not, which suggests that the child´s health is of no interest to him. Consequently we see that her treatment of the child is vindictive.
Prevalent among many of Ernest Hemingway's novels is the concept popularly known as the "Hemingway hero", or “code hero”, an ideal character readily accepted by American readers as a "man's man". In The Sun Also Rises, four different men are compared and contrasted as they engage in some form of relationship with Lady Brett Ashley, a near-nymphomaniac Englishwoman who indulges in her passion for sex and control. Brett plans to marry her fiancée for superficial reasons, completely ruins one man emotionally and spiritually, separates from another to preserve the idea of their short-lived affair and to avoid self-destruction, and denies and disgraces the only man whom she loves most dearly. All her relationships occur in a period of months, as Brett either accepts or rejects certain values or traits of each man. Brett, as a dynamic and self-controlled woman, and her four love interests help demonstrate Hemingway's standard definition of a man and/or masculinity. Each man Brett has a relationship with in the novel possesses distinct qualities that enable Hemingway to explore what it is to truly be a man. The Hemingway man thus presented is a man of action, of self-discipline and self-reliance, and of strength and courage to confront all weaknesses, fears, failures, and even death.
The pivotal character of Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes. He is a man of complex personality--compelling, powerful, restrained, bitter, pathetic, extraordinarily ordinary yet totally human. His character swings from one end of the psychological spectrum to the other end. He has complex personality, a World War I veteran turned writer, living in Paris. To the world, he is the epitome of self-control but breaks down easily when alone, plagued by self-doubt and fears of inadequacy. He is at home in the company of friends in the society where he belongs, but he sees himself as someone from the outside looking in. He is not alone, yet he is lonely. He strikes people as confident, ambitious, careful, practical, quiet and straightforward. In reality, he is full of self-doubt, afraid and vulnerable.