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discuss the concept of lost generation as presented in hemingway's the sun also rises
discuss the concept of lost generation as presented in hemingway's the sun also rises
lost generation Hemingway
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The United States in the 1920s was a land of change. The recent end to a horrific war brought about a change in life, culture and perception. Those who returned from the war had their view on life shattered and changed completely. This change of awareness is evident in the literature following World War I. Authors such as Ernest Hemingway demonstrated what many were experiencing with the short sentences and tough prose found in his novels. His first and defining novel, The Sun Also Rises, was written in 1926. Hemingway uses foils to develop flawed characters and convey a message of what the “Lost Generation” experiences in The Sun Also Rises.
World War I was a war in which much new technology and innovation was used. This advancement made killing more effective and the horrors of war even greater. The trench warfare on the Eastern Front was horrendous. Poison gasses were used to flush soldiers out of trenches. When they emerged, they would be met by bullets from machine guns, which would mow men down. Survivors of the ghastly battles had the images and memories scarred into their minds. Young men were sent to war, and what they saw changed them forever. One of these men was a certain ambulance driver on the Italian Front. He witnessed the effects of the new innovations on the human body, and the devastation they caused. That man was Ernest Hemmingway, and after the war, he translated his memories and experiences into the literature that is now famous. Novels like The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms are examples of this defining literature (“The Sun Also Rises” 332).
Those soldiers that returned from the war were traumatized beyond belief. They were disillusioned and stunned by what they had gone through in World War I. They were a generation of people morally and spiritually lost, and dubbed the “Lost Generation” by Gertrude Stein (“The Sun Also Rises 332-334).
One of Hemingway’s talents was to create characters with flaws and obstacles that challenge them. The protagonist in The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes. He was emasculated in World War I. Most of his obstacles involve his injury and the self-consciousness associated with it. The memories of the war traumatize him as well as the other veterans. Jake is insecure about his masculi...
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...” was an era when much change occurred and those living it were unsure how to react. Veterans of the war were scarred. Morality seemed to be lost in the world as the “Roaring Twenties” started. Hemingway took the culture of the times and put them onto paper. His characters in The Sun Also Rises demonstrate what many people experienced. The disillusionment many felt, the insecurity of others, and the desire to escape reality were all prominent at that time. Most of the people of the time and the characters in Hemingway’s novels were a “Lost Generation” in every sense.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 2003.
Ira Elliott. “Performance Art: Jake Barnes and ‘Masculine’ Signification in The Sun Also Rises.” (American Literature, 1995); excerpted and reprinted in Novels for Students. Vol 5 (Detroit: Gale, 1999), pp. 338-342.
Jeffery M. Lilburn, in an essay for Novels for Students. Vol 5. Detroit: Gale, 1999, pp. 335-338.
Robert W. Cochran. “Circularity in The Sun Also Rises” (Modern Fiction Studies, 1968); reprinted in Novels for Students. Vol 5. (Detroit: Gale, 1999), pp. 342-347.
“The Sun Also Rises.” Novels for Students. Vol 5. Detroit: Gale, 1999.
One observation that can be made on Hemingway’s narrative technique as shown in his short stories is his clipped, spare style, which aims to produce a sense of objectivity through highly selected details. Hemingway refuses to romanticize his characters. Being “tough” people, such as boxers, bullfighters, gangsters, and soldiers, they are depicted as leading a life more or less without thought. The world is full of s...
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Throughout The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway paints a tragic picture of young adults being haunted by the lasting effects of post traumatic stress disorder onset by their participation in World War I and the restrictions it placed on their ability to construct relationships.
The American Dream and the decay of American values has been one of the most popular topics in American fiction in the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises create a full picture of American failure and pursue its ideals after the end of World War I by portraying the main characters as outsiders and describing the transportation in a symbolic way. Putting the aimless journeys for material life foreground, Fitzgerald and Hemingway skillfully link West and men and associate East to not only money but women. As American modernists, Hemingway utilizes his simple and dialog-oriented writing to appeal to readers and Fitzgerald ambiguously portrays Gatsby through a narrator, Nick, to cynically describe American virtue and corruption, which substantially contribute to modernism in literature.
---. Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of American Literature. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2009. 780-783. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 Feb. 2011.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
In the novel The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, the lost generation is discussed. After the WWI, many were affected in different ways. This post-war generation is described by discrimination, lack of religion, escapism and inability to act.
Throughout the 20th century there were many influential pieces of literature that would not only tell a story or teach a lesson, but also let the reader into the author’s world. Allowing the reader to view both the positives and negatives in an author. Ernest Hemingway was one of these influential authors. Suffering through most of his life due to a disturbingly scarring childhood, he expresses his intense mental and emotional insecurities through subtle metaphors that bluntly show problems with commitment to women and proving his masculinity to others.
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 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...
...re realistic issues of the time. Finally, Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises as an allegorical tale of the times he realized first hand and experienced as a way of life; indeed, his utilization of symbolism and character development represent the aimlessness of the “Lost Generation.”
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.
In writing this book, commonly refered to as the “Great American Novel”, F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kinds of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period.