Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the blog. When it comes to writing about Ernest Hemingway, trying to bring up new ideas regarding century-old texts can seem troubling at best. While I was researching his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, I was taken aback with the amount of criticism I outright disagreed with. The Sun Also Rises is widely acclaimed for Hemingway’s style and voice in depicting the mindsets and pace of life of the Lost Generation. Each character involved in the story is irreversibly traumatized and affected by the events of World War I. Many critics have attacked the misogynistic, racist, and antisemitic commentary of the novel’s narrator as reflections of Hemingway’s personal mindset, but more recent criticism has displayed the crucial aspect of the novel as the separation of author and speaker. While seemingly a “Creative Nonfiction” account of Hemingway’s own expatriate life, ignoring the role that fiction plays in characterization and voice is to misinterpret the novel entirely. Jake Barnes is certainly an unreliable narrator, but through his minimalist approach to detailing the events of the novel, he should also be understood as an unwilling participant in the telling of this story. Furthermore, Jake’s voiced depictions of Lady Brett Ashley draw the conclusion that she, like Jake, is also an unwilling participant in his manipulation of her character. Through this complex, Hemingway proposes both the ideas of the unwilling protagonist and the unwilling deuteragonist.
Jake’s narration can best be described as a constant struggle with actualization. In applying Hemingway’s Iceberg style of writing, one needs to be careful in distinguishing the author from the speaker. When applied to Jake’s narration, this concept reliant on minimalism is reflected in his disinterest in telling this story. Multiple times throughout the novel, and especially in critically emotional segments, Jake actively withholds information from the reader, ultimately displaying an unwillingness to be thought of as central. This struggle with acceptance into the story is first displayed at the end of Chapter IV. After saying goodnight to Brett, Jake becomes almost feverish in his thoughts about her, but instead of relaying the hours of restlessness or what exactly it is he’s thinking about, he relays that his last view of her walking to the car is what sent him into this turmoil, displaying Brett to be entirely at fault for his instability. Jake leaves the reader with a short statement reflecting his attitude that “It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing” (42). Jake offers minimal insight to the reader here, and through this tendency, relays that he is quite uncomfortable in his own space. While this brief philosophical moment may provide some depth to Jake’s character and mindset, the reader draws much more information about Jake from what he refuses to elaborate on. Not once in this section does he claim that his emotions are rattling him. He doesn’t elaborate on his heartbreak or his own misery, instead, he details the mundane. Jake’s impotence is widely considered in criticism detailing the lost generation and Jake’s masculinity, but it is rarely regarded as seeping through the lines of the pages to reflect his unwillingness to be involved in the story itself. No person who is uncomfortable with their own desires would willingly take up the mantle of speaker, and Jake’s avoidance of confrontation via the pages themselves reflects this.
For Jake to be understood as the unwilling protagonist, there must be a concrete expectation of character regarding active participation in the novel. Jake is often described as impotent, but this description of helplessness and a lack of power disregards Jake’s control over Brett. The very concept of his unwillingness to participate denotes an active resiliency, a fashion that is constantly reinforced throughout the novel. At the end of Chapter VII, as Brett asks Jake to leave the bar and the count, Jake tells the reader he “had the feeling as in a nightmare…I had been through and that now I must go through again,” to offer a brief insight pertaining to his emotional struggle and dependency on Brett. Following this lament, Jake abides by Brett’s wishes. Moments like these not only display Jake’s consciousness of his own feelings, but also an active combative nature with his own discomfort. No person in their right mind would want to repeat an event they’ve described as nightmarish, and Jake is no exception. In his article “Going Nowhere: Desire and Love in The Sun Also Rises” in which he details the lost generation’s overall dismissive attitude, Dr. William Cain, professor of English at Wellesley College, asserts that “Jake’s self-awareness is limited… Nearly all of the characters resist self-knowledge; they do not want to see and assess who they are, what they are doing, and why” (155). Jake and the other characters of the novel are reluctant to describe, or even uncover, their underlying grief with each other, the war, and the world. The notion, however, that Jake’s self-awareness is limited, should not be understood as ignorance, when in fact, Jake proves throughout the novel that his lack of awareness is reliant on choices he actively analyzes.
The active stance of resistance that Cain describes is the correct way in which to digest the thoughts, actions, and situations of these unwilling, resistant characters. Jake does not want to be understood, this sets a direct contrast to Brett’s desire for independence. Instead of depicting a full picture of any event or character, however, Jake consciously makes efforts to restrict what the reader learns from him. In her article “Reading Around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and The Sun Also Rises,” Lorie Fulton, professor of English at William Carey University, details Jake’s prejudice and misdirected anger. In doing so, she asserts that “a great deal of this novel’s action occurs beneath the surface, and readers must interpret Jake’s narrative carefully to discern much of what goes on” (64). In actively withholding information concerning the events of the novel, Jake leaves much of the narration up to the reader’s interpretation. While this is repeated throughout moments of emotional turmoil, this disinterest can also be found through Jake’s descriptions of the other characters in the novel. Keeping in mind that Jake is relaying this story after the events of the novel, Jake describes Robert Cohn, a man he is constantly in competition with, by questioning Cohn’s entire identity. After relaying Cohn’s persona as the middleweight boxing champion at Princeton and declaring his own distaste for such pursuits, Jake boils down Cohn’s character by stating “I mistrust all frank and simple people” (12). Through this statement, Jake further displays his tendency to reduce objects, events, and people down to their indivisible aspects. This not only showcases Jake’s disdain for Cohn, or that Jake possesses a plethora of thoughts towards Cohn’s character and is irreversibly disinterested in elaborating on essences, but also further displays that Jake, while physically impotent, serves as the dominant medium of the novel. Instead of telling the reader exactly what he thinks about Cohn, he goes on to elaborate on Cohn’s surface-level achievements in boxing, education, and writing, thus stripping him of his explicitly human qualities. This disinterest in narration and active longing for decentralization to the characters themselves solidify Jake as the unwilling narrator of the novel, and those around him as the unwilling, ill-depicted characters.
Jake’s dominance being understood in this emotionally uninvolved manner draws all the more attention to the mystery of the novel’s true main character, Brett Ashley. Lady Brett Ashley is often regarded in terms that would define her as an extension of Jake, but she struggles with control of the narrative in her own right. Brett can, in a sense, be understood as the unwilling deuteragonist. She constantly exudes power and dominance, but despite these displays, she is constantly perverted by the men in the novel, most notably Jake, thus, the struggle for ownership and control of the narrative is a constant dynamic between the two central characters. In her article “To Hell with Women Anyway: Flirtatiousness and Male Entitlement in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises,” in which she describes the ways in which feminist criticism of the novel portrays Brett as a mere extension of Jake, Juliet Conway asserts that this attitude is one forced upon the reader via Jake’s narration, stating that “She may have the markers of ‘male confidence,’ but she is still the victim of the male gaze” (27). Though Brett may strive for control and independence, the very fact that she is being described to the reader via Jake’s withholding account of events serves to strip her of any power she gains. This ultimately makes any interpretation of Brett perverted to the extent that no reader is ever given a full depiction of her through Jake’s voice. Even in these descriptions, there is conflict. Multiple times throughout the novel, Jake insults Brett, even calling her a bitch. Keeping in mind that Jake has lived these experiences already, this depiction of her becomes especially harmful after her disclosure to Jake at the end of the novel that “it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch” (249). At this point, Brett has confided all of her misery and hope for the future to Jake, but as the reader knows, Jake himself will actively disregard her wishes in his descriptions of her. This isn’t to say all of Jake’s descriptions of Brett are fueled by animosity, but Jake’s resistance to give up control of a narrative he doesn’t want in the first place displays his unwavering dominance over Brett’s very identity.
With this dominance displayed throughout the novel, one should conclude that Brett is forced to submit via Jake’s narration. This dynamic is an incredibly problematic one to the extent that Jake’s narration seemingly violates Brett’s person. Jake’s perversion of Brett throughout the novel is first made explicit in their exchange after Jake realizes Cohn has fallen for Brett. After they dance, Jake sees Cohn staring at Brett and tells her “You’ve made a new one there,” implying that Brett has created another man obsessed with her, to which Brett asks Jake “Don’t talk about it” (12). Jake quickly tears her down, claiming, “I suppose you like to add them up” (12). Essentially, Jake is insulting Brett’s seeming promiscuity, depicting her as in the crude terms we use today, a slut. It’s clear from this conversation and Brett’s submission to Jake’s claim that this is not a balanced relationship in terms of power. While Brett is often read as having power over the men who are infatuated with her, it is in fact those men who actively strip her of her humanity that essentially, though symbolically, rape her. While one can make a myriad of claims about the matter of Jake and Brett truly loving each other, one shouldn’t dismiss Jake’s abuse of power. Brett is in no way a willing participant to the words on the page, and in the aftermath of the war, confuses distraction with mission. Fulton rightfully notes in her criticism that “Brett, like Jake, simply searches for a way to make meaning of the changed world the war has thrust upon her” (7). To see Brett as anything but a person trying to make sense of devastation is to conform to one’s own prejudice. To read her character through the eyes of Jake and agree with early criticism filled with derogatory statements as to her character is to misunderstand the entire point of Brett’s involvement in the story. Jake and Brett may have their grievances with one another, but their main grievance is with the context of the novel. Neither one of them is a willing participant in this story, and through them, Hemingway expertly displays not just unreliable narration, but the unwilling protagonist and deuteragonist. To understand both characters, you have to first comprehend their faults, biases, and passions as mysteries to the characters themselves. This book is one for the Lost generation after all. Jake, Brett, Mike, Bill, and even Cohn are simply on their path to making sense of their lived experiences. Perhaps this novel is Jake’s attempt at closure, or perhaps he actively refuses to be understood. Perhaps this is a love or hate letter to Brett that ultimately objectifies her. No matter the interpretation, the mere suggestion of infinite possibilities for analysis mirrors the chaotic, misunderstood, and disenchanted generation to which Hemingway lent his voice.
– Samuel McFerron, Blog Editor.
Samuel McFerron – Webmaster, Blog Editor, Prose Editor & Poetry Editor: Samuel is a Junior at Lewis University. They are double majoring in English Literature and Philosophy. They aspire to become a professor of U.S. Literature and spend most of their free time reading and writing. They hope to improve upon their writing and literary analysis skills during their time here at Lewis. Some authors they recommend are David Foster Wallace, Milan Kundera, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Emma Goldman. Their work is forthcoming in The Kudzu Review and Beyond Thought.