The Sun Also Rises (Criticism)

Criticism

Jeffrey M. Lilburn

Jeffrey M. Lilburn, M.A. (The University of Western Ontario) is the author of a study guide on Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and of numerous educational essays. In the following essay, he discusses the mutually destructive nature of Jake and Brett's relationship as well as the characters who, critics contend, might provide Jake with a model of behavior.

Set in Paris and Spain shortly after the end of World War I, The Sun Also Rises, for many the finest of Hemingway's longer works, is frequently described as a novel that captures the mood of an age. Its publication in 1926 forever identified the author with a generation and, even today, it is difficult, if not impossible for many readers and critics to consider Hemingway's works without drawing on the wealth of biographical information available on the now-famous expatriate artists of the 1920s. Centered around Jake and Brett's doomed love affair, the novel portrays the disillusionment and shift in values that resulted from the wartime experiences shared by a generation. In an essay emphasizing the historical context of the novel, Michael S. Reynolds explains that the end of the war signaled the end of a 20-year period during which the stable values of 1900 had eroded: "home, family, church, and country no longer gave the moral support that Hemingway's generation grew up with. The old values — honor, duty, love — no longer rang true." According to Linda Wagner-Martin, this loss of promise after the war led to the wasteland atmosphere evident in the works of Eliot and Dreiser. Similarly, The Sun Also Rises is frequently read as a record of the "Lost Generation," a term attributed to Gertrude Stein that refers to the aimless and damaged youth who survived the war. Although many critics have recognized that such an interpretation is limiting and that to read Hemingway's novel as a "paean to the lost generation" is, as Reynolds argues, to miss the point badly, Stein's epigraph continues to influence many readers' imaginations.

A frequently discussed aspect of Hemingway's work is his suggestive writing style. When The Sun Also Rises first appeared, it was, Wagner-Martin explains, considered a "new manifesto of modernist style and was praised for its dialogue and its terse, objective presentation of characters." The modemist method was understatement, "a seemingly objective way of presenting the hard scene or image." There was, Wagner-Martin continues, "no sentiment, no didactism, no leading the reader." This understated style, and the narrator's apparent toughness of attitude, can sometimes conceal pain, emotion, and desire. A typical example of this understated style is Jake's attempt, late in the novel, to justify Mike's drunken and, at times, vicious behavior towards Robert Cohn. Jake tells Brett that Cohn's presence in Pamplona has been hard on Mike, suggesting but leaving unsaid what is equally obvious: that Cohn's presence, not to mention Mike's and Pedro's, has also been very hard on him. According to James Nagel, Jake's love for Brett and the pain of their having to be apart "underscores everything he relates."

Early in the novel, Cohn tells Jake that he longs to get away, to travel to South America, to be elsewhere. Presenting himself as someone who knows that "you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another," Jake advises Cohn to start living his life now, in Paris. However, as Jake's narrative unfolds, it becomes evident that he has not yet learned to live according to his own advice. Tormented by thoughts of his injury and by his love for Brett, Jake spends many sleepless hours inhabiting the elsewhere of an imaginary past — the past he and Brett could have had, the past that continues to be a source of pain and frustration every time they are together. Evidence of this ongoing frustration is easy to find. In response to Jake's attempt at intimacy in the cab, for example, Brett turns away and tells him that she does not "want to go through that hell again." Likewise, when Brett tells Jake that she is "so miserable," he immediately gets the feeling that he is about to go through a nightmare that he has been through before and must now go through again.

The mutually destructive nature of Jake and Brett's relationship has led several critics to point to the scene in which Jake acknowledges that all he really wants is to know "how to live in it" — it referring to the world, to the new and ever-changing post-war reality and, as Kathleen Nichols suggests, to the world of emotional relationships. Consequently, critics have also identified characters in the novel who might provide Jake with a model of behavior. Robert Fleming, for example, suggests that Count Mippipopolous is an early prototype of the character type known as the "code hero" or "tutor" — a type whose minor flaws "are outweighed by his strict observation of a code." The Count illustrates courage and grace under pressure, maintains his self-respect in relation to Brett and, Fleming argues, imparts to Jake lessons "that will help [him] toward a philosophy of life." Another critic, Scott Donaldson, proposes that it is Bill Gorton, through humor directed at ideas and institutions, not human beings, who provides a model of behavior that can be emulated. Jane E. Wilson looks to yet another character, discussing the significance of the Englishman, Wilson-Harris, in association with the regenerative fishing trip to Burguete. She believes that Jake's relationship with Harris is "one of the keys to the meaning of the fishing episode and its beneficial aspects."

The character most often identified as a model of behavior is the young bullfighter, Pedro Romero. Early in the novel, Jake tells Cohn that "nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters." The appearance of an actual bullfighter later in the novel thus commands attention. Pedro is described as a "real one" — a bullfighter who does always "smoothly, calmly, and beautifully" what others could do only sometimes. Allen Josephs, who has explored how the art of toreo (the bullfight) lies at the heart of The Sun Also Rises, cites the work of H.R. Stoneback who is himself citing Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, to show that "the bullfight is meant to convey an emblem of moral behaviour." To be moral, conduct must be "rooted in courage, honour, passion, and it must exhibit grace under pressure." Josephs believes that all of the characters who make the pilgrimage to Pamplona "are measured — morally or spiritually — around the axis of the art of toreo." He identifies Pedro, the creator of the art, as the character closest to perfection.

Robert Cohn, by contrast, is rarely included in discussions about models of behavior. On the contrary, Cohn's behavior continually sets him apart from the rest of the group. The recipient of insults and abuse from several characters in the novel, Cohn is also frequently mistreated by critics. Josephs, for instance, has accused Cohn of being a "moral bankrupt who is completely out of place at the fiesta." It is important to remember, however, that Jake may not be providing an accurate picture of the man who spent a week in Spain with Brett. Jake even acknowledges this possibility, noting that he may not have "shown Robert Cohn clearly." He tries, briefly, to improve his incomplete portrait but continues to highlight moments and events that cast Cohn in a negative light. From the very beginning of the novel, Jake's depiction of Cohn seems partial. He mentions that Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton, but then strips the achievement of any value by noting that he is not "very much impressed" by this title. Similarly, on the first day of the fiesta, Jake notes that, while everyone else is drinking and having a good time, Cohn is passed out alone in a back room, sleeping on wine casks. Jake also pokes fun at Cohn's lack of acumen when the latter fails to understand a banner bearing the slogan "Hurray for the Foreigners!" As a result, when Mike verbally attacks Cohn, accusing him of following Brett around like a steer and of not knowing when he is not wanted, the accusations seem justified.

Sibbie O'Sullivan has described Cohn as a character who "lives in the waste land but does not adhere to its values." Jake's portrayal of Cohn appears to suggest that Cohn's values are out of date and out of place. However, Cohn's negative depiction is complicated by the frequent references to the fact that he is Jewish. Comments such as Mike's, who tells Jake that "Brett has gone off with men, but they weren't ever Jews," have led several critics to address the issue of anti-Semitism in the novel. Michael Reynolds believes that the depiction of Cohn does betray Hemingway's anti-Semitism but argues that to fault him "for his prejudice is to read the novel anachronistically." He believes that the novel's anti-Semitism "tells us little about its author but a good deal about America in 1926." Barry Gross, on the other hand, dismisses critics who dismiss Cohn's treatment in the novel as commonplace and wonders whether we should not expect our great writers "to rise above the regrettably commonplace of their society, especially writers who made careers out of being critics of all that they considered regrettably commonplace in American society."

Like other characters in the novel, Brett Ashley has also been identified as a model of behavior — but not for Jake. Instead, Brett's daring and unconventional lifestyle has led several critics to identify her as a new kind of woman. Although she is not, as James Nagel has pointed out, the first representation of "a sexually liberated, free-thinking woman in American literature," she is, Reynolds explains, "on the leading edge of the sexual revolution that produced two types of the 'new woman': the educated professional woman who was active in formerly all male areas and the stylish, uninhibited young woman who drank and smoked [and] devalued sexual innocence". But more than a model of behavior or a representation of something new, she is, like Jake, an individual trying to learn how to live her life. She is, like Jake, trying to get over what could have been.

Whether or not Jake and Brett do successfully overcome their attachment to the past they could have shared remains a topic of debate. The fact that Jake travels to Madrid to meet Brett is, for some, a sign that their relationship has not changed. James Nagel argues that the journey is evidence of Jake's continued love for Brett and that he "is resigned to the pain that continued association with her is likely to bring." But the continuation of their relationship, or at least, the continuation of their relationship as it has existed until now, becomes questionable in light of Jake's response to Brett's lament about the good time they could have had together: "Isn't it pretty to think so?" The novel's famous last words can be read as signaling a change in Jake's outlook. Donald Daiker reads them as the "coup de grace which effectively and permanently destroys all possibilities for the continuation of a romantic liaison between them." To Kathleen Nichols, the response shows that, instead of lamenting what could have been, Jake can now "calmly and ironically comment on how 'pretty' it is to dtink [his relationship with Brett] would have been so good." By no means a happy or even compensatory ending, Jake's response does suggest the possibility of a relationship with Brett that is not burdened by unrealistic ideas about an imaginary past.

Source: Jeffrey M. Lilburn, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale, 1999.

What Do I Read Next?

• Bullfighting often disgusts people as cruel treatment of animals. Whether or not you feel that way, it is worth learning more about the sport or art form. Try reading "The Spanish Fiesta Brava: Historical Perspective" by former matador Mario Carrion on his homepage at http://coloquio.com/toros.html.
• "La Historia de las Plazas de Toros en Espana — Research Paper," by Jason Westrope, is a very good historical discussion of bullfighting. It is in English and can be found at http://www.arch.usf.edu/people/students/westrope/portfoli/D5doc.htm.
• "The Undefeated" is Hemingway's first short story about bullfighting and can be found in his collection of 1925 entitled In Our Time.
• Hemingway's posthumously published love letter to the Paris of the 1920s is entitled A Moveable Feast (1954). The book is full of Parisian scenes as well as character sketches of his famous friends: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
• Set far away from Hemingway's stage, Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt (1922) has a similar satirical bent. Rather than strike at the aristocrats, Lewis was after the normalcy of business that America seemed to prefer in reaction to the disruption of the war. The name Babbitt has become synonymous with impoverished cultural spirit. While many despise Babbitt, many aspire to his wealth.
• The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald, another Midwesterner, is second to The Sun Also Rises as manifesto for the 1920s. It is the story of a young stockbroker named Nick Carraway who watches his neighbor, Jay Gatsby, become betrayed by his own dreams. The novel reveals the disillusionment of the time but offers little, beyond the character of Carraway, in the way of solution.