And Sun Also Rises Essay

This paper discusses Ernest Hemingways novel And Sun withal Rises (1926) and takes an in-depth analysis of the development of the effeminate cite Lady Brett Ashley in trying to come up with better judgment of the characters role in the novel. Hemingways And Sun Also Rises is widely regarded as Hemingways best novel. It became the overnight Bible of the postwar multiplication. (Barrett, 724) The novel revolves the theme of damage d unmatchable to Hemingways generation by the violence of World War I.All the main characters of the novel be to genuine extent scarred by war. Some of them suffer physiological injuries the likes of Jake or Count Mippipopolous and others bear the mental trauma of addled generation (the phrase belonged to Hemingways friend Gertrude Stein and became the novels inaugural epigraph). Among those psychologic aloney deteriorated individuals Lady Brett Ashley is a controversial character that evokes contrary readers and critics reaction. This paper explo res the path by which Lady Ashleys character develops done the novel.With the first meeting with Brett Ashley her individual female sexual appeal and special general engagingness is revealed. From the beginning of the book, men find her irresistible. When Jake, as narrator, first instals Brett, he says, Brett was damned good- sounding. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boys. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you befuddled none of it with that wool jersey (Hemingway, 22).Robert Cohn, too, is immediately captivated by Brett, and a short time later, he says, Shes a remarkably attractive fair sex (Hemingway, 38). She is a strong and independent woman and probably these atomic number 18 the features that attract men more than her physical beauty. Her real tool is her personal magnetism that strikes the men virtually her. Every significant male character in the novel, at o ne time or another, comments on Bretts female attractiveness. When he is introduced to Brett, Bill Gorton says, Beautiful lady (Hemingway, 74) Mike Campbell says, Brett, you ar a cognizely piece.Dont you think shes beautiful? (Hemingway, 79) These compliment argon like a refrain that is reiterated through the rest of the novel. condescension the abounding attention on mens side Brett rejects to mystify committed to a single man, at least physically. Neither the profuseness of attention nor her independence makes Brett a happy woman. Having first appeared as a careless(p) free woman Brett Ashley turns out to be an unhappy and humbled creature just the same as all those who lived through the war.Brett is lots described in the literary criticism as sexually promiscuous, or even a nymphomaniac, which seems extreme given that in the course of the account she has sexual relationships with, at most, three men her fiancee, Mike Campbell Robert Cohn and Pedro Romero. Some critics , like Edmund Wilson, assess Bretts conduct as bitch-like Wilson interprets Brett Ashley as an exclusively pestiferous force (p. 238). This interpretation, plausibly, is directly related rely to Bretts own command that she makes to Jake after she leaves Romero You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch (Hemingway, 245).Nonetheless it is difficult to determine with such interpretation of Bretts character. First of all it is known that she is one of the lost generation, the people whose youth fell on the post-war cessation when the relationships and responsibilities were loose and disordered, and so Bretts behavior merely reflects this time. Furthermore, though Brett never stayed with any man longer than she wanted, she never displayed cruelty in spot toward men, so she could not destruct them to any degree. And the most important intimacy which explains Bretts character is again related to the time of the novel.Brett Ashley belongs to those people whose t houghts are confused being affected by the war. So while looking for her way in life she fails in finding the lull for her psychological disturbances therefore continues her self-abusive conduct. Brett can be profoundly careless of the feelings of others. She scatters cigarette ashes on Jakes rugs, and when Romero gives her a bulls severed ear after a successful bullfight, she leaves the gift behind, stuffed in a hotel drawer. Cohn calls her a sadist when she is in-situ by the plight of the horses gored in the bullring.Certainly she uses Jake heartlessly at times, expecting him to introduce her to a man she desires, put up with her affairs, remain steadfast in his devotion to her, and faithfully run to her rescue on short watching when she finds herself at loose ends in another country. Yet she is also profoundly unhappy and emotionally fragile. Viewed more sympathetically, she can be seen as a self-destructive woman, traumatized by the ugly and unromantic loss of her first love to dysentery in the war Brett hurts no one in the novel as severely as she hurts herself.Her nymphomania, her alcoholism, her constant fits of depression, and her obsession with bathing are all symptoms of an individual engaged in a consistent pattern of self-abuse (Whitlow, 56). All in her misery she often complains to Jake, her only true friend, around her aimless existence and unsatisfying life. Her vagrancy from relationship to relationship is assimilated with Jake and company roaming around bars. As the novel unfolds one observes how Lady Ashley transforms from the self-confident independent woman into one who seems extremely awkward being by herself.That is why she is curious for the shelter in more or less stable though platonic relations with Jake. As with the other characters, World War I obviously played the determinative role in the formation Brett Ashleys character. Having lost her true love during the war she elaborated the pattern of hit-or-miss relations, especiall y with regard to men. Her skepticism and lost faith in essay for true love symbolizes the search of the whole lost generation for their crappy values. Unable to find support in the traditional convictions that imposed certain meaning to her life Brett feels morally lost.Having lost belief in anything Brett unitedly with her friends is trying to escape the reality and fill her empty life with careless wandering from bar to bar, living night life, drinking and entertaining, doing everything that fits into the notion escapist activity. The character of Lady Brett Ashley is developing through the novel from the initial impression of careless but happy woman into the typical representative of post-war generation with aimless way in life. Parties, free love and other kinds of merry-making are only the futile distraction for concealing the sorrow and insecurity that make full her soul.