Effects Of Disillusionment In The Sun Also Rises

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Abigail Holt Mr. Clevenger AP English Literature and Composition 15 September 2014 Disillusionment in The Sun Also Rises In Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, the characters must come to terms with their disillusionment in life and the correlating effects from this discontent. The characters constantly search for new meanings after the destruction of traditional morals resulting from World War I. Each character in the novel must deal with the disenchantment that the war brings for them in different ways. Outside of this novel, we can see the effects of dissatisfaction and the ways people attempt to assuage or accept this feeling, whether through loose morals, heavy drinking and a lack of temperance, or trying to find a new identity.…show more content…
Lady Brett Ashley in particular shows this new, loose morality. While still technically married to her husband back in England, she is engaged to Mike Campbell, and even then, her insatiable desire for sexual relationships pushes her to pursue a relationship with Pedro the bullfighter. The integral reason behind why she has a relationship with a man is to have such carnal activities; this is why she constantly states that she cannot be in a relationship with the impotent Jake Barnes, even though there are other, deeper reasons why she denies herself a happy relationship with Jake. She also dresses to show off her assets,. Lady Ashley was a nurse during the war and saw the horrors it wrought and also lost her “one true love” to the war; because of all the gore and terrible things she witnessed and tended to, she became disillusioned with the old traditional morals of what women should do and how they should act. Brett tries to fix her dissatisfaction with the world after the war with men and…show more content…
They each turned to drinking heavily to forget the “apparently meaningless world” (LitFinder Contemporary Collection) around them. There were repercussions for their lack of temperance; whenever the group drank to excess, which was often, the dissention in the background of the group, centered around Brett, reared its head and arguments and fights followed. The most notable drinker of the group was Brett’s fiance, Mike Campbell; due to his problem, he caused tensions to rise whenever he was inebriated. And he was inebriated often. Hemingway doesn’t always portray alcohol as something that makes the characters descend into vitriolic behavior; during casual, intimate dinners particularly between Bill Gorton and Jake, alcohol is seen as simply normal and doesn’t lead to immoral behavior. However, all the characters were looking to alcohol to solve their problems, or at the very least, numb them from the pain their disillusionment caused. This solution was only temporary and sometimes was ineffective, like when Bill told Jake to have another drink to feel better. Jake states, “I began to feel drink but I did not feel any better” (Hemingway 226). Some pain and suffering cannot be taken away by a drink. That did not stop any of the characters from trying

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