The Sun Also Rises, The Lost Generation, and Love ethics
just some thoughts on a bad book
Many problems arise If I start talking about Ernest Hemingway and his legacy. He, along with other white American writers that are amongst the literary canon, has a history plagued with bigotry, racism, antisemitism, and misogyny. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) is no exception to these -isms, yet I think Hemingway and this novel still illuminate conditions of our sociality affected by late-stage capitalism.
The Lost Generation Never Found
We have not yet grown into adulthood among American war but live in this perpetual cycle of violence through our individuation. There are many similarities between a generation that grew up in the early 20th century and our current conditions of interaction and life. Despite the many cultural differences, the age” can elucidate our contemporary times and despite the changes or how changes in the way that our society views the prospects of the world and its potential.
The “lost generation” is a term coined by Gertrude Stein an early 20th-century American writer; in an interview, she referred to a generation of young people growing up post World War 1. Although, when you research the lost generation, it will be displayed as a writers’ movement, Stein was referring to a group of artists, i.e., writers, musicians, and poets; yet, I would say the “lost generation” represent social morale. The “lost generation” disorients a lot of people’s people's conservative views on life. Through the disillusionment of a post-World War 1 society, many young people growing up during those times lost their identities or redefined their identities, broke away from traditions, and had an uneasy feeling about the certainty of their futures.
I believe that the world and our society today haven’t completely healed from this feeling or social morale, but not only healed but scarred even worse than the generation prior. Amanda Chatila, in “The Lost Generation and Millennials,” claims that millennials and the lost generation share many similarities but where they seem to be most similar is in their optimism about the future. Optimism is a faith exercise; maybe it is a religion, perhaps you will be right in the end, maybe you will not. Yet, since our lives are real and have real consequences, it is hard to be optimistic about our futures as a collective. With an impossible reversal of climate change and the upkeep and maintenance of a militant police state, capitalism is killing our worlds in every facet imaginable. Optimism does not shine above the sky of capitalism here.
The lost generation never found personifies this sort of new reality that may make white people uncomfortable. A Trump era of politics (it’s important to note that Trump politics is essential to our social morale, yet not quintessential, which I would say is something along the lines of capitalism and the color line) recognized and validated white people's intolerance with a new reality that wasn't strictly white and patriarchal; hence we see retaliation of all different sorts surrounding us in our lives, i.e., Roe v Wade overturning, the need to hide our education from this country's brutal history, ramped police brutality, etc. Still, as we saw in the early 20th century, when the ways of the world seem to be filled with despair and nihilism, we tend to break away from a traditional, conservative way of life; or break away from whiteness, gender normalities, patriarchy, and begin to consider what it is we truly want out of our lives and with a history of struggle amongst the oppressed against the oppressors, I think this can lead to revolutionary tendencies.
The Sun Also Rises
In observation, some research presented in Chatila’s essay shares similarities with the lost generation in many ways. Many of those ways are represented in Hemingways “The Sun Also Rises,” which include an eagerness to travel, obsessions with drinking at every social event and breaking away from gender normalities and gender roles. I want to say that the lost generation that we see at the beginning of the 20th century; has been a catalyst for how we interpret and view the sociology of our world today. However, for one, we're constantly trying to fight back against gender normalities and the patriarchy and how those are and how those two institutions affect both men and women. Also, we see it in terms of our social morale or wealth Mercedes and instance of thinking that not many people feel socially wealthy. I think there's been a veil of American exceptionalism that has come across that is unveiled itself to some people in our generation; it has left them with them for no cause of optimism; this is not to ignore the significant part of a country does that still replicates does institutions that we are constantly fighting back again. I sort of want to say again that the last generation tickly highest viewed in learning and understanding why is the sun also rises we see a mainly through the character Bret.
The Sun Also Rises is centered around a group of friends living in Paris, France. They spend most of their time club and bar hopping, eating, drinking, and smoking, and the relationships are fluid. Much like my idea of performance and nonperformance, these characters, representative of the ideals of the lost generation, are constantly in nonperformance. Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes are the two main characters that are the supposed embodiments of the illusion of the lost generation.
Lady Brett Ashley embodies this break away from traditional views of gender. Brett, whose name could be recognized as not feminine, is a carefree, independent woman who charms everyone she meets. Brett refuses to settle with one person, preserving her independence, yet at the same time often confesses that she’s not happy with her freedom. (This could also demonstrate Hemingway’s misogyny as a woman has space but is portrayed as if she doesn’t know what to do with it or about it). During the war, Brett’s true love died of dysentery. Her subsequent aimlessness, especially concerning men, can be interpreted as a futile, subconscious search for this original love. Brett’s search is perhaps symbolic of the entire Lost Generation’s search for the shattered prewar values of love and romance. It is important to note that it appears that Hemingway believed a free woman was always a corrupting, destructive force for men. Because Brett thinks her strength and independence will eventually undermine Romero's (a side character Brett hooks up with later in the novel) strength and independence, she threatens him and his career. She is a threat to him since she does not act in a traditionally feminine manner.
"Oh darling," Brett said, "I’m so miserable."
Jake Barnes, a former soldier of World War 1, is a passive-aggressive character, never directly stating his feelJake'sbout people but giving to implications. Jake’s injury, which is never said, has made him unable to have sex, and this is the main thing keeping him from being together with Brett, as Brett is unwilling to give up sex. Through Jake, we see insecurity due to his inability to have sex and how that ultimately is the detriment keeping him from being with his true love, Brett, and is what makes him angry and jealous of other men she’s engaged with. The Sun Also Rises poses these questions about what a man is if not able to perform sexually, what sort of heteronormative relationship can last with those ‘problems, and what does it say about ‘maleness’ to have your identity threatened by the ability to perform. By the novel's end, Brett and Jake are left to wonder what could have been if there was never any war.
"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn’t it pretty to think so?
This is all to say that through some indirect or direct ways, these two main characters of the novel both portray or cause us to ponder the roles gender play within our lives. The effect of the war has left Brett with a love loss and Jake unable to keep his love, so they turn to other people or drinks. The lost generation has similarities with the way we live today, mainly in the sense of the break away from traditional values. I believe this break away from conventional values happens naturally due to external circumstances that directly affect our everyday, material lives.
Starting with millennials who grew up in an economic crisis, housing crisis, 9/11, etc., to kids and young adults growing up amidst a pandemic, a recession, outrageous external affairs, and climate change, it is hard to have the same faith and admiration for the future of the country and the world as we see it today. So naturally, we may transition into another way of life that deals with unsettling/troubling realities. All in all, these all lend themselves to be representative of late-stage capitalism, and capitalism is reliant upon our individuation. “How can I fix these circumstances in which I live?” “What can I do to make my situation better?” yet all these problems are a matter of collective suffering. Through this individual study of how to better the self, and with little to no thought or imagination given to how we can better ourselves collectively we run the risk of the sun never rising and losing our lives to the very thing that has made us “lost.”
“The Sun Also Rises” inspired me to write because, at its core, the novel is possibly tackling some critical and philosophical issues but also in Hemingway’s way of prioritizing love as the story's main plot. Different trips with friends, eating, drinking, just being people left with the possibility to preserve their social and loveful relations. In every sense, these characters are a great embodiment of what it means for me to be in nonperformance. To some degree, the characters' daily activities were about attacking our individuation and trying to figure out how to do these social aspects of our lives, with room to error and error over again until you get it right.
Love Ethics
The term love ethics comes to me in an attempt to summarize the radical power and possibilities that comes from love. Although the lost generation and young adults today share less than desirable external fates, their passion and will to live never truly wavered. There we have the ability of love ethics. I believe love ethics are present in how we choose to live our lives and continue to break away from traditional, white, conservative standards, prioritizing the quality of our lives.
Love ethics presents us with the will to continue our lives and attempt to provide some retaliation against so many things we’ve been losing control over. I think part of the reason why ‘love ethics’ is such an important term is that it prioritizes the fact that love is the only thing that can will us out of our condition. The brutality that creates the conditions of our individuation is the same brutality that refuses to look any different from that individuation. If love has something to do with being in community with one another, then love ethics will lift us away from the brutal reduction of ourselves to the one.
Ok so,
I will honestly say I do not think this book is any good. There are so many issues with the characters in the book; at their core, they are vile people, but I thought the conditions that inspired the novel and the actions of the story (which is almost entirely autobiographical) were something important to talk about. I think the lost generation, today’s baby boomers’, shares many similarities to how we have been growing and surviving in a World just as traumatic.
The characters living in lust and love reminds me that love, for me, indeed has been the only thing I desire in this world. As I’ve described, a love that works, changes, adjusts, and continues to grow has the potential to be radical, a radical love willing to destroy and imagine something anew. I need love to pour on me the way water meets water from a fall. There is no wealth or power worth keeping and preserving without love.
My name is Savon Rodgers. I’m a writer/educator.
Writing to help us all give truth to the world.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RodgersSavon
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