Gender Roles In The Sun Also Rises By Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway’s, The Sun Also Rises, describes narrator Jake Barnes’ journey from Paris to Pamplona with the company of old friends and expatriates. Throughout the novel, Hemingway depicts an association of several thematic ideas, especially the connection between gender roles and its destructive effect on relationships. Hemingway suggests through the use of dialogue and characterization the reversal of gender roles creates superficial relationships between characters of the novel, using sex as a catalyst to confirm shallow affairs. The concentration of the deceptive relationships revolve around Lady Brett Ashley, a self-announced bitch whose inability to settle down with any man, especially the narrator, is a result of her desire for sex with different men. In addition the reversal of gender roles further establishes the reasons for insincere relationships, as female masculinity prevents men from ascertaining confidence in any relationship and forcing an abandonment of traditional values previously uncompromised by World War I.
Throughout the course of the novel, the idea that Brett and Jake will always have constant relationship is evident through the actions of Brett. “Couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?” “I don’t think …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Hemingway’s portrayal of the destructive and artificial relationships can be derived from Lady Brett Ashley, whose actions isolate the expatriates and Robert Cohn from one another. Hemingway’s portray of female masculinity in relation to weakened male state of confidence instigates questions of his opinions and perspective of society after the end of the First World War. The end of World War I brought forth a new era of individuals, individuals forever altered by an absolute transition of