Hemingway's The Great Gatsby And The Sun Also Rises

Improved Essays
Hemingway didn’t intend to ignore the society through his concentrating on the individual in his journey to create values but his awareness to the importance of the battle of the self which leads to the achievements of valid and meaningful relationships among society. For instance, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises represented the American soldiers after World War I who were suffering not much by the war itself as by the attitude of other Americans toward the war and its consequences. The protagonist, in Hemingway’s major novels searches to understand the nature of war, love and the society that surrounds him. The characters and situations that Hemingway used in his writings are usually violent which appeared in so many kinds of worlds that Hemingway’s spirit depicted. The Sun Also Rises showed the world of hard – drinking and sexuality while A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls showed the chaotic and brutal of war world. The world of sport appeared in some of his stories like “My old man” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and it was clear to see the world crime in the “The Gambler”, “The Killers” and To Have and Have Not. And even for other works there is a sign of physical or spiritual suffering. Hemingway recorded in his fictions the relentless antagonists in dubious battle; these are action and reaction ,force and shock, challenge and response. As well as he recorded with precision the attacks and counterattacks, the retreats, the act of bravery and cowardice, the causalities and the irreparable damages. Criticism has recently recognized two heroes in Hemingway’s writing; The first one is Nick Adam hero who appeared in the generic Nick Adam character as a shocked invisible voice in In Our Time and thereafter Nick would grow up through the three volumes of short stories and at least four of Hemingway’s novels changing his shape but not the spirit within different names as Jake Barnes, Fredric Henry, Richard Cantwell or Henry. The second one is the code hero who appeared early in Hemingway’s fictions with different forms and shapes as Manuel in “The Undefeated’, Belmonte in The Sun Also Rises, Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not and Santiago in The old Man and The Sea and in the last two published stories. What characterized Hemingway’s works is his using of a deep and abiding violence. As his attention turned most on the outdoor life of war, fishing, hunting and hiking, his works revealed a tragic fight between man and nature, man and his fellow-men, and man and his own self. Violence of war and violent confrontation with unfriendly world forced the protagonists in Hemingway’s works to get the qualities of courage and perseverance and to develop moral codes of behaviour. Hemingway used three kinds of violence. The first one is the physical violence which is the result of the individual’s attempt to come to terms with an external environment with physical acts and this …show more content…
He shared with other novelists the sense of wound, diminishment, the sense of mourning for the fallen worlds and the loss of the self and values; For instance, Caddy’s loss of innocence in The Sound and Fury by William Faulkner, the Gatsby’s pre-war romantic dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald or Jake’s impotence in The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner intended not just to express the trauma of wounds but also with works such as The Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, and The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and Fury, the three writers showed their frustrated desires to serve in the American military’s colossal war and they explored the mobilization for World War I. Many American writers shared Hemingway his sense of revealing the violence of World War I and it’s brutality, they all experienced the sense of disillusionment and depicted in their works the sufferings of the individual with their tool of using irony to depict inner turmoil, conflict, cynicism and the past. Those writers are called, “The Lost Generation” and this name was given to Sinclair Lewis, E.E Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, John Does Passos, Scott Fitzgerald, Gould Cozzens and William

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Irony In The Yellow Birds

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable”. Kevin Powers, the author of The yellow birds was 17 when he enlisted in the war, and Powers was a machine gunner as well. There was 20,000,000 casualties in the Great War, and Wilfred Owen, the author of “Dulce et Decorum Est” was 25 when he died just one week before the war ended. Also Tim O’Brien, author of The things they carried was drafted into the Vietnam war which had 58,000 American deaths, and 2,000,000 Vietnamese deaths. In these documents, writers use imagery, irony, and structure to protest war.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “Now I am depressed myself, that’s why I never think about these things.” (Hemingway 179). In order to forget about traumatic experiences and events, millions of people all around the world, from all walks of life, and different eras of existence have always used distractions as a coping mechanism. In A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Lieutenant Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley are two characters who best exemplify this way of thinking. These characters rely on different distractions to ease the pain and harshness caused by war.…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In an era muddled with reform, Post War veterans, and the search for the American Dream, the 1920’s were a critical point for all. Possibly the most critical for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, authors driven by their lost hopes and dreams, of whose literature is still studied today to understand the adversities and bewilderment of the past. Their novels, The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises both explore the motif of achieving this American Dream throughout the representation of superficial women. Women in both novels portray their changing role in society whilst in relationships with men whom they easily manipulate and establish that they are not able to love genuinely. Submerged with the idea that Daisy Buchannan, a woman of…

    • 1661 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Gatsby and Chicago Thesis Marco Rubio once stated “The American Dream is a term that is often used but also often misunderstood. It isn 't really about becoming rich or famous. It is about things much simpler and more fundamental than that.” Everyone has a different perspective on what they want in life and how happiness is different for everyone. Although both pieces of literature highlighted the value of money and fame.…

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In “The Sun Also Rises” Hemingway introduces his novel with two quotes. The first is a quote from Gertrude Stein, a painter, poet, who was at the center of the social scene of American expatriates in the 1920s Paris. She identifies that Hemingway’s is “lost generation.” This term characterizes the emotional, moral and in many cases physical emptiness of the post-WWI generation, that witnessed the bloodiest and deadliest times known to man, to this point in history. This “lost generation” sought comfort in the decadent, carefree times of the roaring 1920s where alcohol was at the epicenter.…

    • 1884 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. In a lot of movies, the audience follows the characters as they try to find a reason or a purpose in their lives. This search can create some pretty entertaining conflicts for the viewer to watch unfold. In Casablanca Rick is depicted as a cold and grumpy man until Ilsa, his old flame enters his bar.…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Fitzgerald and Hemingway appear to be different, but actually have significant similarities. Hemingway uses short and simple language, and the iceberg model. Fitzgerald uses elaborate and precise language, but they both include religious symbolism and allusions to Jesus Christ in their texts. The difference between Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s style of writing, is that Hemingway uses more simple text passages, while Fitzgerald uses elaborate text passages.…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    World War II and Civil War brought the most horrifying time in American History which killed countless people with nuclear gas and atomic bombs. There was one author who wrote about this time. He was William Faulkner, who also won the noble prize at the time for his outstanding and unique contribution to the American literature on December 10,1950. Faulkner addressed his speech in Stockholm, Sweden to the guests, the nation and his fellow writers that he believes will one day stand where he is. William appreciated the award and gave his opinion on what it means to be a talented writer.…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    His trip to Albania gave him something to look forward to if he could ever possibly afford it. When Allister came by with the news that he and his wife were going to pay for his mission trip, it left him speechless. His next trip was to northern India. All-in-all, he went there, three times.…

    • 1974 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Facing It Analysis

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Previous poems and short stories regarding the war era have been similar for the most part. Authors all spoke through a voice different than theirs, used symbolism to represent larger war aspects, and simply soaked their literature with painful descriptions. However, after the war and with the entrance of postmodernism into American literature, authors such as Yusef Komunyakaa, Tim O’Brien, and Kurt Vonnegut were introduced as their literature targeted more personal war positions/experiences. Such particular positions exposed the authors’ viewpoints about the war and how it has affected their lives afterwards.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Great Gatsby

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There are many debatable issues over which people base their opinions. Human beings are made to have their own personal views on different ideologies and practices; no one ideology can fight against all other views and say that factually and morally their way of viewing things in life is the only right way. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald illustrates the concept of the American dream. Through the use of characters like Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom and Daisy Buchanan and many more other characters. The Great Gatsby is a story of the defeated love between a man and a woman.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?” is the burning question constantly being asked in Lana Del Rey’s Young and Beautiful (LINE 10-11). Young and Beautiful was used for the 2013 movie adaptation of the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, which took in place in the 1920s. The lyrics allude to the conflicts that Gatsby and Daisy come into contact with while the instrumentals of the song create a slow, haunting, and melodic feel as the lyrics are being sung. The purpose of the song is to allow the readers to understand the story and character that Lana Del Rey portrays musically.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A dream deferred can be described as having a specific goal in mind, but that goal somehow ends up delayed. In both “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the idea of deferred dreams is clearly portrayed through the characters of Walter Younger and Jay Gatsby. Walter Younger and Jay Gatsby are two completely different characters, but they are similar in wanting to achieve their dreams. Walter dreams of owning a liquor store but that has not been able to happen because of his poverty and the prejudice in his society. Gatsby dreams that the lies he surrounds himself with will become real resulting in Daisy loving him again, but reality catching up to him is what stands in his way.…

    • 1286 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There is nothing more powerful than the emotions that are brought upon a person that inevitably accompany the sensory descriptors that people experience every moment of everyday. Due to this, many writers incorporate descriptive writing meant to harness precise images that specifically targets sensory-oriented imagery in an attempt to force the reader to better emotionally connect to the literature as well as invent a unique atmosphere. As one of the Time Magazine’s All-Time 100 novels, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the well-known novel The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway both utilize an imagistic writing style throughout their literature. While both authors include the enticing aspects of imagistic writing, both portray the style in a unique manner. This results in the reader having a…

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our lives.…

    • 1877 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays