Essay Example on The Sun Also Rises is a novel narrated by Jake Barnes

The Sun Also Rises is a novel narrated by Jake Barnes This novel is made up of three different book Book one takes place in Paris France Book two takes place in Spain which is where Jake travels but he is mostly in the town of Pamplona Book three also takes place in Spain In the first book Jake connects with many Americans who live outside of their native country He spends a lot of time with them going to restaurants drinking and talking We first meet a man named Robert Cohn who is a Jewish writer Cohn is staying in Paris with his fiancée Frances She is described as a woman in her thirties who is afraid that she is aging fast and is losing beauty so she thinks Cohn will leave her In the end Cohn actually does end up leaving her We also meet Lady Ashley also known as Brett Jake and Brett used to have a thing but now he wants to start that up again and get back together Brett does not want the same She makes it clear to him that it isn t that she doesn't love him but that she can t handle being with him due to his injury that he received in WW1 Jakes genitals were badly injured and he is no longer able to perform sexually So instead Brett wants to marry a wealthy man named Mike Campbell Between books one and two Frances goes back to England and Brett goes to San Sebastian where she ends up having an affair with Cohn Most of book two takes place in Pamplona Spain where they all gather together to watch the festival of San Fermin and the bullfights There is a lot more drinking and partying that takes place Mike and Cohn get into a number of arguments over Brett In the meantime Brett falls in love with a nineteen year old bullfighter named Pedro Romero She has an affair with him Cohn becomes upset that he is losing Brett and gets into a physical fight with Jake and knocks him out 

Then Cohn gets into a fight with Pedro and beats him up badly Book Two ends with Cohn leaving town Brett running away with Pedro and Mike drinking himself unconscious When book three begins the festival is over Jake travels to San Sebastian where he gets a telegram from Brett saying that she's in trouble in Madrid When he gets to Madrid Brett explains that she broke up with Pedro because he wanted to marry her and she didn't want to She also says that she can't marry Mike anymore The story finishes with Jake and Brett going out to explore Madrid together but we're left with uncertainty of where life might take them next Jake Barnes If World War 1 never happened Jake would probably be a total stud All the woman would want him and the men would be jealous Unfortunately in our world and in the novel World War I most definitely did happen and it left an ugly scar upon everyone it affected Jake is no exception His scars are not only mental they're physical too Georgette looked up to be kissed She touched me with one hand and I put her hand away Never mind What's the matter You sick Everybody's sick I'm sick too 23 He has a war wound that makes him unable to perform in sexual activities Which to him explodes the image of him as a hero 

He's A hero who's not able to be a hero a man who can't perform his manly duties Even though women definitely do want him they can't have him While men admire and respect him they certainly don't want to be him Jake represents the aimlessness and dissatisfaction of the post World War 1 era He was permanently marked by the war and he's just one of the thousands and thousands of young men damaged by it He may try to keep a calm and collected front but when he lets his guard down he's shaken up pretty easily Jake is a symbolic object of an entire generation damaged by the trauma of a war of global scale which most people have never seen before I lay awake thinking and my mind jumping around Then I couldn't keep away from it and I started to think about Brett and all the rest of it went away I was thinking about Brett and my mind stopped jumping around and started to go in sort of smooth waves Then all of a sudden I started to cry 39 In this moment Jake breaks down and gives in to his despair about his hopeless relationship with Brett It is awfully easy to be hard boiled about everything in the daytime but at night it is another thing 42 This quote is talking about how Jake is having some difficulty staying strong through everything In the quote he mentions how the nights are hard probably because he's all alone It isn't hard to get too into your head when you're alone for a long time What he struggles with makes it difficult for him to interact with others When he does talk to others he isn't giving them his full self because he doesn't think he can