So, what will we be doing today? Traveling in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"


Seminar Paper, 2007

14 Pages, Grade: 1,3


Excerpt


Table of Contents

1. Why Travel?

2.1 Jake the Expatriate
2.2 Jake's Travel Destinations
2.2.1 Paris
2.2.2 Burguete
2.2.3 Pamplona
2.2.4 San Sebastian
2.2.5 Madrid
2.3 Jake, Robert and Brett - Hunters or Hunted?
2.3.1 Robert Cohn and Jake Barnes - Two Approaches to Traveling
2.3.2 Lady Brett Ashley - The Trophy

3. The Moral of the Story

1. Why Travel?

People travel for many reasons. Some travel to work, some travel in order to transport things, or to escape their nagging relatives. Others travel to go to war, to scratch their names into ancient columns or even for love, in its numerous variations. Basically all life forms travel, from the SARS virus to the great northern rorqual. Some stay at their destinations, others return or travel on. It is safe to say that traveling is indeed an immensely popular activity.

In 1926 a man named Ernest Hemingway wrote a book. It was called "The Sun Also Rises" (as it also travels) and it recounts a recreational journey undertaken by the protagonist, Jake Barnes, and his companions. Jake is very fond of traveling. He is also very fond of getting drunk and seeing people and animals hurt each other. It is hard to tell which he favors more, since he travels in order to get drunk and see violence, although it would not be necessary, since violence and alcohol can be encountered at selected locations all across the world. Traveling must therefore have a more vital function in Jake's life.

There is also a softer, more vulnerable Jake. A Jake that travels to France, then to Spain and back in order to aid a woman that causes him nothing but pain and trouble. A Jake that relishes long promenades in the mountains with his fellows. A young Jake that traveled to Europe to protect it from tyranny and oppression and heroically sacrificed his manhood in the process.

As multitudinous as Jake's motivations may have been, there seems to be one constant element that can be named as the driving force behind all of Jake's travels. This element is escape. Escape from a dismal and boring life in his home country and in Paris, escape from happiness in Spain and with (or without) Brett, or escape from his war experiences. Since it is such a fundamental part of his life, he, as the narrator, also portrays the other characters as fugitives from themselves and from others.

In order to verify this statement, I will examine Jake's possible reasons for expatriation in general. Then I will try to further examine the individual travel stops that Jake visits during his journey. I will show that each location has a different meaning to him, although the guiding theme remains. Then again I will attempt to shine a light on the driving powers behind the restlessness of the three central characters: Jake, Brett and Robert. Although the narrator does show some insight into their motivations, there are still deeper ones that he might not realize because they are also inherent in himself.

2.1 Jake the Expatriate

Bill, who is an American tourist, gives a very comprehensive definition of this group while he is trying to mock Jake at the hotel in Burguete:

"You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get
precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink
yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all
your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You
hang around cafés."[1]

These are problems that many immigrants face. They belong to neither country and live in a sort of emotional and mental vacuum. For this reason, Jake also entirely lacks a real tourist's thirst for adventure and novelty; he did not come to Europe to gain knowledge but to lose it. If he had ever believed that leaving his country would make him feel better, he was obviously wrong

Just like Hemingway, Jake comes from Kansas City, a rather small and remote city

in the Midwestern United States.[2] Europe must have seemed like a mythological destination to him, even after he had fought there. He is then forced to realize that he cannot run away from himself[3] and that his life is probably even more petty and and monotonous than it would have been at home. Even worse, his friends are all the same; he never connects to the local inhabitants and stays within his community of outsiders.

Also, as a Catholic, he might have hoped to find more affiliates in Europe, and especially France, where his religion is still dominant. Generally, he is very reserved about his former and present motives for living in Europe. It seems as if there were no reasons and Jake, who never admits to being disappointed, just handles the problem by drinking it away.

Another reason for living in Europe, and also a very probable one, might be Lady Brett Ashley. Just as Jake seems to be hanging on to his boring life, he is hanging on to her. This would also explain his fascination with death and violence: He perceives his love as a weakness and tries to compensate this breach in his male integrity by indulging in stereotypical male behavior. Of course, this is also a remedy for his emasculation. This context is on the other hand a very private one and therefore cannot explain other Americans' motivations for emigrating. Nevertheless, all of Jake's friends have private as well as socio-political issues that could be held accountable for their decision.

2.2 Jake's Travel Destinations

2.2.1 Paris

Paris is not only a travel destination, it is a new home to the expatriates. It embodies everything the sophisticated soul would miss in America: arts, culture, architecture and liberal morals. Apart from these idealistic reasons, there are also very practical ones; it is questionable whether characters such as the ones portrayed in The Sun Also Rises would go through the inconvenience of leaving their home countries just to prance about the Champs Elysées all day.

On one hand, the city's infrastructure is highly developed for European standards, therefore the Americans there do not have to miss any of the civilized world's luxuries they have enjoyed at home. On the other hand, it has a nostalgic flair with its horse-cabs, open cafés and other little delights that make the true bon vivant rejoice in his seat. Frances Clyne even calls it "[o]ne of the cleanest cities in all Europe".[4] Apart from the insult from the belittlement, Georgette is also bemused by the fact that her Paris, the Paris of the Parisians, is not at all "clean". Her own dental condition[5] is a strong hint towards the natives' standard of living.

Also, Paris is set very favorably in strictly geographical terms. London is on an island, Berlin is too far east, Rome too far south. Also, London weather is too humid, just as Berlin is too cold and Rome is too hot.

Another aspect is the deeply inherent republicanism in both French and Americans. Ideologically, this links the Americans closer to the French people than to any of the other European powers, who were mostly still headed by monarchs. The mental compatibility becomes very clear, when Jake over-tips a waiter and in turn receives his friendship.[6] He, as a son of the capitalist nation, deeply welcomes the French's ability to base human devotion strictly on money. Furthermore, Jake's deepest belief is probably that everything in the world has its price.[7]

This leads to a very pragmatic reason for the expatriates' adoration of Paris: In 1926, one US Dollar was worth 25,5 Francs.[8] This made the notoriously underpaid American writers and journalists very wealthy, and therefore popular, men. Also, regarding their drinking habits, the Prohibition alone must have been a good enough reason for them to cross the Atlantic twice. Combined with the purchasability of goods as holy as friendship, Paris was surely the ideal habitat for hedonistic Americans.

[...]


[1] TSAR, p.74

[2] "Hemingway's Spanish Tragedy", p.42: "[...] he is alienated from the conventional, middle-class American town to which he has returned."

[3] TSAR, p.8

[4] TSAR, p.13: "Really? I find it so extraordinarily clean. One of the cleanest cities in all

Europe."

[5] TSAR, p.10

[6] TSAR, p.152

[7] see also: "Reader's Guide to Hemingway"

[8] http://www.wsgn.euv-frankfurt-o.de/vc/2006 2007_WS/nue_wirtschaftskrisen/nue_wirtschaftskrisen_finanzsystem.pdf, March 22nd, 2007

Excerpt out of 14 pages

Details

Title
So, what will we be doing today? Traveling in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"
College
Free University of Berlin  (John-F.-Kennedy-Institut)
Grade
1,3
Author
Year
2007
Pages
14
Catalog Number
V84186
ISBN (eBook)
9783638008419
ISBN (Book)
9783638914352
File size
446 KB
Language
English
Quote paper
Emal Ghamsharick (Author), 2007, So, what will we be doing today? Traveling in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/84186

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