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Jake's Relationships in the Sun Also Rises

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Jake’s Relationships in The Sun Also Rises
In the novel The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes has two key relationships. Brett and Jake share a relationship that is very strange and doesn’t relate to how a normal couple should function. The other odd relationship Jake has is with Robert Cohn, a man who has an unacceptable way of dealing with rejection. Jake Barnes is a socially challenged man whose relations throughout the book shape how the reader perceives him.
It is clear that Lady Brett Ashley is anything but a lady. She is kind and sweet but she is extremely vulnerable to her attraction to men. Brett is not happy with her life or her environment and she searches for an escape in the arms of men. But, the men don’t fill the void she longs to fill. They only end up hurting her. “Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable” (Hemingway 32) has become her famous phrase when she runs back to Jake. Jake knows that he will never be able to have her for himself, but he keeps her around because the two wouldn’t know what to do without each other. The Count once asked them, “why don’t you get married, you two?” (Hemingway 68). They answered with the lame “We want to lead our own lives. . . We have our careers” (Hemingway 68) excuse. Jake tolerates her reckless and whorish behavior because he loves her unconditionally and he is willing to ignore everything she does. Jake forgives Brett of her promiscuity and disloyalty for two main reasons. The first and very minor reason is related to the questionable values of the time. “It was an ‘anything goes’ era right after the first war, and Jake’s message to Brett seems to be the same: anything goes as long as you eventually come back to me” (Toker). Jake is forced to live in this terrible way for a more major explanation. He is a weak person socially, but he is also physically disabled because of an injury that he endured during the war.

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