In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes, Robert Cohn and Lady Brett Ashley’s lives have been impacted by the outbreak of World War One. However, Cohn still lives by the pre-war values, mainly due to the fact that the war had little impact on him, unlike Jake who was injured in combat, or Brett, who lost her true love during the war. They all have characteristics that are similar with many people who were a part of what Gertrude Stein called “the lost generation”, a generation of people whose previous values were figuratively destroyed by the outbreak of World War I, and they wandered the post-war world without guidance, without a purpose. (Britannia 1 ) This is because Hemingway created these characters to symbolize a large portion of people in the 1920’s, through the characters attitudes, lifestyle and personalities. In doing so, Hemingway uses these three characters to represent different groups of people within the lost generation. Robert Cohn represents the people of the lost generation whose lives had been unaffected directly by the war, and those who still continued to live by failed the pre-war values of romance, morality and honor. Many of these people were outcasts; they were different, just like Cohn, and Cohn knew what it was like to be different. He spent a good portion of his life feeling like an outcast due to the fact that he was Jewish and Cohn never served in World War I, and was therefore typically scorned by people who had seen combat, like Jake. Cohn holds onto these traits because he had never seen the full extent of the war, and he reads books that are more about romanticism than reality. At one point Cohn wants to go to South America because a book he read depicted it as this beautiful, romantic paradise, not because he had any actual interest of experiencing the actual life of a South American. This is how Hemingway uses Cohn as the embodiment of an age gone by, trapped inside someone living in an age where this is no longer the social norm. The people that Cohn represents were living representations of the old Imperialist States, to many of the war veterans, and their societal beliefs of patriotism, self-sacrifice for the state and the glory of war. While Cohn never saw it, many saw the carnage, death, destruction and barbarity of the war, and all of their beliefs of the world changed when the war finally ended. Cohn never saw the failure of the old system, even after his fight with Romero. After Cohn completely beat up Romero when he found him with Brett, he tried to “shake hands with the bull-fighter fellow. No hard feelings… All for forgiveness.” (Hemingway 206) and he did this because it was his idea of the righteous thing to do after a fight. He even wanted to “take Brett away. [He] wanted to make an honest woman out of her” (Hemingway 205) because this is Cohn’s romanticized view of the world. Fighting with honor, all for a good cause, and trying to be romantic by “saving” Brett. But neither Brett nor Romero cared for what Cohn was doing. Romero refused to shake Cohn’s hand and “Brett gave [Cohn] what for. She told him off.” (Hemingway 205). Afterwards, Cohn ends up crying, mainly because he could not leave with Brett and make her a better woman, but also because no one follows his outdated social values. On the contrary, Cohn never adapts and changes this, instead, he keeps on reading fictional romanticized books about a distorted reality and continues living by the pre-war values. This is why Jake continually spites Cohn, because to Jake, Cohn represents all of the ideals that used to guide the people of their generation until the war broke out. Afterwards, many abandoned these values, and wandered aimlessly in life, searching for a purpose. This is who Jake represents. Jake Barnes, the main character and combat veteran in Hemingway’s short story, represents almost the entirety of the lost generation. Those who had abandoned their previous values and traits after the end of World War One, losing the guidance that they had grew up with, and continually searching for a sense of purpose or direction in their life, but never really finding it. Jake’s life is constantly marred by the war, having seen combat and suffering an injury that prevents him from having sex. Gertrude Stein’s basis for the coining of the term “lost generation” was through the lifestyle many of these people lived during the 1920’s. Like many other men and women of his generation, Jake is very upset with the post-war world. Before the war, it is very likely that Jake could have shared similar values as Cohn does. However, due to the barbarity that Jake saw, he has a difficult time finding purpose to something. It is not hard to understand why Jake would be living a life void of a purpose. The new mechanized weapons in World War I demonstrated that there doesn’t need to be a reason for anything. Journalist Harry Mount stated that World War I was “the war that changed us all” (1). Just like many others, especially in Paris, where Hemingway was writing The Sun Also Rises, Jake took up writing, as it is one of the few ways in which he could do something that he felt was purposeful. Even in the darkest of times, writing allows men and women to express how they feel even if they don’t want to directly tell anyone about it. While Hemingway doesn’t go into any detail about Jake’s writing, he makes Jake a writer because a portion of the lost generation took up writing as a way to express their feelings, write about the purposeless of their lives, or other topics that they did not want to tell people directly. Another part of Jake’s life in Paris consists of nights where he goes from bar to bar, aimlessly, drunken, with no plan of what he actually wants to do. This is Hemingway’s main interpretation to the reader as to what he believes was the lost generation. Jake’s life in Paris and his love with Brett bring out Hemingway’s idea of this generation’s loss of reasoning and direction. Jake loves Brett, but knows that he can’t satisfy her because he cannot have sex. However, Jake continues to compete for Brett’s love against his group of “friends”. This is how Hemingway portrays the lost generation through Jake. Jake seems to have no true reasoning for anything that he does. Hemingway portrays him as a literary representation of the lack of guidance that represented a vast majority of the lost generation.
Brett represents a female version of lost generation that Jake had represented as a whole. Brett is part of this new, “modern” and independent woman’s movement that started during the 1920’s. Due to the societal abandonment of the old values, women of the lost generation were also seeking to find a purpose. However, in contrast to many of the men, more women were trying to find the love and romance that had essentially died after the end of the war. This is what Brett is looking for throughout the entirety of the story. Brett’s symbolic end to the old beliefs of romance came after the death of her one true love and the horrors that she saw working a military hospital. Like many other women of her generation, she had to adapt this new world that had shattered the old beliefs. Brett is very sexual throughout the entirety of the story, not because she craves this lustful life, but instead is trying to find the feeling of true love that she had lost during the war. This was common amongst many women of this generation, as they now had to find an alternative way to find love, as many men either no longer saw the purpose of being romantic or had given up with love entirely. The only real way any of these women could find a sense of connection with male was through sex. (McPartland 1) Brett is Hemingway’s embodiment of the women of this time period. Unlike men, women tried to find their purpose in life through sex. Unfortunately, this type of behavior only creates more conflict as many of these women never end up finding that true love that there were searching for. Brett doesn’t want to settle down because she knows that she will become, once again, depressed and miserable. This is also why Jake and Brett could never be together despite their similarities. At the end of the story Brett tells Jake that “[they] could have had such a damned good time together,” and Jake just replies “isn’t it pretty to think so?” (Hemingway 251) because Jake knows they share similar troubles their lives, but Jake could never satisfy Brett enough to make her forget the pain of losing her first love. This was because Jake couldn’t have sex, due to his injury, and Brett need to have sex to fill the void left in her life. Just like many women of the lost generation, sex is really one of Brett’s form of love she can find in her trouble world, which is how Hemingway uses Brett to represent the large female population of the lost generation who were trying to find love in a world where romanticism was essentially dead.
The lost generation had a lot of unfortunate change to deal with brought on by the aftermath of, at that time, the most devastating and destructive war the world had ever seen. Gertrude Stein tells Ernest Hemingway “you are all a lost generation” (Hemingway 7). To show his generation’s misguidance and purposelessness, Hemingway used Brett, Jake and Cohn as characters whose qualities represent a different group of people within the lost generation. Hemingway does this to explain to the reader, while many of the lost generation were misguided, they all had different reasons for the lifestyles that they lived. Through Jake’s lack of purpose in his life, to Brett’s never ending search to “patch up” her lost love, to Cohn’s refusal to accept that the pre-war values are outdated and move on, Hemingway uses these three characters to represent different groups of people within the lost generation.