The Impact of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Ernest Hemingway’s the Sun Also Rises (1926)

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off the money his family gives him, as well as the generosity of his friends. Thus, until he gets his inheritance, he is aimlessly drifting through life, with the sudden disappearance of any sense of purpose, coinciding with the end of the war.

Lady Brett Ashley is a strong, largely independent woman. She exerts great power over men around her, as her charisma and beauty charms everyone she meets. Mike even compares her to Circe - a famous seductress in Greek mythology, who would lure men to her island and turn them into pigs - by saying that “she turns men into swine (148)”. Furthermore, she does not commit to any one man, which is probably the ultimate independence. As as a result, all of the male characters in the novel are in love with her, to various degrees. She is waiting to get divorced from the Count. Yet she is engaged to Mike, in love with Jake, has slept with Cohn, and is infatuated with Romeo. Brett is not old-fashioned at all: she has an admitted taste for parties, is unapologetically sexual and wildly promiscuous. Just like Jake and Mike, Brett is also a war veteran. Though she did not see combat, Brett served in a military hospital, an experience that was undoubtedly just as disturbing as that of male characters. Although she seems completely independent, she is still very unsatisfied with her life. She frequently complains to Jake about how aimless her life is: “I told the driver to go to the Parc Montsouris, and got in, and slammed the door. Brett was leaning back in the corner, her eyes closed. I sat beside her. The cab started with a jerk.

"Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable," Brett said. (32)”

War shaped Jake and his friends. In a similar fashion, it also played an essential part in forming Brett’s character. During the war, her true love died of dysentery. Her following actions, especially regarding men, can be interpreted as a desperate, subconscious search for this first love. Brett’s personal search represents the search that preoccupies the entire “Lost Generation”, looking for shattered pre-war values: love and romance.

Jake Barnes, the protagonist and narrator of The Sun Also Rises, is a young American expatriate who works in a newspaper office in Paris. He served in World War I and was injured while fighting in Italy. Although he does not directly say so, there are many moments in the novel when Jake implies that he is impotent as a result of his injury. Brett and Jake developed a relationship while in the war hospital, and they love each other. However, because of his physical condition and because Brett loves sex more than she loves Jake, they cannot be together since he will never be enough to satisfy her. Therefore Jake must sit back and watch her have affairs and relationships with other men. Just like his friends, he spends his days and nights living irresponsibly and drinking heavily. Jake’s physical ailment has psychological consequences as well. For example, he seems quite insecure about his own masculinity and is hostile towards Robert Cohn, because of his own feelings of inadequacy. Furthermore, a part of Jake’s character is a typical representation of the “Lost Generation”. Although he seems to be just like Mike and Brett, wandering through Paris, bar-hopping to dull his pain with alcohol, he is also quite different from other characters in the novel: he possesses an authentic passion and enthusiasm, which allow him to distance himself from the cynical world he lives in. This is shown through his love of bullfighting, fishing and the natural world. These differences allow Jake to see through the superficial attitudes and fragile relationships of the people around him. For example, he tells Cohn in Chapter II: “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another (19)”. Jake means that no matter where one travels to, one’s problems will remain the same. This quote shows that Jake is both an outsider and an insider. He views the world he lives in from its center, but with some objectivity as well. However, although Jake does identify issues in his life, he is either unwilling to or unable to resolve them, therefore he remains in a state of constant insatisfaction.

The novel The Sun Also Rises accurately describes the characters as a part of the “Lost Generation”. This proves that the after-effect of war can make people, like Mike, Brett, and Jake, try to escape the reality of things by indulging in hedonistic behavior. Are their lives likely to regain their meanings and significance in their post-war existence? Will they put together the pieces of their shattered ideals to shattered ideals to eliminate their memories of the war?

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