Isaac Work

American Studies

Period 2

8 April 2011

True Love in the Modern World

American literature developed around a select few key themes despite being changed and

morphed by different writing styles and outside influences. Among these themes was death,

friendship, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Many authors chose to pen the story of a

characters' struggles and close their perfectly romantic, imaginary stories with a happy ending.

Beginning towards the end of the 19th century, however, many writers chose to portray a closer

sense of reality in their works. The Realists, such as Mark Twain, believed that the best stories

were written as a mirror image of life. They tried to draw in readers in their post-Civil War days

by writing with real emotions and thoughts, trying to connect to readers. Between the Realists

and the later Modernists, a short period of time was occupied by the Naturalists, who went

completely to the opposite end of the spectrum in comparison to the earlier Romantics. Upton

Sinclair and other such writers portrayed life as depressing, which, in their views, was most

realistic. Following the Naturalists, many expatriate authors emigrated to Paris to write. They

considered themselves to be artists with words and painted pictures, or 'snapshots,' of peoples'

lives in order to better capture the essence of life. One of the authors most recognized for doing

this was Ernest Hemingway. An expatriate, Hemingway was a free-spirited, carefree veteran of

World War One who had been deeply effected by both the war and by family troubles. He was

something of a lost soul in Paris and throughout his life, but managed to draw from his life

experiences and compose the beautiful works of art that all of the expatriates had striven to write.
In his first book, The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway details his initial experiences in Paris with the

original group of expatriate authors. Reflecting back on the first three chapters, Hemingway tells

the story of his main character, Jake Barnes, trying to find himself in Europe. He was a quiet

sort, just a kid, but managed to find his way with women and keep to his small group of close

friends while exploring the world. Beginning in Chapter Four, Hemingway relays the story of

Barnes' love affair with a beautiful young woman named Brett Ashley. The two were seemingly

incompatible: Jake was a somewhat handsome but quiet sort while Brett was a flamboyant social

partaker who had found her weakness in nighttime dancing and drinking. Barnes said, “This was

Brett, that I had felt like crying about. Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping

into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully

easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing”

(Hemingway 42). This quote came at the end of Chapter Four as Barnes watched Brett go away

from him. The two were in love, however Brett could not bring herself to be in a formal

relationship with Jake because his war wound prevented them from being able to have sex.

Hemingway used this to suggest that love in his changing world had been disconnected from the

values in which it was traditionally based on and instead was now based on physical appearance.

In the end, any thoughts or feelings that Jake holds on to for too long makes him cry and pity his

existence. As he said in the quote, the nighttime brought out the worst in him; he sees Brett once

again and was unable to control his emotions. This directly reflected Hemingway's life, as many

of his love affairs ended in a failed relationship and were unable to prosper for one reason or

another. This coincided with Hemingway's belief that consequences were not a direct result of

one's actions but were instead brought on by fate. Ironically, in Chapter Five, Jake described

Brett negatively to their friend Robert Cohn over lunch. He did this in an effort to protect his
masculinity and not admit his weakness, however Hemingway suggested that this was not

possible in his time. The Sun Also Rises was an important piece of literature because of what it

said of relationships and the emotions they breed. Hemingway portrayed life in the 1920s –

post-World War One – as finally connected with reality, while true love was the only concept in

life that was still beyond humanity 's perception and was still opaque and incomprehensible.