THIRTEEN HEMINGWAY

Fin.

When the reading is completed, I turned to the first few pages of the book again. The dedication struck me: THIS BOOK IS FOR HADLEY AND FOR JOHN HADLEY NICANOR. I begin to wonder if the Hemingway’s non-fiction circumstances influenced the fictitious world he crafted in The Sun Also Rises. Published in 1926, a year prior to Hemingway’s remorseful divorce from Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, The Sun Also Rises approaches promiscuity bluntly with its heroine, Lady Brett Ashley. Helbig points out the confessional nature of the text which is inherent in a first-person narrative. This characteristic becomes more prominent towards the end of the novel, when we witness the most intense exchanges between Jake and the other characters, particularly Brett and Robert. Finally, the novel finishes with a sense of continuity that furthers its realistic quality as a Modernist work.

It may be possible that Hemingway addresses his views of love and marriage through his heroine Brett and her treatment of the subjects.The text was written and revised during the dissolution of Hemingway’s marriage to Hadley. We know that the disintegration was due to his infidelity and a affair that went beyond lust with his wife’s best friend. Considering this, we can have grounds to draw to parallel between Hemingway and Brett. It is interesting that Hemingway chooses a woman to be the perpetuator of promiscuity and I speculate that there may be two reasons for this. First, he may have wanted to hide behind the mask of a woman out of guilt, amongst the other turmoil of emotions he may have been experiencing at the time of his marriage’s breakdown. Second, his portrayal of Brett as a object of desire, temptation or seduction puts forth the helplessness a man would feel when swooning over lady.

"He nearly killed the poor, bloody bull-fighter. Then Cohn wanted to take Brett away. Wanted to make an honest woman of her, I imagine. Damned touching scene.”…"It seems the bull-fighter chap was sitting on the floor. He was waiting to get strength enough to get up and hit Cohn again. Brett wasn't having any shaking hands, and Cohn was crying and telling her how much he loved her,and she was telling him not to be a ruddy ass.”

If a woman could stir such emotional and physical reactions within an introvert like Robert, it demonstrates power that love can have over a man. As such, the novel may have been Hemingway’s attempt to justify his infatuations with other women. 

There seems to be a dark overtone cast on love. When the subject is breached again between Jake and Brett, it takes places in a shaded park when it was “clouding over again” and where “it was dark under the trees.”

 "Do you still love me, Jake?" "Yes," I said. "Because I'm a goner," Brett said. "How?" "I'm a goner. I'm mad about the Romero boy. I'm in love with him, I think." 

This scene marks the beginning of a deeper conversation between Jake and Brett. 

"I wouldn't be if I were you." "I can't help it. I'm a goner. It's tearing me all up inside." "Don't do it." "I can't help it. I've never been able to help anything." "You ought to stop it." "How can I stop it? I can't stop things. Feel that?" 

It is a conversation a exchange of true emotions, like a confession, as Brett confesses her love for the “Romero boy” to Jake. The confessional nature becomes pedagogical when Jake becomes a moral compass for Brett. Even though she does not heed his advice at first, she ultimately chooses the right path by keeping her engagement to Mike and returning to him instead of marrying Romero. She seems to know that the relationship would not last, that she was “bad for him”. 

 "I'm thirty-four, you know. I'm not going to be one of these bitches that ruins children." "No." "I'm not going to be that way. I feel rather good, you know. I feel rather set up." "Good." She looked away. I thought she was looking for another cigarette. Then I saw she was crying. I could feel her crying. Shaking and crying. She wouldn't look up. I put my arms around her. "Don't let's ever talk about it. Please don't let's ever talk about it." "Dear Brett." "I'm going back to Mike." I could feel her crying as I held her close. "He's so damned nice and he's so awful.He's my sort of thing."She would not look up. I stroked her hair. I could feel her shaking. "I won't be one of those bitches," she said. "But, oh, Jake, please let's never talk about it." 

Brett redeems herself in the eyes of the reader with this decision. It marks a growth in her character. She is no longer someone with loose morals as her casual sexuality made her appear earlier in the novel. We see the good in her that Jake recognizes, making her worthy of Jake’s love. Yet she is not entirely perfect and perhaps that is why we cannot accept her completely. She is still selfish and will not choose Jake as her life partner because of his sexual impotence. However, it is this choice that makes her a such realistic character and the circumstances of this novel closer to reality. 

Beyond Brett, we fail to see any development in other characters. In Robert, his love for Brett sets him back and throws him into despair. Although he may become more mature as a consequence of this experience later, Hemingway omits it in the novel as Robert exits from the group back to Paris. Bill, Jake and Mike do not experience any significant personal growth as well. Each of them go their separate ways and continue with their lives. The entire fiesta ends off like an episode in which the three of them are more of supporting characters. Bill is the obvious bystander, Jake is implicated indirectly in a precipitate event (the fight between Robert and him) and Mike, who faced the loss of Brett (and ultimately gets her back), was not physically involved in any of the action. Amongst the three, however, Bill and Jake seem to the more sensible ones with a more mature outlook on the matter as they did not let their emotions take over their head (Mike, as we recalled, behaved rather ungentlemanly with his insults to Robert earlier). 

As the novel concludes, we are given a non-ending ending. Jake and Brett are driven passively in a cab on what seems like an endless route.

The driver started up the street. I settled back. Brett moved close to me. We sat close against each other. I put my arm

around her and she rested against me comfortably. It was very hot and bright, and the houses looked sharply white.

We turned out onto the Gran Via. "Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together." Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenlypressing Brett against me. "Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

The story does not feel finished, just as much as it does not have a specific sense of beginning. It picks up at the end of a war with an introduction to Cohn, a character who was not affiliated to it. As such, the reader’s experience is suspended in this superficial sense of disconnection. Yet, as mentioned earlier, the network of relations between the characters makes the story interwoven in a realistic way despite the drama that occurred. In fact, the unfinished quality of its conclusion makes the text more realistic because it is closer to how events would end in reality.