English 015 - Americans Abroad
Jake: Almost a Hero
Jake: Almost a Hero
Category: 03B: The Sun Also Rises | Diana Heald
Hemingway’s characters in The Sun Also Rises come from diverse backgrounds, but they come together because of their shared unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Brett is one of the more compelling characters in this respect because of her wit and charm, in spite of her somewhat pathetic lifestyle. Hemingway establishes Jake as the hero of the book, for he is the only man that Brett loves and the only one who has the ability to save her from her own destructive behavior. Ultimately, however, Jake cannot save Brett, not because he is impotent but because he simply gives up.
Jake is clearly entranced by Brett; he says, “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” (p. 42). He suggests they live together, but Brett admits that under the present circumstances, “I’d just tromper you with everybody. You couldn’t stand it” (p. 62). Brett continues to put herself in compromising situations, first with Cohn and later with Pedro Romero, and Jake does nothing to stop her. In fact, he spends most of the book pining after her but doing little to rescue her from her surroundings, even though he is the only one who has the potential to do so because he is the only man Brett actually loves. Jake rescues Brett from the Madrid hotel where she has been abandoned, but when she remarks to him how happy they could have been, all he has to say is, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” (p. 251). Jake, like the other characters, is too caught up in himself and too afraid of actually doing anything to save the love of his life from a fate of unhappiness and pointlessness.
Posted by on October 07, 2003 at 12:30 AM