English 015 - Americans Abroad
Disillusionment
Disillusionment
Category: 2E: Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald | Karen Tang
“Disillusionment: destruction of pleasant but mistaken beliefs or ideals” (Oxford Dictionary). Even though destruction of dreams and beliefs brings depression, there is a positive aspect to disillusionment. It brings people to face reality instead of straying in fake imaginations, and facing reality lets people realize what is truly important in their lives. Disillusionment affords an opportunity to live a more meaningful life, but to grasp that opportunity, the ability to choose the right response becomes very important. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited,” Charlie Wales becomes a better person and lives a more stable life after seeing reality. In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake accepts reality and moves on to the future; Robert Cohn, however, is trapped in his illusions. All three characters are disillusioned, but Charlie and Jake benefits afterwards, and Cohn doesn’t. Charlie responds to his disillusionment with money and youth by focusing on what is of the uttermost importance to him in the present—his daughter. Cohn is disillusioned with the dissipation of time, but he fails to resolve the underlying problem by just grasping at another illusion. Jake is disillusioned with his incompetence with sex due to an injury in war, but he lets his past go and is able to face himself honestly and positively.
In “Babylon Revisited,” Charlie copes with the disillusionment with money by acknowledging his past mistakes, and is therefore able to recognize the importance of his daughter. In the beginning of the story, Charlie describes the illusions with money: “We were a sort of royalty, almost infallible, with a sort of magic around us…” (p.388) Wealth makes him feel invincible. “…the snow of twenty-nine wasn’t real snow. If you didn’t want it to be snow, you just paid some money” (p.402). Money is all-powerful. After the glamour fades away, he finally sees his mistake: he got lost in the superficial power of wealth and failed to cherish his wife and daughter. Now his wife is dead and he has lost the guardianship of his daughter, and money cannot bring her to him. “There wasn’t much he could do now except send Honoria some things; he would send her a lot of things tomorrow. He thought rather angrily that this was just money—he had given so many people money….” (p.402) After the effort to be with Honoria fails, Charlie is angry that he could do nothing except superficially sending her gifts, bought by superficial money. The disillusionment with money helps Charlie to think over his past mistakes and become more aware of bringing meaning into his daughter’s life, and holding on to her, who would bring meaning to his life as well.
The dissipation of youth disillusions Charlie. He reflects on that crazy period and regrets that he wasted so much time on meaningless activities: going to bars, throwing out money, stealing the butcher’s tricycle. “I spoiled this city for myself. I didn’t realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone” (p.386). His disillusionment with wasting his own youth leads him to cherish Honoria’s youth. He is shocked to find that if he doesn’t hurry up, he will lose her. “She was already an individual with a code of her own, and Charlie was more and more absorbed by the desire of putting a little of himself into her before she crystallized utterly” (p.391). Charlie is afraid that his lack of participation in her life as time passes by would soon weaken his importance to her. Fortunately, he sees the reality and responds by taking more aggressive actions to be with Honoria. He desperately tries to convince Lincoln and Marion, “But if we wait much longer I’ll lose Honoria’s childhood and my chance for a home…I’ll simply lose her, don’t you see?” (p.394) His own mistakes also lead him to try to protect her from wasting her own youth in illusions. He teaches her to see reality:
“Aren’t you perfectly happy?”
“Yes, but I love you better than anybody. And you love me better than anybody, don’t you, now that mummy’s dead?”
“Of course I do. But you won’t always like me best, honey. You’ll grow up and meet somebody your own age and go marry him and forget you ever had a daddy.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she agreed tranquilly. (p.392)
Disillusionment motivates Charlie to do his best to educate Honoria and get her back. He now values his daughter more and lives a purposeful life.
In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the disillusionment with youth passing by quickly motivates Cohn to travel. He senses that time flies and tries to convince Jake to go with him to South America. Cohn says, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it” (p.18) “…Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?” (p.19) Cohn responds to his disillusionment with youth by grasping at a new illusion: he believes going to South America would make things better. Jake realizes the truth and tries to enlighten Cohn. Jake says, “Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that…If you went there the way you feel now it would be exactly the same” (p.19). Even though disillusionment motivates Cohn to do certain things, his response is to create another illusion instead of facing reality. Once his new illusion is disillusioned, he’ll create another new one to explain or alleviate his suffering. He can never see the root of all his problems and so he cannot solve them. Unfortunately, even after Jake’s effort to convince Cohn that the problem is not Paris but his refusal to adjust his attitude, Cohn is too stubborn and does not listen.
Compared to Cohn, Jake faces his disillusionment with sexual disability in a more honest way. Even though he loves Brett, he knows that they cannot be together because of his disability. This is shown in a conversation between him and Brett:
“Isn’t there anything we can do about it?...And there’s not a damn thing we could do.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to go through that hell again.
“We’d better keep away from each other.”
“But, daring, I have to see you. It isn’t all that you know.”
“No, but it always gets to be” (p.34).
Jake does not create new illusions for his disillusionment; he tries to accept reality. Further more, he doesn’t despair himself because of his incompetence, but instead tries to view the injury as something quite humorous. “…Besides, what happened to me is supposed to be funny. I never think about it” (p.34). Through disillusionment, Jake is able to view love in a different way: there are more important things than sex. His disability lets him to view world in a different perspective.
The titles, “Babylon Revisited” and The Sun Also Rises, both indicate the possibilities of second chances after disillusionment. Fitzgerald compares Paris to Babylon: all the glamour and frenetic state of mind has gone; what is left is the reality. Although revisiting Paris brings disillusionment, Jake is able to get the second chance to pull himself together and start a new way of life. The word, “also,” in The Sun Also Rises indicates a second opportunity to start a new beginning. The sunset, which represents the ending and the disillusionment, implies a coming of another sunrise—a new beginning and a clearer perspective on life.
Disillusionment offers a chance to reevaluate ourselves and the things around us; however, we must be careful about the way we react to disillusionment. Evidently, Charlie’s and Jake’s responses to disillusionment are better that Cohn’s response. However, Cohn’s response is understandable; reality is so shocking sometimes that people try to ignore it by creating illusions. Both Fitzgerald and Hemingway show how easy it is to keep pursuing new illusions and how hard it is to face reality. People tend to choose the easier path; therefore, we must evaluate our decisions from time to time and keep in mind that one can gain more from disillusionment than illusions.
Posted by ktang on October 30, 2003 at 02:30 PM