The Sun Also Rises

1. Do a gender analysis of Hemingway’s two main protagonists in the novel. What seems unique about these portrayals? Use quotes from the text to define your arguments.

In The Sun Also Rises, Jake and Brett are the two main protagonists. Their interaction frames the novel. Although Jake is the man and Brett is the woman, their gender roles appear to be inverted. Ernest Hemingway belonged to a promiscuous, frivolous literary and social movement termed the “Lost Generation”. Hemingway, accompanied by many other young writers and authors, left the country to live in Paris, where they drank and partied in excess. The world was changing; the Great War had tainted and mutated almost every facet of life as they had once known it. Women were evolving into a new kind of species; they wore their hair short like the modern style, as well as their hemlines. They were assertive, raunchy, and free spirited. These emerging qualities are embodied in Lady Brett Ashley.

Lady Brett Ashley is the pinnacle of a “roaring 20’s” gal. She chopped all of her hair off for a more risqué style. Even her name is scandalous- “Brett” a name commonly associated with men. Brett is open and demanding with her sexuality. She basically refuses to settle down with Jake, her supposed true love, because she will not deny her carnal desires. She controls the conflict in the story by hypnotizing the men in Jake’s circle, as well as those outside of it. They are entranced by her spontaneous nature and abundant sex drive. They fight over her constantly, both physically and verbally. Jake is not excluded from this. He persists in cleaning up her messes, rescuing her, and enabling her partying even though it is clearly an unhealthy relationship for him, as well as for Brett.

Jake fulfills his role as the subservient woman to Brett, the sexual, domineering male, so to speak. Jake sacrifices his life and his convenience to run around after Brett. Also, more literally, Jake has become impotent due to an injury he suffered during the war. This contrast between his lack of sexual capabilities and Brett’s obvious overflow of sexual energy further defines Jake as the female player to Brett’s male. Jake is the one in the relationship who confesses his love and tells Brett of his emotions, while Brett tries to avoid emotional situations. Following her desertion of Pedro Romero, Brett contacts Jake to retrieve her. When he arrives, she proclaims, “Oh, hell…let’s not talk about it. Let’s never talk about it.” (245). She repeats this four more times over the course of their conversation. As we can see, she tries with all of her might to fight confronting her emotions.

Unfortunately, this does not translate well between male and female. The woman in the role of the man results in a bitchy, whore-ish exterior. Jake, on the other hand, concludes the novel with a much less severe stigma. He is not the female role in the sense of an overly emotional, hyper-sensitive, flighty, or delicate character. Instead, he is the female in the way that a more prominent, outgoing, sexual person initiates the action that occurs between them, and he allows them to steer the direction of their relationship. He sacrifices for Brett, while she is more characteristically selfish and shallow. By the close of the story, Jake has resigned himself to Brett’s spell. He realizes that he will always be the one who comes running when she starts to cry, but by becoming self-aware of her enchantments, he has unbound the emotional chains around him and is free to commandeer his own life. He understands that he will always fall into this pattern with her, but his heart will not be in it anymore. In turn, he has regained his manly control, leaving Brett to decay into a more traditional, indecisive, irrational, weepy woman.