A further look into Jake Barnes, War Vet and Victim

Jake Barnes, the narrator in The Sun Also Rises, provides a look at a post war Europe, occupied by several American travelers. The man, whose injury in World War I has left him impotent, lives a life in the lap of luxury. Starting the novel in Paris, the War Vet frequents the party scene of 1920’s Europe and is highly characterized by his injury. He lives like any other rich American in Paris, until of course he finds himself with his girlfriend, the Lady Brett Ashley. By just living through all of this without so much as a complaint, the reader sees just how strong willed and determined this man is to overcome what he has become since the end of the war. Later in the book, we see that Jake is a catholic, though he admits he is a “rotten Catholic” after he prays at a large cathedral. Another quality that Jake shows is his constant changing of his opinion of things. At first he describes Robert Cohn as one of his good friends, a man that is exceedingly nice, but it is this niceness that Jake comes to hate as the book wears on. He also speaks of the Cathedral he prayed at when he says that “the first time I ever saw it I thought the façade was ugly, but I liked it now.” Both of these show that Barnes may be easily malleable, a man who will bend over time.

The Meaning of Life, according to Jake Barnes and Robert Cohn

                Throughout The Sun also Rises, one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces, Jake Barnes and his companions seem to be going to nowhere in life. Hemingway places a huge emphasis on travel which his characters’ embark on almost haphazardly. Jake wonders throughout Europe, in an almost constantly drunk state, which leads me to think that he is looking for something in life. The reader gets an insight into the head of Jake in a scene where he goes into a cathedral to pray. His prayers are shallow and materialistic, hoping for money and entertainment. Up until Jake sets off to Pamplona, he lives in an illusion of happiness, where his personal meaning to life is to live each day at a time, having fun, and doing what he feels.  This gives meaning to Hemingway’s title of the novel, where he quotes Ecclesiastes. Hemingway is telling his audience that everything comes to pass, and to live each day to its fullest, leaving no regrets. He further exemplifies this with Robert Cohn, a character introduced in the very opening of the novel. Cohn starts his life miserably, getting divorced early, and then dating a woman who controls his every move. Yet Cohn shrugs off his earlier misery and instead begins to live his own dreams. While Jake may dislike Robert, the reader can clearly see that a man who lives how he wants is truly happier.