Hope

Hope embodiedThe Sun Also Rises is a tale of great inspiration reached by ugly circumstances. Jake is a tragic soul who “lost” his love when he lost his potency in the war. Brett is a confused woman who wants everything she can’t have. Robert is a crushed spirit because of his disfigurement from boxing. He thinks he is ugly but wants to think otherwise and so falls in love far too easily and gets heartbroken often. Mike has no money and is a phenomenal debtor. Bill is the comic relief for when the tragedies of all the other characters become too melodramatic. If that isn’t enough, all these sad creatures decide to go on a vacation together. Furthermore, throughout the entire story it becomes apparent that all the main characters are shit-faced drunk.
At a glance, this seems a recipe for disaster and for a while it is just that. Jake is in constant turmoil that Brett does not stay with him because he is impotent. Even though Brett says she loves Jake, she sleeps with an assortment of men and then comes back to Jake to tell him how awful she feels. But Jake lets this happen because he’s happy to have anytime at all with her; she reminds him of a time when he liked his life. Brett is also engaged to Mike who is too drunk and belligerent to care or notice that Brett sleeps around. The only time Mike seems to have any knowledge of Brett’s being unfaithful is in his interactions with Robert. Brett lays Robert once, and Robert becomes convinced that they are in love, but Brett harbors no such feelings. Mike then spends a great deal of the vacation getting “tight” and rubbing Robert’s crushed nose in the fact that Brett doesn’t like Robert.
Though most of the apparent conflict happens between Mike, Robert, and Brett, the story is told from the eyes of Jake. From this the reader comes to understand that the true conflict of the story is that Jake is not happy with his life because of his injury from the war, so he copes by getting drunk with people that have worse problems than he does. In this way he makes an effort to distract himself from the pain he holds internally. This makes Jake a very relatable character under very specific circumstances, for we all have things in our lives that bring us discomfort and many of us deal with them by finding ways to distract ourselves from the truth; to entertain ourselves. Though most of us do not have problems like Jake we can see why his problems would drive him to drink heavily. But in his tragedy, Jake is inspiring because he does not give up. Though he seems to have no reason for living, though he cries himself to sleep at night, though he has lost his potency, his love, his identity with his home country, his friends, and his family he does not give up. He carries on because in spite of all the woes he has, he still has hope for the future. Though even the darkest nights come to him, the sun also rises.