Jake Barnes: Grace under Pressure?

The world after WWI was one ridden with anger, disillusion, and discontent. The World War had destroyed for many the idea that if you acted properly, good things would happen to you. So many good young men had gone to war and died, or returned damaged (physically and mentally), that their faith in the moral guideposts, which had given them hope before, were no longer valid.This is the world which Hemingway tried to capture in his novel "The Sun Also Rises”.

“The Sun Also Rises” takes place almost seven years after the war had ended, but the scars, which it had inflicted on the characters who had experienced it, are eternal. The war had deadened some of their feelings and left them enjoying only the simplest and strongest of pleasures. It has given them an attitude of resigned acceptance towards all sorts of disasters a

the case. This is especially evident at the beginning of the novel where is Jake tends to be very ironic at times. When Jake introduces Robert Cohn to Brett and realizes that Cohn is fascinated with her, he sarcastically remarks to Brett: “You made a new one there...I suppose you like to add them up” (4). Or later on in the novel, when Jake finds out that Brett has been with Cohn at San Sebastian, he's not so pleasant again: “Congratulations...you might take up social service” (5). However, the best argument for claiming that the grace under pressure quality does not apply to Jake Barnes is the contrast between him and Pedro Romero, the true code hero of the novel, who even when he is greatly oumatched, as in the scene where Cohn the boxer is punching him, keeps on fighting, taking in the punches and arising from the floor again and again. Cohn also punches Jake who does not fight back.

To make thing even more tragic, Jake falls in love with Brett Ashley - a gorgeous, but neurotic nymphomaniac who claims that she loves him as well. But as Jake will later characterize her, she is the sort of person that “only wanted what she couldn't have” (3). Brett, also a victim of the war, suffers from neurosis which at times could be very exhausting for Jake. One night after dancing in a bar, Jake takes Brett to her hotel infront of which she first tells him that they are not going to see each other again, kisses him, pushes him away, kisses him again, and then cries "Oh, don't” (4). All the while, Jake, at least on the ouside, remains calm and in control. However, once he's behind the four walls of his room, it's a different story. He takes his mask off and lets his frozen feelings overwhelm him. He cries and shouts: “To hell with Brett. To hell with you, Lady Ashley” (5).

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