Comparing The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy

Similarities in The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy

Ernest Hemingway and Alice Walker, although separated by seven decades, show striking similarity in their definitions of love in their novels The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy. It is a unique similarity of circumstances that links these two novels. Jake Barnes, the protagonist of The Sun Also Rises, is literally and symbolically castrated during his service in the First World War. Tashi, the protagonist of Possessing the Secret of Joy, undergoes an ancient tribal ritual of female circumcision that leaves her incapable of having sex. Through these two characters, Hemingway and Walker proclaim their belief that love can exist outside the parameters of a conventional relationship.

Both Jake and Tashi are wounded by serving their countries--Jake in the war, Tashi in an ancient tribal ritual. In both cases, their sacrifice is expected of them. Jake, after returning from the battlefield, is commended by his officer. It certainly was a "rotten way to be wounded," and Jake's officer says, "You gave more than your life." To his officer, however, if Jake had given more than his life it was given in honor of his country, so any consequences of his wound was a fate he would have to live with. He was supposed to be proud to have given so much for the war effort, but his wound does not make Jake a hero. Instead, he is reduced to something less than a man. His wound becomes a joke instead of a mark of a martyr. Jake thinks, "At one time or another I had probably considered it [his wound] from most of its various angles, including the one that certain injuries or imperfections are a subject of merriment while remaining quite serious for the person possessing them" (20). As the war grows distant, Jake must assimilate to life as a lover, not a soldier. In a time when people try to forget the war, Jake becomes not a hero but the object of a cruel joke.

"You have given more than your life."

-The Sun Also Rises

Tashi is also wounded for her country. Her African tribe, the Olinkans, demands that everyone have their face scared with traditional tribal markings. For women this "initiation" also includes circumcision. Tashi wants to go through with the ritual--just as Jake decides to join the army--so that she can sacrifice for the traditions and culture she believes in.