Similarities Between The Sun Also Rises And The Great Gatsby

Lost Generation
In the 1900s, there was a post World War I generation of writers who rejected the normal American values called the Lost Generation. The Lost Generation used modernism techniques, such as symbolism and personal experiences. Ernest Hemingway was a part of the Lost Generation, along with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is similar to The Great Gatsby, by Fitzgerald, because both books are based on life experiences and are about carless people in the 1920s.
Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, is a book of disillusionment. The two main characters, Jake and Brett, are uncertain about their lives. Jake is a part of the Lost Generation, in love with Brett, and besieged with illusions. The characters in The

Great Gatsby share many of the same circumstances. During the 1920s many people were not content with their lives and tried to find happiness in a bottle, men, money, or other tangible things. In both books, the characters are dissatisfied with their lives and try to find solutions. Gatsby is unhappy because he is not with Daisy which motivates him to become wealthy so hopefully he can reconnect with her. Jake and Brett do not know what they want so they go to parties and bars trying to find satisfaction. Although the books are set in the same time period, the women in the books are portrayed differently. In Hemingway’s book, Brett is treated equally and does not need a man in order to live. In contrast, women in Fitzgerald’s book are below men and depend on them to live. The books also both have complicated love in them between Jake and Brett, and Gatsby and Daisy. The male characters in the book went off to war leaving behind the girl he loved, and then came back from the war looking for the relationship he had before. The love in both books is distant, complicated, or overwhelming. The Great Gatsby is related more around money and cheating, where as The Sun Also Rises is about middle class people trying to find themselves. Overall the books are written in a comparable style, with the authors leaving the reader to make his or her own conclusions.
Due to Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald both being from the Lost Generation, their books are very similar. The books represent an era of low values, illusions, parties, and freedom.