The Sun Also Rises Ending Analysis

Endings, whether beloved or hated, are meant to give the reader a good sense of closure and, if done well, some sense of satisfaction. Unfortunately, not all endings give their readers closure, let alone any satisfaction. Robert Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, a fiction novel focusing on the life of Jake Barnes, a World War I veteran, and his adventure to Spain with a small group of his friends, falls into this category of inappropriate endings. The ending of The Sun Also Rises is not appropriate because instead of concluding the story, it leaves the reader at the beginning of a cycle seen throughout the book. This aforementioned cycle dominates the characters’ lives, ruling over them, helping the reader predict their every move.
The cycle

starts with a period of reflection or boredom, similar to the reflection period soldiers had after they returned home from the war. “We would probably have gone on and discussed the war and agreed that it was in reality a calamity for civilization, and perhaps would have been better avoided. I was bored enough” (25). These reflection periods lead to the need for something extravagant, like travel. We see the friends travel all over the world, from the United States to France to Spain to everywhere in between. It was their way to escape, to try and find more excitement again. From traveling, we go to the group making extravagant plans. The fishing trips, the bullfights, the parties, they are all, like the trips themselves, ways to put more energy and meaning into their lives. However, the traveling never helps, which is the main reason this cycle continues. The disappointment that comes from the fact that traveling to new, far off, exotic country does nothing for the group leads them to their more dangerous vices. Excessive drinking always follows, along with some affairs. The affairs never last and the drinking only gets the group so far. This leads everyone to pack up everything and try to live their lives again back home. Then the cycle restarts: reflection, traveling, lavish plans, disappointment, and booze and affairs. This cycle is the unbroken force that drives this novel, its past, present, and future.
How does the ending fit into the cycle and how does the cycle itself prevent an adequate conclusion?
The ending of the book is eerily reminiscent of the cab scene in chapter four.

“She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm” (34). “We sat close against each other. I put my arm around her and she rested against me comfortably” (250). It is as if the entire book is starting over again, because it is. The reflection phrase just keep repeating itself. The characters continuously try to figure what is ailing them but can’t seem to seek any other solution besides traveling to a new place. We know that traveling is the next step in the cycle, Jake and Brett will try to find happiness anywhere else but their homes, but they will fail.
The ending of the book puts the readers right back at the beginning, sitting in a cab with Jake and Brett. Their lives are basically the same, they have not developed or changed in any fulfilling way. The end of The Sun Also Rises creates a false hope that something in the future will be better. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” (250). But that is all it is, hope. Old habits die hard, that is something these friends learn the hard way. An ending is not the same as a conclusion, a conclusion finishes something, brings some closure to a subject. The words may cease, but we know what happens after “The

End”.