The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

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Recommended: Literature As A Reflection Of Society

The Sun Also Rises is a great novel about the “lost generation”, which is the post war generation. Ernest Hemingway was inspired by real life events when writing this novel, basing the events and characters off of his personal experiences with friends and life after war. In this novel there is an abundance of casual sex between characters, and Lady Brett Ashley is the main character that displays these shows of promiscuity, constantly seducing men to get what she wants. Brett is the only woman that is fully developed in the story and her value is of expensive jewelry to the men, yet she uses and treats them differently. Brett has sexual relations with many men in the novel. Ernest Hemingway portrays Lady Brett Ashley as a masculine, promiscuous, and self-destructive.
Brett Ashley come across as a very masculine woman. She has many attributes that would deem her unattractive to most men, yet add to her sex appeal. This would include the way that she dresses and also how we psychically see her. Hemingway writes, “Brett was damned good looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey” (Hemingway 30). She smokes cigars and drinks as much as maybe more than the men in the story, which was not common of women in the 1920’s. Her entire look and personality just came off as more masculine than feminine.
Brett is very promiscuous knowing that she can attain anything she wants out of men. All of the men that meet her become captivated with her. She uses men and then discards of them, like unwanted trash, when they are of no use to her. Robert Cohn, one of ...

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...kes. She is a woman full of pain. Brett even says to Jake, “Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable” (Hemingway 31). She is finally realizing that the decisions she has been making is ruining her life. Brett is digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole and it is only a matter of time until she emotionally breaks down.
Lady Brett Ashley is the beauty of The Sun Also Rises. She causes a lot of trouble for many of the other characters. Brett is promiscuous and likes to sleep around. It is true that she hurts many people along the way as she lashes out in pain, but she hurts herself even more.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 2006. Print.
Fulton, Lorie- Watkins. "Reading around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and THE SUN ALSO RISES." Hemingway Review 24.1 (2004): 61-80. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO Host. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

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