Depression after Modernism

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway contains characters who all seem to be almost redeveloping their social skills, personalities, and confidence after the World War that had taken place right before the plot begins in America. Large events in American history influence the changes and development of literature in America and the first World War was one event that was particularly damaging. The ideas present in literature became much more somber and complex, making the effects of the war evident. American authors had been impacted by the war and their writing, the style, characters, plot, setting, and overall methods of writing had changed creating a writing period of depression in American literature.

Modernism is the period that these changes were most easily seen in as the period started following the war. I studied the Modernism period in English at the start of the semester and with that research now present in my mind I am able to notice characteristics of modernist writing in the literature we read inside class and outside of class. When reading Hemingway's book, not only the style and techniques used in his writing are obviously modern, but the characters feelings and struggles with their own view of themselves and self-confidence are examples of the depression they were involved in following the war they had fought in before the book began. This connection was interesting for me to understand and helped me to realize what the Hemingway was trying to express through his characters personalities and actions.

Do We Have To Be "American" to Be American?

A question brought up quite often recently in English class due to our task of defining American Literature is, does an author have to be from America to be an American author and therefore qualify their literature as American Literature? I took this question and changed it to better my curiosity by asking, do the characters in a book have to be from America to qualify a book as American Literature, even if the author is American themselves? This question came up because in the book The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, all the characters are traveling or living in countries outside of America such as Paris, South America, Spain, Scotland, and Greece. The difference that is made in this storyline is that all the characters are united through their involvement in World War I, the majority of them having fought in the war for America. Even the female character Brett is involved through her work in the hospitals of the war and other characters are friends of war veterans. The setting of the book however is not America and the characters are obviously expatriates. Therefore, can the book still be categorized as an American piece of literature or do the characters and plot of the story have nothing to do with the book's qualification in such a category?

I believe that the author's own status as American is a large factor. The author himself being from America and having knowledge about World War I and its effects evident in the characters who are said to have been present shown through his descriptions of them contribute to the books American genre. I also think that the since the main characters in The Sun Also Rises were all united by the same conflict in America, their efforts in World War I, that even if they're lives take them elsewhere in the world they have the American background and the American identities that are needed. Therefore I do think that we have the characters had to be American in order for the book to be a piece of American literature, but they do not have to spend their entire lives in America as long as they know where they came from and that background affects them and is evident in their actions and beliefs wherever they do go.

Losing Masculinity to Modernism

The results of World War I had a large influence on literature and its ideas, themes, and plots. All of these changes and new styles are shown through the literature written in Modernism, the time period I studied early in English class this year and now have knowledge about as we read various books in class or outside of class. The Sun Also Rises is written in a Modern setting and contains these new ideas brought on by the war and its destruction of those involved physically, mentally, and emotionally. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway involves a group of male characters who all seem to be redefining themselves as men due to their recent involvement in World War I in America. Whether Hemingway directly points to the loss of manhood or indirectly points to such ideas through the narrator, Jake's, descriptions of the characters and the contrast between the men and the main female character Brett, the idea is present. Connections can be are between my research of the Modernist period and the characters actions, thoughts, feelings, dialogue, portrayals, and personal views of themselves. An easy connection to draw however is the large amount of redefining, whether it be the redefinition of tangible things, emotions, or characters, that took place in The Sun Also Rises as well as in Literature transitioning from Realism to Modernism.

Jake, the narrator and a former fighter in the US during World War I, is affected by change due to the war itself and the pure terror it was for those fighting in it. Following the end of the war, John's feelings and confidence seems to be shaken and "feminized" as you can see through his descriptions of other as well as a few points where you can see into his own personal descriptions. Hemingway mentions this loss of John's "manhood" specifically through the loss of his ability to have sex, a setback in his life especially when involving female characters such as Brett. Brett, the female protagonist who is easily defined as an independent woman searching for love that she cannot see to hold on to, is another sign of various male character's loss of masculinity. Robert Cohn in particular, a friend of John's who was not involved in World War I due to his Jewish background and life in Paris instead of America, is affected by his interest in Brett and the actions he take to try and please her. These actions are seen as feminine to Cohn's friends and foes and they weaken him as you can see from Jake's narration of him. Directly, Brett is more obviously made a character who has greater masculinity than all make characters due to her short haircut, boyish name, and the tendency to call herself "chap". Brett being a woman and yet still having greater masculinity than all of the men around her, redefines the typical and previously known beliefs about gender, just as war redefined the literature in the American Modernism period from that of peace, fantasy or joy to that of depression and sorrow.

Simplicity over Detail

I am reading Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises this quarter for my outside reading book. The storyline is fairly interesting so far and seems to be revolving around the main character, who speaks in first person, and his friend Robert Cohn as he retells what must be a dramatic life full of complications with women that he and Robert have experienced. In blog however I'm not going to focus on the plot of the book, but rather the style of writing Hemingway has, and how he describes his characters, setting, and basic scenes using it. Ernest Hemingway uses an extremely simplistic style of writing. To compare I have looked at the style of writing used by the author of Billy Budd, a novella we recently read in English class, Herman Melville. Instead of simple writing Melville uses a more detailed and drawn out technique.
Herman Melville is a romantic writer whose style is exceedingly exact, giving attention to every detail necessary in providing a clear image of the setting, characters, and plot of books he has written. This style is common in romantic writing and is used to enhance the often fantastical ideas incorporated in romantic stories. Reading Billy Budd in class was sometimes difficult because of the incredible amount of detail when simply talking about an area of the ship or the feelings expressed by a certain sailor. This style is remarkably different from Ernest Hemingway's genre and techniques, which were lesser in general. Hemingway used simple, short sentences to explain his characters and setting and these methods produce the same level of understanding and imagery that Melville's writing does. These contrasting styles are vastly different but they produce the same quality of literature, just in different ways.