Name: Rohaida binti Abdullah

Matrix number: 105151520

Subject: English Prose II
Lecturer: Puguh Budi Susetiyo

Psychoanalysis: Anxiety Aftermath Post-World

War I

When Ernest Hemingway releases The Sun Also Rises in Summer 1926,
it was instantly recognized as one of the most important American novels
ever produced that had rightly captured the essence of post-world war I
period. The major contribution to which why the novel had a rigorous
reaction from the public is because a certain audience comprises of
sophisticated readers had identified with expatriate roles in the book and the
fact that it also captures mood and style of the American artistic and
intellectual exiles who on left bank Paris in the aftermath of the first world
war.

However, this captivating aspect of the novel soon lost its appeal,

when these luminaries faded into ambiguity.

Hemingway employs sexuality

issues to be an integral part of this novel to which why we need

psychoanalysis for, that is to help better understanding why the characters
acted the way do.
Sigmund Freud who was born in Vienna in 1856 to the family which
consisted of three boys and five girls, had graduated from University of
Vienna in medical degree. However, as a result of suffering from somatic
complaints, phobias and the intense fear of dying, Freud spent much of his
life working on his theory, which he named psychoanalysis. Freud invented
the term self-analysis, which he would often perform on himself to
understand his fears and his unconscious. Scholars had used his theories for
more than a century to help in better understanding the development of
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character in literature. Hence its function to literary criticism is vehemently

unshakable.

The

theory

comprises

of

many

important

sub-theories

underneath such as Id, Ego, Superego, Anxiety, the defense mechanism,

psychosexual stages, the unconscious and the subconscious (topographical
model) as well as the meaning of death and sexuality.
The idea of the subconscious or unconscious is another major part of
psychoanalytic theory, wherein it deals with the hidden fears, dreams, and
frustrations of individuals and the ways in which these influence our
conscious life and behavior. Especially in order to allow us to comprehend
the motivations and psychological development of characters in a story, the
author, readers or even the text itself, this unconscious theory comes in duly
useful in analyzing literature because the text can be perceived as a
metaphor which throws light upon aspects of the unconscious1. This theory
shed light on better analyzing as to why characters in the sun also rises was
indulged in careless pursuit of life, instead of striving forward. World war I
that took place in most of place in the world has scarred most of people
involved and the innocents, this includes Jake Barnes and the rest. The
subconscious theory allows us to understand the domino effect that these
people go through. The patriarchal society in which Jake Barnes and friends
lived in might have impended them from saying anything about how they
really felt afterwards the war, and so they act it out so the pain theyre
dealing with dont render them completely helpless. In many aspects world
1 (Barry, 1995)
3

war one shifts social arrangement in the society. World War I subverts
traditional notions of morality, faith, and justice. While most of them ends up
wandering aimlessly in a world that appeared hollow, being depraved of
traditional beliefs that gave life meaning, they have become psychologically
and morally lost. Jake, Brett, and their acquaintances seem to no longer
believe in anything, their lives are void. As a result of this, they fill their time
with inconsequential and escapist activities, such as drinking, dancing, and
debauchery.
Subconscious also exists in situation wherein the character hardly
notices as they are masking their own pain. Jakes wound deprives him of
the capacity to perform sexually, however it does not rid him of the desire.
His going-back to nature trip by going to fishing marks his need to be in
contact with mother of nature, which provides him with some sort of peace
that he cannot find in Paris and his own self. This speaks volume about his
dealing with the pain he constantly repressed.

Of the fishes he catches, he

says I laid them out, side by side, all their heads pointed in the same way,
and looked at them. [] I took the trout ashore, washed them in the cold,
smoothly heavy water above the dam, and then picked some ferns and
packed them all in the bag, three trout on a layer of ferns, then another
layer of ferns, then three more trout, and then covered them with ferns.
They looked nice in the ferns.2[pg 62] The cordial tone to the passage
signals the healing effect it has on Jake. And then again when Brent
2 (Hemingway, 1966)
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emotionally- tortured him by going off with Romero, Jake once again indulge
himself in nature. Inasmuch Jake finds consolation in invigorating power of
nature, Brent however, find herself satisfied with sleeping around. She is a
liberated woman, having sex with multiple men and feeling no compulsion to
commit to any of them. In Brett, Hemingway may be expressing his own
anxieties about strong, sexually independent women. Her carefree sex
lifestyle and her confidence in her own sexuality makes Jake and Mike
miserable and leads Cohn to acts of violence. Brett could also be
subconsciously acting up this way because her own painful past- her fianc
died because of dysentery in war. Subsequently she engages in many
shallow relationship is because her need to find this original love. But her
search is deemed to be futile, because none of her relationships direction
seems to be clear and working out neither with Jake nor Mike. Bretts
personal search is perhaps symbolic of the entire Lost Generations search
for the shattered prewar values of love and romance.
Above all it is important to note that never explicitly asserts that Jake
and his acquaintances lives are desultory, or that this aimlessness is a byproduct of the war. Instead hes showing it through his portrayal of the
characters emotional and mental state which completely contrasted with
characters actual action. Jake and the rests constant wassailing does not
entirely make them happy, for that euphoria never last. It is evident through
the scene where Jake hurled himself up crying at night. It is awfully easy to
be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another
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thing.3 [pg 18] Almost all the time, their definition of being happy is going
out drinking; theres no depth in their daily activities for mostly are driven by
alcohol. All the time spent remains unfulfilling and sorrowful. It is clear that
the people in The Sun Also Rises fervently want meaning and fulfillment, but
they lack the ability and means to find it.
When the presence of anxiety, the ego can become overwhelmed. To
keep the Ego from collapse, the ego has developed defense mechanisms.
The defense mechanism of Freuds psychoanalysis theory is also evident
through Jakes treatment towards his Jewish friend. Being a freelancer author
at Toronto daily star has enabled Hemingway to channel his humorous streak
at the right platform. Jewish jokes especially have become part of his
heritage. Therefore, we could possibly depend on this piece of information to
conclude that by metafiction hes channeling his own personal experiences
when penning down Robert Cohn character. Fitzgerald wrote in his letter to
Hemingway saying - That biography from you, who always believed in the
superiority (the preferability) of the imagined to the seen not to say to the
merely recounted. 4He had noticed that Hemingway loves to employ his
own persona onto the character that he wrote about; therefore, the
resemblance. Robert Cohns character in the sun also rises is sort of satirical
write-off for Hemingway which masks his own hostility towards Jews. Cohn,
being the Jewish non-veteran often become a scapegoat ie object of
3 ibid
4 (Crouch, 2014)
6

displacement. Quickly enough he is the convenient target of everyones

resentment, displacing the threat of resentment among the other characters.
For instance, in one scene where Cohn went to join Jake and Harvey at a
table, he easily picked on Cohn by saying; "I was just telling Jake here that
you're a moron."

And "You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested

development."6 [pg. 23]. No one has ever held accountable for his cruelty
toward Cohn. Mike, for example, explains and tacitly justifies his boorish
behavior without accepting responsibility for it by saying simply, I was
drunk.7
Often anxiety makes a lot of people aware of their own feelings about
life, and although left unsaid most of the time, it defiantly shows through
how a character handles their luggages of emotion.

At times, we cannot

respond to others as we would like. When the ego has extreme feelings
towards a target, tension builds. To relieve this tension, the ego will target
the aggression to another source. This could be demonstrated through the
fact although Jake knows that Robert Cohns infatuation is basically hopeless,
yet he doesnt do anything to hinder Cohns feeling. In this way, Jake put up
an act of defense mechanism ie displacement. He has to mask his animus
towards Cohn by putting up an act as if he truly enjoys Cohns
companionship. Although Cohn genuinely admires Jake as a friend, Jake must
5 ibid
6 ibid
7 ibid
7

often camouflage his unequivocal antagonism toward Cohn, a dissension that

increases dramatically along with Jakes unexpressed jealousy of Cohn over
his temporal affair with Brett. At one point, he even claims to hate Cohn. This
failure to form genuine connections with other people is an aspect of the
aimless wandering that characterizes Jakes existence. Ironically, Hemingway
suggests that in the context of war it was easier to form connections with
other people. In peacetime it substantiates far more difficult for these
characters to do so.
Anxiety could also be shown through ones sexual behavior. Therefore,
It is important to observe how each character respond sexually, because this
behavior is a product of culture and all the more to it is because culture
ensconces the rules of proper sexual orientation and the definitions of
normal and abnormal sexual behavior. Before the emergence of world war,
society in a lot of countries simply just adhere the sexual arrangement set
down by their ancestors for many years but war that happens slightly shifted
the rules and thereby reinventing the meaning of masculinity, sexuality and
patriarchy in the society. The prewar quintessential of the strong and
unemotional

soldier

had

little

congruity

of

barbarous

trench

counterinsurgency that redefines the war. During the brutal emergency,

armies were forced to sit in a cluster as the army of the enemy heavily
barrage them with missiles, therefore often during this period of time one
need luck more than bravery in order to stay alive. During the war, it is
easier for men to admit fears and ignore the notion of masculinity but
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afterwards the war, this interdependence turns into anxiety toward

homosexuality. For instance, jokingly, Bill explains that Civil War

is

an

expression of repressed homosexual tension. The fact that he could not

express his fondness for Jake in New York City for fear he would be marked as
a faggot seems to be an attempt to relieve an unconscious anxiety about
his close relationship with Jake. The needs to underline that fact that though
he loves Jake very much, he does not love him sexually marks this anxiety.
Traditional notions of what it meant to be a man were thus undermined by
the realities of the war. Jake is one these cultural changes amidst many other
young soldier who go through just as he did. The war saw many healthy
young men defected and gotten sick because of the war, and impotency is
just so happened to be one of those common untreatable injuries during this
era. Apart from making sexuality as the focal point in the prose, Hemingway
uses the character of Brett to redraw the long preceding gender roles for
women and men in the twentieth century. Brett, whom the author had
described as damned good-looking8[ pg. 12]

is portrayed as manly,

alcoholic, and emotionally callous women who remains to be loveable. She

opens up her scene in such a grandiose manner, wearing just a thin
crewneck sweater (tight-fitting wool jersey showing off her) revealing her
curves like the hull of a racing yacht9[ pg. 12] and wears no stockings at

8 ibid
9 ibid
9

all as she dances and drinks in public 10. As much as Brett dolls herself up to
look masculine, she simply just unable to shy away from the attention she
gets from males around who sort of became helplessly drawn into her. Now
that the focus is entirely on the reaction of the male characters to Brett, the
reader is suddenly aware of the individual struggles that the men face in
regards to the ideal of manhood. The war has caused Jake to render his
manhood, and Bretts empowered position by not conforming to societal
standard of femininity has earned her a special place amongst males who
badly wanted her. In many ways, Bretts presence has feminization effect on
these characters. Steven Marney argues that

Hemingway uses Jake to

contrast Robert and Romero and to make a statement that some men are
willing to put their egos aside in order to embrace this new sense of
womanhood, even if it means humbling themselves to a position that holds
no power.11

The nonchalant attitude to promiscuity that Brett committed

herself to, runs contrary to the societal expectations that exists for Brett.
Therefore, Brett character represent a whole different perspective in
traditional gender role and sexuality, which is rather bold for her time.
All in all, it can be concluded much of the anxiety portrayed in this
prose it driven by sexuality issues that arises after world war one. Some of
the issue concerns not only sexual orientation but also how a lot male
characters regard a less-feminine heroine in the text, which in turns give rise
10 (LaCava, 2016)
11 (Marney,2010)
10

to the feminization effect which a lot of scholars had agreed on.

Psychoanalysis has definitely facilitated to rule out and understand the event
in this novel better.

References
LaCava, S. (2016). Character Studies: Lady Brett Ashley. The Paris Review.
Retrieved

18

April

2016,

from

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/07/19/character-studies-lady-brettashley/
Marney, S.(2010). My Major Theories: A Gender Studies Analysis of The Sun
Also Rises (final paper). Mymajortheories.blogspot.co.id. Retrieved 18 April
2016,

from

http://mymajortheories.blogspot.co.id/2010/05/gender-studies-

analysis-of-sun-also.html
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Crouch, I. (2014). Hemingway's Hidden Metafictions in "The Sun Also Rises" The

New

Yorker.

The

New

Yorker.

Retrieved

18

April

2016,

from

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/hemingways-hiddenmetafictions
Wagner-Martin, L. (2016). New Essays On The Sun Also Rises (pp. 28-39).
United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Gutmann-Gonzalez, M. (2016).
A Lacanian Analysis of Hemingways Search for Spirituality (Undergraduate).
Warwick University.
Marital Tragedy. (2016). Nytimes.com. Retrieved 27 April 2016, from
https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/hemingway-rises.html
Barry, Peter. Psychoanalytic Criticism. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to
Literature and
Cultural Theory. Manchester, UK: Manchester U P, 1995. 96-118
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.

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