Sei sulla pagina 1di 5

Transcript​: Audio clip

Hemingway once said, “​The world breaks everyone​ and afterward many are strong at the
broken​ places. But those that will not break it, kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle
and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but
there will be no special hurry. Indeed, as the Modern Era really took off at the turn of the
century, ​brokenness​ was not at all an uncommon notion. Large proportions of the populous
had moved to urban centres in search of employment, often in factories. There was high
unemployment and high crime, unsanitary living conditions. Industrialised Europe broke out
in war, followed by much of the world, in what would be the most devastating conflict to have
ever taken place. ​Notions of masculinity, trust in institutions and the basics of morality
were challenged,​ questioned and ultimately broken. And Ernest Hemingway was a writer
who knew about ​brokenness​.

Part of the famed lost generation, Hemingway and his fellow expatriates chose to remain in
Europe after the devastation of World War I as they believed that their inherited values and
beliefs were no longer relevant and had no place in the post-war world. Hemingway found
himself in the midst of an ever expanding chasm of emotional trauma, psychological
disorders and a great sense of disorientation. His experiences on the front lines of war and
his injury on the Italian Front as an ambulance driver shaped his writing and the physical and
psychological bruises of his broken life informed his characters. ​Hemingway’s novels do not
seek to hide or ignore the realities of life after the war, nor does he attempt to hide the
anxiety, alcoholism and sexual promiscuity of a generation trot with emptiness and isolation.
His writing endeavours to find meaning and the experience of being broken itself and to
allow this experience to be meaningful and also to shape the very form of his stories.

His use of the narrative form was masterful, all elements of his novels - ​its form, its
characters, dialogue, setting worked together to shape the meaning of his stories.
Hemingway wrote modernist prose, bare bone descriptions that void of flowery adjectives or
adverbs, the very grammar of a Hemingway’s sentence was dictated by a certain way of
looking at the world, a way of looking but not joining. This was a man to whom words
mattered. He worked at them, he understood them, he got inside them. He learned how to
write a novel in which, under the surface details, lay rich layers of meaning and subtext. Just
like the iceberg to which he has famously compared his writing. But more importantly, he
captured the experiences of a fractured generation in need of a personal code of conduct in
an unreasonable world. He once said, ​“You see, i’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling
of actual life across, not to just depict life or criticise it, but to actually make it alive, so that
when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this
without putting in the bad and the ugly, as well as what is beautiful.” ​Well Hemingway,
being broken isn’t the result of life’s events; it is the experience of life itself.
Structure:
1. Intro
- Thesis
- Introduce text + brief synopsis + context
- Bring it back to the question
2. 4 paragraphs: Jake Barnes, Pamplona, Bullfighting and unresolved ending
- Topic sentence
- Elaborate on context
- Quotes (2-3)
- Link back to question

1. How do the quotes relate to the question?


2. Where should they be talked about in the essay?

Intro
In the novel ‘​Fiesta, the sun also rises’​, Hemingway

Jake Barnes
● “He c​aptured the experiences of a fractured generation in need of a personal code of
conduct in an unreasonable world.
● “Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy”.
● “You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil”
● He is the representation of the lost generation due to his impotence

Setting (pamplona)
● “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But
those that will not break it, kills.”
● “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s
nothing to that”.
● The society is either broken or killed.

Bullfighting
● “Nobody ever lives life all that way up except bullfighters”. Jake to Cohn
● “It’s no life being a steer”
● Symbolises the tension between characters and their hedonistic lives and loss of
masculinity.
● Climax

Unresolved ending
● “​His writing endeavours to find meaning and the experience of being broken itself
and to allow his experience to be meaningful and also to shape the very form of his
stories.”
● “Isn’t it pretty to think so”
Practice questions 
a) ​Ernest Hemingway's "Fiesta" c​ aptures​ the M
​ odern generation's capacity to find meaning in life​.  
How​ does this statement align with your study of the novel? 
 
b) ​Ernest Hemingway's "Fiesta​" is a
​ n exploration​ of​ hope at a time where hope was difficult. 
To what extent ​does this statement reflect your study of the text? 
 
In the novel ‘​Fiesta, the sun also rises’​, Hemingway reshapes the novel form in order to
effectively portray the Modern generation’s difficulty with the lack of hope during the postwar
era.

 
"Reading a Hemingway novel is interesting, not for what it says, but for how it says it." 
Analyse this statement with reference to Fiesta. 
- Refer to use of form and context 
- Renowned for a minimalist writing style 
- Para 1: Jake ignores tension 
- Para 2: Rising tension 
- Para 3: Climax 
- Para 4: Cycle of tension 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Intro 
In the novel ‘​Fiesta, the sun also rises’​, Hemingway reshapes the novel form in order to
effectively portray ​the trauma of the post war society brought upon by WWI. The “Lost
Generation” was hopelessly scattered across Europe and are characterised by lost, aimless
souls who were dissatisfied with hedonistic lives lacking in purpose and morality. This is
reflected through ​Fiesta’​ s characters including the protagonist Jake Barnes and his
expatriates through their struggles of living in post war Paris and Pamplona.

Jake Barnes
Hemingway had represented the post war generation of, ‘​The sun also rises’ ​through the
anti-heroism of the central character, Jake Barnes. Thus, as a result of the war, he’d
sustained injuries that lead up to his impotence where Hemingway “captured ​the
experiences of a fractured generation in need of a personal code of conduct in an
unreasonable world.” as said in the audio stimulus. Jake’s character is the embodiment of
the modern persona as he lacks the wholeness and masculinity yet carries the brokeness of
the post war period. His impotence lies as a portion of his hedonistic lifestyle as he states,
“under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy” , with the expectation that
alcohol will drown all his issues away. In this case, the tension maintains as he also claims
“Everybody’s sick. I’m sick too”, where the use of repetition signifies Jake’s perspective in
relation to the lost generation whose intentions are to also ignore their issues. Therefore,
Hemingway reflects Jake Barnes as the incarnation of the brokenness in the post war
society

Pamplona (Setting)
The brokenness of the lost generation is displayed through the shift of hedonistic setting
from Paris to Pamplona, leading to the rise in released tension between modern individuals.
Hence, Hemingway’s minimalism caused Jake Barnes and his expatriates to be influenced
by the hedonistic atmosphere within ​Fiesta​ to begin the rising tensin reference to how “the
world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places”. Pamplona
emphasises the loss of identity seeing that the characters continue on living as victims of the
post war period, metaphorically demonstrated through “You’re an expatriate . You’ve lost
touch with the soil”. However, Jake unintentionally stated “you can’t get away from yourself
by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that”, towards Robert as his attempt
to escaping his issues had failed due to the overt brokenness that took over. Thus, the
growing tension within Pamplona is represented through the restraint of the post war society
in which issues can’t be escaped from.

Bullfighting
In ​The sun also rises,​ Hemingway utilises bullfighting as a portrayal of how overt brokenness
is dealt with in the lives of the lost generation after the war. The bulls are shown to act as
motifs to symbolise those living in Pamplona including Jake Barnes. Accordingly, Jake’s
impotence had caused his relationship with the love of his life; Brett to be unsuccessful and
yet he stated, “Nobody ever lives life all the way up except bullfighters” in reference to Pedro
Romero; a bullfighter to which he’s seen as the ideal embodiment of masculinity, identity and
culture in which the lost generation doesn’t have. The juxtaposition between these two
characters reflects the sense of inferiority Jake feels towards Romero, further building up to
the climax where Robert Cohn refers to Jake as “a damned pimp”, before throwing a punch.
The tension between Jake and his expatriates are finally broken as Hemingway expresses
this through when “the notions of masculinity, trust in institutions and the basics of morality
were challenged” through his writing.

Unresolved ending
Hemingway embodies the lack of hope within ​The Sun also rises​ to express the unresolved
ending as the fate of the lost generation. After Jake moves to San Sebastian as a result of
the broken tension between him and his expatriates in Pamplona, he receives a letter from
Brett, “Could you come to Hotel Montana Madrid, am rather in trouble” as this symbolises
their endless love for each other, yet the lack of progression of their relationship and the lost
generation. Jake’s antiheroism brought him back to where he’d started, but then further on
acknowledges to Brett “isn’t it pretty to think so” if their relationship were successful. The
word ‘pretty’ is a connotation of the superficial vision that Jake and Brett carries whilst coping
with utter brokenness along with the rest of society.

Potrebbero piacerti anche