cHARACTERIZATION IN THE sUN aLSO rISES

Hemingway presents and illustrates the image and thoughts of the lost generation in his novel The Sun Also Rises. The character Jake Barnes represents a man that has just come back from an unforgettable experience. Jake ultimately represents a disillusioned man representative of the lost generation. To begin with, Hemingway at the beginning of the novel presents Jake as being a suave man that disbelieves in romanticism in his life. Thus, by utilizing characterization of …

…impotence, Jake's true weakness is the impotence of his will and the supposed hero of the novel is flawed due to his failure to adhere to what he believes is right and wrong. Hemingway thus refrains from presenting a true hero in his novel. With the absence of a leading male ideal, Hemingway betrays the larger socio-cultural assumptions about men and masculinity and questions the conventional means in which they are defined in his society.