"The Sun Also Rises" is a
novel by Ernest Hemingway. Set in the mid-1920s, it deals with the 'lost generation' of American and British expatriates who have settled in Paris, and in the novel depicted by Hemingway as a moral wasteland of drunkenness and promiscuity.
The story is narrated by Jake Barnes, an American journalist who has been rendered sexually impotent by a wound he suffered during World War I. Jake is in love with Lady Brett Ashley, the queen of the pleasure-seekers. Brett returns his love but, knowing that consummation is impossible, agrees to marry Mike Campbell instead. Jake lives according to a
self-taught emotional pragmatism, a contrast with the self-pitying sentimentalism Robert Cohn, his acquaintance.
Under Brett's spell, Robert joins her, Mike, and Jake in going to Spain to witness the
fiesta and bullfights at Pamplona. Watching the bullring Jake finds meaning and hope in the ritual which pits man against beast, and life against death. He especially admires the young
matador Pedro Romero with his skill and bravery. The fiesta degenerates into a series of brawls. Angered by Brett's seduction of the matador, Cohn beats up both Romero and Jake, and the party turns sour.
Brett runs off with Romero. To regain moral stability, Jake retreats to a seaside resort, but his recovery is interrupted by a telegram from Brett begging him to come to Madrid to help her. There she tells him of her decision in sending Romero away because she does not want to corrupt him any further. Jake and Brett took a taxi ride around the city, musing over the realization of a hopeless situation. Brett clings to the notion that they ''could have had such a damned good time together'' but Jake responds in a matter-of-factly way that it would be ''pretty'' to think so, indicating that any more false hopes should be realistically rejected.
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