The Sun Also Rises a Fictional Chronicle of a “Lost Generation”

Basically, the phrase describes the generation that came to maturity during World War I and describes the cumulative effect of the new kind of warfare on that generation. The technology involved in modern warfare also created carnage on a scale that had never been seen before. The sheer amount of death and destruction from WWI led people to question the meaning of life.

Gertrude Stein coined this name, which applies to the young people who grew up in the shadow of World War I (1914-1918). In terms of pop culture, the images that usually spring to mind of this group are those of the Roaring Twenties: fast cars, flappers, and wild parties. Historically speaking, the First World War – also known as the Great War – was a kind of breaking point for the people of Europe and America. Nobody had ever imagined that a global event so apocalyptic would possibly happen, and when it did, it changed everything; suddenly, the beliefs and practices of the
pre-war world no longer seemed adequate.

Like many famous authors of this period, including Hemingway himself, Jake has left American in order to find a better way of life in another country. His obsession with the Spanish bull fights is so that even native Spaniards acknowledge that he is an aficionado and this is one example of Jake’s trying to involve himself in a greater interest. Similarly, he and his friends try to submerge themselves in rural Spanish past times, like fishing in the country, in an attempt, perhaps, to get in “touch with the soul” as bill says. The novel is Hemingway’s answer to the malaise of the “lost generation”; a message of a more vital way of life that might be salvation for an alienated generation.

On top of that, the beginning of the twentieth century was a time of profound technological change (Airplanes! Cars! Gee, whiz!). Suddenly, the world seemed like a much more accessible place. The Lost Generation is commonly characterized by the figures of Hemingway himself and his famous pal F. Scott Fitzgerald, who both partied hard, traveled incessantly, but was never quite happy.

Although Ernest Hemingway, in this novel, tries to take himself very seriously, in many ways this is just a story of young people having fun, exploring their own identities, going through all those intense melodramatic relationships one has at a certain age, etc.

A very interesting section of this novel occurs when they watch the bullfighting and reject the possibility of being a hero or of living life to the full.