The Lost Generation

Alright, so as I sat down to write my first post on The Sun Also Rises, my mind was swimming with many ideas that were built during our class discussions. There were many deep, interesting themes and motifs that I had noticed, but as I thought about what I wanted to focus on, I couldn’t figure out which I wanted to write about, which was the most important or interesting. Then, this totally random thought popped into my head: don’t the characters have jobs? I mean, we see Jake go to work and talk about what he does from time to time, but it just doesn’t seem all that important to him. This is the same with the other characters. Cohn must have a job, Bill doesn’t seem to go to the office during the day. They all decide to take long, random vacations. Granted, some of the characters don’t need to work because they are obviously very rich through presumably inheritance (or marriage), such as Brett and the Count. It is shown that Jake adheres to a sleep schedule of sorts, not staying out all night like Brett, but I digress.

These people seem to not care about their careers at all. Their mind seems to be constantly on nightlife. They go bar hopping every night, and when they aren’t, they’re at boxing matches or bullfights. As we said in class, this is the Lost Generation. Hemingway makes this very clear. In class we pondered what this meant, and I frankly had little idea. Now, I believe that these people are lost, not moving forwards, working to further their knowledge or anything else. There seems to be no progression in their lives. They wander around drinking and partying instead of working towards something. They have placed a premium on being lost; they seem to have no interest in giving their life direction. Even though some of them seem to be quite unhappy with this lifestyle at times, such as Jake, who regularly gets upset and at times is seemingly going through the motions, and Brett, who confesses to Jake that she is unhappy, they do not try to change it. They don’t know how to. And thus, they are truly lost.