Manhood In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Words: 1264
Pages: 6

Ernest Hemingway once said, “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places”. This simply means, everyone gets hurt in the world but it is that person’s decision if they become stronger or let it destroy them. Men in Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises fought in WWI and through that have a distorted idea of what it means to be a man. As men returned from war they noticed nothing was the same. The standards of manhood changed and the women around them have changed as well. Women became more independent and androgynous. The men involved were scarred mentally and physically leaving them broken, Hemingway used these male characters to express his ongoing theme of male insecurity. The men in Ernest Hemingway’s novel who were involved in World War I, a war that affected many men physically and …show more content…
As the writer Xiaoping Yu (2010) points out, “Brett, like the New Woman, is androgynous in many ways”(p. 177), she is the perfect imagine of the new women of this time period. She was strong and independent, she didn’t need a man but if she wanted one she had one and would leave them with no remorse. Not only did she act manly, she dressed like a man too. Hemingway describing her as wearing men's clothing and asked to be called “chap”, only forces more emphasis on how she is very sure of who she is and just how strong she can be. In this day and age most women fell head over heels for men, doing as they pleased. Not Brett, she could use every man she was around her, then leave them and they wouldn’t bat an eye. They followed her constantly always wanting her, but in the end she decided who won. Having this strong of a character next to so many male characters who are confused with their own manliness, only pushes the belief farther that these men are insecure and weak compared to the standards set by european men in this