Lost Generation

The Lost Generation

After World War I, the lost generation emerged. Most of them fought in World War I, and most of them died. The war not only killed a lot of these young teenagers, but it also hurt the young teenagers who survived both physically and mentally. Some of them lost their sexual ability, some of them lost their value inherited from the past generation, and some of them lost the goal in their life. The war deprived their life away from them, they are empty. The teenager named Jake Barnes and his friends in the novel The Sun Also Rises are a typical example of the lost generation. The war deprived Jake’s sexual ability, and further deprived Jake’s life as a man. The war deprived the belief on life from Cohn, Michael, and Brett, who is the friend of Jake. Jake and his friend both wants to escape from this reality, they were lost in this world. They drink all the time to paralyze themselves, they idle on the street, they find their pleasure on the street at night to fill their empty life and they pursue some hopeless dream to fill their empty life, like Cohn pursuing Brett.

Jake and his friends were drinking all the time. Wine is a necessity to their life. Usually, why people drinks wine is to help them get rid of unhappiness, to help them forgot what happened in their life. Jake and his friends drink the wine for the same reason: they want to forget what happened that is not only inevitable but also makes them feel pain in their life. His friend Bill realized why Jake drinks wine, and told him that “You are an expatriate. You have lost touch with the soil. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex” (Hemingway 120.) Indeed, Jake drinks wine because he can not have any physical relationship with his lover Brett, therefore, there are no possibilities for Jake and Brett to be together. Jake was so upset by his impotent, so he drank to try to help paralyze himself, he drank to forget the fact that he is impotent and there’s no possibility between himself and Brett, he drunk to help himself to escape from the reality. Later, when Jake met Brett in Madrid, they went out to drink again. This time, Brett told Jake that “ You don’t have to drink too much” (Hemingway 250.) There are no possibilities between Brett and Jake, so there’s no need for Jake to continue to drink. Jake should just accept this truth, but Jake refused, and continue to drink. Jake didn’t want to accept this truth, he decided to continue to escape from reality, to be lost in this society.

They not only drink to escape from the reality, but also to find their pleasure, their life on the street at night. The night is dark, and dark can cover the reality. So the dark at night helps the lost generation like Jake and Brett to forget what happened to them temporarily. So they find their pleasure at night to fill their empty life. When Jake just arrived at Paris, he went out to seek a prostitute for dinner. “He watched a good-looking girl passed by, and then saw the first one coming back again. She came over and sat down at the table” (Hemingway 22.) He has a lover, but he is impotent, so they can not be together. So Jack went out to find a prostitute, which signified the sexual relationship, to try to fill his empty physical life brought by the fact that he is impotent, to try to escape from the reality. Similar things happened on Brett. She attended World War I too, and this war made her a lost generation; the war made her to lost his lover, Jake, because they can never be together anymore due to the fact that Jake is impotent. The war made her to not believe in love anymore, so she finds her pleasure at night. Jake saw Brett came in with “young men with white hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing, talking” (Hemingway 28.) Brett was going to a club with some homosexual boys. She knows that there are no possibilities between her and some homosexual boys because these boys only love boys, but she still wants to stay with them because this fills her emptiness with emotion caused by the fact that she could not be together with her lover, Jake. She was trying to escape from the reality.

The people of the lost generation drink, and they find pleasure at night. But some of them are the exception. Some people, like Cohn, have their life destroyed by the World War I, so they tried to seek for a better life. Cohn read a book called The Purple Land. This book “recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land” (Hemingway 17.) Under the effect from this book, Cohn starts to imitate this English gentleman, to pursue a perfect life, or we can say, to pursue a life that is impossible. He started by pursuing Brett. He followed Brett to anywhere Brett goes. Finally, when Jake’s friend, Bill, Michael, and Brett gathered together during the fiesta, a tragical ending of the relationship between Brett and Cohn unveiled: Brett got rid of Cohn by going away with Romero. When Michael said that “Brett is gone off with the bull-fighter chap. They are on their honeymoon” (Hemingway 193,) the hope that Cohn held to pursue a perfect life immediately break apart. Cohn tried to escape from the fact that he has no life anymore by pursuing a better life, but he failed. He was trying to escape from the reality, but he failed.

The lost generation tried to escape from the reality where they got lost. They tried to drink, they tried to find their pleasure at night, they tried to pursue a better life, but they failed. The reality is what it is, nobody can escape from what had happened, and definitely included the lost generation.