American Literature (C) Portfolio

Rachel is a junior at Hebron Academy who loves her C period Honors American Literature Class! She enjoys writing creatively, specifically personal narrative stories. She has always been very bad at writing as far as grammar but shares her personality through her voice in writing. Her feminist poetry piece about having hope with the strength of the women around her was a piece she was very passionate about. It also was chosen for the hope writing contest. Rachel also enjoys reading classic literature (minus The Crucible). She likes to connect with dynamic characters in literature. Aside from English class Rachel loves running, sports, and spending time with her loved ones. Feel free to check out my awesome writing!

Hey guys I’m Eliza and this personal introduction is about as informal as my personality.  I’m a go with the flow kind of gal; I love hiking and being outdoors as well as keeping it competitive on the athletic fields.  I play soccer, hockey, and softball and am a part of the Green Key Tour Guides, and the LGBTQ community.  I’m a recent winner of the  “Hope” writing contest, and I am looking to be a part of the Writer’s Block staff to help others with their writing, too!  I love writing narratives and humor pieces as you will see in my blog posts.  Enjoy!

Hi, my name is Bradley Sperl. I am a Junior at Hebron Academy, and have been attending since I was in the sixth grade. English was always a rough subject throughout my academic years, but the Honors American Literature Class has helped me to focus myself. I began to use my other literary talents like attention to detail to connect more creatively with literature and blossom as an up and coming English scholar. I enjoy most books, but I have trouble finding the time to sit and read. I am more of a visual and tactile learner. Being obsessed with technology and video games has had a special effect on the way I approach my writing and how quickly I get it done. They are also my biggest hobbies.

Hi everyone, I’m Tess Gregory a fellow classmate of yours. English has become my favorite subject as I have gone through my high school career. In this past year I have developed a new passion for African American Literature and have pursued that interest by reading novels and articles related to that topic. I have also been published in the Hebron Review and currently I am working on a paper that explores the lives of African American women and how their lives have been portrayed in literature. Hope you enjoy the pieces you will read.

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” -Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau’s statement about being lost relates to the journey of the protagonist in the book, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Jake Barnes. Jake struggles with understanding his identity as a person while he tries to please the woman he loves, but cannot have. As Jake’s mindful journey comes to an end, it is during the time that he spends with himself where he truly finds peace with who he is, and what he is supposed to do in life. Throughout the plot, Jake is lost in a fake reality due to the fact that he is apart of “The Lost Generation”. He can’t escape it because it is the life he chose, and it is the aspects of this life that constantly pull him back into being ‘lost’. It is the time away from his apparent true love, Brett, that gives him the opportunity to live a life composed of actual reality, as opposed to entangling himself with Brett who represents one of the factors and reasons why Jake is lost, and unable to truly escape “The Lost Generation” lifestyle.

In Jake’s life, Brett, represents the one thing that shades his judgement of reality, and her presence denies him the opportunity to focus on his own life. Since the first day that Jake met Brett at the hospital where he was treated for his injury, she has impacted him in a way that, whenever they converse, Jake drifts into a false reality that  brings him to the point of being lost in an unrealistic world created by the facade of his close friendships. This ill-fated judgement leads Jake to follow Brett around Europe, doing whatever she asks out of his love for her. This reality brings Jake to the point where his, “life is going so fast and [he’s] not really living it. (Hemingway, 18)”. This quote is so powerful in terms of the plot because, originally, this is a statement made by Cohn. Jake’s hate for Cohn is extreme, and it is ironic that Jake is able to come to the point, in his life, where he is able to live life to the fullest, unlike Cohn. Jake realizes that he is going through life without a true meaning behind his actions, and is only trying to please the women he loves, but cannot have. His ability to block out the complexity of life around him and realize, unlike Cohn, that simplicity allows him to truly understand all aspects of life, and that he will never be perfect, but “isn’t it pretty to think so? (Hemingway, 251)”. Subsequently, this quote shows that Jake has realized that his life will never be perfect because of who is, and what he embodies.

Jake’s journey to Spain, while on vacation, is filled with emotions of love, hate, jealousy, and pain. Through watching Cohn, his most disliked friend, almost steal Brett from him, to giving her away to a young Spanish matador, Jake’s actions and emotions are strongly swayed by Brett’s. He is lost in an unrealistic world whenever he’s around her because his love for Brett shades his judgement and prevents his ability to be his true self. One of the only times in the plot where Jake is able to escape the idea of being lost, and experience the beauties of life without worrying about her is when he and Bill, his close friend, travel to Bayonne to fish. While there, the two are able to truly enjoy the simplicity of life and the beauty that the lifestyle provides. Though things seemed to look upward for Jake, his choice to go back to Pamplona and see Brett draws him back into the lost reality where he lies victim to his inability to escape his love for Brett. The lost reality is a nightmare for Jake because it is, “something [that he] had been through and that now [he] must go through again [and again], (Heminway, 71)”. This relates to the fact where he and Brett often enter a fake reality together as she tell him that she is ‘miserable’, and he tries to comfort her. This process always causes Jake pain because Brett will forever betray him, as he gets close to her, due to the fact that he is incapable of physically loving her.

Jake endures more pain and anguish, and tries to take it away through means of alcohol, and solitude. Once the trip ends, Jake departs from his friends, and stays in San Sebastian. There he has an epiphany that changes his life forever. As Jake stays in San Sebastian, he takes a lot of time to himself. During this time, he finds out who he really is as a person. This happens when Jake goes to the beach one day and, ”I dove deep once, swimming down to the bottom. I swam with my eyes open and it was green and dark. The raft made a dark shadow. I came out of the water beside the raft, pulled up, dove once more, holding it for length, and then swam ashore, (Hemingway, 242)”. This sequence of dives represents every time that Jake lived in the ‘lost’ period of his life. Each time he let Brett drag him into the lifestyle of being lost, he reached the “green and dark” parts of the water that didn’t allow him to see where he was going or what he was doing in his life. Though, each time it seemed that Jake had escaped the “green and dark” parts of the water, Brett was the thing in his life that made him “dive once more” back into the dark waters. Finally, when he had his epiphany, it was the point in his life where he “pulled” himself” up through the lightening layers of the water, and came out as a new man. Realizing, through his rebirth, that he and Brett would never work, because as he rose through the lightening layers of water, he gained the realization that his love for Brett is what caused him to be continually lost and depressed. He was able to overcome the barrier known as Brett, and is now, as it was shown through his ‘sturdy strokes’, able to live his life confidently. He begins to live his life confidently knowing that he/it will never be perfect, due to the fact that he is forever apart of “The Lost Generation”, but in turn has found a way to be okay with that.

Jake’s overall existence, during his period in time of being lost, relates to “The Lost Generation”, that Gertrude Stein refers to when speaking about all the expatriate writes living in France. Possibly the greatest writers of all time followed Thoreau’s quote because the “The Lost Generation” separated themselves from the rest of the world, and were able to create the best stories of all time because they were composed of the very ideals they discovered while on their own.Jake is apart of the group situated with the term “The Lost Generation” because his life values of partying and lust, do not fit in with those of the post-war American societal and cultural rules. The idea of being lost, comes from the values situated with being apart of the “Lost Generation”, and the fake reality they drag you into. Jake’s epiphany, that acts as the, safe, life raft, deters him shortly from the idea of being lost and provides him with a little reassurance of what reality actually is, but because he is apart of “The Lost Generation”, his lifestyle will forever situate him in the existence of this fake reality that defines those who are apart of “The Lost Generation”.

Works Cited:

1. “Henry David Thoreau Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid107675.html. Accessed 7 Mar. 2017.

2. Hemingway, Ernest, “The Sun Also Rises”,  1954

I spent the first ten years of my life as an only child, having only my mother. During this time, my mom was very young. She became pregnant as a teenager and took the responsibility of raising me on her own. Of course she got some help from my grandparents, but she has always been good at handling things alone. Though she had just graduated high school with a restaurant diploma, my mother was a terrible cook.  I’d say we made trips to McDonald’s at least three days a week. It was rare for us to eat something that wasn’t just cooked in the microwave. A lot of the times we’d eat at my grandparent’s house. She always tried her best with what we had, and having bad economy didn’t help. She went from job to job, working from early mornings to late nights to try and to provide for the two of us. I was always the first child being dropped off at school, and the last one to get picked up. I used to feel bitter about this, but looking back I can’t blame my mom for simply trying to make things work, month to month. I was always so proud of having the youngest mom out of my friends. I didn’t see what people thought was so bad about it. She was still an amazing mom despite of her age. I remember the struggles she went through in order for me to have food on my plate. She often made sure I had something to eat, but ended up forgetting to feed herself. She didn’t conventionally follow the recipes, but instead created her own dish. It was grilled chicken bits with pasta, curry sauce and vegetables. It’s one of those foods that are just as good the day after. Imagine being in your early twenties with a child that needs to be fed and you only have less than ten ingredients in your kitchen, half of which are useless. You are forced to use your imagination and improvise. She came up with this dish during a failed attempt of spaghetti and meatballs. Instead of meatballs she used chicken, instead of spaghetti she used shell shaped pasta, and instead of marinara sauce she used whatever was in our spice cabinet-which happened to be curry. Basically, she used anything that was somewhat useful and created this delicious meal we’ve been eating ever since. It hasn’t always been the food that I enjoyed the most; but the familiarity in it, and how it has a way of making me feel at home. It’s not something I eat every Christmas or birthday, and it’s not something complicated or fancy. It’s something I can forget about for a while, and suddenly feel this huge craving for from time to time. I’ve become rather picky about it now. I know it needs to be a ready, grilled chicken and not a frozen filé that you cook. The pepper should be green, not red or yellow even though I hate green pepper, it only works in this dish. The pasta needs to be shell shaped, because I’m convinced that any other shape tastes differently- even if it’s from the same brand. Finally, the amount of curry cannot be measured, it’s something that needs to be tasted throughout the process. To me, it represents the dedication and sacrifices my mom put into raising me. As the years have gone by, and I’m not an only child anymore, none of my grandparents are alive and my mom isn’t single anymore. A lot of things have changed; however, I will always appreciate the days I can spend alone with her, reminiscing of how it used to be over a bowl of her homemade pasta. Since then, my mom has perfected the recipe and it was the first meal I learned how to cook myself. It was also during the cooking of this meal that I discovered I wanted to be a vegetarian. One step of it is tearing apart a whole grilled chicken. After about ten minutes of intense staring and attempts of touching it, I left the chicken lying on the cutting board, untouched and with my cheeks soaked with tears because I couldn’t bare to rip the chicken wings off the body. I’m grateful for everything my mom has done for me during these years, and even if the chicken curry pasta seems like a small part of it, it’s something that’s going to stick with me forever, even if I have to create a vegetarian version myself.

During the 1920s lived the post World War I generation, also known as the Lost Generation which consists of the men and women who survived the Great War. This was an era that consisted of glamorous parties in a society where alcoholism was the norm. In the novel The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemmingway, Brett is a flamboyant character who enchants the life of every man she encounters, only to leave them jealous, heartbroken and obsessive. Although she is able to obtain any man she desires, her true love is Jake, the main character of the novel. Their love, however, is hindered by Jake’s impotence and Brett therefore seeks love in anyone she believes is worthy of it. Daisy, a character from the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, lives during the same time period and in the same society as Brett; however, the two are vastly different. While Brett represents the Lost Generation’s aimless search for happiness and romance, Daisy represents the values of the aristocrats in the wealthy part of New York during the 1920s. Brett is a charismatic and charming woman; nevertheless, she is not happy nor satisfied with the life she has created for herself. Despite of living in all the luxury and attention a woman of that time could desire, she lives aimlessly and unhappily. Brett’s personality represents the Lost Generation’s search for love and happiness. She desperately attempts to fill the love for Jake that can never be consummated with the love she receives from her many admirers. Her carelessness is an illusion to hide her vulnerability and fear of being alone. Never sticking to one partner forces an ultimate independence and results in the lonesomeness she dreads. Brett seduces the lovesick Robert Cohn whom she escapes on a trip with. Jake’s explanation for this was that she, “Wanted to get out of town and she can’t go anywhere alone. She said she thought it would be good for him” (Hemingway, 107). The fact that Brett chooses to spend time with a man she dislikes romantically rather than to go alone shows her fear of loneliness and her need to take care of people. Unlike Brett who is battling with her inner self that on one hand desires Jake but on the other is far too much of a realist to attempt to have a future with him, Daisy abandons the idea of a life with her true love because she is simply too weak do what she wants. Although she claims that she desires Gatsby, she constantly drifts into the arms of what she knows and what is comfortable; her husband Tom. During a heated argument, and the defining point of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, daisy backs down and loses her ambition to fight for herself and what she wants. She frantically yells out, “‘Please, Tom! I can’t stand this anymore.’ Her frightened eyes told whatever intentions, whatever courage she had, were definitely gone” (Fitzgerald, 135). At the end, she will always choose the easiest option- even if it includes sacrificing her own happiness. Due to her heartbreak, Daisy has become indifferent to most things in her life, including her daughter whom she rarely mentions. While Brett puts on an act of carelessness she shows true emotion for Jake when she’s around him. For a moment she couldn’t help but to let herself be swept away by the fantasy of a future with Jake as they share a cab in Paris. Brett expresses her feelings for him by saying, “Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable” (Hemingway, 32). Although with many attempts, Brett has never succeeded to replace Jake. Daisy, however doesn’t fight for her love and carelessly leaves her mess behind her. She shared this carelessness with her husband Tom, and together they were, “careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” (Fitzgerald, 179). Wealthy people could afford to have others take care of the damage they had created. Their wealth was their excuse for their lack of affection. It was their shared comfort of wealth over emotions that kept them together. One thing that both Brett and Daisy can agree on is their distaste for love. They have both developed a bitter attitude towards it and Brett describes it as “hell on earth” (Hemingway, 35). She has learnt from the torture of never having who she truly desires that love is nothing but pain. Daisy has realized this too, as she talks about the day her daughter was born she says, “I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald, 17). Her life has taught her that it’s better to be oblivious of the pain because then it can never be felt. While both Brett and Daisy carry a certain carelessness and enchantment, Brett is looking for love while Daisy is more comfortable with what is familiar. In the end, Brett and Jake come to the conclusion that their life together will forever be a fantasy and therefore Brett returns to her fiance, Mike. Daisy who still has the opportunity to live happily ever after with Gatsby makes a conscious decision to leave him without as much as a word. Both Brett and Daisy return to what they know; however, what differentiates them is that if Brett had a choice she would stay with her true love while Daisy has that opportunity but chooses not to.

After seventeen years of being pushed, whacked, slapped and kicked around like nothing, Paula found herself staring into the eyes of the person she’d become. She went from a strong woman, full of life, to a shrunken bruised soul barely surviving the day. The constant abuse changed Paula in the way she treated herself and the people around her. Having her confidence and self respect knocked out of her every single day, and being tormented physically and emotionally eventually changed her into thinking it was okay; she was too afraid not to. The misery that was brought out of the situation led to her excessive drinking. Many times she found herself putting a bottle of vodka in front of food for her children. The fact that she told herself she’s worthless and deserving of what she got made her invisible and contributed to the loss of her identity. She was forced to find ways to cope or escape. More often than not, her escape and solution was in the bottom of a bottle. Like the bottle, her kids would walk around empty as well, empty of food, of what should be a basic right for them to have. The amounts of money she spent on alcohol prevented her from feeding her kids- as well as herself. When thinking of her addiction, Paula says “My children have gone without food because of my drinking… But I have it under control” (Doyle 88). Her claiming that she has things under ‘control’ suggests the opposite, and proves that she’s in denial of her addiction. Although she can admit to being an alcoholic, she often falls back on empty excuses and eventually convinces herself of her own lie. She promised herself to only drink after putting Jack, her youngest son, to bed. Paula did well in keeping that promise, but cheated by setting the clock forward or sending him up early. She’d feel her skin crawl, aching for the relief that’s waiting for her inside the shed. She’d throw away the key in the garden, making it harder for herself to find. One morning she tells us “I put Jack to bed early last night” (Doyle 89). She let the craving consume her, and punished her child for it. It was too hard to ignore. Many people who are being abused turn to an addiction as a solution. For Paula, the alcohol was a break. I’m the beginning, it wasn’t meant to become an addiction. Every beating reminded her of her reality, and the alcohol could help her forget. She needed it to get through they day, and soon she needed it to mend the aching in her throat and shaking of her hands. Besides using alcohol to drown problems with, Paula tried different ways to cope with her situation. There were days when she didn’t feel anything, and days when she felt too much. She gave herself opportunities to rest, to heal. Those could also lead to opportunities of giving up. She’d lay in bed, staring into nothing, torturing herself by daydreaming of escape. Her children were always the ones to bring her back. They were the ones keeping her in place, keeping her from escaping her life. She resented them for that. Although she loved them with all her heart, she resented them for forcing her to live.
As she’d daydreamed, reminiscing of her past, she could make things up  and shape it as she wanted to. She’d catch herself once in awhile, forcing herself to stop and start over in the middle of the story. As she realizes this, she says “That’s the thing about memories. I can’t pick and choose them” (Doyle 197). As much as she tries to remember the good, she wants to stay true to herself. She often stops mid sentence and recalls the memory again from a negative view. The story telling was her way of coping. The same action was repeated as she remembered events of her childhood. She would always carry the positive view, as her sister told her negative version of it. If she can convince herself that she was happy, and that things weren’t so bad it would be easier for her to move past them. However, reality often drags her back into the darkness known as her reality. Her mind is desperately running from her past. These memories and daydreams may have been comforting, but in reality Paula was shrinking. By letting herself believe that she was worthless and deserved what she got from Charlo, she made herself smaller. Her confidence was terrible and she thought of her appearance as a fifty year old woman. As her love for herself was decreasing, her love for Charlo was increasing. By hating and thinking less of herself she loved Charlo all the more. She became invisible, her identity was beaten out of her. As she sits, filled with self loathing, Paula says “There were days when I didn’t exist; he saw through me and walked around me” (Doyle 178). She lets him treat her however he wants to, and eventually believes she deserves it. The days when she didn’t exist where events when Charlo treated her as if she were invisible. He beat her into a state of mind where his approval defines her; she exists because he lets her. She could punish herself the worst, she could be her own bully. As she desperately tries to think of reasons for Charlo’s unforgivable behavior, she scolds herself “Why didn’t you make the effort, Paula?” (Doyle 171). Even though he put her through unthinkable things, she still blames herself. It shows how weak she’s become, how much she’s shrunken. She accepts the fact that she is being punished for something she’s doing wrong, because it’s the only way she can grasp the fact that she is being abused by her husband. He’s supposed to love her, but how can he love someone useless? She continues these thoughts by saying “I was hopeless and stupid, good only for sex, and I wasn’t even very good at that” (Doyle 177). She feels that she could’ve been better somehow, and maybe he’d changed then. Charlo has never had a reason to hit her, and whatever she could have done differently wouldn’t have changed what was to come.
All this violence changed the way Paula treated herself and her children. The abuse led to a drinking problem which caused lack of judgement when handling her kids. They suffered from less food so that she could afford another bottle. Charlo brought forward her insecurities, and made her smaller. She saw herself as useless, and her identity was stolen from her. She could take a beating through all these years, but as soon as Charlo laid eyes on their daughter, Nicola, she had enough. This shows that even though she was too weak to stand up for herself she was strong enough to save her children. After the abuse, she became a stronger and independent person. Her weakness remained in the alcohol, but she had taught herself ways of controlling her consumption. After all those years of complete darkness and misery, she’s still in love with Charlo. That love will always exist in her, but only for the Charlo she knew before the first beating.

In the novel Maggie: Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, Maggie is the tragic hero. The novel follows her epic downfall as she struggles with her self-reliance. At the end of the novel, the reader can observe the theme that a woman must be strong and ruthless to make it in the harsh world that they are living in. This theme is highlighted by Nellie, the foil character. The two women come from the same background and circumstances, however their lives end up very different. Maggie is innocent and naive and ends up living on the streets as a prostitute, while Nellie is horrible to the people around her but is spoiled and gets what she wants. These two characters invokes the question: is it better to be good and weak or to be bad and strong? Crane is illustrating the point that there is no such thing as happily ever after. The world does not pardon good people from the harshness of life. Maggie is naive and believes in the good and morality of people, but she ends up selling herself away until she is no longer herself.
Both Maggie and Nellie grew up in a poor immigrant area. They are both very beautiful women. Maggie’s home life and childhood is described in depth and is often referred to as “hell”. Maggie was lucky enough to be beautiful. The narrator states, “The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle.” (Crane, 18) She came from a horrible home and area, but her beauty was something that could have saved her. While Maggie is very modest and does not indulge herself in her beauty, Nellie is very aware and conscious of her beauty and uses it.
Nellie is a gold-digging woman who uses her beauty and superior attitude to get what she wants out of men, while all the while leading them on. She holds herself with a confidence that makes men want her. The narrator describes her when Maggie first notices her, “Maggie took instant note of the woman… The woman looked clear-eyed through the stares of the men.” (Crane, 50) Nellie is not a good woman. However, in this novel goodness is not common among the characters. In the end of the novel we see Nellie and her girlfriends with Pete in a bar. They are accompanying Pete so he will pay for their drinks. When Pete slumps over drunk the women get up to leave. Before they leave, Nellie, out of greed and selfishness, takes his money. The narrator says, “The woman of brilliance and audacity stayed behind, taking up the bills and stuffing them into a deep, irregularly-shaped pocket. A guttural snore from the recumbent man caused her to turn and look down at him. She laughed. ‘What a damn fool,’ she said, and went.” (Crane, 66) Nellie is a ruthless woman who does not have a sense of goodness or morality, however she needs this to survive in the world she was born into.
Maggie is very innocent and does not see her own her beauty until she realizes Pete is noticing her. She does not have the confidence that Nellie does. She becomes completely dependent on Pete for money, a place to live, and love for herself. The narrator describes her as a dog following its owner, “The air of spaniel-like dependence had been magnified and showed its direct effect in the peculiar off-handedness and ease of Pete’s way toward her” (Crane, 50). She becomes completely dependent on Pete and her need for his attention is only makes her less attractive to him. Maggie lacks the entitlement of Nellie from the beginning.She feels lucky to have Pete. However, Pete is not good enough to be faithful and loyal to Maggie, so he finds Nellie who is knew and a challenge for him. Therefore, Maggie is left without her only source of life. She tries to return home but her mother and brother refuse her. Maggie has nothing else to do but become a girl of the streets. She sells herself to stay alive.
Crane develops the character of Nellie to create a foil for the tragic hero of Maggie. Nellie comes from the same background as Maggie, however she is very different and highlights Maggie’s characteristics. Nellie’s fierceness is very much different from Maggie’s softness. Nellie’s characteristics and actions in this novel are the opposite of Maggie’s characteristics. Nellie is reliant on herself, while Maggie is completely reliant on Pete. The bigger point that Crane is trying to make is that the world does not look out for people who have goodness in them. Both of these women are in the same harsh world of the immigrant neighborhoods of New York City in the turn of the 19th Century. Nellie learns how to survive in the world she was born into. She may not be the most moral and good of people, but she develops this shell and ruthlessness because she has to to survive. Maggie is thrown onto the streets with nothing to fall back on because she has not learned how to take care of herself. She is not tough like Nellie, which is why she is on the streets with nowhere to live. She does not know how to stick up for herself because she is naive. If she had been aware of the way the world works, she would not have lost herself and become just another girl of the streets.

Relationships are a fundamental part of life for many people. We characterize ourselves by the relationships with we have with others. We are mothers, brothers, husbands, friends, and co-workers. However, are relationships really the one thing in life that define us a person? The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is a novel that explores a man and his struggle with being incapable of the romantic relationship he wants with the woman he loves. However, in the end he is redeemed by coming to terms with the fact he will only ever be able to rely on himself. His relationships do not define Jake, the only thing that defines Jake is his ability to be in tune with himself. His true contentment and happiness will come from within himself, not someone else.
In the beginning of the novel this woman, Brett, consumes his life. He does not feel happy without her and is put through immense pain every time they spend time together. He says, “I was thinking about Brett and my mind stopped jumping around and started to go in sort of smooth waves. Then all of the sudden I started to cry.” (page, 39). In this quote you can see the pain he is in when he thinks about her. On one hand, she eases his mind ‘my mind stopped jumping around and started to go in smooth waves’. The thought of her calms the busyness of his mind. But on the other hand, this thought makes him break down in tears because thinking about her is painful. He will never be able to have sex, and be in a relationship with the woman he loves. However, at this point in the novel he is still ceaselessly devoted to her even though he is miserable being attached to her.
Near the end of the novel Jake has seen Brett go through Cohn, Mike, and Romero. He escaped to San Sebastian to retreat from the ‘fiesta’. Seeing Brett be fought over by three men had helped Jake realize that he will only be ever to rely and depend on himself. In his retreat he redeems himself when he becomes in touch with how he feels and his body and self. He vividly describes his experience swimming, something he enjoys doing, “I waded out. The water was cold. As a roller came I dove, swam out under the water, and came to the surface with all the chill gone.” (page, 238). Jake is appreciating the simplicity and pleasantness of going for a swim. This is an act that he is doing completely for himself. At this moment he is happier than he could ever consistently be with Brett.
At the very end of the novel Jake has finally redeemed himself from the grasp of Brett and the hold that she has on him. He does not show this in an act of refusal to her, but he has grown and changed in his language from the beginning of the novel. Brett and Jake are riding in a cab and she leans into him, “Oh Jake” she said, “we could have had such a damn good time together.” He replies, “Yes – Isn’t it pretty to think so” (page 250). Jake has finally let go of the fantasy of him and Brett being together. It does not hurt him anymore to think about them being together because he has discovered by being alone that he does not need her. However, he is not mad either. He does resent Brett because of the way she acts or because they cannot be together. He knows that it is ‘pretty’ to think that they could have had a good time together, but he knows that it would not have been good. She would have kept breaking his heart as long as he relied on her as part of his life. When he lets go of that, he can finally be happy.
Ultimately Jake has to let go of his fantasies and hopes of a relationship with Brett in order to feel okay and content with his own life. Although friends like Bill and Mike bring him happiness at times, he is not truly solid and happy until he lets go of Brett and focuses on himself and what he needs. For Jake, what he needs is no more chaos. In The Sun Also Rises relationships are one of the biggest things that affect the characters of this ‘lost generation’. However, in the end Jake must face and accept himself, not anyone else, to be redeemed.