Why Read This?

Over the past week, many of us have been feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with regard to the ending of The Sun Also Rises. During class we expressed how we took the time out of our busy schedules to discover a little more about each of the characters, all the while hoping that reading about their faults and imperfections would be worth our while. Surely these people will change. Surely Jake will rid himself of his pointless attachment to Brett!

Well… we were wrong. But instead of feeling cheated and betrayed, we should look back and ask some important questions. Why read this novel? What have we gained from flipping its pages?

First of all, we need to realize that all novels aren’t written with the purpose of pleasing the reader. The Sun Also Rises is an example of such a novel, and in this way it becomes more realistic. A novel written in the post-war era isn’t going to be filled with happy endings, because during that time happy endings were few and far between.

With this in mind, we should also acknowledge that the concept of life being a “cycle” might be more relatable than it seems. With college on our minds and uncertainty in our hearts, we might feel like a path has already been laid out for us, and that no matter what we do to free ourselves, we will still end up in the exact same place. We don’t have to lose track of time in a repetitive lifestyle. If we chose, we can have different fates than the characters  in Hemingway’s novel.

Hemingway definitely didn’t write this novel without a purpose, and as we know from his writing style, there is more beneath the surface. Sure, the characters had little (if any) development by the end, but instead of feeling like we wasted our time, let’s take a minute to think about what exactly Hemingway was trying to evoke within us.