Ernest Hemingway - novel - 1926 - p. 61, 200, 201

Viewed by some as Hemingway’s most important novel, The Sun Also Rises is set in Spain among a set of American and British expatriates (based on people in Hemingway’s real life) around the time of the annual running of the bulls, which takes place in Pamplona during the celebration of San Fermin. The novel works largely to deconstruct the notion that the so-called “Lost Generation” had become irredeemably indulgent and lethargic in the wake of World War I. Another thread, present in much of Hemingway’s work, is the exploration of masculinity.

Rendered impotent by a war wound, protagonist Jake is in love with American journalist Brett--a journalist and “liberated” woman relatively free and secure in her sexuality. The novel, divided into three books, traces the exploits and entanglements of the group across Paris and Pamplona.

The novel is written in Hemingway’s characteristically understated, unsentimental tone. It has been described as anti-Semitic for its treatment of the Jewish character Robert Cohn and as homophobic for its unflattering depiction of gay men and alignment of homosexuality with its negative view of emasculation and effeminacy.

Keywords: Europe, homosexuality, infidelity, marriage