If youre doing
a project on the novel, you might consider it as a chronicle of what has been called the lost
generation, or the generation traumatized by the first World War. This generation has been
characterized as alienated, and the languorous behavior of the Americanin Hemingways novel has
been interpreted as a classic example of that zeitgeist.
At one point, a
friend describes Jake Barnes to himself:
Youre an
expatriate [Bill explains]. One of the worst type. Youve lost touch with the soil. You get
precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become
obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You
hang around cafes.
Like many famous authors of this
period, including Hemingway himself, Jake has left America in order to find a better way of life
in another country. His obsession with the Spanish bull fights, to the extent that even native
Spaniards acknowledge that he is an aficionado, is one example of Jake trying to involve himself
in a greater interest. Similarly, he (and his friends) try to immerse themselves in rural
Spanish past times, like fishing in the country, in an attempt, perhaps, to get in touch with
the soil, as Bill says. You might consider reading the novel as Hemingways answer to the
malaise of the lost generation; a message of a more vital way of life that might be salvation
for an alienated generation.
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