Paris vs. Spain
In The Sun Also Rises, the change in setting ultimately affects the characters. Throughout the book, we see the environment in Paris, where a large part of the book occurs. We were exposed to the atmosphere early in the book and discovered a lot about how things work in Parisian nightlife.
We saw characters out late at night, hopping between Cafes, clubs, and different restaurants, all while consuming copious amounts of alcohol. This can take a toll on someone. In this case, I want to highlight Jake as my subject. Jake in Paris is witty and ironic; he does not take pretty much anything seriously (then again, nobody but Cohn takes anything seriously). This witty and ironic sense of humor is the only way to be taken seriously in Paris. Cohn is constantly ridiculed by Jake and other characters in the book for his lack of irony and his uptight behavior. Everything is so lax in Parisian life. After the war, everything has lost its importance in the grand scheme of society because now, any problem is considered a minor inconvenience. I feel as though there is an overall feeling of "whatever you are going through cannot be as bad as the war, so there's no need to care." The war has made everything else incredibly insignificant to many of the characters in the book, one of these characters being Jake. Jake is constantly minimizing others' success, most predominantly Cohn's.
Jake in Paris does not care about anything and goes with the flow. Jake also displays these qualities but in a different way when he is spending time fishing in Spain. In a sense, Jake feels at home. He knows a lot about the local customs, he gets along with Montoya (at first), he is a massive fan of bullfights as he knows a lot about them, and he genuinely enjoys fishing in Spain. The environment in Spain is night and day compared to Paris. Quite literally, as most of Jake's recreation in Paris occurs late at night, and in Spain, he is up at the crack of dawn digging for worms and opening up honestly about his feelings to his friend. Jake almost turns into a completely different person, and much of this has to do with his environment.
While Jake can call Spain and Paris both "home," I feel Jake is his best and true self when spending time in Spain, away from Paris.
I think that your point about how the war made everything else insignificant is really interesting when the characters are in Spain. The characters take much more pleasure in the small curiosities of life when in Spain then they do in Paris. Because Spain didn't fight in WWI it seems like the tragedies of the war are pushed to the back of everyone's mind while they are in Spain and they can be happier then they would be in Paris.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about how Jake is more "serious" in Spain, or it's evident that he cares about things in a way that is not evident in Paris. I think this has everything to do with his unique "aficionado" status as an American who is also an expert on the culture of bullfighting (which he informs us is a rarity). Being an aficionado is sort of the polar opposite of irony--it means understanding and studying and being passionate about a *tradition* that has its rules and aesthetic principles. The idea is that bullfighting can only be fully appreciated by a knowledgeable and informed viewer, and we see Jake "teach" Brett how to watch a bullfight, to see the bull as "boxing" with its horns, etc. There's no irony in these sections, and Brett too seems eager to learn and to see what Jake is showing to her.
ReplyDeleteOf course, all of this seriousness and community and tradition is precisely what Jake knowingly *sacrifices* in order to set up Brett with Romero, which only adds to the tragic tone at the end of the story. In order to satisfy Brett, he gives up the thing that seems most important to him. His "isn't it pretty to think so?" might signal a return to irony after this period of aficionado seriousness.
I really like how you talked about how characters focus and enjoy the smaller details and the finer things in Spain, as compared to Paris where they are thrown into one big mess of post-war life. Spain seems untouched, pure, and new to all of the characters, as it has not been tainted by the outside world's wars yet. Good post!
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