Literature Analysis #6

The Run Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

1. Jake Barnes is working in Paris as a journalist post WWI, who is friends with American expatriate, Robert Cohn and his girlfriend Frances Clyne. In reality, they are more “frenemies” than actual friends, yet they continue to party and socialize with one another. One night at a club, Jake runs into Lady Brett Ashley, an English socialite whom he is madly in love with (but is more a selfish ditz) since he met her during WWI when she treated him.  Brett hints at loving him, but her lifestyle is far too free and independent for her to want to ever give it up (plus she can’t have sex with him). Even Cohn begins to fall for Brett; although he is not to found of the idea that she has plans to marry a Scottish war veteran Mike Campbell.  Brett makes plans to leave for San Sebastian, and claims distance from Jake will be good for both of them.

Weeks later, while Cohn and Brett are off traveling, another American war veteran friend, Bill Gorton, comes to Paris. Bill and Jake then make plans to go fishing in Spain and then meet Cohn on the way to a fiesta in Pamplona. On his way, he runs into Brett and Mike, who join them in Spain. Brett tells Jake that she and Cohn were in San Sebastian together.

Once in Spain, and Brett and Mike fail to show up, Bill and Jake leave to go fishing while Cohn stays behind. After a few days they hear from them and return to Pamplona to meet them. There a series of events occur where Mike gets jealous of Brett, and Brett leaves him for a young Spanish bull fighter. Cohn and Mike fight, then Cohn also fights with Jake and Mike (knocking them out), but after Jake finds him in bed, a crying mess, he forgives him. However, Romero could not forgive Cohn for also beating him up.

In the end, Brett leaves with the bull fighter, only to call Jake to her rescue yet again in Madrid. He goes to her, and Brett says that they could have had a wonderful time together, while Jake responds that its “pretty to think so”. 

2. The theme of the novel is the idea of excess, and disillusionment with the world. All the characters seem to aimlessly wander around, uncaring about each other, yet caring too much at the same time. They act happy, but actually aren’t. They surround themselves with people who are equally as strange and disregard each others emotions. They float around to great places but discontent seems to follow. The ending of the novel fits this idea, because while Brett says they could be happy together, Jake realizes it’s “pretty to think so”. Similar to how it would be nice to think about how “happy” they are in real life, but it’s all a facade. 

3. The tone is somber and nostalgic of what could have been. 

“Oh Jake,” Brett said, “We could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.
Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” 

They are all searching for something aimlessly, and they don’t even know what they are looking for. 

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” 

4. Literary Techniques

Characterization: “She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else’s eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.” Hemingway’s characters are all described to be eccentric of beautiful, but there is something inherently wrong in them because of what the war. It adds to the somber mood of the novel. 

Conflict: “I know you’re right. I’m just low, and when I’m low I talk like a fool.” Brett acts as the central point of drama, but the deeper conflict is internal. They want to be happy, but cannot be because they merely are a shell of a person.

Deus ex Machina: "Romero had the old thing, the holding of his purity of line through the maximum of exposure, while he dominated the bull by making him realize he was unattainable, while he prepared him for the killing.”Romero is key because he wraps up the end of the story by “taking” Brett away, so yet again, Jake can save her. 

Diction: “The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed animals” Hemingway chooses many words which create a nostalgic and somber tone. 

Allusion: “You are all a lost generation.” This alludes to Gertrude Steins famous words, which pretty much sums up the novel. 

Foil: “It was not brilliant bull-fighting. It was only perfect bull-fighting.”Romero is opposite to all the characters, perfect and put together. Bringing to light how lost the characters are in their lives. 

Irony: “Romero never made any contortions, always it was straight and pure and natural in line. The others twisted themselves like cork-screws, their elbows raised, and leaned against the flanks of the bull after his horns had passed, to give a faked look of danger. Afterward, all that was faked turned bad and gave an unpleasant feeling. Romero’s bull-fighting gave real emotion, because he kept the absolute purity of line in his movements and always quietly and calmly let the horns pass him close each time. He did not have to emphasize their closeness.”It’s ironic that Brett chooses to go back to her dysfunctional life when the “perfect” man is in front of her.

Negative Capability: “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”  We aren’t exactly sure what happens to all the characters in the end, and if Brett really goes back to Mike. Or what happens to Jake. It adds to the aimlessness of the novel. 

Setting: “Cheer up,’ I said. ‘All countries look just like the moving pictures.”

“The grain-fields went up the hillsides. Now as we went higher there was a wind blowing the grain.” Even in the most beautiful of places, people are vastly unhappy. 

Foreshadowing: “The bulls are my best friends.”
I translated to Brett.
"You kill your friends?" she asked.
"Always," he said in English, and laughed. "So they don’t kill me.”  Hinting at the idea that the characters ruin their relationships before they themselves can be hurt. 

Characterization - 

1. Direct: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slip-over jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that."

"She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.” 

Direct characterization is used to emphasize the materialistic attitudes the characters have, since they only like to look at what is on the surface. 

Indirect: “Everybody behaves badly,” I said. “Give them the proper chance.” 

“This is a hell of dull talk…How about some of that champagne?”

Indirect characterization is used to imply how the characters seem to always avoid their problems by turning from serious conversations often and showing how they either don’t care, or are lost and unwillingly to try and change the way they think. 

2. The author’s syntax does change, and when looking back on the quotes I have already posted, we can see a difference in the way characters like Brett and Romero are described. Romero is more put together and clean; “perfect” with the concise way he is written, and Brett is more unique and spontaneous sounding based on the way she is written. 

3. Jake is most definitely static. By the end of the novel he is still falling back into routine with Brett, and not moving on with his life.

4. I feel like I did not meet any of these characters because in all honesty, there are superficial and fake individuals who all have problems they are unwilling to face. They are upset but keep finding themselves in situations where they know the outcome, and yet still seem surprised when it happens. Frustrating and annoying. Everything happens quickly and you don’t get the chance to even know any of the characters on a deeper level, aside from brief moments of clarity.