Am I allowed to have the word penis in my blog title?
In The Sun Also Rises, the protagonist Jake is portrayed as rather intolerant of people unlike himself--that is to say--not white, straight, and Christian. Throughout the book, Jake makes several racist, homophobic, and antisemitic remarks--to the point where the book becomes legitimately cringe-inducing to read. Not to put too much of a Freudian spin on my interpretation, but I'm willing to bet that his aggressiveness is due to the injury he sustained during the war.
Although Jake initially describes Robert Cohn fairly favorably, stating that he "likes him" in the first chapter, Jake's opinion quickly sours when it becomes clear Cohn intends on attempting to woo Brett. However, Jake's negative comments aren't just limited to attacks on Cohn's character, rather Jake seems to target Cohn's Jewish faith. However, we can't forget the root of Jake's problem in our discomfort with his antisemitism--he's jealous because Cohn got with Brett, and is hanging around afterwards.
When Jake sees a group of gay men dancing with Brett, he goes on a bit of a homophobic tangent--
"And with them was Brett. I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure." Perhaps Jake is afraid of what these men represent to him-- a deviation from the typical masculine gender role-- something Jake must deal with now due to his injury.
Finally, Jake is pretty dang racist. Besides his use of the n word to describe any person of color, the fact that there are no named people of color in the book, etc.-- Jake's description of the drummer at the club is especially cringe inducing. The drummer's words stop being coherent, instead being written as "......", and he is described as "all teeth and lips" probably an allusion to the stereotype of big lipped black people. Interestingly, the drummer's words only change when Brett mentions that he is a friend of hers-- Jake may already be racist, but perhaps his escalation of the caricature of the drummer is due to his jealousy of him. We already know Hemingway is writing his characters to have stereotypical physical features, as evidenced with his description of Cohn's nose-- it looked better broken, probably a subtle jab at the stereotypical 'Jewish nose', maybe Jake's jealous of the stereotype of the well endowed black person.
You're right- it's a classic example of putting others down to raise yourself up. Jake sees color, un-Christian faith, and homosexuality as making a person inferior to Jake, and it pisses him off that even someone "inferior" to himself is good enough to be with Brett, but he's not. Recall that Bill is substantially more prejudiced than Jake. We talked in class about how Bill's prejudice is a tool he uses to further engage his stories and humor, but I wonder if, like Jake, some of Bill's prejudice stems from a place of insecurity?
ReplyDeleteLol I was totally thinking how Jacob is overcompensating during the course of the novel for his weird masculinity complex with his aggression to "inferior" men approaching the woman he can't have
ReplyDeleteI think that the point you make about his aggressiveness due to his injury makes sense. Clearly his injury didn't make him racist, homophobic, and antisemitic, but it is the reason he lashes out at people. Especially since, as we talked about in class, he only lashes out when someone he views as inferior is acquainted with Brett in some way. And based off of the interpretation of the ending of the book as if Jake wasn't injured he could have been with Brett, if he wasn't injured he wouldn't be so aggressive.
ReplyDeleteYup, Jake definitely has fragile masculinity issues. I think most of them are from his injury, which is a pretty big blow. It's interesting because Jake doesn't mention it much throughout the book, but it clearly hurts him. One of the ways he vents is through his offensive, sometimes racist, sometimes homophobic remarks, as you pointed out.
ReplyDeleteI wonder though, why he let Romero go so easily. He described and admired Romero in a way that could be interpreted as sexual attraction by some. And if we wanted, he could have been racist to Romero, since he isn't white.
(actually, I guess he could be lighter skinned. Maybe that could have some influence too)
I agree, Jake has some insecurities about his masculinity considering his "manhood" doesn't work anymore. But it's not his insecurity that produces his hateful comments toward the drummer and Cohn, he lashes out at anyone who he deems isn't worthy of pursuing Brett and then he uses he racist and anti-antisemitism comments to provide reasons for the hate.
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