An Existentialist Articulation Of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises is regarded as one of the representative "Lost Generation" novels. The Sun Also Rises shows a great influence of the existentialism. Based on the Sartrean existentialist positions of "Being-for-itself", "love", "existence precedes essence" and "irrational choice and rational acceptance", this thesis is going to make an existentialist articulation of the novel.The overall narration of the novel is existential. As the novel ends, the entire story has come to a full circle. This circle is a larger existentialist cycle for the For-itself to chooses its way of being. It is a cycle like the sunrise and sunset of a day.From the perspective of Sartrean love, the author tries to analyze the love between Jake and Brett. Brett stops on her way of rediscovering her Being on Jake and regards that the freedom of Jake is not a perfect one. Throughout the novel, all the efforts that Jake has made become a useless passion. Brett is the For-itself manipulated new woman who makes choices freely from her own wills. She rejects the freedom of Jake and believes it is not a perfect one as that of a normal man. She rejects the love enslavement of Cohn and refuses the freedom of Romero for she regards it is not a mature one. Cohn is the character created by Hemingway to demonstrate the taste of facticity. The existence of Cohn is contingent, unjustifiable and de trop.In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway employs the technique "existence precedes essence" in the depiction of the characters. All the characters of the protagonists are revealed not in the traditional way. They are revealed through the process of consciousness→ psychic states and actions→ Ego. Ego and personalities are synthesized by the protagonists' actions and events.The heroes and heroines make their irrational choice but rationally accept the results of the choices.The Sun Also Rises is an existential experiment in literature conducted by Hemingway. All the characters are arranged in the existential plays. From the eyes of Jake, Hemingway watches the progression and the ending of plays and expects new rounds to begin.