The Lost Was Not At A Loss

"The Lost Generation" emerges after World War I. It indicates the writers who have the same illusion, write novels with the same subject and use the same measure. Hemingway wrote the phrase "The Lost Generation" on the title page of his first novel The Sun Also Rises. With the success of the novel the world quickly adopted the phrase as the most accurate description of the generation. The image of the people in the The Sun Also Rises cast a great influence on our understanding of "The Lost Generation" in reality. The novel becomes very important for us to comprehend Hemingway and the other writers who were called "The Lost Generation", though it also misleads the understanding of the "The Lost Generation" in reality sometimes. Since The Sun Also Rises portrays the lives of the members of the so-called "Lost Generation", the group of men and women whose early adulthood was consumed by World War I. The war shattered many people's beliefs in traditional values of love, faith, and manhood. Without these long-held notions to rely on, members of the generation that fought and worked in the war suffered great moral and psychological aimlessness.The futile search for meaning in the wake of the Great War shapes The Sun Also Rises. Although the characters rarely mention the war directly, its effects haunt everything they do and say. It is necessary to read through carefully so that we can understand the men and women portrayed in it who are a group of wandering, amusing, and aimless people, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of the ordinary life. However, these things are only the surface of their life, what Hemingway wants to say is not their aimlessness. He wants to predict a "grace under pressure" and a constant pursuit of truth and life. Through analysis of the characters in the The Sun Also Rises and the application of the Iceburg Principle and structure analysis, it can get the real intention of the author and the true image of the "Lost Generation". This thesis confirms that "The Lost Generation" is not really lost, they are great minds who gave rise to the twentieth century American literature, or we may call the second American Renaissance. During the reinterpretation of the novel, we are also trained to have calmness, scientific measures and profundity in realising the essence of things. Furthermore, we should learn the great ideas and accomplishments of "The Lost Generaion".