Essay Example on Ernest Hemingway's Sun Also Rises & A Farewell to Arms

Both Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms are works of Ernest Hemingway, who was an American author and journalist. In "Sun Also Rises," Hemingway depicts British and American expatriates wandering through Europe in the 1920s (Bhuiyan 202). The novel has captured feelings and attitudes of disillusioned expatriates amid postwar in France and Spain. In "A Farewell to Arms," Hemingway provides a factual and exhaustive account of the war. It is a reflection of the pathos of a lost generation experiencing disillusionment as well as despondency in the era of World War 1, which occurred between 1914 and 1918. Post-World War had the greatest social, cultural, economic and political impact. Both novels share some similarities as well as differences in their characters. This paper will offer an in-depth analysis that compares and contrasts Brett Ashley in the Sun Also Rises and Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms. It will first discuss how both women compare in terms of attainment of sexual autonomy and empowerment. In terms of contrasts, the paper will discuss the two characters in the lenses of new woman, femininity, venue, appearance, gender roles and sexual experience.

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Both Brett and Catherine are female protagonists in the two stories. Analysis of the characters Brett Ashley and Catherine Barkley can be done using feminist lenses. Using this perspective, the analysis considers the historical impacts of World War One on western society within the gender equation. The prevailing similarity is that both Brett and Catherine have achieved their sexual autonomies. Fischel and Hilary refer to sexual autonomy as an individual's prerogative in determining when, with whom, or in under which conditions they may get involved in sexual activity (Fischel and Hilary 439). It is all about engaging in sexual activities to someone they consent (Fischel and Hilary 439).

Brett had multiple sexual affairs and had an appealing appearance. According to Hemingway, Brett was "damned good-looking" (Hemingway 12). The wordings "damned good-looking" is more elaborative than the colloquial "hot." Brett's appeal is within her true allure, her charm, and sexual confidence, which is further channeled through the description of her (Hemingway 12). The author narrates that "Brett's face was white and the long line of her neck showed in the bright light of the flares" (Hemingway 12). Perhaps her charm is what prompted her to seek sexual autonomy. She was also a war veteran who served in a military hospital, which could have also facilitated her serial love affairs. Her sexual autonomy is first portrayed when she sexually rejects Robert Cohn after an ephemeral tryst in San Sebastian.

Brett's sexual empowerment helps her to discreetly maneuver her newfound sexual autonomy and gender dominance since she made Jake agree to take the empowered female agency. Her sexual autonomy attains absolution because no man can ever win her body, even when "Jake's Hemingwayesque qualities seem to win her love" (Bhuiyan 222). Additionally, amid all the depravity, Brett, in her very first scene, was in the company of a group of homosexual men. In that context, Jake remarks, "With them was Brett. She looked very lovely, and she was very much with them, and with them was Brett" (Hemingway 19). Since Brett mixed with homosexual men, she somehow transgressed traditional sexual restrictions. The fact that she is already a woman who has attained her sexual autonomy, there is no boundary to whom she can relate. Her affairs with Jake, Cohn, Mike, Romero, and the Count, are orchestrated by the fact that she is a woman, whom, in the effects of World War 1, has attained her sexual autonomy.

Catherine Barkley, just like Brett, has achieved sexual autonomy as the world war escalated in the 1920s, sexual roles together with gender divisions begun to blur. As a modernist engrossed within the lost generation, Hemingway heavily expounded on the theme of disillusionment engendering from the sexual autonomy in the novel A Farewell to Arms. Looking Barkley as a disillusioned and empowered woman who has attained her sexual autonomy, Bhuiyan relates how the way in which " rapidly informing Henry of her general detachment from conventional ideals, Barkley makes clear that the collapse of Victorian norms for courtship and love is part of a more general crisis of ideals precipitated by the war"( Bhuiyan 227).

Additionally, she refused to be married, which averts Henry from assuming his role of masculinity played by a husband. Henry has an autonomous fixation with sexual desires, which divests him from the masculine level of being the one initiating sexual affair. Since Barkley has already sexual empowered, she dents Henry's exertions, who is already disillusioned in war, in securing a masculine individuality (Bhuiyan 227).

Attainment of sexual autonomy for Barkley, and other women, is a very significant tenet within the third movement in the radical feminist perception. Barkley's instigation of her story of love with Henry, which mainly initiates as a frenzied game of sexual desire, is started from her disenchantment of the conformist notions of love. The initiation was based on the fact that her fiance died. Barkley was still having a conventional love relationship with her husband before he died. Since she wanted to forget the pain of separation from her dead fiance, she starts a frenzied association with Henry.

Initially, Barkley had no intention of finding love again after her lover died. Despite not being conscious on the broader part, she began a breakthrough out of Victorian customs and censures levied upon women. When she engages with Fredric, she tells him "You're a nice boy.' She said. 'And you play it as well as you know how. But it's a rotten game" (Hemingway 32). She is clear to him as she breaks the social structures and norms. The norms, just as in Brett's case, delimited them from involvements in sexual relationships with men short of marriage or without even promising it.

Under Brett's analysis above, it was clear that she, in the quest of attaining sexual autonomy, gone against set gender roles. Similarly, in the case of Barkley, she is also breaking the set standards of gender role annexation within the society. As Bhuiyan puts it, the gender-appropriate roles are patriarchal conceptual tools preventing women from realizing sexual autonomy vis-a-vis personal individualism (Bhuiyan 228). Therefore, Barkley is striving to achieve sexual autonomy as a way of mending her broken heart using the alternate and radical path. Similarly, as stated above, Brett's pathway to sexual autonomy achievement was first fueled by the condition of her impotent husband, as Hemingway states that "Another group claims you're impotent" (Hemingway 60). In response, Henry admitted that he "had an accident" ((Hemingway 60).

Still, in the femininity lens, there are contrasting features in both Brett and Catherine. Brett, on her side, can be described as "the new woman" (Bhuiyan 222). She is a woman who is free from the sexual stigmatization as is seen terminating her romantic affairs immediately she discovers that the men she is involved with an attempt to start any nature of possessing her. On the other hand, Catherine Barkley may be labeled as a leading illustration of Hemingway's misogyny. Traber, however, maintains that Catherine is supposed to be taken as an individual who has agency, as well as a woman who is attempting all she can to discover sense in a world war circumstance (Traber 29).

Also, there are contrasting venues in which the two female protagonists have been put in. Catherine states "Oh, no. I'm something called a V. A. D. We work very hard but no one trusts us". Therefore, on the part of Catherine, she is positioned in a war setting where she works as a V.A.D. Brett however lives like a single expat life-based in Paris. Both women can be positioned next to each other to show two dissimilar ways of the way they undertook gender roles.

Regarding Brett, it can be deduced that she was a very radical woman. She attempted to revolutionize the traditional norms that were enacted for women at her time, and within a tempting time of the world war. Catherine, however, is depicted as being opposite of Brett based on her gendered behavior, accomplishing more traditionally feminine roles that were set out for women in a historical perspective.

Even though Catherine had an indication that she wanted to be a new woman at the end of the final chapters of A Farewell to Arms, it was meant only for her small circle. Indeed, Catherine states, "But after she's born and I'm thin again I'm going to cut it and then I'll be a fine new and different girl for you. We'll go together and get it cut, or I'll go alone and come and surprise you"(Hemingway 324). The statement she makes here can, however, be based on the phrase "for you," which shows that Catherine was looking forward to being different for Fredric. The reason thus contrasts that of Brett, who had refused to let her hair grow for someone. As Brett records, Romeo "wanted me to grow my hair out. Me, with long hair. I'd look so like hell" (Hemingway, 126). Romeo argued that she would look more womanish with long hair, but Brett refused.

While Barkley is striving to change herself and appearance for Fredric, Brett, on the other hand, is refusing to change herself for her lover. It can be deduced here that, when Catherine is trapped in executing older traditional norms, Brett, on her part, has fully implemented the new roles in regards to gender performance. By that fact, she is not willing to change her appearance based on the opinions of men concerning her. It can be argued that Catherine, in terms of appearance, has been able to adapt as per expectation. She is fully aware of the means of performing her gender. However, Brett strives in distancing herself from performing her gender as expected.

Both Barkley and Brett can also be contrasted not only in terms of femininity lens about their appearances but also in relation to sexuality. Barkley had an intimate encounter with Frederic, after which she states, "I never felt like a whore before, I know it, darling. But it isn't nice to feel like one" (Hemingway, 163). From this explanation, it is clear that Barkley was attempting to execute her feminine, although she never cherished its feeling. She had engaged in pre-marital sex, but now she referred to the experience as a "whore." In one instance, she narrates to Frederic, in reference to her past love, that she "didn't know about anything then" (Hemingway 19). She even indicated that she did not engage in sexual intercourse with her then-husband. However, Brett is seen having sexual affairs with multiple men in The Sun Also Rises.

Unlike Barkley, Bret has a view of sex affairs in a more positive and relaxed way. Her confidence concerning Romero and how she will win him in the next conquest stances in pure contrast to Barkley's feeling of "whore" after her sexual engagement with Fredric. Also, Fergy states "I'm ashamed of you, Catherine Barkley. You have no shame and no honor and you're as sneaky as he is" (Hemingway 264). This statement was in reference to Catherine's pregnancy, but still show that she was not performing her gender role of a good cultural woman.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay has depicted the ways in which the key protagonist characters, Brett and Catherine, behave in non-normative ways in terms of their genders. For the two characters, there are behaviors that emanate from sexual empowerment for women, as they are seen being assertive in controlling their sexuality. Among the two women, Barkley's resilience as an empowered modern woman against the systematic forces of the proverbial patriarch is most admirable. The experience of Ca...