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Character Analysis Of Lady Brett Ashley In 'The Sun Also Rises'

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Character Analysis: In his novel The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway tells the story of a group of friends who have each been affected by war and man’s cruelty. He focuses most on the misery and change which war has brought upon each of the characters. The novel is narrated by protagonist Jake Barnes but his attention seems to be centered around Lady Brett Ashley. Brett is a woman ahead of her time. She is a modernist, unapologetically sexual and aggressively licentious. By the end of the novel, Lady Ashley learns what the true meaning of love is and with this her morals are strengthened. Lady Brett Ashley is described as a “damned good-looking” woman throughout the novel. Her beauty and personality attract many men but she always seems …show more content…

Although she did not engage in combat, Brett served as a nurse and was exposed to the many horrors of war. Brett did not lead a very happy life when away from Jake. Mike Campbell describes that when married to Lord Ashley, Brett was always in fear for her life. He claims, “...when he got really bad, he used to tell her he’d kill her. Always slept with a loaded service revolver. Brett used to take the shells out when he’d gone to sleep. She hasn’t had an absolutely happy life (207). Brett has not had an easy adult life, traumatized by her ex husband and always jumping around from one man to another, she has never been able to have a life she was satisfied with. Brett’s misfortunes have made her into the unstable, alcoholic woman presented by Hemingway. While she has been hurt by many, her self-abuse is much more impactful. Evidence of self-destructive behavior is seen throughout the book, in her alcoholism and nymphomaniac propensity. After the affair with Romero, when Jake picks her up from Madrid, they go for a drink and Brett states, “No matter how vulgar a hotel is, the bar is always nice” (248). Brett, like Jake, drowns her sorrows in alcohol. She spends a lot of her time at bars and implies that it is the only place she can get satisfaction from. Lady Brett Ashley is filled with pain. Her low self-esteem has caused her to spiral in a lifestyle where she continuously punishes herself.

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This is shown by the line “This was Brett that I had felt like crying about. Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing.” This line serves as evidence that Jake is aware that Brett does not love him but feels the intense pressure to please Brett. When Brett leaves, he becomes miserable as he knows he will always fail to please Brett and other women.

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The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway takes place in the 1920s in Paris. The novel starts out focusing on Robert Cohn, while the rest of it is narrated by Jake. He is an expatriate, is madly in love with Brett, and has a war injury. Jake Barnes was raised Catholic and has had an on-again-off-again fling with Brett. He talks about Brett and his religion differently than how he thinks about them.

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The novel, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, describes the life of some people from the Lost Generation in post-World War I Europe, but mostly in Paris, France and Pamplona, Spain. This novel rotates around Jacob, or Jake, Barnes’, the narrator’s, life; which mostly includes drinking with his friends, Robert Cohn, a Jewish man who is often verbally abused by his “friends”, Ashley Brett, an attractive woman who Jake is in love with, Bill Gorton, a good friend of Jake’s, and a couple others. Their life in dull Paris seems to revolve around spending money and drinking, but when they go to colorful Pamplona, Spain, they have an amazing time during the fun-filled fiesta. Ernest Hemingway uses the “iceberg theory” when he presents Jake Barnes to the reader; he does not directly tell you a lot about Jake, but through Jake’s thoughts and emotions, one can tell that he was injured in the war, he is not a very religious person, he would rather do what he loves, instead of what he must, and he does not like to be honest with himself, despite the fact that he is one of the more honest characters in the novel. Ernest Hemingway does not directly let the reader know that Jake is injured in a special place; he allows the reader to interpret that from Jake’s thoughts and memories.

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