Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a fairly common condition in society, but not everybody handles the occurrence as if it is normal. In the novel, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemmingway writes about a character named Jake Barnes. Jake is a war veteran who emits symptoms of PTSD, which could be the author reflecting on the psychological experiences that may have occurred in the past. Hemmingway likely suffered from PTSD from World War 1 which could be the reasoning behind writing a character that suffers from it too. When writing this novel Hemmingway subtly reflects his own life and shows some side effects from the traumatic damage such as hyperarousal and trying to avoid danger that could occur in the future. Most people can create a healthy response to a catastrophic occurrence but the people who cannot psychologically recover usually suffer from belated mental response tactics such as hyperarousal. Hyperarousal is when the person’s body immediately and spontaneously shifts itself into a high alert from thinking about their past traumatic experience. In the book The Sun Also Rises, Jakes mind correlates usually unassociated events back to his days in the war. An example is when Jake was watching the bullfight in Pamplona, to Jake bullfighting could be seen as meaningless blood pour just like the war. Jake …show more content…
Hemmingway was once an ambulance driver which indicates he had various opportunities to see the harsh war in all its being. In the novel, Jake was accompanied to various hospitals where he was able to experience the same brutal situations and gruesome sights Hemmingway saw too. The trauma Hemmingway suffered from in his past haunts him for the rest of his life and is laced in many of the other novels he has written. Hemmingway is considered to be an alcoholic which could be the reasoning behind the characters coping mechanism in The Sun Also