Identity In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Identity is a concept that the majority of people struggle with at some point in life. This the search in identity can be anything from gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, or the ways people act around others. This idea is often discussed in works of literature sometimes without the intent of doing so. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway show changes in identity through a multitude of ways that give the characters a different viewpoint of the world, or become disillusioned in their own reality. These books display the search identity in both a conscious and an unconscious way. By showing a change in the way people act, speak, and present in the books McCarthy and Hemingway show the ways someone’s

When Jake meets Brett, he is in a triage after being injured in the war, throughout the novel it is hinted that Jake has in some way become impotent, and Brett will not date him because of this, which at first creates a lot of anxiety for Jake because he is very self conscious about his inadequacies. It is mentioned that if they had met before the war Jake and Brett would most likely have hit it off, but because of Jake’s impotence Brett refuses to date him, and instead fraternizes with his entire friend circle. Throughout this time Jake analyzes Brett because he wants to get over her, and eventually he does when he realizes that he and Brett aren’t a good match up. This is really shown by the last line in the novel when Brett mentions that they would’ve probably been a good match and Jake says “isn’t it pretty to think so?” which illustrates the idea that even though at points in the novel it can feel as if Jake and Brett could truly be in love, but what Jake says at the end obliterates the idea that they can be together. This demonstrates a conscious change because Jake actively chooses not to be with Brett in the end and his anxieties about his inadequacies are less than they were at the beginning of the