Many traumatic events lead people to become a shell of themselves. They may lose a part of them that makes them who they are. In Ernest Hemingway’s book, The Sun Also Rises, his male characters struggle with what it means to be a man in the post-war world. It used to be world that up until The Great War, romanticized its fighting men as courageous and honorable people. The reality of that war was much different: trench fighting, long-range artillery bombardment, and mustard gas shattered that idealization of the soldier. Many of the men from the Lost Generation returned from the war in disillusionment, among them were main characters of The Sun Always Rises. His main characters were all who served in the forces or fought the war. They all live adriftly, moving from one place to another on their own whim at a loss for something meaningful in their lives. They relate to each other in entirely superficial ways, often vaguely saying one thing, while meaning another. Hemingway’s style reinforces this effect: his brisk, first-person narration provides few clues to the true meaning of his characters’ interactions with each other. The reader must instead glean clues from the subtle hints that Hemingway gives through his narrator, Jake Barnes. The theme of masculinity, through pervasive in the novel, is cloaked in this way.

This them is most prevlent when the reader come to the the revelation of Jake’s war wound. Hemingway never explicitly stated it, but it is rather implied that some war injury was in Jake’s genital area. Jake’s habit of deflecting uncomfortable conversation topics comes through as he is in his room, “undressing, I looked at myself in the mirror of the big armoire beside the bed. That was a typically French way to furnish a room. Practical, too, I suppose. Of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny,” (Hemingway 38). Rather than immediately reveal the nature of his injury to the reader, Hemingway has Jake first reflect on the furniture and decoration of the room he is in, and then he simply hints at the wound, he makes fun of his wound, which is a coping method for dealing with his loss. Once the reader makes the connection between Jake’s war wound, and his mentioning it as he is undressing in front of the mirror, previous scenes make more sense. When Jake is having dinner with the prostitute Georgette, and he says to himself, “I had picked her up because of a vague sentimental idea that it would be nice to eat with someone,” (Hemingway 24) he most likely does not literally mean that he misses dining with a woman; what he actually means is that he misses the sexual experience. The nature of his wound makes him feel isolated from society and have sexual frustrations (Korsmo 179). This war wound takes away from his sense of masculinity because he is not able to do what a man should be able to do, which is seen as more feminine (Onderdonk 61)

Later in the same chapter, Brett arrives with a crowd of men, who are hinted to be homosexuals. Jake feels very threatened by them, saying, “I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure,” (Hemingway 28). He is angry because they are capable of sexual activity, but unlike himself, they presumably have no sexual desire for Brett. Whether or not they actually put on a “superior, simpering composure,” Jake sees one, and it enrages him enough that he has to immediately go to a bar and drink. A man who intellectually understands that he should be tolerant of homosexuals would not be enraged enough by their presence to be driven to drink, unless some other factor was at work: namely, Jake’s impotence. He portrays the gay men as effeminate and totally devoid of masculinity.

The relationship between Jake and Robert Cohn is another manifestation of this theme of masculine insecurity. Cohn seems to genuinely like Jake, and while Jake is generally “friendly” toward him, he does not really seem to reciprocate Cohn’s warmth. Their relationship seems to change once Jake finds out about Cohn’s fling with Brett; he is generally more hostile toward him, and is in general more critical of him than before the affair is discovered: “‘And as for this Robert Cohn,’ Bill said, ‘he makes me sick, and he can go to hell, and I’m damn glad he’s staying here so we won’t have him fishing with us.’ ‘You’re damn right,'” (Hemingway 108). A later conversation between Jake and Bill hints at Jake’s jealousy. Bill asks Jake if he was ever in love with Brett, to which he responds, “Off and on for a hell of a long time.” Bill apologizes for being insensitive. When Jake insists he no longer cares, Bill expresses disbelief, and Jake says, “Really. Only I’d a hell of a lot rather not talk about it,” (128). It is another example of him deflecting topics on which he feels uncomfortable.

Brett herself could be viewed as a threat to Jake’s masculinity. Her features have some very masculine characteristics: her short hair, her clothing choice of men’s apparel, she also drinks an abundance of alcohol, at times even more than her male companions, and she is also has a very high sex drive, which at the time was not a desirable trait for women to have. It made people think of them as less feminine. In spite of her femininity, Jake manhood is threatened by her. In fact, Jake, Mike, and Cohn, whom all she has had relationships with, all express signs of feeling inadequate to her because she will not commit to just one of them she keeps going around with all of them.