A Preponderance of Booze

Or alternatively, A Dearth of Sobriety
a blog response to Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
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Although Hemingway never tells us how exactly Jake was injured in the Great War, it is insinuated that it has left him impotent. Bill Gorton's comment in his conversation with Jake on page 120 hints at this. What this means, then, is that Jake - having recently fought in a war that was meant to epitomize all that is young, glorious, and male, but actually left all of its survivors disillusioned and wounded in some way - must try to find a way to compensate for his impotency. 

Many of the motifs that appear in this novel seem to be related to a very masculine culture. Bull-fighting, for instance, seems the very pinnacle of what a man can (and perhaps should) aspire to be. What could be more macho than a burgeoning youth - on the very cusp of manhood, at 19 - deliberately placing himself in horrific danger -- only to come out the victor in a fight to the death against a bull, the bestial manifestation of uncontrollable danger?

Yet in spite of his passionate admiration of the Corrida del toros, and his unabashed claim to be an aficionado, Jake can't actually bullfight. He is nothing but a spectator in the stands,  nowhere near capable of achieving the same raw manliness exuded by the young Pedro Romero. And so, Jake must turn to other past times to prove his masculinity to the world.

It can be argued that alcohol, and therefore alcoholism, are deeply immoral past times, given the myriad bad situations that can stem from such an addiction. Such qualms are not to be answered here. The point is that Jake Barnes, having no other way to assert his masculinity in a world heavily disillusioned by the behemoth that was the Great War, turns to alcohol as a substitute.

I think we're probably all familiar with how getting wasted works, as well as the (usual) hangover that follows the morning/afternoon/evening after. It seem a self-destructive cycle, to perpetually subjugate oneself to such a ritual, as seems to be the case with Jake Barnes when he constantly notes how much he had to drink, with whom, and why. But to a man who suffers from impotency, and cannot assert himself (and his masculinity) to the world in the same way that Lady Brett Ashley is able to - despite her being a woman, and he the man - perhaps it is in this very same cycle that Jake is able to find an ability to survive. An ability to willingly return to alcohol, wake up with a raging hangover the next morning, recover, and then do it all over again - that seems to speak to a kind of inner strength, a kind of inner doggedness. Indeed, Hemingway's decision to title this novel The Sun Also Rises, a reference to the earth ever going on and on despite the temporal, temporary (and therefore weak) generations, seems to suggest that this might explain Jake's motivations.

Or, maybe Hemingway just really loved his alcohol. That could be a valid, if easy, answer.