Tabs for the Past

We are given Jack Barnes’s tabs for a couple of reasons. The first is because it gives a concrete dollar amount to the emotion pain that the war has taken on him. It is heavily implied throughout the novel that during the war, Jack suffered permanent damage to his reproductive organs – a wound he hasn’t quite gotten over. Drinking helps him to forget his disability, but it will never actually repair it. By giving his bar tabs, we can see just how much this damage has taken it toll on him in a more societal matter. The drinks serve as a sort of temporary therapy for Jack, and his tabs are the bills for this service.

The second reason Jack gives us his tabs is to impress us with his drinking capabilities. Because of his war injury, Jack also questions his masculine worth. Being unable to have sex and constantly being rejected by the love of his life puts an enormous blow into his ego, and in order for him to recuperate, Jack must find other ways of establishing his masculinity. So he turns to his ability to drink and he does so gallantly that we can’t help but wonder what other sorts of wounds he may be hiding under his drunken stupor.

The third reason Jack shares his tabs (related to the second) is to show his wealth and success as a foreign correspondent journalist, which also sets his dominance as a male figure. He often offers to pay the tabs for his friends (except the count). Again, this helps to solidify his status as a man.

Finally, Jack shares his tabs so that we might have a way of associating him with something other than the war and his disability. It keeps our attention away from his trauma and in the present of the story where he doesn’t have to worry about anything other than what is happening before him. The tabs serve as bookmarks for the past so that he might never have to revisit or remember what he’s gone through since the war has ended. And they give us a sense of how much time has passed during his evenings out. Unfortunately for Jack, they also reveal his inability to move on since they do serve as bookmarks into his past and show how much everything has taken a toll on his person.