Flannery O Connor s Life You Save May Be Your Own And...

Flannery O’Connor was a short story author from Savannah, Georgia. She has produced many critically acclaimed pieces and has won several awards for them. Two distinct pieces she wrote are titled The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Good Country People. While both of her stories are unique, the underlying storyboard and character creation process that O’Connor used is the same throughout her stories. Her stories usually involve one or more self-centered woman, a younger person who become the victim of egregious crime, and a conniving male driven by his own motives. Good Country People and The Life You Save May Be Your Own do not stray from this rule. In either story, the narrative is driven around a shocking tragedy that is very unexpected. Even though in the tragedies committed in the book always have a belligerent and a victim, it is not easy to discern who amongst the two are the antagonist and the protagonist. In either of these narratives, the tragedy that occurred within the stories blurs the line between antagonist and protagonist. In Good Country People, the characters that experienced the tragedy can easily fit within either the protagonist or the antagonist box. In the story, the three main characters within the tragic event are a kind old mother, an arrogant disable college grad, and a seemingly simple bible salesman. After O’Connor gives the initial description of the characters, the characteristics that are usually associated with protagonist and antagonist.Show MoreRelatedThe Life You Save May Be Your Own1506 Words   |  7 PagesEvery writer has their own story and because of said story, it has an impact on who they are and how they think. In turn, this leads the writer into unraveling their writing style and, in an artistic way, write out their feelings in the form of a poem or story. We see this in the case of almost every writer, but as of now we re only going to look at Mary Flannery O - Connor. A major theme that reoccu rs in much of Flannery O Connors work is her strong dis- like for the worlds current state, asRead More Inhumanity in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find and Shirley Jacksons The Lottery1133 Words   |  5 Pages In Flannery O’Connor’s, â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find,† and Shirley Jacksons, â€Å"The Lottery,† both short stories deal with man’s inhumanity in different situations, and ending with a similar consequence. Jackson and OConnor both use two characters to depict man having the power to manipulate truth and objection into something people accept. In O’Connor’s’ A Good Man is Hard to Find, the Misfit is a character in need of desired assistance, troubled and confused he wanders savagely murdering strangersRead MoreA Good Man Is Hard And Good Country People By Flannery O Connor Essay2090 Words   |  9 Pagesâ€Å"When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.† This is a common thing that many people do throughout their lifetime. People might judge others to feel secure or to create an identity for themselves. Judging others by their appearance or by the things they own should not be a reason to dislike them. While it may be a common thing to do since we are all humans, it does come with some consequences. In Flannery O Connor s short stories â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† and â€Å"Good Country

Should Illegal Immigrants Be Allowed to Receive Social Services Free Essays

Immigration is a large and controversial topic as far as the United States is concerned. However, there is one subject in question that isn’t quite openly addressed and up for discussion, as say border control. American citizens face many difficulties dealing with the admission of people in the United States illegally. We will write a custom essay sample on Should Illegal Immigrants Be Allowed to Receive Social Services or any similar topic only for you Order Now The primary obstacles facing the system today include overcrowding in schools, availability of jobs and the unnecessary usage of Americans’ tax dollars. Unless every immigrant pays taxes, I do not believe they should receive health and social services. Some people argue that although illegal, immigrants still pay taxes (Carabelli 2-3). Numerous immigrants get false Social Security numbers in order to find jobs. Having these Social Security Numbers, employers are able to withhold all types of taxes. According to the internal revenue service, â€Å"†¦ about 6 million unauthorized immigrants file individual tax returns each year [thus confirming] estimates that between 50 percent to 75 percent of unauthorized immigrants pay federal, state, and local taxes† [ (Carabelli 3) ]. However, according to the united States General accounting office, a report they did shows that even if illegal immigrants do pay taxes, benefits provided to them cost more than they contribute, causing the United States a huge loss of money [ (Carabelli 4) ] Referring to Table 1, California spent a total of $1,770 million dollars on education, incarceration, and emergency services for illegal immigrants. In contrast, California only received $732 million in tax money from them. California lost $1038 million dollars. Also, Florida spent $461 million dollars in education, incarceration, and emergency services, losing $184 million dollars (Carabelli 4). (Carabelli 118) California tried to keep a handle on the costs of illegal immigrants by refusing to give social services to them. Illegal immigrants in the state were not supposed to be allowed state funded health care, public education, and other benefits. Some people had issues with this proposition; supporters of it made a point that Californians are suffering from the existence of illegal persons in their area and the violence they cause. Legal citizens have every right to safety and protection against these people who have entered the United States illegally from the government [ (Carabelli 6) ]. One of the biggest issues having to do with education is overcrowding in schools [ (Crisis 1) ]. In California, there have been reports of overcrowding to the point that schools are forced to reject students. Some people say there is a deficiency of teachers, but the truth is there are just too many immigrant students [ (Crisis 1) ]. According to usimmigrationlawyers. com, â€Å"The share of students in the U. S. ho are immigrants or the children of immigrants has tripled in the past 30 years; in 1970, they were only 6. 5 percent of the student body† [ (systems 1) ]. Immigrant students overwhelm around fourteen percent of schools by up to twenty-five percent. To accommodate overcrowding, a lot of schools have come up with alternatives to classrooms such as, portable classrooms, and using other facilities like cafeterias [ (systems 1) ]. Sometimes, having class in foreign rooms or places can be a distraction to students, especially if there are other things going on around them. Many towns and cities have resorted to building new schools because of the amount of students they are gaining [ (systems 1) ]. It is hard to keep track of exactly how many illegal pupils are in the school systems and determine the correct amount of funding needed. Some programs used to help educate non- English speakers; help to keep count as to how many there are [ (Carabelli 9) ]. However, other programs aren’t made specifically to meet the needs of Immigrants. Many schools find the need to hire bilingual staff to help immigrants. They also purchase special tools such as books and computer programs [ (systems 1) ]. One source of education, English Language Learner, needs extra funding to help it function correctly. This makes the teaching of immigrants more expensive, especially in areas where immigrants are dense [ (Carabelli 9) ]. One solution that has been brought to the table many times is amnesty. President Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazoli Act in 1986, which forgave about 2. 7 million immigrants for entering illegally, and allowed them to stay [ (Mcmanus 1) ]. The reason for this generous agreement was the hope that it would stop more illegal aliens from coming into the United States. This accord didn’t exactly help the problem. In fact, it became more intense, and more illegal aliens crossed the borders into our country [ (Mcmanus 1) ]. Since the big amnesty in 1986, the US has let about three million additional immigrants in. The authorities responsible for allowing them to stay neglect to admit it was them who did it because it attracted more newcomers [ (Mcmanus 1) ]. Even if the United States attempted amnesty again, it would fail for the exact same reason. Granting them amnesty is giving them what they want and in the long run, that costs the US more money than just deporting them. During the Second World War, many immigrants came across the borders to take the jobs of those who were a part of the army. When the war ended, service men came back to find that most of their jobs were taken, immigrants were committing many crimes that ruined the communities, and their millions of children were enrolling in school causing them to become overcrowded [ (McGrath 1) ]. A lot of people say that immigrants do all of the dirty jobs no Americans would do. However, a study done shows that if Americans were paid a reasonable, average wage, they would indeed choose to do those jobs as well [ (Immigration:Jobs) ] It is fair to say that immigrants have distorted the way people see jobs today. It used to be that citizens would do construction, bricklaying and other strenuous job like those, now it is not uncommon to find a Hispanic or other immigrant doing those jobs. Employers lowered pay for illegal immigrants because most of them are willing to do work for any amount. Which, in turn, makes the employer happier because they can hire more help for less so of course they would rather have undocumented workers than legal citizens. (Immigration:Jobs) One immigration case the Supreme Court had to face, dealt with schools in Texas turning away immigrant children. In 1975, Texas lawmakers chose to ban the use of state education funds to pay for the education of illegal immigrant students [ (Unmuth) ]. Some schools turned away all illegal immigrants; some accepted them but forced them to pay tuition. One man brought his family to the United States to get them a better education and his children were turned away because they were illegal [ (Unmuth) ]. The family chose to fight this in court with a couple of other people and won with a 5-4 vote. The spokeswoman for the Federation for American Immigration reform stated that people do not want to watch any child be denied an education, but they want to find a way to stop parents from coming over illegally in the first place. Many taxpayers are feeling as though they are being used; they are forced to pay taxes that support and pay for services and education or illegal beings in the United States. The Tyler vs. Doe case has ensured that all people, illegal or not, will be guaranteed an education. Also, under the fourteenth amendment, all illegal immigrants are promised equality and every civil right a natural citizen has (Unmuth). Asking natural citizens of the United States most will admit they do not like the fact that Illegal Immigrants receive benefits paid for by our taxes. Only one out of every four people believes it is okay for immigrants to receive food stamps and Medicaid [ (Staff 2) ]. Also, only eighteen percent are okay with illegal immigrants getting public housing. A little fewer than eighteen percent of citizens that took this poll decided that illegally admitted people should be allowed state grants for college. The goal for the senate is to come up with something to fix border control so more illegal immigrants cannot enter and catch people that employ illegals to stop providing them with jobs. With these laws in hand, hopefully immigrants will stop wanting to enter the United States [ (Staff 2) ]. So far, the United States has not found an effective way to prevent people from entering illegally. The first step that should be taken is being stricter with the borders. Currently, we have a fence along the US-Mexico border to attempt keeping people from crossing. It is 335-350 miles in length along the approximately 1969. 13 mile long border. That leaves around 1,619-1,634 miles of border un-blocked, wide open for crossing. Congress has ordered for the fence to be extended. Considering the fact that there are plenty of issues with land ownership, there are many problems with law faced with extending the fences. In addition to the fences, along the border we have several different types of electronic security systems. There are cameras and sensors that are monitored twenty-four hours a day by border patrol (Practice). Another strategy is worked from the inside. We are trying to prevent illegals from wanting to come over. This is preventing employers from hiring them in the first place. The United States uses a program called â€Å"E-verify†. It helps employers confirm that the people they are hiring are legal citizens. So far, â€Å"A study conducted in May 2008 by the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the illegal immigrant population of the United States may have dropped by about 11 percent from the previous summer. It suggests that the total illegal immigrant population went from 12. 5 million in August 2007 to 11. 2 million in May 2008. † (Practice). According to writer Roger McGrath, there should be no problems deporting Illegal Immigrants back to their countries. In 1954 the US held a large deportation sending around two million immigrants back to their home countries [ (McGrath 1) ]. He says it was â€Å"done swiftly and cheaply by a relatively small force, proving that arguments we hear today about such an operation being logistically impossible are nothing more than a mask concealing a lack of political will†. I believe that the United States’ immigration problem will never be one hundred percent resolved. We can try building fences, or walls but there is always a way around, under or through those. We can try upping security along the borders with cameras and sensors, but there is a way to seem invisible to those. The matter of fact is that we have to come up with laws that make it impossible to get benefits, impossible to get a job and places to live. If we have to play dirty to get what we want, so be it. The American people worked hard to get where we are today and even with that, we struggle. Illegal is illegal we can’t make excuses to get out of our lives neither should they. I feel bad for those struggling in other countries, we have our problems too. The United States tries to help out other countries as much as they can, it is hard. So why should Americans have to pay for them to come into our country and live? Works cited http://www.usillegalaliens.com/impacts_of_illegal_immigration_jobs.html http://athens.usembassy.gov/dcm_immigration.html How to cite Should Illegal Immigrants Be Allowed to Receive Social Services, Essay examples

The sun also rises Essay Summary Example For Students

The sun also rises Essay Summary Summary and Analysis of Epigraph and Chapters 1-4The Epigraph: Hemingway prefaces the novel with two quotes, one by Gertrude Stein, painter, poet, and social center of the American expatriates in 1920s Paris, and one by Ecclesiastes from the Bible. Steins quote proclaims that Hemingways is a lost generation. Her title stuck and has since defined the moral, emotional, and physical emptiness of the young post-WWI generation, devastated by war and aimlessly seeking comfort in the superficial, hedonistic atmosphere of the 1920s. The quote from Ecclesiastes compares the permanence of the earth to the transience of men; Hemingway altered the words The sun also riseth' for his novels title. In one sense, the words of Ecclesiastes are an optimistic antidote to Steins pessimism; though Hemingways generation may be lost, soon mankind will find himself again (One generation passeth away, and another generation commeth'). On another level, the quote embraces the rejuvenation nature offers. This promise of natural rejuvenation will play an important role in the novel. Chapter I: The narrator, Jake Barnes, describes Robert Cohn, who was the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Cohn took up boxing, though he disliked it, to compensate for the inferiority complex he developed as a Jew at Princeton. Cohns nose was flattened while boxing, and Jake says no one he knows from Cohns class remembers Cohn. From one of New Yorks richest, most prominent Jewish families, Cohn emerged from Princeton with low self-esteem, had an unsuccessful marriage, and lost most of his inheritance. Cohn moved to California and edited and backed an arts magazine until it folded. A woman, Frances, who had been using Cohn for his rising status, moved with him to Paris so he could write a novel. There, Cohn became friends with Braddocks, his literary friend, and Jake, his tennis friend. Frances, wanting to marry Cohn, kept him on a short leash. AnalysisCohns time in Princeton is almost an allegory of a young soldiers going off to war: his early dreams of glory are quickly shattered, his body is physically changed (the flattened nose), and he leaves embittered. He is quickly exploited by two women, the first instance of the theme of manipulative sexuality that Hemingway will explore in greater depth. We are also introduced into a social world of little responsibility Jakes crowd travels and drinks freely, Jake refers to himself as Cohns tennis friend, and money is taken care of by rich relatives (Cohn is given an allowance by his mother). Hemingway also deploys his influential style of spare, unadorned prose to good effect here; in giving a run-down of Cohns character, Jake reveals himself as a quasi-reporter (indeed, he works for the newspaper, though not as a reporter, and Hemingway himself was a former journalist) who does not reveal much about himself. Jake doesnt even tell the reader his name we only find out when another character calls him by his first name or about his job, but lets you in on both his factual and emotional life through others. For instance, Jake is somewhat sympathetic to the abuse and exploitation heaped on Cohn, and we intuit that Jake, too, must harbor similar feelings of inferiority. Though we know little about Jakes relationship with him so far, we will see that Jake is similar in some ways Cohns flattened nose, for instance, foreshadows a less visible impairment Jake has (for Cohn, however, Jake maintains that the flattened nose has improved his appearance). Chapter II: Jake recounts how Cohn left for America, sold his book to a good publisher who praised his efforts, had several affairs, and returned to Paris arrogant and rude. He strove to emulate W.H. Hudsons book, The Purple Land, in which an Englishman has numerous romantic adventures. One day, Cohn interrupts Jake in his newspaper office and proposes that they travel to South America, at Cohns expense. Jake doesnt want to, but Cohn feels his life is slipping by him. Jake invites him to have a drink, since he knows he will be able to get rid of Cohn after one drink. At a caf, Cohn expresses anxiety that their lives are half-over; Jake says he doesnt worry about death. Jake says he has to work, and Cohn joins him and reads the papers. Jake and the editor and publisher work hard and send out news stories. After, Jake wakes Cohn from a nightmare, and the two go to a caf and have a drink. Analysis: With the sense that life is passing him by, Cohn seeks solace in adventure and sex. But Jake mentions that only bull-fighters truly experience life. For a former soldier, this is an odd admission. Ostensibly, Jake admires the bull-fighter because they confront death in their jobs, coming within inches of being gored every time they wave their red cape. Jake, as a soldier, confronted death frequently, too, but he probably would not consider fighting in a war on the same level. What sets the bull-fighters apart, at least in Jakes mind, will develop into an important theme later on in the novel. Hemingway further details the shallow friendships and lack of responsibility in the expatriate circle. Jake gets rid of Cohn after a drink, and in much the same way Cohn wants to leave Paris, believing a new place will cure his boredom. This is the essence of the Lost Generations aimlessness; disillusioned and unsure of their values, they are in a constant state of retreat rather than pursuit. The conventional offerings of life do not satisfy them; work is shown as unimportant newspaper people should never seem to be working and no one seems to care much about family life. All anyone does is drink, an ongoing effort to blind them to reality. We get a sense of where Jakes narrative style comes from newspapers. He is trained in the hard, economical language of journalism, and he has a good eye for detail, real or fictional he says he has a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends. Chapter III: Jake stays at the caf after Cohn leaves. He watches a girl named Georgette walk past, then eventually catches her eye. They drink pernod together (an imitation of absinthe, which is a highly intoxicating, possibly hallucinogenic liquor) and take a horse-cab through town. When Jake rebuffs Georgettes seduction, she asks if hes sick,' and he says he is. She says shes sick, too, and that he shouldnt drink pernod if hes sick however, it doesnt affect her as a woman. They eat dinner at a restaurant, and Jake explains hes sick because he got hurt in the war. Before they can discuss war, Braddocks calls over to Jake from another table with his wife, Cohn, Frances, and several others. Braddocks invites Jake and Georgette to a dance. Jake accepts. After he and Georgette finish their meal, they join the others for coffee. Mrs. Braddocks and Frances talk to Georgette. The party arrives early at the empty dancing-club. They dance and work up a sweat in the hot room. Jake drinks in the doorway to cool off, and watches a crowd of young men with white hands, wavy hair, white faces enter. The policeman at the door gives Jake a knowing nod. With the young men is Lady Ashley, known to Jake as Brett. The mens flamboyant behavior annoys Jake to the point that he wants to punch them, though he knows he should be tolerant. He leaves and has a beer at a bar down the street, then a cognac both drinks taste bad. When he returns, Jake finds Georgette dancing with the men in turn. Jake sits down with his party and is introduced to Robert Prentiss, a new American novelist. Slightly drunk, Jake gets irritated by Roberts persistent questions about Paris. At the bar with Cohn, Brett talks to Jake. Jake finds her very good-looking, as does Cohn. Jake and Brett trade insults about her friends and his date. Cohn asks her to dance, but she says she has promised her last dance of the evening to Jake. Jake feels happy dancing with her. They decide to leave. Jake puts money in an envelope and gives it to the patronne (head of the club); he says to give it to Georgette if she leaves alone, but to save it for Jake if she leaves with one of the men. Cohn follows Jake and Brett outside, but they say good night to him. There are no taxis, so Jake and Brett silently wait inside a bar as a waiter hails them one. Finally, they get in one, and Brett confesses that shes been so miserable.' Analysis: Jakes sickness that prevents him from accepting Georgettes sexual offerings, and her statement that It doesnt make any difference with a woman,' strongly suggests that Jake is impotent in some form. He never fully reveals his disability it is only strongly hinted at several times throughout the novel but it forms the basis of his pain, and its origin is the war. His impotence stands for the wars symbolic castration of the Lost Generation, especially the men. They felt as if they had lost their manhood in their return to the peacetime world. Jake and Cohn best represent this loss of manhood, but it is applicable not only to the aimlessness of the Lost Generation. Rather, Hemingway explores in greater depth the new sexual relations that sprang up after World War I battered the male psyche. He is interested in the new power women wielded over their emasculated men. Cohn and Jake have little power in their dealings with women; Cohn (until his books success, at least) is whipped and exploited by women, while Jake is literally impotent, without power, and cannot fulfill the typical sexual expectations of a male. The homosexual men who enter the club with Brett threaten Jake, and not only because they are with Brett. Even with their feminine appearance and behavior, their genitalia still functions they still have their manhood, so to speak. To compensate for his feelings of inadequacy, Jake ups the ante on his drinking, imbibing another beer and then a harder cognac. But both taste bad, and Jake cant take the taste out of my mouth; there is no running away from his impotence. Far more threatening to Jake than the homosexual men, and overall the most powerful, independent character in the novel, is Brett. Her traditionally male name is no mistake; she calls herself a chap, has hair brushed back like a boys, and even her womanly curves are given a somewhat masculine connotation: builtlike the hull of a racing yacht (though boats are typically gendered as women, the fact that is a racing, and not luxury, yacht implies Bretts power and independence). She also has the capacity to wound Jake; though we know little about their relationship, she excites a response in him greater than any we have seen so far. We see more evidence of the irresponsible behavior of the Lost Generation. Jake is happy to be drunk since it allows him to be careless and be angry at Robert Prentisss persistent questions, but he is careless while sober, too. He lies and says Georgette is his fiance and gives her the same name as a popular singer, all in an effort to poke fun both at her and at the navet of Mrs. Braddocks, who believes him. Though Jake is a sensitive observer of others and of himself (note the money he leaves for Georgette provided she does not go off with one of the men in the club), he often treats people as objects. Chapter IV: Jake and Brett ride in the taxi through Paris. They kiss, but she pulls away and tells him not to touch her, as she cant stand it'; she tells him she turns to jelly' when he touches her. She says she doesnt want to go through that hell again, but when Jake says theyll have to stay away from each other, she says she needs to see him. Referring to sex, she says that It isnt all that you know,' but Jake says it always gets to be.' Brett blames herself for causing men pain, and believes she is paying for it now; Jake says his condition is supposed to be funny, and that he never thinks about it. She relates how her brothers friend returned from war with the same condition. Jake says its a fun, enjoyable' feeling to be in love, though Brett disagrees. They direct the taxi driver to a caf. Brett finds her friends from the club. One introduces her to Count Mippipopolous (hereafter referred to as the count). Braddocks tells Jake that Georgette got in a fight with the patronnes daughter, and eventually someone took her home. Jake says he has to leave, and makes plans with Brett to see her tomorrow evening. She also tells him she received a letter from Mike today (we do not yet know who this is). Jake walks home, passing a statue of Marshal Ney holding a sword. He gets his mail from the concierge in his flat and goes upstairs. He reflects on how so many people the Count and Lady Ashley, for instance have titles. He curses Brett, thinks about his condition, reads the newspaper, and tries to go to sleep. Instead, he thinks more about his condition, obtained on the Italian front. He thinks about how he wouldnt have had any trouble had he not met Brett when he was shipped to England; he believes she only wanted him because she couldnt have him. He thinks more about Brett and starts crying, then falls asleep. He is woken by voices from outside, and the concierge tells him a woman has come to see him. Brett, drunk, comes upstairs. She says she just came from talking to the count, whom she finds interesting and says is one of us. The count offered her money to go with him to a number of exotic locales, but she kept saying she knew too many people there, so finally he took her to Jakes after she said she was in love with Jake. She says he wants to take them out to dinner tomorrow, and Jake accepts. She invites him to leave with her, as the count is waiting outside in a car, but he declines. They kiss and she leaves. He watches through the window as she gets in a limousine. Jake gets into bed and thinks about Brett some more and feels like hell again.' Analysis: Brett doesnt want to go through with foreplay if it means they will ultimately be sexually stymied by Jakes impotence. She says she turns to jelly when he touches her, but her phrase is indicative of the real problem that Jake is the one who, sexually speaking, is always held at the rigidity of jelly. (Another possible pun comes up when Brett, expressing skepticism about Jakes claim that he doesnt think about his impotence, says Ill lay you dont.') The statue Jake sees is a phallic symbol, with its sword (the penis) coming out of the horse-chestnut leaves (possibly representing testicles and pubic hair), and must mock Jakes impotence every time he passes it. He says that he and the others in the Italian hospital who were rendered impotent were going to form a society. In a sense, the society has already been formed by men everywhere who have been devastated by the war. The other society is the one Brett refers to when she says the Count is one of us.' She includes Jake in this group when describing the counts cosmopolitan, elite demeanor, but Jake is not truly included in her us. Not only does he not have a title or excessive amounts of money as they do (he needs to get up to work in the morning while they can frolic all night), he ultimately feels locked out of the sexual games they can play, even though Brett prefers his company to the counts and claims she loves him. The other way Jake is separate from them is in the intensity of his pain. He cries in this scene and feels miserable each time he thinks about Brett, whereas we have witnessed Brett only talking about how miserable she feels and the hell she has gone through. Jakes revelation at the end, that he can be hard-boiled in the day but has a harder time at night, is one of the more intimate comments we will get from him. His adjective of choice even alludes to the new school of hard-boiled detective fiction that emerged after WWI. Laconic, wounded men, much like Jake, sprang up in American literature as a reaction to postwar emasculation. Jake admits, however, that he cannot maintain their level of stoicism, at least not while alone at night. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 5-9Chapter V: In the morning, Jake goes out for breakfast, observes Paris in the morning, and goes to work. He goes to an insignificant press conference and shares a taxi back with two colleagues. When he returns to work, Cohn is waiting for him. They lunch together. Cohn is having writers block, but he cant go to South America because Frances wont let him. Cohn asks him about Brett. Jake says shes getting a divorce now and is going to marry Mike Campbell, who is currently in Scotland. Cohn admits he is feeling in love with her. Jake says he met her while he was in a hospital during the war; she was a V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment; essentially, she was a volunteer nurse) and had married the man whose name she took, Ashley, after her own true love died of dysentery. Jake says she has twice married without love. Cohn feels Jake is insulting her, and they get in a small fight, which is quickly smoothed over. They leave and go back to Jakes office. AnalysisThis chapter provides exposition for Bretts character. We learn her age 34 and her romantic history, as well as the circumstances around her meeting Jake. As in his celebrated novel about WWI, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway has chosen to have his couple meet while the man convalesces in a military hospital under the care of a nurse. This nurse-patient romantic relationship takes on a special irony in The Sun Also Rises. Aside from the fact that Brett seems an unlikely caregiver (she seems better off fighting on the front lines), the one thing Brett-as-nurse could not cure, even with her romantic interest in Jake, was his impotence. Typically in novelistic treatments of the romantic nurse-patient relationship, the rest of the mans body is wounded while his sexual organs remain intact, thus preserving his manhood. As Jake has previously observed, perhaps she only wanted him because she couldnt fully have him. Hemingway also develops further conflicts. Cohn is falling in love with Brett; this was clear enough from the dancing-club episode, and it makes sense that Cohn, lacking any kind of will, would fall for the dominant Brett. Moreover, it is revealed that Brett will marry Mike Campbell (whom they referred to in the dancing-club episode). While Jake maintains she loves Mike, she has also said she loves Jake. It is unclear if she truly does love Jake or simply enjoys toying with him. Chapter VI: Jake waits in a hotel for Brett and writes some letters. After a while she still has not shown, so he has a drink in the hotel bar, then taxis over to a caf. There, he finds a friend, Harvey Stone, who asks to borrow money. Cohn joins them, and Harvey mocks him before leaving. Jake describes Cohn in more detail, feeling he has not explained him enough. Frances joins them and asks Jake if shell come with her to another caf to talk to her. Cohn stays put. They leave and Frances confides in Jake that Cohn wants to leave her. Now she feels she is not a desirable bride for anyone else. They resolve there is nothing to be done about it, and return to Cohn. Frances reveals she is going to England to visit friends, and that Cohn is going to give her 200 hundred pounds although he originally was only going to give her 100 pounds. Jake marvels at the abuse Cohn takes. Frances cheerfully reveals more hurtful information with Jake as the audience, such as Cohns mistreatment of a secretary on his magazine, or of his sexual plans once he leaves her. Jake makes an excuse to leave, unable to take her bullying of Cohn any longer, and watches them through the window from the street. He hails a taxi to go home. Analysis: Here we see another way sex can be used as a weapon. Frances uses her knowledge of Cohns sexual motives and history of his desire for sordid affairs and of his callous treatment of the secretary to humiliate him in front of Jake. Though Jake is fully aware of the pain Cohn suffers, both as an observer and as someone who has had his fair share of romantic pain with Brett, he does not try to intervene: I did not even feel an impulse to try and stop it. Jake is irresponsible, unwilling to fix problems when he sees them, unwilling to shoulder someone elses pain because he feels he is too burdened by his own. But his irresponsibility is matched by Francess. She worries about Cohns not wanting to marry her only because she feels she is no longer marriageable. And, though she does not like children, she says she always thought she would have kids first, and then start to like them. As in F. Scott Fitzgeralds 1925 Lost Generation masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, in which Fitzgerald uses the metaphor of careless drivers to suggest the irresponsibility of the times, Hemingway subtly indicts Jake for his unrealized sympathy. It is almost worse that Jake can understand, even feel, the pain of others but, as he says to Frances, believes he is powerless: And of course there isnt anything I can do.' Chapter VII: As Jake heads to his flat, his concierge tells him Brett stopped by with a very large man, and that they will be back in an hour. Jake reads a telegram from Bill Gorton, informing him he will soon be arriving in France. After Jake showers, Brett shows up with the count. Jake reminds her she didnt show up for their date; the count explains that she was very drunk. She also explains she got in the concierges good graces by giving her 200 francs from the count. Jake goes into his room to get dressed. Brett comes in, and Jake says he loves her. Brett says she will get rid of the count, though Jake tells her not to. She leaves and returns, saying she sent the count out for champagne. Jake asks Brett if they could live together, but she says they couldnt, as she would tromper (be unfaithful to, or elude) him. She says she is going away from him tomorrow, to San Sebastian, until Mike comes back. The count returns with the champagne. They discuss titles, and the count says Brett wouldnt need one, as You got the most class of anybody I ever seen.' They make more small talk and have the champagne. The count reveals he has been in seven wars, and shows his scars on his stomach and back from arrow wounds. Brett is impressed. The count says that because he has lived very much, he can now enjoy himself so well. They eat dinner in a restaurant, then go to a crowded club. Brett tells Jake he is a bad dancer, and that Mike is the best dancer she knows. Though she says she likes Mike, she never writes him, whereas he writes her frequently. She does not know when they will get married, as it depends on when her divorce goes through. They talk with the count, then dance again. Brett tells Jake she is so miserable. Jake feels he is about to repeat something nightmarishly. They say goodbye to the count and leave. They take the counts car to her hotel, but Brett doesnt want Jake to come up with her. They kiss at her door, but Brett pushes him away twice before leaving. Jake takes the car home. Analysis: Though the count is rich, popular, and well-traveled, his ungrammatical speech belies some lack of education: You got the most class of anybody I ever seen.' No matter what ones financial state, everyone in the novel wants that particular distinction of classiness, that nobility that is somewhat separate from pure money. Even the concierge (after getting money from Brett, of course) finds Brett very prestigious, and is generally concerned with peoples families. The count also has the adventurous experience that Cohn craves. This is not merely sexual experience, but confrontations with death. However, his experiences have not destroyed him, as Jakes have. The counts wounds are merely scars, honorable war wounds he is proud to show off, while Jakes are hidden from sight, unmentionable, and considered at best funny, at worst, shameful. Ironically, though the count was pierced with arrows, a highly phallic image of penetration, Jake is the one who has been rendered impotent. We see greater evidence of irresponsibility. Brett did not show up for her date with Jake, as the count has to explain, because she was drunk. She also buys approval from the concierge with the counts money. Furthermore, she does not write Mike, though he writes her, and she says only that she is damned fond of him,' not that she is in love with him, as she has previously maintained. Her emotional state also vacillates quickly, or at least what she claims her emotional state is, and she toys with Jake. He feels he is doomed to repeat the nightmare of falling for her, then being scorned. Her word for what she would do to him, tromper, has several meanings, the most likely of which is to be unfaithful to. It also means to elude, and this may foreshadow the novels later shift into the arena of bull-fighting, as matadors elude the charging bulls. Chapter VIII: Jake does not see Brett until she returns from San Sebastian, nor does he see Cohn, who takes a trip to the country. He works extra hard in preparation for his trip at the end of June to Spain with Bill Gorton, his writer-friend. Bill visits, travels around Europe, then returns and describes his trip, which he cannot remember very well, as he was drunk for most of it. He recounts in detail an adventure with a friendly black boxer to whom he lent money. They walk out for dinner, passing a statue, as Bill flippantly jokes about taxidermy with Jake, who is more grounded. They run into Brett on the street, in a cab just back from her trip. Jake introduces her to Bill. She tells him that Mike is coming back tonight. They get in the cab and go off for a drink. They discuss Bills and Bretts respective trips. Before she leaves, she tells them to meet her and Mike tonight. They eat dinner at a restaurant packed with Americans. After, they roam the streets for a while until meeting Brett and Mike. Brett introduces Mike as an undischarged bankrupt'; he explains that his ex-partner did me in.' Mike keeps referring to Brett as a lovely piece. Jake and Bill soon leave to watch a boxing match. Analysis: The experience of travel is largely wasted on Bill because he was drunk for most of it and cannot remember it; despite the grandiose adventures the Lost Generation accumulates, much of them are drowned in a haze of alcohol. Bill is a literary party boy who exhibits the worst tendencies of Hemingways fellow Lost Generation writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald (and perhaps of Hemingway himself), wasting his literary talent on trenchant quips and raucous partying (he was directly inspired by another friend of Hemingways, though). While the modern reader may see Hemingway as a clear-cut racist for his repeated use of the word nigger, it is the slur his upper-class white characters would use (nor would they consider it a slur as we do now). If anything, his characters have a confused sense of race. They like to think of themselves as exotic and sophisticated for their association with blacks (remember Bretts waving hello to the black drummer in the dancing-club), but they never want to relinquish their status of superiority Bill can still feel he is on top, for instance, by loaning the black boxer money. Yet another statue pops up in this chapter. Evolution of Media Violence Essay Despite its showy rockets, the fiesta is less a spectacle, as the expatriates are accustomed to witnessing, and more a series of expressive rituals, Bacchanalian though they may be. The dancing, for instance, contrasts with the dancing in Paris. There, the wild dancing was either an excuse for cheap sexuality or competitiveness, as when the homosexual men dancing with Georgette threatened Jake; here, the mens dance is a dignified ceremony of unity. When Bill and Jake see the pied-piper figure leading the dancing children around, for instance, Bill cannot comprehend the mythological significance, calling him the village idiot. The fiesta is hedonistic, but its sense of ritual maintains some order. While Jake says there are no consequences in the fiesta, just as Jake and his friends feel there are none in their regular lives, it is understood that the fiesta, as a weeklong ceremony, will soon end and consequences will return. The expatriates, on the other hand, want to believe their party will never end. Even Bretts otherwise destructive sexuality is given a ritualistic bent. She is revered as a fertility goddess, given an honorary wreath of garlic (Cohns wreath may be an ironic decoration, or perhaps it signifies that even Cohn, a virtual castrated steer, is more fertile than the truly infertile Jake); seated on the wine-cask, it is as if she is the Dionysian bearer of wine, a literally fruitful goddess. The atmosphere in the fiesta is one of generosity; drinks and food are shared freely, but it has none of the competitiveness that has come when the count, or even Harris (the Englishman), bought drinks. Still, there is some financial corruption in the air; the fiesta doubles the prices of the meal at the hotel, and the man in the wine-shop is suspicious that Jake will sell the wine-skins in Bayonne. Hemingway parallels Romeros bull-fighting techniques with Bretts sexual tactics. Both characters are physically beautiful, and both are masters at their respective games. Jake provides an explicit description of Bretts sexuality in his description of Romeros bull-fighting: He dominated the bull by making him realize he was unattainable, while he prepared him for the killing. Previously, Brett had said she would tromper Jake like all the other men if they got together; while the words best meaning is to be unfaithful to, it also means to elude. Like the bull-fighter, she teases men, tricking them into thinking they can have her, then eludes them at the last moment. It is clear why Romero fascinates her; aside from his physical appeal, he appears to be the one male who could make her pursue him. She is sexually engaged in the bull-fight, and describes herself after the fight in post-coital terms: These bull-fights are hell on oneIm limp as a rag.' Romero also fits the definition of what has become known in literary criticism as a Hemingway hero. Hemingway defined a code of ethics for heroism, the most important tenet being that a brave hero exhibits grace under pressure. What this means is that in difficult situations especially mortal ones the hero handles himself assuredly and confronts the danger head-on. The bull-fighter, of course, literally faces death, and Jake admires Romero because he is authentic in his confrontation with death; he allows the bull to come as close to his body as possible, unlike the other fighters, but always remains in control. Another quality of the Hemingway hero is that he is foremost a man of action, not of intellectualization. Hemingways descriptions in this chapter, especially of the bull-fight, hone in on the action. This is not to suggest that there is a lack of analytic material here rather, this is one of the more profound sections of the novel but that the significance can be located directly in the action. When Jake says that there is an Absolute purity of line in Romeros movements, he may as well be talking about Hemingways prose, refined to its essence of action. Chapter XVI: It rains heavily during the fiesta, though the festivities and dancing continue. While Jake shaves in his room, Montoya tells him people at the Grand Hotel want Romero and Marcial Lalanda to come over for after-dinner coffee. Jake suggests he not pass the invitation on to Romero, and Montoya is pleased, as he feels foreigners could corrupt the young matador. At dinner in the hotel, Romero invites Jake to his table. They discuss the vocabulary of bull-fighting in English and Spanish. Romero, who speaks some English, tells Jake he has been fighting for three years. He is very modest when discussing his work, and promises that tomorrow he will put on a good show. Brett wants to be introduced, and they all move to a bigger table. Brett flirts with Romero; Mike, drunk and disorderly, makes disparaging comments about bull-fighting and about Bretts interest in Romero. Montoya comes into the room, but leaves when he sees Romero at Jakes table. Mike makes a toast to Romero, and Romero leaves. Mike tells Cohn his presence is not desired. Cohn is insulted, but seems to enjoy it, as well. Before Mike can fight Cohn, Jake intervenes and pulls them both outside, where it has stopped raining. Brett and Bill soon join them to watch fireworks. They finally make it to a bar with a friend of Bills from Biarritz. Mike compliments her on her appearance, and he goes outside with her and Bill. Brett tells Cohn to leave her and Jake alone, and he departs. She tells Jake she is sick of him. They go for a walk and see Cohn outside, though they evade him and walk in the quiet parts of town. Brett admits she has fallen in love with Romero. Jake urges her not to let it happen, but she says she cannot help it. She feels she has to do something, as she has lost her self-respect with the way Mike and Cohn are around her. She asks Jake to help her through this, and she suggests they go find Romero. They locate him in the caf, smoking cigars with other bull-fighters. Jake and Brett take a table, and Romero joins them. Brett reads Romeros fortune from his hand and says he will live a long time. He admits that he does not let others know he speaks English, as they would not approve. Jake leaves under the guise to find their friends, but he makes it clear it is to leave Romero and Brett alone. When he returns later on his own, they are gone. Analysis: Jake says of Cohn Im not sorry for him. I hate him, myself.' The sentence is interesting. Though he means, of course, that he himself hates Cohn, the construction also implies Jakes self-loathing he hates both him and myself. Both objects of hatred are logical and have been detailed throughout the book; Cohns suffering reminds him of his own pain, and Jake has numerous reasons to hate himself (his impotence, his irresponsibility, his shallow relationships, and his dependence on Brett). Brett, on the other hand, says she hates Cohns damned suffering.' She wants to hurt men only if their suffering does not cause her any suffering in turn; Jake is a perfect target, as he bottles up most of his pain and rarely exposes her to it. Cohn, on the other hand, is a whimpering puppy whose pathetic dependence on Brett is evident to all. While her evasive sexual tactics draw parallels to bull-fighters, she is less honest than they are; the bull-fighter knows that he will cause pain for the bull (if he is successful, of course), and accepts it, as Romero does. Romero calls the bulls his friends, but admits he must kill them before they kill him. Bretts unwillingness to admit to this defensive impulse exposes her irresponsibility. She says shes never been able to help anything. While she refers specifically to the act of falling in love, she implies that none of her emotional manipulations is under her control. Just as Jake shucks off responsibility for helping others (though he does finally intervene before Mike and Cohn spar in this chapter), she casts off responsibility for hurting others. Romero is somewhat feminine in his appearance His hand was very fine and the wrist was small but it makes him more beautiful and even more masculine, in a way. Jake, on the other hand, may appear more masculine, but he feels far more emasculated, not only for his impotence, but also for his lack of grace under pressure, his inability to follow the code of the hero. Instead of being a hero, Jake remains at the level of an aficionado. His virtual pimping off Brett to Romero underlines his status as an observer, not as a participant. He submits to Bretts desires so much that he is willing to efface his own and live vicariously through Romero. Chapter XVII: Jake finds Mike, Bill, and Bills friend, Edna, outside a bar. They have been thrown out for trying to fight the Englishmen inside. Without Bill, they make it over to the caf, where Cohn joins them and asks where Brett is. He doesnt believe that Jake doesnt know. Mike eventually says that Brett has gone off with Romero. Cohn asks Jake if its true, and when he doesnt answer, calls Jake a pimp.' They fight, and Cohn pummels Jake to the ground. He wakes up from being unconscious and learns that Cohn knocked Mike down, too. They discuss the fight and Mikes bankruptcy. Jake leaves them. Jake walks to his hotel, feeling as if everything is new to him. At the hotel, Bill tells him Cohn wants to see him. Jake reluctantly goes to Cohns room, where he sees Cohn is crying. Cohn begs Jakes forgiveness, and says hell be leaving in the morning. He says he cant take the way Brett treats him like a stranger, after they had lived together in San Sebastian. Jake says goodbye to him and goes to bed. Jakes wakes with a headache, and remembers he is supposed to show Edna the running of the bulls. At the caf, he is reassured to learn that Bill, Mike, and Edna have just left Jake had promised to take her for fear the others would pass out. He enters the crowded bull-ring and sees the bulls run in. A bull gores one man in the back. When a rocket announces the bulls have been corralled, Jake leaves. He goes to the caf and tells a waiter about the man who was gored. The waiter finds it stupid that the man was gored Just for fun.' The waiter then learns the man has died. Jake reads about him in the paper the next day, and the town has a funeral for him the day after that. Jake describes how Romero killed the bull the afternoon of the funeral. Its ear was cut off and given to Romero, who gave it to Brett. She wrapped the ear up in one of Jakes handkerchiefs and left it deep in her hotel rooms drawer. Jake lies down on his sunlit bed. His jaw is sore from Cohns punches. Bill and Mike come into his room. They tell him the bulls trampled the crowd in that mornings show. They say Edna was impressed and wanted them to go into the ring. A chambermaid brings them beer. Jake learns that after Cohn beat up him and Mike, he found Brett in Romeros room and beat up Romero badly. After Cohn had knocked Romero down many times, he said he wouldnt hit him anymore. Romero hit Cohn in the face, then fell down on the floor and threatened to kill him if he werent out of town by the morning. Brett told Cohn off until he cried and wanted to shake hands with her and Romero. When he leaned down to shake Romeros hand, Romero punched him again. Brett is now taking care of Romero. Mike tells him about Bretts unhappy relationship with Ashley (from whom she received her title), then leaves with Bill and tells the chambermaid to bring him more alcohol. Analysis: Jake quickly takes Cohns apology, several times saying so long' to him and nearly forgetting that he will be leaving in the morning. But it is not only because he cares so little for Cohn that he does nothing to console him. Perhaps Jake recognizes that Cohn is right about him that he is, indeed, a pimp and that he is deserving of the physical punishment (and if not for how he acts with Brett, then at least for Jakes passivity in helping Cohn when Mike humiliates him). There is a parallel between the man who was gored and Jake, with his own war wound; both wounds are rendered by brutish violence and seem absurd, or Just for fun,' as the waiter says. The count, too, was wounded in the back, in the same place as the gored man, but he has managed to turn it into a scar of pride. Even the dead man is given a stately funeral; Jake must live quietly with his shameful wound. However, the greater parallel with the gored man is Cohns final defeat. Like the gored man, whom no one helps, no one steps in to save Cohn from being trampled by Brett. And, again, while the gored man is given a good funeral by the town, Jakes friends hardly seem to care (Was there?' Bill responds when hearing there was a death), much like they are apathetic to Cohns departure. Ironically, only now is Cohn somewhat disillusioned; Mike believes he has been ruined' by Romeros slap in his face. Cohn represents the vestiges of pre-war idealism, chivalrously defending his true love against a fellow suitor, then wanting to shake hands honorably with his competitor. But when his chivalry is rejected by both his love and by the suitor, he understands his place in the world is over, that his romantic notions are no longer applicable. The severing of the ear somewhat resembles a castration, as well. It makes sense that Brett ends up the owner of it, as she has emasculated all the other men in her life. By discarding it, not only does she prove she is not a true aficionado of bull-fighting, but she demonstrates how little she cares about the other virtual castrations she has carried out. As with the ear, she shoves all the devastation she has created deep into a drawer. In other words, she refuses to take responsibility and witness the gruesome effects of her manipulations. She works out her guilt by tending to the sick, as Mike says and Jake knows (remember, he met her while in the hospital). Chapter XVIII: It is the last day of the fiesta and the town is packed. Brett joins Jake and company at the caf. They tell her Cohn has left, and she says Romero is badly hurt and wont leave his room, though he is still going to fight. Mike asks Brett how her boy friend' is, and tips over the table. Brett leaves with Jake. She tells him she is happy, and asks him to go to the fight with her. They go into church, as she wants to pray for Romero, but she makes them leave quickly, as she feels nervous. They return to the hotel, and Brett goes to Romeros room. Jake goes into Mikes room, and finds him looking like a death mask on the bed in the midst of empty bottles and strewn clothing. He is drunk and speaks awkwardly, then falls asleep. Jake finds Bill in his room and they eat lunch across the street, as Bill wants to slight the snotty German headwaiter. After lunch, they go to the bull-ring with Brett and sit ring-side. They watch as everything is prepared for the fight. Jake watches the three matadors Romero, Marcial, and Belmonte through the binoculars. The President arrives to start the festivities. Romero, his face swollen, hands his sword-handler his cape; it is in turn handed to Brett. Belmonte, a recently unretired legend, renowned for working close to the bull and gravely endangering himself, goes first and is very good. However, he is not as good as he used to be, nor does he place himself in as great danger, and disappoints the crowd until they turn against him. Jake relates that Belmonte came out of retirement to compete against lesser talents like Marcial, but that Romero has overshadowed him. Romero, Jake believes, has the greatness, and he works in front of Brett that afternoon as much as he can, though he never looks up at her. Jake describes the first quite, in which the bull makes a charge for a picador, then at each of the three matadors in turn. Romero is last, and he evades the bull as the picador stabs the bulls shoulder. Then Romero pulls the bull out and beautifully evades him several times. With his own bull, whose vision is impaired, Romero works to make the match exciting. The crowd does not understand his technique, however, and believes he is afraid. Romero stabs the bull with his sword, then talks to it before it dies. He brilliantly handles the last bull, the one that gored the man the other day, building up to a suspenseful climax in which he kills the bull on his own terms. His brother cuts the ear off the bull and hands it to Romero, who shows it to the President, then gives it to Brett. He says a few things to Brett, then returns to the adoring crowd. Jake, Brett, and Bill return to the hotel; Brett goes upstairs, and the men drink in the dining-room. Belmonte enters with his manager and two other men and eats at the next table before they all take a train to Barcelona. Belmonte is silent and does not eat much. Jake and Bill go to the caf for some absinthe. While Jake gets very drunk, they discuss Cohn, the end of the fiesta, and Bills depression. Jake leaves for Bretts room, where he finds Mike, who tells him Brett left with Romero on the train. Jake goes into his room and lies on his bed. He pretends to be asleep when Bill and Mike come in. He comes down later and eats with them, though it seems as though about six people were missing. Analysis: Hemingway draws his final and most detailed parallels between bull-fighting and sexuality in this chapter. Jake resembles the bull with impaired vision; while he still goes for Brett, he is not at full capacity and can never gore her, in the sense that the piercing of a bull or of a matador with a sword or horns symbolizes sexual penetration. Not only can Romero penetrate Brett and bulls alike, he is also a master of foreplay; the crowd begs for him to continue fighting rather than consummate the fight with the climactic penetration: each pass as it reached the summit gave you a sudden ache inside. Whereas before the matador seemed like the elusive female, here Jakes description casts the spectators as the symbolically receptive female and the matador as the dominant, penetrative male. Romero is even more of a Hemingway hero for working while injured, for his grace under pressure. Moreover, he makes the match with the vision-impaired bull more exciting, although the ignorant audience does not appreciate it. Jake, while not a hero but a mere aficionado, at least can appreciate Romeros work; he may be an observer (his use of the binoculars makes this very clear), but at least he is astute. Belmontes decline mirrors the Lost Generations disillusionment; though they are the young generation, their values have similarly decayed since the war, and they must feel aged beyond their years. The chapter maintains this sensation of decline; the fiesta ends, Mikes relationship with Brett appears to be over, and Jake recognizes that their group feels diminished. Additionally, Hemingway seems to provide a synopsis of his own prose style when Jake describes Romeros technique: There were no tricks and no mystifications. Like Romero, Hemingway moves close to his subject, but eschews flashiness in favor of honest, authentic writing. Chapter XIX: The fiesta is over the next morning. Jake walks through the empty streets to the caf. Bill joins him. The three men want to go in different directions; Jakes is San Sebastian. He and Bill plan to get a car and they will all drive together to Bayonne. They drive out to Bayonne, where Bill buys a train ticket for that night to Paris. They drive to Biarritz and have several drinks. They roll dice to see who pays, and Mike keeps losing until he gives Bill his last twenty francs. Bill offers to cash him a check, but since Mike cannot write checks, he turns it down; he says he has some money coming to him and can survive. He tells Bill that Brett has very little money, if any. They drive around, almost back to the mountains to Pamplona, then to the hotel Mike is staying at in Saint Jean. They say goodbye to him, then drive Bill to catch his train. Jake asks the driver to drive him to a hotel, and he takes the same room he had when he was in Bayonne with Bill and Cohn. He regrets not having gone to Paris with Bill, though he is looking forward to the quiet relaxation of San Sebastian. He has a good dinner in the hotel, and tips the waiter well; Jake appreciates being back in a country where money helps smooth over conflicts. Jake leaves on the morning train for San Sebastian and takes a hotel room. He resets his watch, as he has regained an hour by returning to Spain. He wires his office and tells them to forward wires to him. He swims in the afternoon at the beach, diving several times. He has a drink outside on the street, then returns to the hotel for dinner, where bicyclists stopping over from a race crowd the dining room. Jake talks with one of the team managers after dinner and discusses bicycling. The man invites him to see them off early tomorrow morning, and Jake says he will try to make it. Jake oversleeps and misses the bicyclists. He swims again in the morning and suns on a raft. Back at the hotel, he receives a telegram forwarded from Paris from Brett in Madrid, saying she is in trouble and asking him to come to her hotel. He receives another telegram with the same message, forwarded from Pamplona. He tells the concierge to get him a ticket to Madrid that night. He sends a telegram to her, announcing his arrival. Jake arrives in Madrid on the overnight train. He reaches her hotel and asks for Brett. After some delays, he finds her room. She is happy to see him and kisses him, though he feels she is thinking of something else. She says she made Romero leave yesterday. She says he was ashamed of her, and that he wanted her to grow her hair long. He tried to give her money, she says, but she couldnt. He also wanted to marry her so that she couldnt go away from him.' Ultimately, she feels she could have lived with him had she not seen it would be bad for him. Brett cries, and Jake holds her. She says she is returning to Mike, and claims she will not become one of those bitches.' They leave the hotel and find the bill has already been paid. They get train tickets for that night and have a drink at a hotel bar. Brett discusses Romero some more. They have lunch and drink a great deal, though Brett cautions Jake against getting drunk. They decide to go for a taxi ride through Madrid. Jake holds her in the taxi. Brett laments that she and Jake could have had such a damned good time together.' The car slows and approaches a policeman directing traffic, and Jake replies, YesIsnt it pretty to think so?' Analysis: The end of fiesta heralds the end of the equally hedonistic period now known as Roaring Twenties; though Hemingway in 1926 obviously could not have predicted the stock markets crash in 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, he does seem to warn America that their party will soon end. We have hope that with the end of the fiesta, Jake may finally be returning to his pre-war values, and may be casting off his hedonistic lifestyle. He regains an hour when going to San Sebastian, and symbolically goes back in time, as well; his repeated dives in the water represent a symbolic baptism of sorts. Again, nature helps regenerate him. However, Jake has not come so far; he irresponsibly oversleeps to see the bicyclists off, and when he receives the pleading telegram from Brett, he quickly returns to his submissive behavior that overthrows whatever values and self-esteem he holds. In ways, Jake is more pathetic than Cohn; at least Cohn followed Brett around of his own volition, while Jake seems more independent but is truly at Bretts beck and call. Her behavior should be infuriating to him she pulls him over to Madrid only so they can leave again together, she keeps saying she does not want to speak about Romero anymore, then talks more about him (even though it probably causes Jake more pain than herself), and she tells Jake she is returning to Mike. But Jake accepts it so long as he still has a chance with her, or even so long as he can stay in her presence. Oddly, Brett also proves herself to be a pathetic figure here. While she dominates the men in her life, she is also dependent on them dependent on them for their submission to her. Moreover, though she gets rid of Romero because he was trying to make her into a more subservient, feminine figure, she also expresses worries about becoming one of those bitches that ruins children. The great irony of the novel is that Brett is perhaps most dependent on Jake. She needs him because he gives her constant worship without risk of his ever dominating her, as they cannot have a functional sexual relationship. He is the bull she continually eludes and wounds, but who keeps coming back for more punishment. Their cab ride is similar to the one they took in Paris in Chapter IV, in which she toyed with Jake, alternating between intimacy and distance. We can imagine that soon after her final line to Jake about the relationship that might have been, she will resume talking about Romero, or Mike, or even Cohn. Jakes final line is rich with irony. As the taxi slows at the policemans raised baton possibly a symbol of Jakes struggle with impotence and how it bars him from advancing with Brett he seems to recognize that while it would, indeed, be nice to be with her, the somewhat caustic tone of the word pretty' suggests he finally understands that Brett has no idea how much pain he has been through, both from her and his impotence; pretty' is such an insubstantial word. While Jake ends the novel on a highly disillusioned note, breaking from all his friends rather unceremoniously and recognizing he has misplaced his love in Brett, perhaps this is what he needs to regain his lost self, and perhaps this utter disillusionment is what must impel the Lost Generation or a future generation to rise again.