The Sun Also Rises in Real Life
Throughout The Sun Also Rises there are intended parallels between the characters in the novel and Hemingway’s life. Here I have attempted to create and compile a list of interesting relations.
Hemmingway’s Life:
1.
The novel is set in the summer of 1924. In the
1920s, Hemmingway lived in Paris, France and worked as a foreign correspondent
for the Toronto Star. Jake is an American
in Paris (a quite intentional Gershwin pun) working as a newspaper
correspondent just as Hemingway himself was.
2.
Hemingway became intrigued in bullfighting
during his time in Spain. He attended the bull festival in Pamplona, Spain
three times; once alone, once with his wife, and once with a group of American
and British friends.
3.
After the Hemingway’s third trip to Pamplona he
went on a fishing trip to the Irati River.
4.
There are a number of unintentional or
unconfirmed parallels between Hemingway and this novel. Most of these are
related to Hemingway and his relationship to his family. Hemingway had a turbulent
relationship particularly with his mother who thought he did not ever “grow up.”
On Hemingway’s 21st birthday he was kicked out of their summer home
to go live his life as an adult.
Characters:
1.
Jake Barnes: Jake Barnes was originally named Hem
in early drafts of the novel. Hemingway openly acknowledges the parallels
between his actions and the actions of Jake in the novel itself.
2.
Brett/Lady Ashley: One of the people who
attended Hemingway on his third trip to Pamplona was the British socialite Duff/Lady
Twysden. Hemingway had a romantic attraction to Duff and Duff’s recent romantic
getaway with Harold Loeb (Cohn) led to a turbulent festival.
3.
Robert Cohn: Harold Loeb was an American writer
who was living in Paris in the 1920s. Ethnically he was a German Jew. Because
of Hemingway’s (Jake) Jealousy of his interactions with Duff (Brett) he and
Hemingway had a fistfight.
4.
Mike Campbell: Pat Guthrie was Duff/Lady Twysden’s
romantic attraction during the time they spent at Pamplona.
5.
Bill Gorton: Donald Ogden Stewart was an
American author and screenwriter. He was in the Naval Reserves in World War I
but was known for his directing in comedies and melodramas.
6.
Pedro Romero: Cayetano Ordóñez was a prodigy
bullfighter born January 4, 1904. Hemingway, who made the parallel publicly
known, stated, "everything that happened in the ring was true, and
everything outside was fiction. Nino (Ordóñez) knew this and never complained
about it."
7.
Juanito Montoya: On the second time Hemingway
returned to Pamplona he stayed at a hotel owned by one Juanito Quintana who was
a Spanish bullfight businessman and an activist in the Spanish Republic. He is
clearly intended to be represented in the book by Juanito Montoya.
This is about what I did my blog post on-- but I made connections in completely different places! I love the character parallels to real people, which are more documented. If you haven't already, you might check out this picture (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/HemingwayLoeb.jpg) which has, basically, Jake, Cohn, Brett, Bill, and Mike, seated from left to right. (Hemingway's wife Hadley Richardson is seated in between "Brett" and "Bill," and doesn't really have a parallel character.) There's some real drama about the way Hemingway caricatured his friends in this book.
ReplyDeleteI like the format of this post and how you did some research into Hemingway's life to complete this parallel. The list structure really works in clearly illustrating the points you make, but I'd also like to see some of your thoughts on why Hemingway decided to include so many similarities in the story to his life; based on how many correlations you could find, it almost seems like the entirety of The Sun Also Rises is based on Hemingway himself. Why might he write a novel about himself, and more importantly, what's significant about the details that are different, or that he chose to leave out?
ReplyDeleteHow funny that Hemingway called Jacob "Hem" in the early drafts of the novel. I didn't think his identification with the protagonist would be quite so severe. Strengthens my theory Jake's prejudices were not some astute social commentary by Hemingway but rather an extension of Hemingway's own
ReplyDeleteIts pretty cool to see the parallels between the fictional characters and their real-life counterparts. Learning interesting details like "Jake's name was originally Hem in earlier drafts" is really fun and it gave me a better understanding of jakes character and the inspiration behind him. The way you structured this post was really effective and I learned more about the book. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis is super interesting! It’s especially interesting to see Hemingway’s relationship with Duff and Loeb. I had never really considered that the Brett plotline was based on personal experience. With things like bullfighting, Pamplona, and Paris nightlife, a reader can tell Hemingway knows a lot about them, and can infer that he has experienced it himself. But with the supposedly invented love story plotline, its not an automatic assumption that it’s autobiographical. Finding this out is fascinating, and makes me curious about how it ended up for Hemingway and Duff.
ReplyDeleteI knew that the Jake and Brett affair was based on Hemingway's experiences, but I didn't know just how deep the rabbit hole went in Hemingway's inclusion of so many of those details. I also agree with Vicente's comment about how it makes Hemingway's portrayal of Jake's prejudice reflect badly on him.
ReplyDeleteTo have the parallels formatted this way is very eye-opening. With the number of connections, it is easy to say that this book is drawn off of his life. I thinks that it adds a whole new layer to the book and makes everything feel so much more real. It makes me sympathize with Jake a lot more, just to know that some things are true and the deep and unmentioned emotions were actually felt is sad. Very nice post!
ReplyDeleteWow interesting! Like the historical context you gave for Dalloway, this is illuminating. Of course, as well as being like Hemingway in his career and his life experiences, Jake mirrors him by being a racist homophobic bigot. I agree with Vicente and Jack and I think it's also possible that Hemingway wasn't trying to paint Jake as racist or bigoted at all -- but Jake of course turned out that way because those are some of Hemingway's fundamental and undeniable traits, just a thought.
ReplyDeleteVery informative post! It provided a lot of perspective on Hemingway and where he was coming form and drawing from when he wrote his characters. It's very interesting to see how Hemingway may have projected a lot of himself into Jake's character.
ReplyDelete