Or is the focus of the book rather centered on the words "also rises?" For there is something profound about the two words. Rise, and rise again, and again. It suggests a motif of resiliency, of life constantly pushing and churning against obstacles, and succeeding. There is something that hints at Jacob Barnes and Brett and all the rest, maybe except for Cohn. They are all veterans of war, one of the most devastating wars in history then known. It has cost them and left behind varying shades of damage. And yet they have survived. They have loved and lost, fought and been beaten. Life goes on, and the sun will also rise.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Why does the sun also rise?
Last night, as I finished perusing the book, I closed it and stared at the cover. There, the title of the novel, a perplexing yet poetic title, stared back at me. What was this? What does it mean, I wondered. Why did Hemingway choose such an ambiguous almost lyrical title for his book. Sure there's something masculine about the Sun, hint Apollo, but is this ultimately a book about men? The Sun is bright, constant, and arbitrary. When it shines, it does so passionately, but when there's rain, it shies away behind the clouds. Are we supposed to interpret that strange, changing nature of the Sun to be the theme of the novel? Does it explain the irrational behavior of our heros and heroine?
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I was wondering this same exact thing after I finished the book because I felt like it's optimistic to say that the sun also rises, but then the ending of the book is just so sad and depressing in my point of view. The way I see it, at the end of the day the sun never really rises for Jake Barnes because he doesn't get a happy ending. (As a side note, I think it's rather funny how I just said, "At the end of the day the sun never really rises," because obviously the sun doesn't rise at the end of the day! Traditionally speaking, it rises at the beginning of the day and sets at the end, but that's not how I meant it.)
Anyways, I actually had a really difficult time tying in the title to the end of the book. It seemed almost like the entire novel was a sad, sun-setting type of story, but then Hemingway just threw in this, "Oh, by the way, the sun also rises sometimes," title just to cut the edge and point out almost cruelly that some stories actually have happy endings even if this one doesn't. I mean, I want to think there's probably a deeper meaning behind the title than that, but at the moment that I finished the book I was very upset with it and that was all I could come up with.
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