Art of Survival in The Sun Also Rises: Dialectics of Morality and Love in the Face of Disillusionments

• Main Authors: Evelyn Yi-chih Sung, 宋怡緻
• Other Authors: Nicholas Koss
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67056159762544037910

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 英國語文學系 === 95 === This thesis on The Sun Also Rises, through the dialectics of morality and love, attempts to attest to the reconciliation of morality and love as the ultimate art of survival in the face of disillusionments. Chapter One explores the factors that gave rise to the Lost Generation, including the development of science, technology, psychology as well as the outbreak of WWI. I also investigate Hemingway’s expatriate experiences. For me, his reaction to them reflects a spirit of living without ever being perpetually defeated in spite of disillusionments. Chapter Two illustrates the disillusionments of the characters in The Sun Also Rises, including the disillusionment of the love of Jake and Brett; the disillusionment of war as a holy cause for Jake and Mike; the disillusionments caused by the shifts of values regarding money, religion and love; and the disillusionment that results from the invisible threats of death and nothingness. Chapter Three analyzes the arts of survival of Count Mippipopolous, Bill, and Romero in the face of individual predicaments and, more importantly, the gray zone in their arts of survival. Each of them comes to terms with their individual predicament: the count through things he can buy and the limited pleasure that his condition allows; Bill by appreciating the blessings of Nature and being self-disciplined and hard-boiled; Romero by pushing himself toward the embrace of death again and again to live life fully. They either objectify women or remain as a disinterested spectator and a naïve man when the question of romantic love arises. Taking the gray zone (the complexity of individual morality) as a transition, in Chapter Four, I elaborate on how Jake and Brett carry out a spirit of sacrifice and possess the rare awareness of one’s limit that helps to put into practice the idea of letting go. They therefore develop a new morality embodied with the paradox of love, which infuses passion, tenderness, and warmth into the toughness, hardness, and stiffness in the old morality. By exploring the complexity of individual morality and love, and their relativity, I have found a less solitary and rigid way of survival for Hemingway’s heroes and heroines.