氯化铁加铁粉:急求对海明威的<太阳照样升起>这本书和内容的的评论

is one of Hemingway’s earlier novels. Through first person narration, he writes
of a seemingly random and chaotic world which actively attacks its characters,
and how they attempt to protect themselves. By introducing the character of Robert
Cohn and witnessing his journey “through hell” (Hemingway 194), we are able understand
more about the other characters, who have already gone through such an experience.
It is how they respond to these events and not the events in of themselves that
is of any importance to Hemingway.

Initially, Cohn is full of illusions and
lives in a romantic story which he has constructed to give meaning to his life.
In his mind, these stories are fortified by events which support his ego, and
he is able to find “a certain inner comfort in knowing that he could knock down
anybody” (Hemingway, 1) and also because he believed women loved him. However,
after he becomes consumed with love for Brett, he discovers that neither of
those supposed “truths” in his life are sufficient to keep her with him. Indeed,
after the fight with Pedro, and Cohn’s beliefs shattered, Mike remarks that
“Cohn will never be able to knock people about again” (Hemingway, 203). Faced
with the world, now that “everything is gone” (Hemingway, 194), Cohn lies in
the dark wearing the same white polo as he did while he was at Princeton.
Hemingway asserts that when the world has utterly destroyed the stories and illusions
that a person once relied on to give meaning to his life, the only thing he has
to fall back on are past experiences that may help him to deal with the current
situation. For Cohn, his time at Princeton was a
defining period in his life when he was able to break through “feelings of
inferiority and shyness” (Hemingway, 1) for being a Jew by winning the
middleweight boxing champion title. In essence, he is trying to revoke this
strength again by wearing the white polo to remind himself that he had experienced
trauma once before and has survived it, so he can live through it again.

Likewise, the
other characters that have gone through the “hell” which Cohn speaks of, must also
employ defenses against the cruelties of the world in order to survive. Lady
Brett draws upon her sexuality as a defense mechanism because the world is so
chaotic that there is nothing she can depend on, not even religion: [God] never
worked very well with me” (Hemingway, 245). Her sexuality and desires is the
only thing that has true consistency, despite the turmoil she experiences as a
result of having to rely upon them. Wracked with guilt with the way that she
treats men: “I’ve never felt such a bitch” (Hemingway, 184), Brett also has an
urgent need to bathe immediately following intercourse, demonstrating a deep
seated unhappiness in regards to her actions. However, even in spite of this,
she is willing to continue to carry a negative image of herself rather than
give into ethics and become monogamous. She continually tells herself that she
has no control over the world, “How can I stop it? I can’t stop things” (Hemingway,
183). However, she does know that no matter how terrifyingly chaotic the world
will be, there will always be men that she can sleep with, just as there have been
in the past. After she leaves Pedro, she is distraught for a very short while,
“shaking and crying” (Hemingway, 242) until she realizes that she has already experienced
events like this in the past. She remarks almost immediately, “I’m going back
to Mike” (243), and not long after, “You know I feel rather damned good”
(Hemingway, 245). It is this comfort in making connections between painful
events in the present to similar events that have happened before, and in
knowing that she has experienced and coped with those past situations, that
sustain her.

Jake is different from the characters
because he freely chooses to live in this world of chaos raather than one that
is artificial and ritualized. Despite his existence in a world absent of God
and meaning, Jake still has a deep awe for religion: “Some people have
God…quite a lot” (Hemingway, 245) and he is on a quest, almost scientific in
nature, to discover a deeper meaning and pattern to life. His way of reacting
to the chaos is still to strive to convince himself that the world is “a good
place to buy in” (148), and that even if everything around him was chaos, “as
you went along you did learn something” (148). Indeed, he removes Pedro, a man
he deeply cares for, from the safe world of rituals to the real chaotic world,
even with the real possibility of danger and even death, by giving him
permission to pursue Brett. For Jake, that is the best thing he could have done
for Pedro, and he does so even though it meant sacrificing his own feelings for
Brett. Ultimately, Jake is aware of the dangers of the chaotic and random
world, but the consequences of this awareness is that it is impossible to exist
in the chaos without any protective mechanism. For Jake, it is the possibility
of discovering a deeper hidden truth in the world that sustains him, and gives
him reason to carry on.