THE "LOST GENERATION" AND THE GENERATION OF LOSS: ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S MATERIALITY OF ABSENCE AND "THE SUN ALSO RISES"

This article discusses how Hemingway's depiction of the sexually mutilated WWI veteran and his inverted generic analogue, the cowboy hero, grows out of modernism's vexed enthrallment with material things. The Sun Also Rises explores the impotence of the post-war American, a figure whose lo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inModern fiction studies Vol. 54; no. 4; pp. 744 - 765
Main Author Tomkins, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press for the Department of English, Purdue University 01.12.2008
Johns Hopkins University Press
Subjects
American literature
Anderson, Sherwood (1876-1941)
Creation myths
Expatriates
French language
Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961)
Impotence
Laughter
Love
Modernist art
Narratives
Neys
Novels
Penis
Statues
Stein, Gertrude (1874-1946)
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Summary:This article discusses how Hemingway's depiction of the sexually mutilated WWI veteran and his inverted generic analogue, the cowboy hero, grows out of modernism's vexed enthrallment with material things. The Sun Also Rises explores the impotence of the post-war American, a figure whose lost capacity for generation Hemingway likens to that of the pioneer filled with longing for a frontier he has outlasted. In this novel, Hemingway rewrites the pioneer as a sexually wounded veteran whose desire to transcend loss finds its material correspondent in objects that commemorate losses, not victories, and that embody and perpetuate national myth.
ISSN:0026-7724
1080-658X
1080-658X
DOI:10.1353/mfs.0.1578