Lady Brett's life is ultimately empty and unfulfilling no matter how many men she finds herself with, but she "can't go anywhere alone" as Jake points out. Her lack of commitment to any one man can be seen as a representation of how the War destroyed traditional ideas of love and romance. In the final lines of the novel, she muses on what a relationship between her and Jake could have been, but she is stopped by a policeman signaling the cab they are riding in to stop. This moment sums up the sad state that Hemingway found the world when Jake says, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Robert Cohn can be seen as the old values in a new post-War world. He is the only non-veteran among the characters presented in the book, and therefore he has retained his sense of dignity, romance, and morality. The problem is that these old-fashioned ideas have no place in the new world that the War has created. He cannot stand up against the immoral lashings that the group continuously subject him to. Though there is nothing fundamentally wrong with his traditional values -- in fact his is one of the most successful of the group, being a popular writer -- they are consistently beaten down by the cynicism and immorality that the world is now awash in after the War. Since he did not experience the War first hand, he is not morally lost himself, but he is lost in this new immoral world. His leaving Spain after an attempt to reconcile with Romero represents the defeat that old-fashioned morality has faced in post-War culture.
Though Pedro Romero is a secondary character in The...
Hemingway seems to juxtapose his proud existence with the existence of the ex-patriots, and this becomes rather pointed when it is realized that Spain remained neutral during the First World War. This neutrality enables Romero to still hold himself with pride and integrity, and he exits the situation not only with this integrity still intact, but without being tarnished by the immoral vacuum that Brett, Jake, and their friends represent. The bullfight seems to represent the traditional masculinity that has been lost in the ex-pats, and Romero's mastery of the bullfight is yet another indication that his manhood is untainted. As Jake points out, "Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters." The fact that the ex-pats congregate in Spain is an interesting symbol as well since it seems that they are seeking to reclaim what they lost during the War.
Seeing the miserable state of the lives of the characters in The Sun Also Rises, one can't imagine that Hemingway's intention was anything other than to present anti-war material. The story has no real resolution, and the reader is forced to feel that these people will continue on in their moral vacuum until the sun no longer rises. This allows the reader to apply this to the modern world, no matter how far past the First World War may have been. Hemingway speaks loudly that War has no good long-term outcomes regardless who the victor may be.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 1995.
