Hemingways

Style in The
Sun Also Rises

Intro.
Hemingways objective style: indifferent and
carelessness in narration
Hemingways use of simple sentences and simple
descriptions
The Sun also Rises also known as a roman a clef
(= a novel with real characters with invented
names) = Hemingways novel based on a true
experience of his own in 1925

Descriptions
Jake: the narrator: as a reticent descriptor
The narrator is not identified at a precise point in time and space: more real
than other narratives.
Terrence Doody in Hemingways Style and Jakes Narration: the narrator
never away from Hemingway and not free enough to substantiate his own
agency as the narrator(213).
We may see in the novel that Jake does not talk about himself unless accidentally:
e.g. in the middle of a dialogue, he admits his impotency: He had been going
splendidly, but he stopped. I was afraid he thought he had hurt me with that crack
about being impotent. I wanted to start him again. (109)

His passivity in descriptions of time and place; mind the repetition of and in this
description:
The driver helped us down with the bags. There was a crowd of kids watching the
car, and the square was hot, and the trees were green, and the flags hung on their
staffs, and it was good to get out of the sun and under the shade of the arcade that
runs all the way around the square. Montoya was glad to see us, and shook hands
and gave us good rooms looking out on the square, and then we washed and
cleaned up and went down-stairs in the dining-room for lunch. The driver stayed for
lunch, too, and afterward we paid him and he started back to Bayonne. (91)

 Description of bullfighting scenes in the climatic moments of the

novel: again concise, but more moving and descriptive: perhaps,
because Jake does not see the absurdity of everyday life at this
moment.
I leaned way over the wall and tried to see into the cage. It was dark. Some one
rapped on the cage with an iron bar. Inside something seemed to explode. The
bull, striking into the wood from side to side with his horns, made a great noise.
Then I saw a dark muzzle and the shadow of horns, and then, with a clattering on
the wood in the hollow box, the bull charged and came out into the corral,
skidding with his forefeet in the straw as he stopped, his head up, the great hump
of muscle on his neck swollen tight, his body muscles quivering as he looked up at
the crowd on the stone walls. The two steers backed away against the wall, their
heads sunken, their eyes watching the bull. The bull saw them and charged. A
man shouted from behind one of the boxes and slapped his hat against the
planks, and the bull, before he reached the steer, turned, gathered himself and
charged where the man had been, trying to reach him behind the planks with a
half-dozen quick, searching drives with the right horn. (129)

The same goes for the description of Belmonte (the famous bullfighter);
Jake seems completely absorbed. (p. 193)

Narration of Feelings (~ stream

of consciousness)
Jakes passivity about his own feelings
Again extensive use of and, possibly implying reticence and
attempt in keeping passivity; or difficulty of thinking
I went inside. It was dim and dark and the pillars went high up,
and there were people praying, and it smelt of incense, and there
were some wonderful big windows. I knelt and started to pray and
prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and
Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bull-fighters, separately for
the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself
again, and while I was praying for myself I found I was getting
sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it
would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I
wondered if there was anything else I might pray foi and I thought
I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a
lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and
thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and (93)

 Jakes indifference even about his own feelings

Jakes fight with Cohn:
I swung at him and he ducked. I saw his face duck sideways in the light.
He hit me and I sat down on the pavement. As I started to get on my feet
he hit me twice. I went down backward under a table. I tried to get up and
felt I did not have any legs. I felt I must get on my feet and try and hit him.
Mike helped me up. Some one poured a carafe of water on my head. Mike
had an arm around me, and I found I was sitting on a chair. Mike was
pulling at my ears. (172)

Merrit Moseleys Faulkners Benjy, Hemingways Jake, arguing that

while Benjys objectivity is a sign of abnormality or idiocy, Jakes is an
iron control, seldom relaxed, over volatile emotions. (303)
I lay awake thinking and my mind jumping around. Then I couldn't keep
away from it, and I started to think about Brett and all the rest of it went
away. I was thinking about Brett and my mind stopped jumping around and
started to go in sort of smooth waves. Then all of a sudden I started to cry.
Then after a while it was better and I lay in bed and listened to the heavy
trams go by and way down the street, and then I went to sleep. (35)

Dialogues
Many scenes solely out of dialogues in a way that the author nearly disappears from the scene and
the conversation among characters leads the story forward.
Even while dialogues in previous novels were filled with emotions that were possibly needed for a
particular situation, Hemingways dialogues are very terse and emotionless, also implying the
characters attempts to hide their feelings and narrator to be ignorant of them.
Example: the end of part 3:

"You're going to lose your fifty francs," Brett said.

"Oh, yes."
"No taxis."
"We could walk up to the Pantheon and get one."
"Come on and we'll get a drink in the pub next door and send for one."
"You wouldn't walk across the street."
"Not if I could help it."
We went into the next bar and I sent a waiter for a taxi.
"Well," I said, "we're out away from them."
We stood against the tall zinc bar and did not talk and looked at each other. The waiter came and said the taxi was outside.
Brett pressed my hand hard. I gave the waiter a franc and we went out. "Where should I tell him?" I asked.
"Oh, tell him to drive around."
I told the driver to go to the Parc Montsouris, and got in, and slammed the door. Brett was leaning back in the corner, her eyes
closed. I sat beside her. The cab started with a jerk.
"Oh, darling, I've been so miserable," Brett said.

Or the end of part 19:

"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against
me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Conclusion and looking

forward
Hemingways writing style also contributes to
other aspects of his novel, such as code hero, as if
he saying words dont matter, show me what you
have got.
His style is also a sign of modernity; on contrast to
stream-of-consciousness novels of Woolf or Joyce,
Hemingway creates another style by suppressing
emotions rather than giving way to them.
Connected with history and the concept of lost
generation, Hemingway might have also wanted
to show how emotions of lost people who have
experienced the war should and could be
conveyed.

Bibliography
Primary Source:
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. NY: Scribner
Classics. 1954

Secondary Sources:
Doody, Terrence. "Hemingway's Style and Jake's
Narration."The Journal of Narrative Technique4.3 (1974):
212-25. Web. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30225548
Moseley, Merritt. "Faulkner's Benjy, Hemingway's
Jake."College Literature13.3 (1986): 300-04. Web. http://
www.jstor.org/stable/25111713