Relaxation at its Finest

After the conclusion of panel presentations this week, one idea has really stuck with me through the weekend: Jake’s idea of unwinding in contrast with the other characters in The Sun Also Rises. In Mehul’s, Daniel’s, and Henry’s panel presentation, they talked about how Jake has developed throughout the book by dealing with his own self-acceptance. The way Jake is able to find “therapeutic leisure activities” when he is alone, and is therefore to able to contemplate what the meaning of his life has been so far, is very different than how Brett or Mike choose to unwind.

Brett and Mike have been very similar up until the end of the book. (Which is why I guess that they make a good “couple”, whatever that means for Brett). They both reverted to socializing and alcohol in order to solve their problems. Mike is bankrupt, and so he chooses to get drunk in order to forget all of his problems. He isn’t one to face his own problems head on, and so he brushes them aside. But, as Jake notes, Mike is a bad drunk; he gets angry, obnoxious, and intolerable to those around him. When Jake is talking to Romero and the critics about bull fighting, a topic that Jake seems to be an expert in, Mike keeps trying to chime in with his drunken remarks. “Tell him that bulls have no balls,” to which Jake can only tell Romero and the critics that he is drunk, and then proceeds to say, “Pipe down, Mike” (Hemingway 180). Mike is embarrassing Jake in front of his own crowd, his kind of people. Although Jake may call Mike, Bill, and Brett his friends, they aren’t his true friends because they don’t understand Jake’s aficionado for bull fighting. As seen in Paris, when with his “friends”, Jake seems to fade into the background because he is seemingly uninterested in their drunken antics. Although Jake does drink, he doesn’t do it to cloud his emotions and forget reality. Rather, he does it to fit in because it’s the social convention, and it’s what Brett is doing. But when Jake is in Spain, he feels more at home than in Paris. He can speak with people of his kind (even in Spanish) who share his passion for bull fighting. Because of this, Jake has the confidence to push forward and lead conversations. He feels able to show off his knowledge of bull fighting and how he and his aficionado help him connect with the people of Pamplona. Spain is the place where we see Jake most confident and seemingly himself; he doesn’t have to pretend to be anyone else because he’s at a place where he belongs.

Now Brett also uses socializing and alcohol to hide away from her problems, but she is not entirely like Mike. Brett tends to take socializing to a whole different level. She enjoys the freedom of her apparent open relationship with Mike and therefore proceeds to have little side relationships with the men she meets throughout the book: First the Count, although their relationship isn’t sexual, then Cohn, and then Romero. Brett also chooses to seek counseling from Jake throughout her relationships, even though she knows that he still has feelings for her. But even as Brett surrounds herself with people who she can drink and seemingly have a good time with, in the end, she feels empty inside, like her life has yet to have meaning. She realizes the fault in her ways of hooking of with men and then breaking their hearts. “I’m not going to be one of these bitches who ruins children” (Hemingway 247). She decides to quit getting drunk and focus on her life and surround herself with people that will stay with her and vice versa.

Jake on the other hand, although he finds a lot of confidence in peace in Pamplona with his crowd, it is ruined at the end, and so he find another place of solace in the waters of San Sebastian. “I undressed in one of the bath-cabins, crossed the narrow line of beach and went into the water. I swam out, trying to swim through the rollers, but having to dive sometimes. Then in the quiet water I turned and floated. Floating I saw only the sky and felt the drop and lift of the swells…the water was buoyant and cold. It felt as though you could never sink” (Hemingway 241). When Jake is with his “friends”, he always sinks to the background. But when he is alone, Jake finds that he can think clearly. He doesn’t sink; he floats, and is able to evaluate his life clearly. Even when Jake is alone in his room in Pamplona, he feels relaxed and able to unwind. “The country became very clear and the feeling of pressure in [his] head seemed to loosen” (Hemingway 151). Although Jake enjoys the company of friends (Brett, Bill, Mike, and the bull fighter community (Cohn is pushing it)), he is never able to truly unwind until he is alone, where he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone else; he can be himself, a self of which he can accept and enjoy.

Through these different methods of relaxation and “therapeutic leisure activities”, it can be seen that Jake’s method of alone self-evaluation seems to be the most effective. Although Brett and Mike try to unwind by forgetting and moving on, as seen by Jake, it can sometimes help if one takes a moment to dwell and resolve the past in order to see a clear path moving forward. Now, not all of Jake’s problems have been solved from that one swim session (two I suppose), but from the end scene, one can see that Jake is not returned to Paris as the same man he was before. Hopefully Jake will be able to find someone, possibly Brett or someone else, that will bring him true happiness and positive company because boy does he deserve it.