A Book Report On The Sun Also Rises 太阳照常升起 读书报告

A Book Report On The Sun Also RisesIntroductionThe Sun Also Rises is known as the first major novel by Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21,1899,in Oak Park, Illinois, a conservative upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago. His novel The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926, established him as one of the preeminent writers of his day. HemingwaywontheNobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for his phenomenally successful The Old Man and the Sea.Hemingway’s style differs distinctively from that of writers before him, and his workhelped shape both the British and American literature that followed it. His novel is extremely spare, succinct, and seemingly very direct, but sometimes his readers may find it’s not easy to understand his implications and meanings of unsaid words. Up to now, modern literature continues to be heavily influenced by Hemi ngway’s writing style.The Sun Also Rises is a Modernist novel, written in Mid-1920s, in Paris. It is also a travelogue and a novel of disillusionment. In this novel, Jake Barnes is the narrator and Jake tells the entire story from his own point of view with a somber and ironic tone. Jake is also the protagonist of the book. The setting time of the story is 1924. The novel begins in Paris, French, moves to Pamplona, Spain, and concludes in Madrid, Spain.SummaryIt’s a complicated story. Jake, Brett, and their friends pursue a dissipated life in Paris. Jake introduces Brett to Robert Cohn, thenBrett and Cohn have an affair. Cohn follows Brett to Pamplona. They watch bullfights and meet Romero, a matador. Jake begins his story by talking about someone else, as an observer, but we can infer much about Jake through his descriptions of other people. In his narration, Jake never directly refers to the aimlessness and purposelessness of his own life and the lives of his friends, but he often implies it.AnalysisJake, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, is an AmericanveteranofWorldWar I. He works as a journalist in Paris, where he andhis friends engage in an endlessroundofdrinking a nd parties. Although Jake is the most stable of his friends, he feels painful because of his love for Lady Brett Ashley and the void that resulted from the war. What Jake actually says always differs from what we can infer about what he actually thinks. For instance, at his lunch with Cohn, he tells Cohn not to believe him when he says nasty things, but in fact these comments are Jake’s most honest expressions of his thoughts and feelings.Lady Brett Ashley is a beautiful British socialite who drinks heavily. She is unwilling tocommit fully to any of the men, though she has affairs with a number of th em. However, she does not draw much happiness from her independence. Her life, like the liv es of many in her generation, is aimless and unfulfilling. She is also a victim of the Lost Generation’s and definitely she can’t have a satisfying life.Robert Cohn is a wealthy American writer living in Paris. Cohn had no directexperienceof World War I andhe is Jewish, so he is a convenient target of Jake and his friends.Then I will analyze some classic sentences in the novel. Through these sentences, we can know more about three main characters: Jake, Brett and Cohn.Cohn: “I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it.”Jake:“Nobody ever lives their life all the way u p except bull-fighters.”Inthis dialogue, taken from Chapter 2, Cohn tells one of the key problems the Lost Generation is faced with. After World War I, many young men and women felt their lives had no purpose or substances. Cohn worries that he is wasting his brief time of his life. Jake thinksthat “nobody” feels fulfilled in their lives, excepta small group ofextraordinarypeople.Of cour se, Cohn cannot become a bullfighter. Jake implies that Cohn must learn to live with hisfeelin g of discontent. This advice is a reflection of Jake’s character. Although heunderstandsthe troubles of the world and the people around him, he almostnever t akes actionto correct them. He simply accepts them, as he advises Cohn to do.“You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”Jake says these words to Cohn in Chapter II when Cohn tries to convince him to travel to South America. Cohn feels dissatisfied with his life in Paris, and he believes that a change of location will change his void in his life. However, Jake knows that Cohn’s unhappiness is becauseof his decadent lifestyle, which willnot be any differentanywhere else.Many of Jake’s friends, a nd indeed Jake himself, try to cure their unhappiness through constanttravel, either on a small scale, from bar to bar, or on a large one, from country to country. Jake shows here that he knows that such travel is futile and ultimately purposeless. The discontent of the Lost Generation is psychological, not geographic.“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?”These are the final lines of the novel, presenting Brett and Jake’s final dialogue, spoken i n a taxi at the end of Chapter XIX. Just as Brett dreams that the two of them could have had a relationship, a policeman raises his baton. The barrier between them is quite clear now. Moreo ver, Jake’s slightly cynical and bitter reply shows that he has no illusions about their relations hip. Jake’s subtle doubts only increase the sadness of the novel’s closing lines. Their relations hip is revealed to have been merely a beautiful dream, andthe dream is now slippingawayforever.EvaluationThe Sun Also Rises shows the lives of the members of the so-called Lost Generation, the group of men and women who spend their youth during World War I. This horrific war setnew standards for death and immorality. It shattered many people’s beliefs in traditional va lues of love, faith, andcourage. Without thesetraditional values to rely on,members ofthegeneration that fought and worked in the war suffered great moral and psychological aimlessness. The futile search for m eaning in the wake of the Great War shapes The Sun Also Rises. Although the characters rarel y mention the war directly, it influences everything they do and say.The themes of this novel are the aimlessness of the Lost Generation, male insecurity and the destructiveness of sex. The story also shows the failure of communication, excessive drinking and false friendships.Hemingway likes to use direct, short, simple sentences. His dialogue is brief as well. This seemingly minimalist style expresses much through implication and suggestion. Hemingway’s description of the bullfight provides an example of his writing style. He does not rely on metaphor or simile to describe the action. Instead, he simply reports it. His writing, like Romero’s fighting, is always straight, pure and natural.。