The Lost Generation vs. The American Dream in The Sun Also Rises

In this post you will not find a summary of the novel; therefore, for you to have a more complete telling and analysis of it, I highly advise you to watch this really good video on The Sun Also Rises (You won't regret it)

 Thug Notes - The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is a novel set in the 1920's. The main characters' behaviour is the product of the consequences of the Great War, so that their adulthood was consumed by World War I. As we have been covering in classes, they belong to the "Lost Generation".

 The Lost Generation of 1914

In the link above, we have very brief descriptions of the different scenarios in which the Lost Generation was developed, and everything that is described there fits perfectly with what we learnt about Modernism in the previous Unit. Life was moving faster, and scientific and technological developments gave the impression of positive progress. However, this image of "positive progress" varies between the North American citizens who didn't went to the war and those who did.

At that time the term "American Dream" hadn't been coined yet; nevertheless, people was taught that the aim of life was to reach happiness, love, and beauty. In addition, what was expected --and what was established-- for those who came back from war was that they would happily  look for a job, form a family, and settle down. It is here where the American Dream and the Lost Generation get into conflict.

As we can appreciate in the novel, the characters have been wounded, they have lost their true passion, their big dreams, and they are full of disillusionment. When you read the section of the link named "On the Great War", you will see the word "broken"; obviously, the relationship between the American Dream and the characters is a broken one. How can society expect from them to settle down in a happy way when they have lost many things in a shocking situation?

Lost Generation and American Dream are not compatible as the latter is more idealistic; people immersed in the "American-dream" vision perfectly fit in the place of the "tourist", being just an illusion.

Nonetheless, those aspects are compatible when talking about novels regarding them. If you have time, read The Great Gatsby and make a comparison and contrast between that novel and The Sun Also Rises; in my opinion, by doing so you will see how the Lost Generation shows the real side of the American Dream, that side that most citizens in North America didn't and don't want to see.

Finally, I have a question for you: How do you think the characters in the book have rejected the American Dream?