Character Analysis of Wilson Harris in the Sun Also Rises
Finding the Calm After the Storm in The Sun Also Rises
The veterans of World War I are referred to as the “Lost Generation.” The young men and women who serve during this time become adrift from their previous morals and values. Marriage, love, and loss are different for them. Desensitized, with many suffering posttraumatic stress disorder, the men and women are expected to return and continue their life before the war. However, as Ernest Hemingway and his novel The Sun Also Rises proves, this is not the case. Hemingway shows the difficulties and hardships the people go through after war. Through his character, Wilson-Harris, Hemingway illustrates the struggles the World War I veterans have, how they move on, and the peace they are able to find afterwards. The pain from World War I stay with the soldiers everywhere they go. In hope of relieving some of the pain, they turn to society and the church. However, society does not recognize their suffering, so they are left to handle their pain themselves. The Church tells them not to think about it, but many soldiers still find themselves wrapped around what happened. Like society, the Church wants to pretend the war did not happen, so they figure that if they ignore the veterans, the ache and struggle from the war will go away with them. Hemingway uses Wilson-Harris to show the subdued pain the soldiers feel after the war, and how society does not understand. Even the way Harris only appears within three pages of the novel, mirrors how society never notices his agony. Even when they “were standing in front of the old chapel of the monastery,” Harris sees “a pub across the way” and goes there instead (128). He knows the Church did not try to help him before, and he knows they will not help him now. Harris, like many other veterans, is left alone, and must find his own way to deal with his pain. The veterans of the war have to learn how to cope with their emotions. Many of them turn to drinking to drown their
The veterans of World War I are referred to as the “Lost Generation.” The young men and women who serve during this time become adrift from their previous morals and values. Marriage, love, and loss are different for them. Desensitized, with many suffering posttraumatic stress disorder, the men and women are expected to return and continue their life before the war. However, as Ernest Hemingway and his novel The Sun Also Rises proves, this is not the case. Hemingway shows the difficulties and hardships the people go through after war. Through his character, Wilson-Harris, Hemingway illustrates the struggles the World War I veterans have, how they move on, and the peace they are able to find afterwards. The pain from World War I stay with the soldiers everywhere they go. In hope of relieving some of the pain, they turn to society and the church. However, society does not recognize their suffering, so they are left to handle their pain themselves. The Church tells them not to think about it, but many soldiers still find themselves wrapped around what happened. Like society, the Church wants to pretend the war did not happen, so they figure that if they ignore the veterans, the ache and struggle from the war will go away with them. Hemingway uses Wilson-Harris to show the subdued pain the soldiers feel after the war, and how society does not understand. Even the way Harris only appears within three pages of the novel, mirrors how society never notices his agony. Even when they “were standing in front of the old chapel of the monastery,” Harris sees “a pub across the way” and goes there instead (128). He knows the Church did not try to help him before, and he knows they will not help him now. Harris, like many other veterans, is left alone, and must find his own way to deal with his pain. The veterans of the war have to learn how to cope with their emotions. Many of them turn to drinking to drown their