Traumatizing Arcadia: Postwar Pastoral in The Sun Also Rises

Abstract

Much WW I literature uses pastoral themes to rebuke the war, to represent the tendency of repression, and to express traumatic moments reexperienced by those in the trenches and at home. In The Great Gatsby and Parade's End, pastoral communicates questions concerning progress and postwar optimism felt by characters who work to recover the past, reconstruct the future, and repress the presence of the war and its consequences. However, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises subverts pastoral's retreat-return structure in order to emphasize moments of traumatic re-emergence and to counter any idea of repression and recovery.

“I’ve Not Had Much Fun Since the War”: Veterans on the Edge of Homosexuality in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

“…Adair (2012) claims that The Sun Also Rises is a novel of gossip and that gossiping keeps the text of the novel moving forward. Cannon (2012) declares that the novel employs pastoral themes to suggest that recovery and repression are far away from being achieved and that trauma persists. Puckett (2013) explores Hemingway's use of male performance in the novel.…”