A WOMAN WITHOUT ABILITY TO LOVE: LADY BRETT ASHLEY IN THE SUN ALSO RISES

This paper is activated by the similarity of the common phenomenon, global panic, and desperation among youth, between the youth after World War I (WWI) and at modern time. From the tragic scenarios exhibited in this novel and at present world, the main reason and the aura generate the popularity of the concept of Armageddon, no matter caused by nature or by people, among youth can be comprehended. The extreme unbalanced conditions from power, the postwar youth in the novel, to wealth, the present youth in our societies, trigger the lost on belief to love, faith, and tomorrow, for both of the generations. This linkage explains the popularity of drugs, alcohols, and even random sexual intercourses; the symptom interprets the so-called “history repeats itself”. The disordered behaviors generate the chaos on minds with apathetic, languid, drooping, numb, and even brutal reaction to this world. To both of the generations, the punishment by law or by Deities is meaningless; only the immediate enjoyment stimulates the feeling of aliveness. Inspecting the mental pulverization among youth, Hemingway creates the male character, Jake Barnes, with a physical disability, while the female character, Lady Brett Ashley, with the mental disability. The depiction seems to declare the fatigue conditions from outside to the inside of human beings; which incites the hopeless and turns those post-WWI youth to be entitled to Lost Generation. Considering of Hemingway's mental suffering, life experiences, and even his suicide, this novel can be regarded as his self-therapy for his unhealthy mentality. Even though the contemporary world is different from WWI, the feeling of lost among youth is nothing different from the post-WWI youth; which can be seen as the reproduction of history from the perspective of rhetoric. When people claim the importance of history, the psychoanalysis to the pessimistic view among youth may offer the most accurate and sad annotation.