Comparing The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy :: comparison compare contrast essays

Similarities in The solarise Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy Ernest Heming path and Alice pram, although separated by cardinal decades, show striking similarity in their definitions of love in their novels The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy. It is a unique similarity of circumstances that associate these two novels. Jake Barnes, the protagonist of The Sun Also Rises, is literally and symbolically emasculate during his service in the First World War. Tashi, the protagonist of Possessing the Secret of Joy, undergoes an past tribal ritual of female circumcision that leaves her incapable of having sex. Through these two characters, Hemingway and Walker proclaim their belief that love faecal matter exist outside the parameters of a conventional relationship. Both Jake and Tashi are traumaed by serving their countries--Jake in the war, Tashi in an ancient tribal ritual. In both cases, their sacrifice is judge of them. Jake, after returning from the battlefield, is commended by his officer. It certainly was a rotten way to be wounded, and Jakes officer says, You gave more than your life. To his officer, however, if Jake had devoted more than his life it was given in honor of his coun sift, so any consequences of his wound was a circumstances he would have to live with. He was supposed to be elevated to have given so much for the war effort, but his wound does not make Jake a hero. Instead, he is reduced to something less than a man. His wound becomes a joke instead of a mark of a martyr. Jake thinks, At one time or another I had likely considered it his wound from most of its various angles, including the one that certain injuries or imperfections are a subject of merriment while remaining quite serious for the soul possessing them (20). As the war grows distant, Jake must assimilate to life as a lover, not a soldier. In a time when people try to forget the war, Jake becomes not a hero but the object of a cruel joke. Yo u have given more than your life. -The Sun Also Rises Tashi is overly wounded for her country. Her African tribe, the Olinkans, demands that everyone have their face scared with traditional tribal markings. For women this initiation also includes circumcision. Tashi wants to go through with the ritual--just as Jake decides to join the army--so that she can sacrifice for the traditions and culture she believes in.