Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is a meticulously constructed story set in the era of disillusionment following the First World War. It frames a loose alliance of the “lost generation” and displays a vicarious insight into the forces that drive them. After the “Great War,” love was one of the many emotions left dulled. The ideals of love that persisted from the Romantic era through the Victorian era were in steady decline in the age of industry. The dilution and redefinition of love in The Sun Also Rises is revealed from different angles through its damaged characters, both in the romantic and platonic sense. Hemingway effectively uses the characters of Brett Ashley and Robert Cohn to represent different perspectives on war-induced love and post-war feelings. Although the two have contrasting attitudes towards love and life, they share a very similar perception of themselves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Of all the characters in the story, Brett Ashley is arguably the most damaged. Having lost her first husband and her "true love" to dysentery, she married Lord Ashley soon after, in the midst of war. During the war, she had served as a member of a voluntary aid detachment. Brett would have witnessed all the atrocities of the war and participated in few, if any, of its triumphs. Adding to her experiences, her shell-shocked sailor husband Lord Ashley had become emotionally abusive and threatening. Undoubtedly marked by this, she becomes engaged to the bankrupt Mike Cambell and begins to display an emotionally detached promiscuity while in the process of divorcing her wartime husband. Swooned by many but swayed only by temptation, she uses her appearance as a resource and remorsefully obeys her disillusioned heart. Brett's character's self-image is best displayed when she confides in her most loyal and rare platonic friend, Jake: "I'm done for." I'm mad at the Romero boy. I’m in love with him, I think” (Hemingway 187). Having recently met Pedro Romero, it becomes clear that Brett is unable to differentiate between interest, attraction and love. Jake questions more about her motivations and Brett reveals an irrational vulnerability: “I have to do something. I have to do something that I really want to do. I lost my self-respect” (187). This loss of self-respect is one of the driving forces behind Brett's lecherous behavior. Jake neither doubts nor denies his lack of dignity; having met Brett while she was a VAD, Jake understands her fragile and distorted emotional state. Although he cannot fully understand her decisions, he is surely aware of the trauma she carries. For Brett Ashley, romantic love is driven by emotions devoid of reason and is entirely distinct from, but included in, sexual intercourse. It appears that Brett used sex on a platonic level as a means of comfort or sympathy, as must have been the case with Robert Cohn in San Sebastian. One of the main disparities that differentiates Cohn from other depictions in the novel is the fact that Robert Cohn “…would have preferred to be in America” (13). Unlike the unaffiliated entities he surrounds himself with, Cohn reveres his home country. His stay in Europe was less an opportunity for change than a period of extended vacation. Cohn had not been involved in the war and was therefore little affected by it. He had lived a repressed and committed life as a Jewish man at one time »”.