Before I get into any serious literary analysis on The Sun Also Rises, I just want to express a few thoughts that have been bothersome floating around in my head. The first thing is that ever since we first discussed Jake's injury, I've been having strange nightmare about me being in the middle of a war zone and the second I look down, I see that my crotch has been turned into hamburger meat (blood, grease, and all). Another thing going on inside my head is a certain story I heard about a man who had a similar injury to Jake's. This man decided to cut off one of his fingers so that it could be fashioned into a penis. This makes me wonder how Jake's story would be different if such modern medical techniques were used to fix him up. As disturbing as that story is, I can't help but to think which finger I would use if something like that happened to me. I agree with Freud's theory that a man losing his genitals is a primal fear for men. I think that even women understand that fear and pain. When we first talked about Jake's wound, I noticed that some of the girls in class said "that sucks" and/or made faces twisted with horror. In all frankness, having your penis blown off sucks and I don't enjoy thinking about it.
Now that all that is out of the way, I can discuss the book in a more appropriate manner. As much as I feel sorry for Jake, I feel equally as sorry for Brett. Jake and Brett obviously have feelings for each other yet a healthy relationship between the two of them seems impossible. Brett was the one who tended to Jake's wounds. In a sense, she's suffering emotionally as much as Jake. Plus, in the part when Brett tells Jake about her and Cohn, it became obvious to me that Brett is the one who has to make the tough decision, which is a burden that Jake doesn't have to carry (because he is basically powerless). Even though she comes off as a charming character, I definitely think there is something mentally off about Brett. For one thing, what kind of woman in her thirties parties on a regular basis? She must have seen horrible injuries from World War I and yet she acts carefree and promiscuous. I sense something something very deep with Brett under the surface. I think Brett serves as Ernest Hemingway's eyes, especially considering that they both offered medical services during World War I. I can't really explain it, but I feel like if we learn more about Brett, then we can learn more about Hemingway.
There's no question in my mind that The Sun Also Rises is a novel that protests the horror and suffering caused by World War I. However, in the part where the Count shows off his arrow wounds to Brett and Jake, I couldn't help but think that Hemingway believes that there is something bad-ass about going through a war. I think this scene brilliantly makes the reader draw a line between bad-ass and terrible. To me, I draw the line around losing a limb or being mutilated in any way. Maybe this is just Hemingway's macho personality showing through.
Even though it isn't the most exciting movie (unlike a movie I recently saw called Hobo with a Shotgun), The Hours is an interesting twist on Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway. Having just recently wrote a pastiche on Virginia Woolf's writing style, I realize that this movie is a cinematic version of our pastiche writing assignment. This makes me wonder whether or not the screenwriters actually wrote it as if Virginia Woolf herself was writing it. Since Virginia Woolf's writing style is already very cinematic, making a movie based on her work seems like the perfect pastiche. Conversely, I realized that if Virginia Woolf was a screenwriter, she could write the greatest chick flicks ever.
One of the things I noticed about the story in The Hours is that unlike the book Mrs. Dalloway, the movie includes Virginia Woolf's side of the story. More importantly, Virginia serves as a shot caller in the movie. Since the movie makes all the characters seem so real, Virginia Woolf seems almost like a god in the way she controls their destinies with her ideas. This makes me think that the story in the movies may tie to Greek mythology in the sense that she is a god with her own particular personality. The only problem with this is that I don't know which god she would be.
Despite its uneventfulness, The Hours is an intricate and interesting twist on a literary classic.
I think I understand why Virginia Woolf included Septimus' story in Mrs. Dalloway. I think that Septimus and Mrs Dalloway are more similar than most people give them credit for. The basis for this assumption is the fact that on page 179, when Clarissa hears about Septimus' suicide, she seems immediately to understand and even see Septimus' death. The point I am trying to make is that I think that Clarissa can see herself as being Septimus in another life.
Allow me to explain this concept further: Throughout the book, Virginia Woolf gives evidence that all life seems to be interconnected, and that we are constantly affecting the people around us whether we intend to or not (and vice versa). One way that we can be affected is simply by feeling an inexplicable connection with someone. In life, there are some strangers that you meet or hear about that are just that: strangers. You don't really know them, understand them, or identify with them; even if you know a little bit about them. But in other cases, there are people you don't know that, after learning a little bit about them, you can identify with and even understand. For me, an example of the former would be some of the people you see and read about in the Guinness World Record Book. I would see people like the person with over 99% of his body covered in a giant tattoo and just feel completely alienated from him. An example of the latter for me is a man who goes by the name Professor Splash. Professor Splash was contestant on the popular reality TV show America's Got Talent. His act was simple yet insane: he would belly flop into a small inflatable children's pool from the ludicrous height of 36 feet! And he lives! Much like Clarissa Dalloway admires Septimus for having the courage of committing suicide, I admire Professor Splash for having the courage and skill of belly-flopping into twelve inches of water from insane heights. I felt especially connected to him when he said, "the pain lasts a minute, the glory lasts a lifetime," which is EXACTLY what I would have said. I can imagine myself being more like him in another life, much like I believe Clarissa can probably imagine being more like Septimus in another life.
The reason that Clarissa and Septimus seem so different can be explained by the Blank Slate Theory. The Blank Slate Theory basically states that we all start off as blank slates and as we grow up, the people and the environment around us shape the people we all turn out to be. Therefore, I think that early in their respective lives, Septimus and Clarissa started off relatively similarly: both were regular denizens of London society, both had deep thoughts about life, and Septimus was even portrayed as being rather effeminate when he was younger. The main factor that drove their personalities and lives in completely different directions was of course the war, where Septimus suffered from shell shock while Clarissa was leaving Peter for Richard. Basically, what I am trying to say that Clarissa and Septimus share some similar core factor, and this core factor may possibly be a result of their upbringings.
Much like me and Professor Splash don't have anything in common on a surface level, Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith are very different on a surface level. However, if you look deeper than that, you'll find that we all have some sort of connection to one another, which is one of the main ideas that Virginia Woolf was trying to get across in this book. I guess it pays to look past skin deep appearances.
