Traumatic vision in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
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Department of English
Abstract
This present research on The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, attempts to unfold the traumatic vision through the means of characters' deteriorated traumatic condition due to the triggered experiences of the World War I and contemporary unstable politics. This novel identifies modern world's rootless ridge, World War and its destructive and frustrated worldview, where spirituality is defeated in surge of materialism leading towards the traumatic dread. The novel's presentation of war wounded hero, his emasculated condition, post World War I disillusioned and chaotic society, alcoholic characters, their rendering nature and their indulgence in drinking, watching bullfighting, gossiping and insulting others vividly unmasks the traumatic vision in the novel. Characters' life is guided by past not the present. Though they want to forget their bitter and shady past with the help of drinking, their physical and psychological wound compels them to cope with past which make them traumatic. Their memories are reflected in the forms of nightmares, flashbacks and other repetitive phenomena. Characters arrival in Europe from America is to forget their terrible and dreadful past and search for a spiritual solace, but as they are beset with traumatic experiences, their expectation turns out in an-emotional vacuum.