“The three of us sat at the table, and it seemed as though about six people were missing.”
-The Sun Also Rises, p 228
This sentence sums up the general mood of the denouement. Cohn has left Spain, his spirit shattered. Brett has also left the city with Pedro Romero, though considering her past, it is anyone’s guess as to how long the relationship will actually last. Now only the three comrades remain: Mike, saddened and lonely now that his fiancée has left him; Bill, always happy and cheerful, now sobered slightly by the events of the past few days; and Jake, the man who has stood by and helped allow these events to happen.
The fiesta’s closing reflects the end of the conflict concerning Cohn and Brett. Just as the people of the city must now try and revert back to the way things were before the fiesta, so must these three try and return to the lives that they lived before the fiesta. This sentence is rather melancholy and bitter in nature, yet it accurately reflects the problem that these three men will now have to face. How will they move on after such an explosive fallout? Unfortunately, considering only twenty-three pages remain, I am not sure the reader will find out.
I quoted this passage too.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how the novel follows Jake around, while Brett is really the life of the plot and book as a whole.