The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway (1926)
“Hemingway's iceberg floats here first — the wounds are real but never named, and everything that matters is what nobody says.”
Character Analysis
Jake is the novel's consciousness — we see everything through him and know almost nothing about his interior. His war wound has rendered him sexually impotent, making his love for Brett both total and impossible. He is the novel's ideal man in one sense (stoic, competent, honest about surfaces) and its most damaged figure in another. His narration is flat because flatness is survival. He drinks, he fishes, he watches the bulls, and he endures.
Flat, reportorial, specific about external detail. Never names his own feelings — describes physical sensations instead ('I had a feeling,' 'it felt bad'). Uses technical language about bullfighting and fishing with precision.