Before the story begins, Hemingway starts his readers out with some "food for thought." The epigraphs posed at the beginning provide hints at the themes and messages found throughout The Sun Also Rises. Even though Hemingway quotes one Gertrude Stein saying, "You are all a lost generation," for some reason I don't think Hemingway is bothered by this. Hemingway spent his prime years in the 1920's. In his mind, his generation wasn't lost, but rather enjoyed the constant drinking along with no set lover which led to a carefree kind of life. The next quote is from the bible, which I found particularly interesting considering the subtle dissing Hemingway seemed to resort to. It starts, "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh..." and one gets the feel that it's just a constant cycle. No two generations are the same: take the '70's Hippie days and compare it to the proper manner of the '40's. Today's music, fashion, and sayings differs almost comically at the opposite end of what was popular 100 years ago. Hemingway poses two different questions for me despite all this: Did he use this novel to point out the things he was disappointed in? How can a generation really be lost?
"The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down...." Hemingway seems to use this theme that the world doesn't stop. In research I've done, I find an overwhelming amount of struggles faced in Hemingways life from war to drinking problems. He seemed to choose the brighter part of the previous quote for the title of his novel, perhaps in hope that he would be able to see the up-side of things instead of the sun going down to darkness so to speak. By saying the sun ALSO rises, he's indicating that there is another side other than darkness in life.
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