The Sun Also Rises

I noticed a very interesting quotation in chapter 2 of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Jake tells Robert that "You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that,"(11). Robert wants to leave Paris and travel around, particularly to South America. Jake's outlook seems to be that a change of location will not change your thoughts and feelings. This is relevant to the idea of nomadism. Nomads constantly change location, and their home can be anywhere. They also get along as a community, which is similar to how the clique in this novel can be viewed. Jake argues that travelling like this is useless because it will not have any psychological change on those involved. His ideas fall more in line with the thoughts of Naficy, who argues that "It is also possible to transit back and forth, be in and out, go here and there -- to be a nomad and yet still in exile everywhere." The state of mind that Jake and the others from his generation are in lend toward a sense of psychological exile that he does not believe can be altered by the physical action of moving from place to place.

-Patrick Kennedy