The Sun Also Rises

On the inner cover of the book The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, a quote by Gertrude Stein states: "You are all a lost generation." Hemingway's intention for specifically adding this quote as a motif is to refer to the state of men and women after world war 1, but most importantly breathing a bit of insight to the readers concerning the coming-of-age characters in the book. A sense of belonging was hindered after the war and infiltrated in all people who remained lost in their lives due to that displacement occurring because of the war.
"It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost that disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people" (Hemingway 146). The quote above refers to the displacement mentioned earlier, this uncanny, undecipherable feeling of estrangement. Robert Cohn is pressed with this odd sensation to travel the world in hopes that his life will come together for him away from his problems. While Jake Barnes has his own set of troubles, and a maimed body due to a direct result of the war. Both suffer from the stillness of their lives and rooted tension that cannot make it's way out of their bodies.
Besides the sincere lostness that poses a problem, an answer for Cohn and Barnes and all of the others is drinking. Most every single one of the characters in The Sun Also Rises drinks uncontrollably to numb the hurt- this isn't odd that most all would be alcoholics. The restraints of war, even after the war held many in gridlock refraining them from moving on with their lives.