Basically , the phrase "Lost Generation" describes the generation that came to maturity during World War I and describes the cumulative effect of the new kind of warfare on that generation . The technology involved in modern warfare also created carnage on a scale that had never been seen before . The sheer amount of death and destruction from World War I led people to question the meaning of life .
The phrase "The Lost Generation" was popularized by Ernest Hemingway in his novel The Sun Also Rises, as an epigraph attributed to Gertrude Stein , who coined this word , which applies to the young people who grew up in the shadow of World War I . In terms of pop culture , the images that usually spring to mind of this group are those of Roaring Twenties : fast cars , flappers and wild parties . The Sun Also Rises is an impressive document of the people who came to be known , in Gertrude Stein's words , which form half the novel's epigraph , as the "Lost Generation" . The young generation he speaks of had their dreams and innocence smashed by World War I , emerged from the war bitter and aimless , and spent much of the prosperous 1920s drinking and partying away their frustrations .
Though seldom mentioned , World War I hangs like a shadow over the characters in The Sun Also Rises . The war devastated Europe , wiping away empires and long-standing governments . Similarly , its brutal trench warfare and machine-driven killing made clear to all of its participants that the long-standing ideals of honor , courage and stoicism were hollow and meaningless , as were the national identities that drove the countries of Europe to war in the first place . In short , the war changed all those who experienced it , and those who came of age during the war became known as "The Lost Generation" . Through Jake and his friends and acquaintances , The Sun Also Rises depicts members of this lost generation .
The protagonist in the novel , Jake Barnes , has fought in World War I and carries a particularly disabling and symbolic wound : he has been castrated by shrapnel . The male member is understood as a well-established symbol for manhood and virility but ironically Jake has been 'unmanned' by the war . Now he feels 'lost' , unable to live life fully after the damage he has sustained . His situation has been read as symbolic of the boredom of the entire generation traumatized by the First World War .
Like many famous authors of this period , including Hemingway himself , Jake has left America in order to find a better way of life in another country . His obsession with the Spanish bull fights is so much that even native Spaniards acknowledge that he is an aficionado and this is one example of Jake's trying to involve himself in a greater interest . Similarly , he and his friends try to submerge themselves in rural Spanish past times , like fishing in country , in an attempt , perhaps , to get in "touch with the soil" , as Bill says . The novel is Hemingway's answer to the malaise of the "Lost Generation" ; a message of a more vital way of life that might be salvation for an alienated generation .
Jake and his friends believe in very little . While in some ways this is liberating , it is also depicted as a loss . In losing their belief in the ideals , structures and nationalism that drove self-identity in the time before the World War I , they seem to have lost some core of themselves . The characters are always restless , always wandering , looking for a constant change of scenery , as if looking for an escape . They would prefer to live in America than Europe , but for some reason they do not leave . The characters have made themselves expatriates , disconnected from their home , sampling the cultures of Europe without ever joining them . There is a sense that Jake and his generation do not belong anywhere . Though many of Jake's friends have occupations , in writing and editing , these jobs do not seem to have regular hours and none of them are accountable to any boss or location . The characters spend their time socializing , drinking , dancing and playing games . Though these activities are usually seen as youthful pursuits , in such endless repetition they become empty and wearing , and part of a vicious cycle in which the characters are always thinking of the next escape . Off all the characters , only Robert Cohn seems to not fit this description of a lost generation . He has an identity forced on him : he is Jewish ; And he has ideals - romantic , perhaps silly ideals - but still ideals . It is not a coincidence that he is the only male character in the novel not to have experienced the war first hand . Yet in the course of the novel even Cohn betrays his ideals , suggesting that while the loss of belief in the old systems is a terrible personal loss , it also just may be a more accurate view of the world .
The group which Hemingway portrays is a mix of some working writers who did not inherit wealth , like Hemingway himself and his friend Bill . Some aristocrats or other characters of wealthy families like Robert Cohn who is a portrait of Harold Loeb , from the wealthy Guggenheim family clustered around an older generation including Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound and Shakespeare & Co. book store in Paris , mainly on the Rive Gauche near Quartier Latin . A very interesting section of this novel occurs when they watch the
bullfighting and reject the possibility of being a hero or of living the
life to the full .
Although Hemingway , in this novel , tries to take himself very seriously , in many ways this is just a story of young people having fun , exploring their own identities , going through all those intense melodramatic relationships one has at a certain age etc. before they settle down to real jobs and marriages . The lost generation's experiences have caused them to reject the moral codes and values that gave life structure before , and so now they are left to pursue their lives in an aimless fashion without any specific goals or objectives , and without any governing creeds or values to guide them .
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