12. New Beginnings

"Speaking of Courage" posed a few new ideas to me. When the war had ended and the soldiers returned to their hometowns, everything had changed a great deal. Life had moved on without them. Norman Bowker came home and was still stuck in the place he was when he left. He was not completely aware of how different things would be. "He felt invisible in the soft twilight," (144). Norman felt alone upon his return. He didn't know his place and where he fit in. Coming back home after being gone for so long would be extremely difficult. You would have to completely start over from scratch. I think it would be very sad to come home and feel completely forgotten like no one even cared you had been gone so long. This was a time too that the soldiers probably needed close friends to confide in so that they could talk out some of their feelings of guilt and sadness. Instead they came home and had to keep everything to themselves. No one would ever understand what they went through and what they saw. It would be an extremely troubling life I would think.

4. Lonely Jacob

In chapters 3 and 4, one of the most prominent ideas I caught on to was that Jake Barnes is one lonely guy. For starters, most of this novel has taken place at a bar of some sort. Liquor seems to always find its way into Jake's hands. Secondly, Jake meets up with Georgette, a woman who seems to be quite comfortable getting friendly with persons of the opposite gender... He buys her a drink and then takes her out to eat because he believed "that it would be nice to eat with someone," (24). He is lonely and finds that company would bring him some form of happiness.

After spending time with Lady Brett Ashley, we also find Jake to be experiencing loneliness and sadness over his war injury as he tries to fall asleep on page 39: "Then all of a sudden I started to cry." I am about 99.99% positive that if someone goes to bed crying (especially a man) then they are most definitely going through a rough time emotionally. As the novel continues I am very interested to see how Jake overcomes these feelings, or if he ever does.