Jake's unfortunate impression of Spain

    When Jake Barnes returns from his trip to Spain and overtips a waiter at Cafe Marinas, he says, "it felt comfortable to be in a country where it is so simple to make people happy. You can never tell when a Spanish waiter will thank you. Everything is on such a clear financial basis in France. It is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you only have to spend a little money. I spent a little money and the waiter liked me. He appreciated my valuable qualities. He would be glad to see me back. I would dine there again some time and he would be glad to see me, and would want me at his table. It would be a sincere liking because it would have a sound basis. I was back in France" (237). I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not, but his words really bothered me. Money can buy you a lot more in France than it can in Spain, including people's respect. But claiming that France is a simpler place is a terrible mistake.
    Jake's words hurt me because it felt like the fiasco with Brett and Cohn had ruined the entire trip for him. Jake had never seemed so blissful and carefree than when he was fishing with Bill. He even liked the Basques enough that he didn't make fun of them. He enjoyed the simple pleasures of Spain, drank wine from a skin, sat under a tree, and barely thought about Brett or Cohn at all during his fishing trip. Everyone in Spain seemed happy whether or not you involved money, and people liked each other on another sincere basis: they were having fun together. 
    But Brett, Mike and Cohn ruined this for Jake. In Spain, you do away with masks and the true self is revealed. Mike revealed what he thought about Cohn, Cohn revealed his feelings for Brett, and Brett caught feelings for Romero. Poor Jake had to watch them tear each other apart. Wouldn't it be simpler, easier, if they put their masks back on? In Paris they were able to hide from uncomfortable truths, but the simplistic nature of Spain brought all that out. So I guess Jake missed the familiarity of France, the ability to hide from his problems behind a glass of Pernot. Perhaps he wished to return to the way things once were, because despite underlying tensions, they could still all be friends. I feel sorry for Jake that his friends are all so awful because he deserves better.

Comments

  1. Jaewoon JungNovember 4, 2022 at 8:06 PM

    I think the differences between Spain and France is a really interesting topic. I admire the care free friendliness of Spain but I agree that Jake's friends really did ruin it for him. It makes me wonder how he might have seen France without the influence of his friends. Good job examining how Jakes surroundings make him feel.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Daniel TNovember 6, 2022 at 7:12 AM

    The contrast between France and Spain is a really important concept in this book, and you address it very well. I think the quote that you brought up is really interesting too. It really captures jakes attitude towards relationships well. He thinks that anyone who wants to be friends with him is doing it with some personal incentive instead of just genuinely liking him, which is kind of true for like Brett for instance.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jes Grew IRL???

Both Mumbo Jumbo and Ragtime  use history to add to the realness of their texts. In Ragtime, Doctorow uses "false documents" that likely aren't true but for the most part can't be disproven to fill in the gaps of real history used in his book. For instance, he depicts J. P. Morgan talking to a seagull in a bout of loneliness, something that cannot be proven nor disproven. Moments like this make Ragtime  feel real.  Mumbo Jumbo takes place around the ragtime period as well, and during the Harlem Renaissance. Jes Grew is an anti-plague that spreads dancing and liveliness, a metaphor for the spread of black culture. The novel identifies things like ragtime and jazz as elements of Jes Grew, but Jes Grew's origins go back thousands of years. Reed uses what I presume to be (mostly) real Egyptian mythology and mumbo jumbo lore as actual history in  Mumbo Jumbo.  By using African history/mythology to set the novel, Reed accomplishes multiple things: he creates an Afrocent
Read more

First Impression of Jason vs final thoughts

 I wrote this after reading the first two chapters of Black Swan Green. It is my first impression of Jason: Jason Taylor is a kid who cares very much about keeping up appearances, similarly to Bruce Bechdel in  Fun Home.  However, unlike how Bruce hid his homosexuality, stammering is the sort of thing that the harder you try to hide it, the more apparent it becomes. He refers to his condition as "Hangman", and has four commandments for it: "Thou shalt hide from speech therapists; Thou shalt strangle Taylor when he is nervous about stammering; Thou shalt ambush Taylor when he is not nervous about stammering; Once Taylor is 'Stutterboy' in the eyes of the world he is  yours " (31). He really wants to maintain his social status and that makes him anxious about his stammer, which makes it all the worse. I've experienced a similar sort of "mental echo chamber" where the more I think about a certain problem, the more it affects me. However, I've
Read more

Meursault and Guitar

Image
When I read about Guitar's involvement in the Days, it reminded me of Meursault. They both committed murder, but in totally different situations. I want to compare and contrast their situations and find some meaning in them.     Meursault committed murder without any clear motive, and with little feeling in it. He holds nihilistic beliefs that allowed him to do that. In contrast, despite a deep aversion to murder, Guitar commits murder out of a sense of duty, as if it were a responsibility of his. His reasoning is that he has to keep the ratio the same between black and white people. He also harbors deep hatred of white people, in contrast to Meursault, who seems to have nothing against Arabs.     Meursault and Guitar are in opposing classes. Guitar knows that black people get no justice in white courts; he believes he is defending his people by killing innocent white people (although in his mind, there are no innocent white people, as every one of them is a potential nword killer)
Read more