Lovely Literature

Lady Brett and Jake Barnes share a difficult love. He definitely loves her and wants to spend his life with her, but she pushes him away. She is extremely contradictory though because she often expresses her love for him.

"Told him I was in love with you. True too. Don't look like that. He was damn nice about it. Wants to drive us out to dinner to-morrow night. Like to go?" [page 41].

She just baffles me. I mean, I'm a girl and she truly confuses me. She acts like it's not her fault that she is promiscuous and that she cannot control her cheating...but she definitely can. And there is no good reason why she shouldn't get married to Jake. Ever since her "true" lover died, she seems to have been a mess. I think it's a call for attention. Not that I'm a psychologist or anything. Brett is obviously a beautiful woman who has a lot going for her, but she is also quite the alcoholic. It's crazy how people who look like they have it all together on the outside are usually the ones the most screwed up on the inside. Everyone has a past, and that past is not always an enjoyable one.

Ahh, juxtapositions! O'Brien loves these juxtapositions and figurative language.

"I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing." [page 49]

"I was a coward. I went to the war."[page 58]

Ooh. That last one gets me for some reason. If you think about it...every single person is a coward at some point in their lives. The biggest cowards generally are the people we respect the most and whose hands we put our lives into. I'm not denying that they aren't brave, because I sure as heck respect all the people protecting me and my country and giving me the opportunity for the safe life I live because I know I couldn't do it. But somehow, being the biggest coward can make you brave.

How's that for a contradiction for you? Hm...ponder that one.

One last thing. Sometimes you have to fake it until you believe it [whatever "it" is]. I feel like that's exactly what O'Brien felt like he had to do.