There were just men getting cut down by machine gun fire in a futile effort to move their trench forward another inch. There was no glorious clash of skill between two warriors. Honor, courage, stoicism, glory-none of these traditional masculine traits meant a thing huddled in the trenches as mortars fall from the sky. In this way, The Sun Also Rises shows how men have been changed by the experience of war, and World War I in particular. For men in The Sun Also Rises, to win seems impossible. Robert Cohn strikes out at Mike, Bill and Romero, overpowering them physically, but later is found alone and crying. But sometimes physical strength is a liability. Sometimes it is physical vigor that wins out, in the case of Romero. The competition between the men is won and lost in different, often unpredictable, ways. There is only one main female character in The Sun Also Rises, and the men circle around Brett like bees to honey, creating an atmosphere of rivalry between the male characters.
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