Hedonism is a buch of bull.

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, is a fictional work which details from a first person perspective the journey of a group of writers and pleasure seekers to Spain, where they fish and watch bull-fights. Hemingway derives the title of the novel from a biblical quote which he puts at the beggining of the book, quoting "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abidith forever ... the sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth toward the south..."(7). Using the characters and situations of the book, Hemingway argues that a life solely devoted to pleasure is not only ultimately devoid of meaning. He shows this through the character's use of drinking and their pursuit of purely physical relationships, and uses examples examples from religion in Spain to display how pursing only pleasure will eventually drain meaning from every point of life.

Drinking is a constant throughout the novel. As the group of characters seeks pleasure the use alcohol to subvert any difficult situations they might encounter. In one part a character Mike confronts another, Cohn, for sleeping with his wife. Mike appears to be drunk, so Cohn shakes off the insults and leaves. We learn as soon as Cohn leaves however that Mike was not as inebriated as he was acting, saying "I'm not so damn drunk as I sounded." (147) Although the characters use alcohol as a sort of anesthetic, Hemingway tries to show how in the end it is ineffective, as Brett, the "heroin" of the novel begs the first person voice, Jake in the end not to "get drunk." (250) Brett begs this of Jake because she doesn't want to lose what could be a significant conversation with him. She is tired of how drinking has made every confrontation and every situation meaningless, and she wants to regain some semblance of purpose. This is largely due to her loss of meaning in her pursuit of physically exiting relationships.

Hemingway uses Brett, and her relations with the male characters to display how the pursuit of a purely physical relationship also drains meaning from ones life.Brett is found to have had relationships with nearly every male character at some point. While her relationship with Cohn causes problems with Mike, she is even still looking for more opportunities as she begins to pursue a relationship with a young bullfighter, Romero. At first, Brett finds pleasure in her new relationship. Jake notices how she "was radiant. She was Happy" (211). Brett herself remarks that she feels "altogether changed" (211). In the same way as he used drinking though, Hemingway shows that in the end hedonistic relationships f.all apart and are devoid of meaning. Brett ends up alone and depressed as another relationship crashes back down around her, and as she turns back to Jake, who is the only man that she connects with emotionally.

Brett and Jake have somewhat frequent experiences with religion as the novel progresses. Jake, while not immune to the hedonistic lifestyle of his colleagues, is probably the least affected of them all. For him, there is still some solace to be found in the church. Brett however represents how a pleasure seeking life has not only proved meaningless, but actually drained meaning from other parts of life. At one point in the novel, Brett attempts to enter a church and pray for Romero. After entering she quickly became anxious, saying "let's get out of here. Makes me damned nervous." (212). Brett finds the church an oppressive environment because of her lifestyle. She feels that she "never [got] anything [she] prayed for" (213).  In the end, living a meaningless life had actually made it even more difficult to find meaning where an average person might. Making a dangerous cycle.

This cycle is ultimately Hemingway's point. Just as the sun rises and falls, and just as one generation passes and another begins, in the same way a hedonistic lifestyle is purposeless, and self-perpetuating. In the end it is difficult to tell if Hemingway finds any meaning in life at all. Yet still, there are characters who appear happy, such as the Englishman that Jake meets in Spain. Whether or not there is a certain way to live which would give meaning however does not seem to be the focus of Hemingway's novel. Rather, he seems to point out that there is most certainly a way not to live.