Humans and Language: A Survey of the Gesture-Primacy Hypothesis and the Evolutionary Origins of Language

At the core of human behavior and activity is our strong inclination, and indeed, our need to be social with one another. All of us, along with other species in the animal kingdom, achieve sociality through some means of communication. Humans, however, have taken communication to a level beyond that of our animal relatives – chimps do not chit-chat, for instance. We have evolved languages which allow us to discuss anything from immediate needs to abstract topics to recounting memories with one another. Though other features such as gestures are shared, language as humans know it is uniquely our own. In reviewing theories about the origin and evolution of language, we can see how it relates closely to our drive to cooperate with one another, and may have evolved first from the gestural capabilities of primates. Despite the gesture-primacy hypothesis not being universally agreed upon, many evolutionary biologists and anthropologists view it as a possible explanation for the source of our language. Most of all, through examining and considering the origins of language, we are able to think more critically about what language says about our species and what it means to be human.

Language is a tool we use everyday to think and communicate with others, so much so that it seems strange to imagine that our distant ancestors may not have had it, at least not like we do. Language, like other human traits, is the result of thousands of years of evolution which selected for traits that allowed the development of language. However unlike other remnants of biological history and evolution, language does not fossilize, which makes determining its emergence in our history as a species basically impossible to pinpoint. There are other clues though, which can direct scientists towards reasonable theories about the origins of language and what caused its emergence.  Many scientists use the presence of cave drawings as evidence of language in Homo sapiens, which means that for a long time, language was thought to be about 40,000 years old. This figure is based on the archaeological records which date cave drawings and engravings in Europe to that time (Pagel 2017). Symbolism is a good indication of language development (or at least the potential of language) because an understanding of symbols is crucial for language to exist. We must first understand that different words or sounds represent different objects or ideas to make sense of language. This timeline has some problems though, because it supposes that language began in Europe after Homo sapiens left Africa about 60,000 to 125,000 years ago. Were we to assume that language spread from Europe, or that Homo sapiens evolved the same abilities in different locations? However, as discoveries continue to be made, we can see that the timeline of artwork and symbolism stems back further than was previously thought: we now have found caves in South Africa with painting tools dating back 100,000 years, and engravings dating back 75,000 years (Jabr 2014). Since the history of symbolic behavior in humans extends further back, it follows that the history of language should date back further as well. With the new implications that language did not develop in Europe about 40,000 years ago, we must reconsider our timeline for the emergence of language and what may have caused it.

One cause which has been proposed as a catalyst for speech in humans is a need to negotiate or trade. In a recent anthropological discovery in the Algerian desert, 120,000-year-old seashells which had been made into beads were found, likely having been used in a necklace by early humans. Already, this is a fascinating discovery for what it shows us about the history of symbolism in humans, but it gets more interesting when we consider the location: it was found 120 miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea where the seashells had come from. Though the age of this presumed-necklace far predates agricultural and other more modern factors of society, it is evidence of economic activity in early humans – the shells were likely traded from human to human, probably in exchange for other goods or symbolic items, which allowed them to travel so far from their original home in the Mediterranean (Pagel 2015).  This discovery presents us with an even earlier beginning for language in humans, as it could potentially have been about 120,000 years ago. This is significantly older than previous guesses based on cave art, and while the reasoning for speech is consistent (in both cases, evidence of language is assumed due to evidence of symbolism), the discovery of a necklace far inland can present more evidence for a reason behind language evolution. It is possible that language evolved in order for humans to trade and exchange things with one another – after all, how are you going to work out a deal when neither of you can speak? While gestures can be used in simple exchanges, language gives us the freedom to engage in more complex social behavior. It also allows us to talk about other people, which lets us develop reputations (maybe someone cheated you in a trade, and now you want to tell other people this), and work together with others to accomplish a more complicated task by splitting up chores into different parts and organizing the desired final product. These abilities in humans, which we use often in our lives as a cooperative species, are not a part of other animal species which could perhaps explain why they never developed a more sophisticated form of communication – they didn’t have anything to talk about (Pagel 2017). Other theories on the origins of language stress the importance of language in allowing humans to recount stories to one another. This lets us, for instance, describe an event to our peers, perhaps telling them about an instance where we were in danger and what we did to survive. Our peers are then able to learn not through direct experience, but through our telling of the experience they learn what to do or not do in order to survive (Ferretti 2016). Though it is hard to decide with any certainty what caused our language capabilities to evolve the way they have, it is a safe guess that it was largely influenced by (and probably influenced back, in a type of circular relationship) our drive to work together and to learn from one another, as it allows both of these practices to flourish in a way that it does not in other species.

Though we can easily see how beneficial language is for us, it is harder to see how it could have evolved from speechless ancestors and what steps it took to reach this point. Our relatives in the animal kingdom are mute (vocalizations are different from speech), even other apes. One hypothesis which has been proposed to explain how language evolved in humans is the gesture-first or gesture-primacy hypothesis. It was first suggested in the eighteenth century by several thinkers and the idea was reenergized in the late 1960s (Kendon 2017). The hypothesis argues that before spoken language, humans communicated through gestures exclusively. It was from that foundation that spoken language evolved as an adaptation on gestural communication, and so the central component to this hypothesis is that “gesture and speech emerged sequentially” (Aussems 2018). One of the most prominent contemporary proponents of the idea is Michael Corballis, a psychologist from the University of Auckland. He suggests that humans switched from gestures to speech about 50,000 years ago, though he believes language and grammar are older, perhaps even around two million years old emerging first as gestures and grunts. The ability to gesture, and the inclination to do so, would have been driven by the development of bipedalism, as this would leave the hands free for expression (Eakin 2002). It might seem like a stretch to think of humans exclusively using gestures to communicate, but we know from our own experience how useful they can be.

Humans, of course, still make great use of our ability to gesture. Indeed, we often use our gestures in conjunction with spoken language in order to convey our meaning. We point to objects we want others to look at (“That dog is cute”) or we shrug our shoulders to indicate uncertainty. Some gestures can have different meanings depending on context or style of execution, though they are similar in their physical composition: a palm facing up can indicate either “give me that, please” or “what the heck are you doing?”, depending on the accompanying facial expression (eyebrows raised or relaxed vs. eyebrows furrowed) or the manner in which the hand was rotated to face upwards (gently extended vs. flipped upwards suddenly). Even more compelling in uncovering the evolution of our gestural communication is the observation that chimps, too, naturally make use of gestures. We know from experiments that chimps can be taught sign language, but these gestures that they use are entirely untaught by humans, indicating an innateness in primates to gesture. For instance, chimps will offer a part of their body to each other that they want groomed, or mothers will show their offspring the sole of their foot to indicate that she wants them to climb on her back. As with humans, some of their gestures can carry multiple meanings depending on the context, showing the flexible nature of gestures (Gill 2014). Some gestures are even the same between chimps and humans, such as extending a hand with the palm facing up when one needs support or wants to be given something (Pollick & de Waal 2007). Apes’ ability to gesture, but not speak, is a significant defense for the gesture-primacy hypothesis. Since these capabilities are shared between humans and their closest relatives, we can make the educated assumption that our common ancestor did as well. Interestingly enough though, there is at least one gesture which humans have that is not used by apes, and it is an important one. While apes can point at objects they want something done with (such as directing your attention towards something they want you to do, such as open a door, or pointing at food they want), they are incapable of using “declarative pointing (i.e. pointing for the sake of sharing attention, rather than merely directing attention)” (Aussems 2018). We can think of declarative pointing as a type of gesture where the focus of the communication, its meaning, is centered on the receiver, like pointing to something to tell someone “look at that”. Your focus is more on what your partner will think of the object in question than it is on the object itself. Apes do not understand this gesture, they only use pointing in its imperative form, such as saying “open this” or “give me that”.

While this gestural ability is shared, to such an extent that even apes can be taught sign language, the ability to speak is unique to humans. Though chimps (and other animals) vocalize, their vocalizations are not the same as our symbolic speech. Instead, their vocalizations have more in common with say our instinctual cries after being hurt – they don’t mean anything other than “I’m hurt”, and often we do not really intend to communicate a message with those reactions, it is an automatic response (Gill 2014). In apes, their equivalent of the Broca’s area of their brain (an area identified in the human brain relating to language abilities) is “activated during both the production and the perception of gestures but not vocalizations” (Pollick & de Waal 2007). This fact leads many to believe that, since this area of the brain is active for humans when communicating and for apes when gesturing, language must stem from these gestures rather than the vocalizations which have no interaction with the Broca’s area.

The gesture-primacy hypothesis is a compelling and convincing explanation for the potential source and evolution of language in humans. However, not everyone agrees with the concept, each with their own reasons depending on their own background of study or contrasting theory which they hold about the origins of speech and language. Linguists, for instance, do not agree with Corballis’ claim that language and grammar preceded speech, saying that he “doesn’t appreciate the sophistication of grammatical organization” (Eakin 2002).  Others have pointed out that while the concept astutely directs our attention to the limited control that non-human species, such as other primates, have over their larynx (creating an impediment to potential speech), it doesn’t tell us why we developed such an exclusive ability (Kendon 2016). More theories still propose that language could come from the grooming habits of apes, the movements of the mouth when it is chewing, or from “rapid mental reflexes” (Eakin 2002). A question remains as well: if we were so good at communicating with our hands and had developed a language from gestures, why did we ever switch to speech? Michael Corballis believes that the shift from gestures to speech coincides with the “explosion of technology, cave art, textiles, and even musical instruments” that occurred about 50,000 years ago (with newer discoveries of art which predate this time though, it is likely the figure is greater than 50,000). He connects the shift from gestures with an increase in art because he argues that speech freed up our hands to let us make things. He also has posed the thought that Homo sapiens did not start speaking because of a sudden genetic or neurological mutation, but simply because it was a “cultural invention” – it seemed like a good idea to them (Eakin 2002).

The origins of language will never be known with one-hundred percent certainty, but that doesn’t mean we can’t reach some conclusions or propose plausible theories about its beginnings and its evolution. The gesture-first hypothesis presents us with a credible explanation for our language origins by examining how similar our gestures and speech are to the gestures of our closest relatives. Why then, did chimps not follow suit and begin to speak? This seems to tell us something important about what it means to be human. Many of the possible reasons proposed for why we developed communication the way we did is that we had a need to talk to each other – a need for a better way to cooperate, teach, learn, and develop our culture in more complex ways. The gesture that chimps do not understand, the declarative point, is crucial for how humans live. It puts the focus not on the object, but on what we want to communicate about the object and how we expect another person to feel about it. This kind of pointing needs more explanation with it than just a gesture if we want to explain to others how we feel or think about the object we are pointing to. Perhaps it is from this gesture, this ability of theory of mind, that our language takes its strongest roots. Chimps don’t need language the way we do because they don’t need to talk about other things or other chimps, but humans, with our highly social communities constructed around building relationships and reputations, need a way to talk about others. Maybe an important part of what it means to be human, is that we need to gossip, we need to show, we need to make deals, and we need to explain.

Literature Cited:

Aussems, Suzanne, 2018. What Hand Gestures Tell Us About the Evolution of Language. iCog.

Eakin, Emily, 2002. Before the Word, Perhaps the Wink?; Some Language Experts Think Humans Spoke First with Gestures. The New York Times.

Ferretti, Francesco, 2016. The Social Brain Is Not Enough: On the Importance of the Ecological Brain for the Origin of Language. Front. Psychol.

Gill, Victoria, 2014. Chimpanzee Language: Communication Gestures Translated. BBC.

Kendon, Adam, 2017. Reflections on the “Gesture-First” Hypothesis of Language Origins. Psychon Bull Rev. 24(1): 163-170.

Jabr, Ferris, 2014. Hunting for the Origins of Symbolic Thought. The New York Times.

Pagel, Mark, 2017. Q&A: What is Human Language, When Did It Evolve and Why Should We Care?. BMC Biol. 15: 64.

Pagel, Mark, 2015. Why We Speak. The Atlantic.

Pollick, Amy & de Waal, Francis, 2007. Ape Gestures and Language Evolution. PNAS 104(19) 8184-8189.

Education in Crisis Areas

This paper was presented at an undergraduate conference at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 2017. It was written originally as a research paper. While this paper is a few years old, I decided to post it now because of its focus on education and the importance of education in creating a stable civil society. This is an area that I am passionate about and hope to research further. 

In 2011, a violent civil war broke out in Syria. Since then, there have been millions of people killed and displaced by the conflict, with many Syrians living trapped between ISIS and their government. With all the physical damage and death taking place, it is easy to miss another crisis taking place underneath the rest of the destruction. Education has been declared a human right by Article 26 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but in areas of crisis, it is a luxury. While I do not mean to suggest that the loss of education is as serious as the loss of life and limb, it creates a far-reaching impact which stalls the growth of a generation. In areas of crisis, the loss of education is an invisible disaster where children living both in the area of conflict and living abroad as refugees are unable to receive quality education. This in turn harms the well-being and potential advancement both of the individual and the collective society by creating what we might call a ‘lost generation’.

Within the immediate regions of crisis, education becomes a dangerous and difficult pursuit, if not entirely impossible. Prior to the civil war in Syria, literacy rates were over 90% (Futures under Threat 3). Unfortunately, this is far from the current reality, in which it is estimated that “half of Syria’s 4.8 million school-age children are out of school, whether within Syria itself or within neighboring countries” (Watkins and Zyck 3). In sharp contrast to the classes of Syrian students who came before them, this generation is facing a crisis of education. As the civil war in Syria enters its seventh year of conflict, it is important to recognize that for some children, it may mark the seventh year of a struggle to be educated. Schools have been repurposed as military buildings or shelters, or simply destroyed. The labor force of teachers had, three years into the conflict, been reduced by 22% with more than 50,000 educators having fled or been killed (Futures under Threat 6). Furthermore, even when the schools are still present and operational, there are serious risks involved in attending school. For example, in May of 2014, 153 students were kidnapped on the way home from completing their final examinations. Without completing these exams, students are considered unqualified to continue their education, yet the environment in Syria has become such that pursuing these exams created an incredible danger (Futures under Threat 8). Not only is there a physical loss of educational structures, as well as the decline in the workforce of educators, but physically pursuing an education has become a life or death situation in some cases. Naturally, it takes both the resources and the institutions, along with a reasonable expectation of security to safeguard an educated future for millions of children.

For many living in conflict zones, the natural goal is to leave the country. However, in crisis surrounding education does not stop within the borders of the conflict area, but unfortunately stays with children as they flee. Many refugee children face a variety of obstacles which keep them from obtaining an education. In fact, 62 percent of all Syrian refugee children are out of school within the Middle East (Watkins and Zyck 4). One issue that interferes with refugee children pursuing an education is a language barrier, on top of having to uproot their entire lives and flee from home, which is an emotional stress. Schools in hosting countries are also unprepared to accommodate such an influx of students, “in some cases resulting in schools doubling in size” (O’Rourke 724). Along with these factors, poverty is a debilitating problem which affects many refugees, and it is a problem which falls, to some extent, on the shoulders of children who will have to forgo education to pursue labor and wages for their families (Hos 54). Furthermore, the restrictive red tape of various governments holds back many potential refugee students from entering the classrooms. For example, in Egypt, “certified papers must be ratified by the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs before they leave Syria (which is often an impossible task) and then by the local education administration in Egypt (which can involve travel to another city) and by the Syrian Embassy before a refugee child can be enrolled in school. Parents must also have valid residency permits before children can enroll in school” (Futures under Threat 22). Though many families have been fortunate enough to escape the war in their homeland, it is far from the end of their struggles. For children displaced by conflict and crisis, securing an education in a new country is still uncertain and a struggle.

The depravation of education which many children face will have multiple negative effects on the individuals. Most of the threats against children who are deprived of education will manifest themselves in exploitive forms. One of these forms is through child labor. In some cases, this is a necessity for their family in order to put food on the table, as for example, 80% of Syrians are now impoverished (Stern 305). It is important to keep in mind, though, that this type of child labor is different from labor we generally see in our own country from youths. This type of labor tends to range from manual work in a field or shop to working with “dangerous equipment [and] exposure to toxic chemicals” (Stern 306). It has been found too that in some instances, children are working over 12 hours a day (Watkins and Zyck 5). Remember also that this is not a life chosen by these children, but one thrust upon them which, without any kind of education, will be nearly impossible to escape or improve from. This is where the problem really starts to take root, and can be seen among impoverished groups anywhere: the pursuit of basic survival needs creates a cycle of poverty which becomes difficult to break, as money (or time or energy) is not saved but used immediately to just barely get by. Furthermore, the means by which to elevate oneself are hard to reach. For example, to escape poverty, children could use an education to obtain a better job. However, all their time and energy is being spent on working which takes away from their time to learn, robbing them of an important tool for advancement. For children who should be students, this sets them up for a lifetime of this trap. There is also the threat of sexual exploitation, along with child and forced marriages (Bouchane 76). This is a particularly strong threat to girls, who are “almost 2.5 times more likely to be out of school in conflict-affected countries,” and in Jordan, forced marriage has doubled among Syrian refugees (Bouchane 77). Another looming danger is that children without education can be driven to joining militant groups to alleviate their poverty (Futures under Threat 19). In the end, an education which provides children with the tools for personal improvement and critical thinking creates a stronger and safer generation of active citizens (Stern 307). Without education, individuals can more likely become trapped as victims of their circumstances, as they lack the necessary tools to advance themselves. In the context of crisis areas, it creates a generation of these individuals.

Not only will a lack of education affect individuals, but there is a high cost on societies and nations which struggle with an uneducated populace. As Bouchane importantly points out, “when children are vulnerable we are all more vulnerable” (77). One way in which this cost manifests itself is through a literal cost, or a toll on the economy. “UNICEF estimates the cost of the loss of human capital resulting from Syrian children missing out on education alone to be US$10.7 billion, more than 17 percent of Syria’s 2010 GDP” (Bouchane 76). Education is also crucial in creating and sustaining peace, as there is evidence to suggest that this can happen through promoting the ideas of tolerance and conflict resolution in schools. Additionally, as Bouchane states, “those with a secondary education are three times more likely to support democracy than those with no education” (77). In a similar vein, education can help the formation and stability of nation-states. “‘The nation,’ it should be recalled, ‘is an imagined political community’ for which compulsory public schooling is an essential mechanism of integration… Given the importance of schooling in nation-building, it has been argued that the monopoly of legitimate education in modern nation-states may be more important than the monopoly of legitimate violence” (Tawil and Harley 9). To be fair, quality of education becomes more important when discussing the promotion of a cohesive nation-state, as a biased or divisive educational institution could exacerbate issues. However, a quality education, which is what should be seen as necessary for children anywhere, especially those in conflict, will promote a more tolerant and cohesive nation-state. Not only do children and individuals benefit from education, but so does the collective, arguably in ways that are most important for crisis areas.

Even after the fighting has stopped in a chaotic region, there will still be hundreds of thousands, or in the case of Syria, millions, of kids who are now so many steps behind their peers. There will also be some who feel that this damage is not theirs to correct. The reality is that “despite a great deal of rhetoric on the importance of education, efforts to create safe places to play and learn for children impacted by the conflict and disaster around the world received a mere 1.4 percent of all humanitarian funding in 2015” (Bouchane 77). Though people in more fortunate countries may feel that this crisis will not affect them, in a globalized world, we may very well feel consequences in the future. Considering that more than half of school-age Syrian children are now out of school, how can we expect the country of Syria itself to recover from its civil war state to a more secure and stable environment?

Works Cited:

Bouchane, Kolleen. “Syria’s $10 Billion Hidden Education Crisis.” Harvard International Review, vol. 37, no. 4, 2016, pp. 76-81. General Reference Center Gold.

Futures under Threat: The Impact of the Education Crisis on Syria’s Children. Save the Children, 2014.

Hos, Rabia. “Education in Emergencies: Case of a Community School for Syrian Refugees.” European Journal of Educational Research, vol. 5, no. 2, 2016, pp. 53-60. ERIC.

O’Rourke, Joseph. “Education for Syrian Refugees: The Failure of Second-Generation Human Rights during Extraordinary Crises.” Albany Law Review, vol. 78, no. 2, Apr. 2015, pp. 711-38. EBSCOhost.

Stern, Caryl M. “It Is Time to Step up and Help the Children of Syria.” Brown Journal of World Affairs, vol. 22, no. 1, Fall-Winter 2015, pp. 305-09. International Security and Counter-Terrorism Reference Center.

Tawil, Sobhi, and Alexandra Harley. Education, Conflict and Social Cohesion. International Bureau of Education, 2004. Studies in Comparative Education. Google Scholar.

Watkins, Kevin, and Steven A. Zyck. Living on Hope, Hoping for Education: The Failed Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Overseas Development Institute, Sept. 2014. Google Scholar.

Holding a Purity of Line: An Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”

If there is one thing which the characters of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises are good at, it is being miserable, especially considering that they spend most of the novel on vacation in Spain, partying. Yet, no one is really happy. They play fast and loose with alcohol, attraction, and money throughout the entire novel – they drink to much, they spend their time circling attractive potential suitors, and they spend a lot of money. All of these activities create danger for them. Mike, for instance, who is bankrupt and being sought after by people for money, continues to spend and borrow. All the characters of core group are doing one thing: they are striving to hold a purity of line. “I told her how since the death of Joselito all the bull-fighters had been developing a technique that simulated this appearance of danger in order to give a fake emotional feeling, while the bull-fighter was really safe. Romero had the old thing, the holding of his purity of line through the maximum of exposure” (Hemingway 172). Though Jake is speaking the line to explain the bull-fighting style of Romero, it also applies to the members of their group as they all strive to hold a purity of line around the things which present the most danger to them. The only character who becomes an exception to this is Cohn. We can see the importance of the purity of line and how much it dictates the actions of the characters through their hatred of Cohn. They hate him because he is publicly failing to hold the purity of line. It’s important to note that his failure alone is not enough reason to hate him, because really they all fail at this, but it is the fact that he doesn’t hide it. Yet in many ways Cohn is a foil to Jake, and whereas they both fail to hold the purity of line for similar reasons, Jake fails privately, which seems to be, according to these characters, the more respectable thing to do.

Though Jake says throughout the novel that he hates Cohn, and everyone else in the group criticizes him both behind his back and to his face, there are a lot of similarities between Jake and Cohn, all of which come down to their holding a purity of line. For starters, they’re both in love with Brett and are incapable of leaving her side. This is the danger which they inflict on themselves, and which they ought to show no injury over or flinch from, at least in Jake’s perspective. He says of Cohn: “That damn Cohn… He was so sure that Brett loved him. He was going to stay, and true love would conquer all” (Hemingway 202). He says this to disparage Cohn’s foolishness, and yet, isn’t Jake doing something similar? He knows that he cannot be with Brett, she’s made this clear to him before, like when she turns down his request of living together (Hemingway 62). However, he still is always by her side. To be fair, Brett wants to have Jake around whereas she is trying to get rid of Cohn, but the point still stands that both men are sticking around something they can’t have, and therefore brings them emotional pain. Jake is unsatisfied in his relationship with Brett due to his injury and subsequent inability to have sex with her in the same way that Cohn faces a dissatisfaction with her progressive and open view of relationships. This is dangerous for both Jake and Cohn, as their hearts are greatly invested into this matter and therefore are left vulnerable to emotional wounds. Inevitably, both men fail. Though the group strives towards a purity of line, this seems impossible for any of them to achieve. However, the important distinction is that Jake fails in a private way, whereas Cohn fails out in the open for everyone to see. This fuels their hatred of him.

Jake’s failures come quietly, and for the most part when he is alone. The first time we see Jake’s calm and strong exterior break is when he cries in his room in Paris. “I lay awake thinking and my mind jumping around. Then I couldn’t keep away from it, and I started to think about Brett and all the rest of it went away. I was thinking about Brett and my mind stopped jumping around and started to go in sort of smooth waves. Then all of a sudden I began to cry” (Hemingway 39). This moment comes after Brett goes off with the count, and Jake returns to his room alone and begins to think about his injury and his impotence and Brett. He’s thinking about how much he loves her, and yet how he will never be able to be with her. Furthermore, to have her always around him keeps this pain always just below the surface. However, he never shows this feeling publicly. Instead, he sticks by Brett’s side always as her friend and closest companion, even going so far as to set her up with another man when they are in Spain. He does this despite hating to see her with other men. After all, even though he never really seems to like Cohn a lot, he doesn’t begin to actively root against him and hate him until he finds out about Cohn and Brett’s trip to San Sebastian together. Jake is the bull-fighter aficionado in the group, it is he that calls out and praises Romero’s purity of line in the first place, and it is clearly a kind of courage and elegance which he thinks it is necessary to strive for in life. Rather than admit defeat, he continues to repeat the same “nightmare” as he calls it (Hemingway 71). During the day, he keeps up a façade of collectedness, but when he is on his own, we see how fragile that façade really is.

On the contrary, Cohn allows everyone around him to see when he is upset. He fails to hold the purity of line entirely. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that he was never really striving for it like the others and like Jake, however he still finds himself stuck in the same pattern of staying close to danger. Cohn, unfortunately, really loves Brett, and he believes that their time together must have meant something. He is wrong, but all the same his hope and his love for Brett keep him around as with Jake. However, whereas Jake has his breakdowns quietly in his own room, Cohn has them out in the open for everyone to see. The big moment with Cohn happens between him and Jake after Jake has hooked Brett up with Romero. In a way, this scene reveals to us exactly the difference between Cohn and Jake’s approach to the problem. Jake is attempting to hold his purity of line – he is acting unbothered about the whole affair, and even plays dumb to Cohn about it because he doesn’t want Cohn to know what’s going on (and for good reason, as Cohn clearly can’t handle the information). Cohn’s response is to yell, “I’ll make you tell me, you damned pimp,” and then punch Jake in the face (Hemingway 193). After this, he goes to Brett and Romero and punches Romero repeatedly while pouring his heart out to Brett. When Jake finds him later, he’s crying in his room and trying to apologize to Jake, who is having none of it. And while Cohn’s actions are not admirable, they are honest in a way that the others are not. Cohn cries in front of them, makes his desires clear, and literally attempts to fight for what he wants. He makes no attempt to appear unaffected or uninjured by danger and injury.

It’s tempting to read this novel with a focus on the damage that had been done to each person by outside forces, like with Jake’s war injury. However, the passage on the purity of line opens up a new way to see the novel. After all, though most of them faced incredible trauma in the past, their actions in the present do nothing to promote their own wellbeing. Furthermore, there is an obsession with veiling your true feelings and wounds, and instead keeping up an image of calmness. No one wants to look like they’re flinching around a threat, either because they don’t want to admit weaknesses to others or to themselves or both. It is interesting that Cohn, who was not in the war, seemingly has no desire to hold the purity of line which the others strive for. In fact, he really doesn’t seem to have a concept of it, or perhaps he would realize all the social taboos he breaks. It is Brett who says, “I hate his damned suffering” (Hemingway 186), but what she hates more is that he shows his suffering. The difference may be subtle, but it’s an important one because they are all really suffering in this novel but simply don’t want to show it. Furthermore, they keep themselves in circles of drunkenness and unhappiness, surrounded by the very things which bring them pain. If they are a “lost generation”, it is perhaps that they are “lost” and unable to find any way to live anymore that does not depend on danger and a purity of line. They live their lives in extreme conditions. Because really, why else turn your vacation from a vacation into such a nightmare? It’s because wherever you go, you keep playing by the same rules you subscribe to, the same view on life. That you mustn’t pull back from danger, nor let it hurt you. You remain untouched and unmoved by the danger which surrounds you – an impossible goal.

Works Cited:

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. Scribner, 2006.