In class we have talked about the change in scenery and how it has affected the characters, and since we mainly talked about how the fishing trip made an impact, I will talk about how the fiesta changed the characters. When the five main characters meet up for the fiesta, everything goes downhill. It seems to start even before the fiesta as Jake’s mood changes with the telegram from his friends, interrupting his peaceful fishing experience. When Jake and Bill make their way back to Brett, Cohn and Mike it seems some issues have already arisen and these will grow throughout the fiesta.
The first issue is between Cohn and Mike. We learn that Cohn has been following Brett around and trying to be with her as much as possible, and this angers Mike (a seemingly reasonable thing to be annoyed about). At first this quarrel between the two is limited to a few harsh comments after a lot of drinking, but over time it becomes a fight between every member of the group. The fights range from telling Cohn to go away, to a full on beating of the bull fighter. These hostile tendencies are something rarely if at all scene during the time in Paris leading me to think that it has to do with the change in setting.
The first aspect of the change in setting that affected the relationships between the characters is how much time they spend together. The five “friends” are pretty much taking a vacation together and thus they have no obligations other than to party. When in Paris we saw a trend of Jake going to work during the day and then at night they would drink together and have fun. This meant that they were only together for a small portion of the day which is different while in Spain where they spend the majority of their time together. This is one of the reasons for the conflict because after spending so much time with Cohn, everyone got fed up.
The next reason as to why there was so much more conflict in Spain isn't really part of the change in scenery, but rather who was there. While at the fiesta, there were three different characters who were in love with Brett together at the same time, and this led to fighting over her. When they were in Paris at most two were in the same place with Brett and thus all three adds to the friction between these lively characters.
Finally, the fiesta in general added to this friction. As some people have eluded to, alcohol effects the characters and how they act especially Mike who is a “Bad drunk”, and although there was drinking in Paris, the fiesta reaches a whole new level. The fiesta is where all the locals party for many days in a row and everyone seems to be drinking so naturally, the five friends drink their fair share. Although this seems to be to loosen up, it ends up hurting the group dynamics and leading to the fights.
Overall, as the friends move from Paris to the fiesta and bull fights, their daily routines and alcohol consumption changes leading to many problems throughout their long vacation.
I completely agree that it's the change in scenery that leads to all of the conflict. In Paris, it's easy for each of the characters to escape to their own houses or to different places to cool off for a while when they're getting frustrated with the others, but when everyone's staying together in hotel rooms in the same place, that's very hard to do. The fact that emotions were running high and that everyone was together and drunk pretty much constantly for a week would have led to a conflict of some sort, and the tensions over Brett between Mike and Cohn just added to that.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you in that the obscene amount of time they're spending together has something to do with how much tension there is between the group. Everyone knows that Cohn got together with Brett, and since the group moves as a pack during some periods of the Spain trip, it's inevitable that Cohn is able to follow Brett around because he thought that their time together meant something. In Paris, people were mostly separated, and the quarrels were sparse, but with all five together and Mike's habit of being loose-lipped, it really didn't surprise me that the tensions resulted in physical altercations.
ReplyDeleteI found another piece of evidence supporting the "too much time together causes conflict" theory. In the first prry we see Jake at, the gay men and Brett enter (cue romantic jealousy). Jake is so angry that he has to leave and calm down. This works perfectly in Paris to avoid conflict. So it makes sense that in Spain, with no where to go and cool off, the group would fight when people got angry.
ReplyDeleteThe way you put it really reminds me of like, a family vacation movie or something. Like, everyone is together and its fun for the few couple of days and then gets REALLY annoying. I also like how the pastoral theme isn't really interrupted, per se, but emphasized and exploded during the fiesta. It still seems like the locals are living a crazy country life that people in the city just couldn't do, but the gang can't really take it, it brings too much emotion to the surface, whether due to alcohol or the environment or whatever.
ReplyDeleteThe natural drinking in Spain likely gave the characters an overdose on alcohol to an extent that everyone was very uncomfortably outside of their typical "drunkness range." In Paris we see a system of counting drinks had -- the saucers. In Paris we also see a sort of routine, mechanical type of consumption of the drinks, as opposed to the fun, frivolous drinking in Spain. The characters run out of money in Spain they drink so much, even when they don't pay for half of their drinks! I think the group being together was a catalyst, but the drinking definitely was a major factor in causing their conflicts.
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