Hemingway's symbolic portrayal of women may be best revealed through an investigation of the much-maligned heroine of The Sun Also Rises, Lady Brett Ashley. Popular opinion dismisses her as a shallow, selfish, vain, alcoholic bitch. ("Bitch", though admittedly crude in casual conversation and a term I despise, is the technical term the critics have assigned to the Hemingway heroines they don't particularly like.) One particular critic summarizes the range of popular opinions:

Like other Hemingway heroines, Brett Ashley has been denounced as a weak character... The more serious and frequent critical charges against [her], however, are that she lacks the characteristics of a woman and, worse, that she is a "bitch"...the sentimentally regarded dare-devil, and she never becomes "real". (Whitlow 148) Brett's seemingly insatiable sexual appetite and apparent lack of moral inhibitions do not aid the reader in reaching the conclusion that she is a romantic symbol. However, there are a few twists of plot in The Sun Also Rises that, when taken into account, explain not only Brett's behavior but also the narrator's reaction. First,

Hemingway ends his novel by describing a scene where Brett tells Jake "Don't get drunk . . . You don't have to." After getting drunk throughout the whole novel, Brett accepts their lives and doesn't feel the need to escape by drinking anymore. There was no perfect ending where the circumstances of their lives magically changed to a new life; they just learned to accept late and deal with things as they are. This subtly ends the novel with a different attitude, but with no real changes taking place in their situations.

"Just temporarily," I said. "We're talking bulls."

"Ashley, chap she got the title from . . . ninth baronet . . . always made Brett sleep on the floor . . . when he got really bad, he used to tell her he'd kill her. Always slept with a loaded service revolver . . . She hasn't had an absolutely happy life . . ."

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,

The catalyst of "instinct" is embodied in the character of Lady Brett Ashley. It is her acting on her sexual impulses, in particular with Robert Cohn and Pedro Romero, that accelerates the objective story.

"I don't think so. I'd just tromper you with everybody. You couldn't stand it."

I tend to agree. Near the end she is in the car with Jake and says,

"And there's not a damn thing we could do," I [Jake] said.

Lady Brett Ashley was also an allegory of the impotence after the war. She first appeared with a group of homosexuals, she wore a man's hat over her short hair, which gave her a masculine appearance, and she spoke of men as her fellow "chaps". All completed the distortion of sexual roles and released her from her Hemingway 7 womanly nature (Bloom, 1985, p. 113). This is similar to Barnes' condition. Brett stepped off of the romantic pedestal to stand beside her equals (Bloom, 1985, p. 118).

Some common words found in the essay are:
Brett Ashley, Sun Rises, Count Spain, Oh Pedro, Lady Brett, Brett Jake, Jake Brett's, Pedro Romero, Jake Barnes, Bill' Bill, brett ashley, lady brett, lady brett ashley, sun rises, pedro romero, true love, brett jake, mike campbell, robert cohn, jake brett, jake barnes, improved association women, pedro danger brett, compromise i'm suggesting, doesn't compromise i'm,
Approximate Word count = 7645
Approximate Pages = 31 (250 words per page double spaced)