Identity Through the Drink

Throughout Jack London’s John Barleycorn and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the authors use alcohol consumption to construct multiple identities within their characters. In John Barleycorn, Jack London has an identity of his sober self, which stands alone from who he becomes when he is consumed with the drink. London’s use of the name John Barleycorn shows that when he is drunk he is literally changing into a different person. In The Sun Also Rises, the characters sober identities are continuously juxtaposing their alcoholic identities but in a much more subtle way than in John Barleycorn. Rather than having a distinct transformation into a drunken identity as London does, Jake Barnes and the other characters in The Sun Also Rises constantly blend sobriety and drunkenness together with a quick stop in a café or swig out of a special leather wine bottle. Although both London and Hemingway utilize the drink to create identities in their characters, it is important to look at the differences between the strict separation of London’s sober and drunken selves and the problems that arise between characters in The Sun Also Rises with the assimilation of sobriety and drunkenness.

Jack London begins John Barleycorn, or his ‘Alcoholic Memoirs,’ by defining the character that is John Barleycorn. He says to his wife, “I am never less his friend than when he is with me and when I seem most his friend. He is the kind of liars. He is the frankest truth-sayer. He is the august companion with whom one walks with the gods. He is also in league with the Noseless One” (2). John Barleycorn’s character is paradoxical to that of Jack London. He is physically and mentally unstable and so sinful that he is on par with the Noseless One, or the Devil. London thinks that he and his alcoholic self can be friends but constantly realizes that his sober self could never be friends with Barleycorn even through he continues to try. This battle between London’s two identities is strong and shows that even though he constantly tries to connect the two selves, he can never succeed in doing so because what he becomes when he is consumed with the drink is everything London does not want to be.

At the beginning of The Sun Also Rises, the normality of extreme alcohol consumption immediately becomes clear. Robert Cohn appears at Jake Barnes office because he is obviously upset. He says, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it” (18). They quickly precede downstairs to the café whereupon they begin drinking whiskey and soda and Jake plans on quickly leaving Robert but he reiterates again, “Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it” (19)? Jakes response of “What the hell” (19) shows that he is almost offended by this question. He thinks that Robert is being foolish for wanting a change of scenery and attributes it only to the book he just read. Jake seems jaded and almost depressed in saying that nothing could possibly change the way his life is going. He says, “I was sorry for him, but it was not a thing you could do anything about, because right away you ran up against the two stubbornnesses: South America could fix it and he did not like Paris. He got the first idea out of a book, and I suppose the second came out of a book too” (20). In saying it is not a thing you could do anything about, Jake is accepting that there is a problem in the way they are living their lives but he simply seems hopeless in finding anything to fix it. Instead, he waits to get off work and drown these thoughts away with another drink, or an aperitif, a before dinner cocktail. Throughout the workday and whilst in a conversation meant to be serious, these characters are constantly subject to a constant fluctuation of identities because of their consumption of alcohol.

Towards the beginning of London’s John Barleycorn, it seems simple for London to keep his alcoholic identity separate and out of his life because of his sheer hatred for the taste of alcohol. He thought that since he did not like the taste of alcohol he would be able to have the easy way out by not succumbing to it. Once London figures out that male bonding, pride and friendships all arise in bars and that treating one another to a drink can strengthen this, London quickly transforms into Barleycorn and finds his identity quickly being transformed. He says, “Either I must throw overboard all my old values of money and look upon it as something to be flung about wastefully, or I must throw overboard my comradeship with those men whose peculiar quirks made them care for strong drink” (50). At this point London realizes his identity struggle. Giving into the taste of alcohol, buying a few drinks for others and of course accepting the drinks others buy for him is what he realizes he must do if he is really going to become friends with these men. What he is not coming to terms with is what he defined the drink as in the beginning of the novel. Completely shifting one’s identity from sobriety to drunkenness is also shifting it from godliness to devilishness, and creating an inner struggle between essentially two opposite identities.

On Jack Barnes arrival to Spain, he has a revelation about his identity after he decides to enter a cathedral at the end of the street where he and his friends are staying. He says, among much other rambling, “…as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time…” (103). Jake’s struggle with religion, Catholicism in this case, crosses over to the struggle between him and the drink. His hopelessness in religion and the fact that he believes he can never do anything translates to the same problems he has with alcohol. He can never seem to escape drinking because it is simply what he and his friends do. A day does not pass that they do not make an exit from reality by sitting in a café and drinking alcohol or even absinthe at times. In the struggle between Jake’s sober identity and alcoholic identity, the alcoholic identity is often what is shown because of these trips into cafes, but in this small instance in the church we are able to see that Jake wishes there was something he could do about not drinking, but the alcoholic identity is so strong he feels like he can never shake it.

When Jack London finally breaks away from the identity of John Barleycorn, he explains that if alcohol were banned in prohibition he would have never been able to have a taste and therefore never would have taken on the alcoholic identity that is John Barleycorn. He says, “The White Logic now lies decently buried alongside the Long Sickness. Neither will afflict me again. It is many a year since I laid the Long Sickness away; his sleep is sound. And just as sound is the sleep of the White Logic” (207-208). Again London personifies the drink as a separate identity to that of his sobriety. He has finally buried this identity and with it, all of the problems it brought him with the White Logic. Now that John Barleycorn is nevermore, his identity is now that of Jack London, rather than his alcoholic identity. He describes his alcoholism as a Long Sickness, capitalizing it gives it a sense of dominance over him, that of which he has done away with. Jack London really feels as if he has lost a part of his identity, but in reality what he has lost is the separate identity that is John Barleycorn.

At the end of The Sun Also Rises, Brett and Jack reflect upon their lives and what could have been if not for the alcohol. They struggle between wanting wine and not wanting it as they try to have a serious conversation. Brett says, “Don’t get drunk, Jake don’t get drunk” (250), and follows up by saying, “we could have had such a damned good time together” (251). Both Brett and Jack wish that they could have been together but their histories with alcohol make this idea seem unreal. Their relationship struggled just as Brett struggled with her alcoholic identity in which she continuously drank with various men. Perhaps such as London, if prohibition would have happened in England and Brett would have never been able to have the first drink of liquor which led to her alcoholism, maybe she would have had a different identity in which she could have been with Jack. Also, Jake’s depression and hopelessness stems from the drink and gives him an overall sense of failure and despair towards life. Jake and Brett could have had a good time together if the alcohol would not have made them into completely different people. The fact that Brett is begging Jake not to get drunk but yet wants a drink herself and agrees to him buying two bottles of wine suggests how comfortable she has gotten with her alcoholic identity. Even though she wishes she could change things, the drink has given her a sense of hopelessness and failure towards life. They both feel as if they will never be able to change things.

It is clear to see that in John Barleycorn, Jack London always identified his sober self and drunken self as two separate entities almost like split personalities. In the end he was able to properly bury his other self so that he could return to the identity of Jack London. In The Sun Also Rises, the characters are aware of the identity in which alcohol is giving them but unlike Jack London, their sense of despair and failure towards life renders them incapable of burying their alcoholic identities. Also, because the alcoholic identities of the characters in The Sun Also Rises seem to encompass every aspect of their lives, even at work, they always seem to be drinking or making a quick stop into a café. It is hard to tell at any point in the novel if the characters might be just a little tight. The merging of alcoholism and sobriety in these characters makes it almost impossible for them to be able to fully separate both identities and bury one such as London did. Only small glimpses of reality show in the characters such as Jack’s praying experience, but even still they remain hopeless and quickly make a mental escape into a café. Whether London’s definition of John Barleycorn stands true or not, it is easy to see how sobriety and drunkenness have the ability to create different and opposing identities within one person. As London says, “I am. I was. I am not. I never am” (2). The identity confusion such as that in Brett and Jake only verifies the paradoxical sober and drunken identities of that of Jack London and John Barleycorn.

♪A little paper for my Alcohol & American Literature class. Rough around the edges.

夢

I was in a little town in the South. I entered a house and saw my boyfriend and his friends laugh at my presence (I was holding something too ridiculous to speak of) and I joined them as they laid out lots of coke. The lines were poetry. I snorted while reading, then walked outside and got on the biggest bridge ever (!!) heading North. This bridge was so wide I had to run from side to side to see what was surrounding it and beneath it. I ran to the left and saw China and Korea and Japan. I ran forward until I reached the end of the bridge. Africa was there but I couldn't go. Actually, I'm not quite sure if I could go anywhere but this stinking bridge. Trees and things blocked the way into Africa, and how could I have gone to Asia when it was miles upon miles below me? Someone had just come along and made this awesome bridge to the world but you couldn't actually go anywhere on it. What a bummer. I was really turned on for some reason too. Maybe the world does that to me. Then I woke up.



♪NaBloWriMo is over, so why should I not start blogging again? Also, after posting this I received an Instant Message from my friend asking me about snorting coke, so to clarify: it was a dream.

ベーシェヅ

Two girls, sick and passed out in the back seat, were unable to go on. Earlier they had smoked something out of a plastic bottle and so they decided to end the night there. They made the escape the rest should have. The escape they should have all made months before when this Sunday tradition started. A couple girls and a boy were the few that remained, and at this point there was no turning back. They snorted a Vicodin in one of the stalls of the girls bathroom. Boys in the girls bathroom were the norm, as they often borrowed eye liner from girls who wore far too much of it. While fixing their hair with one hand in front of the large filthy mirror, they struggled to keep their cigarette stable in the other. Girls in the boys bathroom was the norm too, of course. They were pushed up against the wall by boys in torn up jeans and whatever else would follow they would quickly regret the next morning, even though they could barely remember anything. Maybe they would say it was rape and stick to their story after even they realized it was a lie.

One of the girls had a hand stamp that was still wet from the door where she got through as 21 with her fake ID regardless of her french braid pigtails and lack of makeup. She pressed it up against the others after they washed the thick black X's off. They all went to the bar and started double fisting PBR and Sparks tallboy's, sharing drinks, kissing each other, and big red hickeys that wouldn't fully blacken until they had to attend class early the next morning... early being 10am, of course. The rest of the night would be a blur as it always was. A few girls would scream "mozoltov" and break light bulbs in the middle of the dance floor. Glass shards would embed themselves into soles of Chuck Taylors where they would stay for years; a reminder of the mess they were once in. Lights, dancing, music, tongues, hearts, fists pumping, some chick trying to sell everyone cocaine, all right there, all so routine by then. Every week, every single sunday, all night long. Yelling "I wish i could buy back the woman you stole," they would all fall into each other's arms, completely oblivious to anything else. The music stopped at 2am and yet they wouldn't leave.

None of them knew who they were.

クリブランドが大好き！

waking up at 9am by the obnoxious sound of a cell phone alarm clock, slightly hung over, i realized that the night before verified a prediction i have held in my mind for years now: cleveland is amazing in every aspect if and only if one is not even close to being sober.
also,
time: midnight-5am
place: the shoreway.
if anyone else has been in the passenger seat, preferably listening to wonderful music, in these conditions, you know what i mean. otherwise, get on this asap. you're missing out on one of the few great things to do in this city.
ever since i can remember, i've been venturing out to cleveland for some reason or another. when i was little my mom and i would skip school and work and she would take me to coventry where she (no doubt) blew through my child support in the green tomato and the old, cluttered, but amazing big fun. when i was in middle school it was my obsession with the local scene that took me out to cleveland. the skanktronics, rubber cement, so ricki, one short a dozen, etc. sneaking out to go to shows at the pit cleveland and knowing, in one way or another, just about everyone there. spending way too much time just to put on the blue dickies, orange get up kids shirt, rainbow belt, and black chucks that i could never seem to get off. although the scene died out ridiculously fast, high school came and so did fall out boy, the rxbandits, and a bunch of other bands i saw more times than i can remember. the grog shop moved after one of the most memorable (and sweaty) nights of my life, and coventry took on a transformation that would not only repave the sidewalks and street, but my perception and love of cleveland as well.
even though i still venture out to cleveland for shows (battle of the bands, minus the bear, and regina spektor within the last week), it will never be the same as it was when i was younger. i go to school, work and have just about a million other reasons to be in cleveland nowadays, but for some reason i am tied to the suburbs! (probably the worst of them all, at that. our downtown? the mall.) this brings me to next summer and my plan to rough it on my own for the first time in my life!* in the end, i can only hope that my friends will never cease in filling my gut with liquor so that i'll be able to see cleveland in the light where i can see it best.


*aside from japan, of course, where i was shoveled money by not only my john carroll tuition (mostly via loans), but also my family and who knows where else i got those thousands of dollars from exactly. this is a whole other story. i have no idea where that money went other than the most part had to of been blown on 1. alcohol 2. transportation 3. food... in that order, of course.


♪ a smattering of thoughts thanks to last week