Is Brett a Good Person?

In The Sun Also Rises, one of the main plot points is Jake's relationship with his on-again off-again sort-of girlfriend, Brett. Now I think that Jake is a jerk with an inferiority complex about his injury and a lot of personal issues he needs to resolve, but I also think Brett isn't justified in treating him the way she does. Brett and Jake both tend to keep their feelings under the surface, hidden beneath several layers of irony, but there's a lot going on beneath their respective facades.

I saw a definition of "stringing someone along" as "The act of dragging out a relationship with someone while having dishonest intentions. This can be applied to friendships or dating. The person stringing along the victim usually is getting something selfish or one-sided out of the situation such as sex, money or attention from others." Brett doesn't quite do this with most of her boyfriends, since she's usually completely upfront about what exactly she wants from them, but she does use them to give her either sex, alcohol, or money (like Maxine said in class). As shown throughout the chapters we've read so far, Brett tends to get alcohol from the Count, money from her fiance Mike, and presumably sex from Cohn. Jake doesn't fit in any of those categories, but I think she's using him too- to meet her emotional needs. Brett's interactions with Jake are invariably on her terms, and she's in control of the situation, which would be considered empowering in most cases. However, her dynamic with him creates a very one-sided and unhealthy relationship where they don't equally have power. For example, she blows off a date they've set but thinks nothing of showing up at his house at four in the morning to hang out. Brett calls all the shots and ends up steamrolling over a lot of Jake's boundaries in the process. True, Jake could leave her, but I don't want to blame him for how someone else actively chooses to treat him. Brett is an adult woman with agency who isn't helpless to her desires, so I'd hesitate to excuse her actions by saying that's just the way she is.

Whether Brett is consciously doing it or not, I think her intentions are mainly selfish instead of intentionally dishonest. She wants someone to confess things to and vent to, but she also wants to jump in and out of Jake's life at will without acknowledging how much it hurts him. It's refreshing for her to take down her mask and not have to act like a careless, happy-go-lucky party girl, but she never really considers how he feels about it. When Jake says "we'd better keep away from each other", she insists that she has to see him. Brett is constantly telling Jake that she loves him and then pulling away. She strokes his hair and calls him her "own true love" before leaving for two weeks to have a fling with his friend, which is just a messed way to treat someone. Brett doesn't owe him a committed relationship, but it's cruel to string someone along constantly (which I think she is either intentionally or unintentionally doing). It's not fair for her to be the only one really getting something out of the relationship. This is especially bad since whenever Jake tries to get space from Brett, she jumps into his life again. He'd been much happier and more relaxed while she was away, but then Brett interrupted him while he tried to get dinner with his friend Bill, before inviting herself along on his trip shortly after. It's almost like she has to get his attention every time something's going on in his life that doesn't revolve around her. Jake has his expectations too high, but she's also giving him a lot of mixed messages instead of clearly establishing the terms of their relationship.