The Sun Also Rises: Jake

"I misjudged you...You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development." -pg. 51

Jake is a very smart man, but he does have a weakness. He doesn't really know what to do with himself because he is not confident in his abilities. He wanted to be with Brett but she rejects him, and he wants to be successful in his job but he doesn't apply himself enough for that to be the case. He has never fully discovered himself, and he never does throughout the novel. But most his generation felt that way. They were the "lost generation" for a reason. After the high stress of the war and the need to get things done, a chilling temper set in. People were not pressed to do things, so they didn't. Hence, they were not developed into the full person that they could have been.