Jake Barnes
is the symbol of the Fisher King in chapter 12 of . Like the legendary
Fisher King, he has been wounded in the groin or "thigh." As with the Fisher King,
this wound makes him infertile and impotent. All the Fisher King can do is fish, and his land
lies infertile because he is infertile.
Jake has a
wonderful day in nature, drinking and fishing with his friend Bill Gorton. It is a reprieve from
his unhappy life in cities, in love with a woman he can't sexually satisfy. Like the Fisher King
he symbolizes, Jake can only find a reprieve fishing away from civilization. Yet even the fish
he catches are smaller than the smallest Gorton catches, underscoring his impotence or lack of
power.
The Fisher King is also central to Eliot's The
Wasteland . The wasteland of that poem is a wasteland because the king has been
wounded and rendered impotent....
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