This act of distraction is shown when Jake says "Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy." (150) Like Jake, Brett Ashley, a seemingly strong and independent woman, lives an unsatisfying life covered by superficial escapism via alcohol. Although stunningly beautiful and attractive, her aimless, promiscuous attitude leaves her life void of any meaning. By the end of the novel, even her 'ideal' relationship with Romero is destroyed, displaying her 'nada' despite her superficial, external success.
Traveling, like alcohol, is another means of escape for the characters of The Sun Also Rises. These individuals travel to escape their current reality and to replace it with a temporary 'vacation'. However, in the end there all of them realize there is no true liberation from reality. This statement is fortified by Jake's response to Robert Cohn, "Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that." (19) In the novel, the protagonists travel to Paris, Bayonne, Spain, Burguete, and Pamplona to experience content to mask their futile reality. The fishing trip Jake and Bill Gorton take Burguete serves as his epitome of such, entirely free from the corruptions of city life and women. While fishing, Jake and Bill are able to communicate freely with each other, unbound by the social confines of American and European society. Travel, according to Bill, led to other means of escapism, "You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working." (120).
As in "The Sun Also Rises," "A Well Lighted Place" also is set in an empty reality. Hemingway suggests that life has no meaning and that man is an insignificant speck in a great sea of nothingness.
