Like always, feel free to discuss anything in The Sun Also Rises that particularly interested you. But here are some prompts to get you started thinking:
- Discuss the two epigraphs, one from Stein and one from Ecclesiastes. How do these either work together or contradict one another? How are they related to issues that will arrive in the novel?
- Why begin the novel with Cohn? What’s Cohn’s significance as we progress? Does his depiction seem anti-Semitic to you? If so, do you think Hemingway is participating in the anti-Semiticism or do you think he is condemning the anti-Semiticism displayed by his characters?
- Discuss Jake’s war injury and its significance in the book
- What do you think of the Lady Brett Ashley? Do you think she can be viewed as an example of the “New Woman,” a much-discussed phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th century? Does the scant information we find out about her background influence your view of her?
- Choose a particular scene and analyze it closely—this could be, for instance, the scene in which Frances and Cohn quarrel at the cafe in front of Jake, the fishing scene in Burguete, a particular incident from the Fiesta in Pamplona, the ending in the taxicab, etc.
- What, if anything, seems valued in the book to you? We see characters traveling, drinking heavily, quarreling over sex and jealousies, behaving badly in foreign countries, etc. Is there any moral center to the novel?
- Discuss Pedro Romero and his role in the novel
Thoughts on the Sun Also Rises
Kangkang Kovacs
I’m not going to lie: the anti-Semitic vibe prevalent in this Hemingway story left a bad taste in my mouth long after I put down the book. It’s especially disturbing to see how the anti-Semitism views, rather than a crass distraction from the Hemingway’s writing, took root in this novel as an indispensable part of the theme.
The Sun Also Rises opens with Robert Cohn, a “middleweight boxing champion of Princeton”, a Jew. “Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.” – The disparaging tone of the narrator carried itself consistently to the last page.
Cohn was labeled “Jewish” and, according to the narrator, never quite fit in Princeton. He picked up boxing in vain – the good-tempered Jew could not work, talk or fight his way out of the systemic racism in his social circle. And the first-person narrator, “I”, justified it every single time Cohn was bullied among “my” friends. When Harvey insulted Cohn for no apparent reason, calling him a “moron”, “a case of arrested development” as a way of greeting him, “I” went along with it, went as far as defending the bully when Cohn complained about this insult afterwards – “I like him”, I said, “I’m fond of him. You don’t want to get sore at him.”
But, almost immediately following this exchange, Cohn’s girlfriend Frances complained about Cohn bitterly in front of “me”, making a small scene, and “I” despised Cohn for putting up with it — Why did he sit there? Why did he keep on taking it like that?
As a reader, I couldn’t help observing where the first-person narrator ranked women he’s not in love with: somewhere vaguely below a Jew.
Cohn was unnerved by the cruelty of bullfighting, which made him a laughing stock among “my” friends; Cohn fell in love with the beautiful aristocratic Brett whom everyone was in love with, and for that, he was a clown. The love letters Cohn wrote to Brett were passed among friends for amusement; Cohn was told that he “don’t belong”, “don’t add anything” to his face when a friend was drunk and emboldened enough, and dismissed as “that Jew” whenever he turned his back – how did Cohn feel about all this, we as readers may wonder. Earnest Hemingway put in one smart remark –
…When he was insulted, but somehow he seemed to be enjoying it. The childish, drunken heroics of it. It was his affair with a lady of title.
In other words, he asked for it, having enough guts to trail behind a lady of title, with himself being a Jew. That’s all the first-person narrator had to say. That’s all Earnest Hemingway had to say as well.
In sharp contrast to this gross insensitivity, The Sun Also Rises was filled with self-indulgent sentimentalities. I couldn’t help wondering why I should care so much about how Brett sipped her drink and wrinkled her eyes every other page, or how “I” called for taxi to snuggle with a woman while going from one café on this side of Seine to another restaurant on that corner of Paris again and again, when nobody in or out of this story seemed to care about blatant, ongoing racial bullying.
Why should I as a reader care about the trivial details of the luxurious lives those intellectuals led in Paris and Pamplona, for two hundred and thirty some pages, when none of these intellectuals gave a thought about humanity or basic human dignity?
The timing of this novel, right between first and second world war, is especially disturbing. Rather than reflecting on the wide-spread Anti-Semitism in Europe and United States, the very same ideology that was realized by the Holocaust, the very same ideology that resulted in the US congress turning away thousands of Jewish children fleeing Nazi Germany, Hemingway, as a renowned writer and intellectual at his time, chose to fuel it with his writing.
Yes, we as humans are always limited by our time. With that said, I think the limitation revealed in the Sun Also Rises is a crucial and inexcusable one.
The anti-Semitic tone and rhetoric dispersed throughout The Sun Also Rises has always left me uncomfortable and questioning the intentions of these inclusions over the past couple of readings. With that being said, I think this can viewed in one of two ways: as a critique of this kind of grotesque rhetoric or as a form of malicious intent. I personally believe that it is the first option (even though the inclusion of it in the novel leaves a sour taste in my mouth and perhaps that is the point). When it was written, there was fierce anti-Semitic thoughts and rhetoric spreading throughout the world and in a way Hemingway incapsulates this trend with in the novel. At the base of the novel, the novel is discussing how the collective views the singular person through a myopic lens. For example, everyone in the novel sees Lady Brett as a sexually promiscuous woman, even though she is much more than that. The same can be said about Cohn as he is a Jewish person. The only person that sees these people as more than their label is Jake as he includes more about their life through his narration and dialogue with other characters, but that doesn’t mean he makes any effort in trying to make the others see them in any other way. Through Jake’s inaction to make people see them for more than they are, he ultimately contributes to this problem. To reverse this, Hemingway does his best to demonstrate to the reader that this is not the way people should be viewed. This brings me to the opening chapter of the novel where Jake tells the reader about Robert Cohn. When I first read this novel, I was confused as to why he decided to include this lengthy introduction to a seemingly minor character in the novel before we are even introduced to the narrator. I now see that it is an attempt (whether it is a well created or not is up to the reader) to humanize Cohn since he plays a major role in the novel later on in the novel. It gives you insight to his upbringing and life prior to most of the events in The Sun Also Rises. By doing so, he creates depth for Cohn and expands upon the readers sympathy for this character that would otherwise be seen through a singular lens based on his race (especially for the time it was written). It is this inclusion of the first chapter that makes me think that the novel is critiquing anti-Semitic rhetoric that was growing at the time and the subsequent inaction of dismantling this horrifying rhetoric.
While I loved a number of different scenes from The Sun Also Rises, especially any involving the comedic Bill Gorton, the fishing scene in Burguete and the more serious side of Bill and Jake’s friendship stuck with me until the end of the novel. First, the positioning of this scene is one I saw as critical to the overarching internal conflict we see unfolding with Jake. Prior to his escape to Irati river, away from the pull of Brett and into nature, Jake is one of the most morally grounded characters among the bunch; not a high benchmark to meet to be sure, but significant to his depiction as a role model of sorts. While he enjoys drinking he never (up to this point) gets drunk like the others and he is also one of the few who holds a steady job at the newspaper. It is this value of hard work that makes possible his fishing trip with Bill and later excursion to Pamplona for the fiesta; he isn’t spending money that he gets from others (like Brett and Michael) but his own hard-earned salary. The same cannot be said of the Jake who ‘pimps’ out Romero to Brett and destroys his cherished friendship with Montoya at the end of the novel.
Additionally, the scenic descriptions of Burguete are significant to relaying the emotional state Jake finds himself in. In this interlude of sorts, Jake is able to retreat from the corrupting forces around him (drunken nights, promiscuity, loose spending) for some much-needed rest and relaxation. Not only is the scenery of Burguete absolutely stunning, but the description invokes a feeling of calm that does not exist in Paris or Pamplona. “We walked on the road between the thick trunks of the old beeches and the sunlight came through the leaves in light patches on the grass. The trees were big, and the foliage was thick but it was not gloomy” (Hemingway, 110). This sheltered grove is reflective of the emotional calm and security that Jake and Bill feel as they enjoy each other’s company. They are able to drink, but not to excess, and fish with friendly rather than serious competition (unlike the competition for Brett that unfolds in Pamplona with Cohn, Romero, and Campbell). In this space suspended in the middle of the story, Jake also begins to open up more as a narrator than he does elsewhere. For example, he does not shy away from discussing his wound with Bill. “‘You don’t work. One group claims women support you. Another group claim’s you’re impotent.” “No,” I said. “I just had an accident.’” (Hemingway, 109). Where the reader has had to previously read between the lines to understand that Jake is impotent as a result of his wound, here he talks about it openly with Bill and is not offended by the teasing nature of the conversation. In the midst of their escape to nature, Jake is free to express himself in a way he cannot among his other friends. I saw this as a result of not only the protection provided in the private sphere of nature but also in the ease of male-male bonding versus the difficulty of navigating his female-male friendship with Brett due to his impotence.
During their fishing trip, however, Bill and Jake are still unable to fully escape from the outside world and the conflict that comes with it; this foreshadows Jake’s inability to ultimately escape from his own corruption by the end of the novel. Not only is the tranquility of their trip interrupted with a telegram from Michael concerning Brett (“Brett passed out on the train…I know her so well and try to look after her but it’s not so easy” Hemingway, 118), but in the very same scene they are interrupted by a message from Robert Cohn (himself obsessed with Brett) stating that he is planning to meet them in Burguete. This marks an emotional end to the peace of their trip and a realization that Jake is unable to escape from Brett entirely. In the end, all that Jake is able to take away from his trip is a memento from Harris. “They’re not first-rate flies at all. I only thought if you fished them some time it might remind you of what a good time we had” (Hemingway, 121). These flies, which we do not see Jake use or reference again, are a symbol of the peace he is able to find in Burguete but not retain, a peace which is shattered in Pamplona.
This is the second time that I have read The Sun Also Rises and perhaps I am a changed person, thus my perspective is different; however, as I read Jake’s story, I received the distinct impression I was reading a queer story. The queerness of this reading surprised me due to the overly macho caricature of the author, but as I have learned more about Hemingway’s life (his mother, his mentor Gertrude Stein, and his interest in androgynous relationships in later writings) the queerness of Jake’s story continued to ring truer. I read the article “The Queerness of Ernest Hemingway” by Mikaella Clements to ensure that my reading was not off base. While Clements (and I) will not argue Hemingway is not free of homophobia in fact there is always a mixture of both. Clements says, “the queerness in Hemingway’s work is tied to retreat and fear: he comes close and then hurriedly backs away, he excuses himself, he feeds homophobia like a live wire through the text and asks you to ignore everything around it” (Clements). This combination of curiosity and repulsion is inherently felt by Jake. In his group of listless drunks who spend their lives traveling, eating, and sleeping around, Jake is out of place due to his war injury. The reader never accesses the extent of his injury; we understand that he is kept from his love Lady Brett Ashley because they could never consummate their love together. Brett herself is a uniquely queer character. When she first comes on the page, she enters with “A crowd of young men, some in jerseys and some in their shirt-sleeves…They came in. As they went in, under the light I saw white hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing. With them was Brett. She looked very lovely and she was very much with them” (Hemingway 28). While one reading of this passage would suggest Brett is a whore, a queer reading sees the section as Brett relating more to a group of men, especially as Jake repeats his observation that “she was very much with them.” At the end of the novel, when Brett calls upon Jake to aid her, they discuss her latest lover, the bullfighter. She had sent him away and they to laugh at his request for Brett to grow out her hair. Brett says, “He wanted me to grow my hair out. Me, with long hair. I’d look so like hell….He said it would make me more womanly. I’d look a fright” (Hemingway 245). While Brett is a lover to every man on the page, Jake is the one she always calls on for help. She admits love to him and Jake accepts her as she is. They cannot physically be together, which is a common standard of queer love. The inability to be physically intimate leads to Brett dating other men and Jake following along. Besides Brett and Jake’s relationship, there are other moments of queerness throughout the novel. Jake and Bill’s excursion to the mountains and their fishing expedition leads to the line, “After supper we went up-stairs and smoked and read in bed to keep. Once in the night I woke up and heard the wind blowing. It felt good to be warm and in bed” (Hemingway 116). The ache throughout the novel and the unfulfilled intimacy lead me to interpret the queerness in The Sun Also Rises.
Though Pedro Romero’s character appears slightly over halfway through the text (Ch. XV) he serves to foil the group of wandering writer expats and redefines the way they relate to one another and to the world around them. Jake and Bill’s first meeting with Romero is an honor offered by Montoya due to Jake’s afición for the corrida del toros (one of few interests that Jake truly does have passion for, and incredible knowledge compared to his companions). There is a lot to unpack just in the scenes of the bulls being unloaded in the streets, the masses of people observing and celebrating, the rise and fall of the responses to the bulls among the Spanish people who come from all over the country, the warlike imagery of the goring of the steers, horses, and eventually people. Hemingway’s immense fascination with the bull fights lends itself to his depiction of Romero, a 19 or 20 year old prodigy trained only for three years in Malaga.
Jake admires Romero immediately for his sense of calm and the poise he greets them with despite the impending fight (twenty minutes away). While watching him dominate the bulls he shares a nod with Montoya to indicate that he’s a “real one” and the enthusiasm for his method becomes a recurring subject among Jake and his friends. Brett launches herself into an infatuation with Pedro, hanging onto Jake’s move-by-move analysis of his fights and later demanding introductions from Jake and creating (with his help) a scenario in which to seduce the star. Jake’s reaction to this is one of shame it seems, as he repeatedly tells her not to go for it, but Brett’s self-victimizing speech sways him. Mike plays the drunken fiancé throughout the entire experience and while mocking Romero, he also respects Brett’s desire to add him to her collection and uses it to urges Cohn into a brawl. The resulting humiliation for Jake, Mike, Brett and Pedro (as we are told through Bill the following day) leaves the group scattered and despondent, and severs Jake’s friendship with Montoya. What does the class think about Jake’s involvement in the affair: is he, in fact, a pimp as Cohn accuses or is it more complex?
As I read The Sun Also Rises, I couldn’t help but focus on the repetitiveness of the character’s everyday activities: drinking, smoking, eating, etc. I felt rather frustrated, writing notes in my book asking, do they ever stop drinking?
From the first interaction between Jake and Brett, we hear her say, “never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and a soda” (18). As well as Jake’s commenting to her, “you’re wonderfully sober” (18). I found alcohol to be the primary catalyst to many significant events in the novel, from romantic moments between Jake and Brett, physical altercations, and Mike’s outbursts at Robert Cohn (113, 142). I found a blog post (https://philiphartiganpraeterita.blogspot.com/2016/12/a-list-of-every-drink-in-hemingways-sun.html) written by an artist named Phillip Hartigan that lists every type (and quantity) of alcohol consumed by the characters in The Sun Also Rises, which is quite an impressive and shocking amount. When Brett asks, “are these poisonous things paid for?” (115), it showed her recognition of the adverse effects the constant drinking had, leading me to wonder why the characters continued to participate in the unending cycle. Another repeating theme that consciously followed the use of alcohol was the exchange of currencies: the act of paying for goods and services. I mention this because of a particular passage where Jake says, “you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing” (119). He continues on the same page stating, “I thought I had paid for everything… Just the exchange of values,” and “enjoying living was learning to get your money’s worth.” This philosophy of Jake’s was of interest to me because I felt it applied directly to his relationship with Brett. From beginning to end, Jake is there for Brett, even helping her find another love interest, Pedro Romero (147), joining her when requested at the Hotel Montana in Madrid (192). It’s an unending cycle. I started to look at Jake and Brett’s relationship as an exchange and wonder if either of them felt they’d gotten their money’s worth.
After finishing The Sun Also Rises, I want to conclude that friendship and accepting oneself are at the moral center of the novel. Throughout Jake’s story, he appreciates the people he meets along the way despite not maybe only having one thing in common with them. For instance, Montoya and Wilson-Harris are both portrayed as kind men who are able to create a bond with Jake over things he is passionate about. Jake’s love of fishing, bull-fighting, and building bonds over war experiences push his needs to connect with others that aren’t his friends already. He means well but at the end of the day, he continously protects his close friends. After Wilson-Harris requests Bill and Jake to stay and fish with him another day, Jake respectfully declines because he needs to meet Cohn, Brett, and Mike. His love for his core group overpowers his connection with Wilson-Harris which is why he decides to leave. However, that does not deminish the experiences they had together. Bill and Jake only mention Wilson-Harris as the friendliest guy they’ve met and how they wish they could’ve stayed another day. So ultimately, the book is about loving your friends despite their faults while creating a layer of connections throughout a journey.
Queering of The Sun Also Rises
A queer reading can be significant in discovering Hemingway’s message regarding desire within the Lost Generation. Both Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley are queered in their own right – Jake being physically wounded with his “war injury” and Brett being emotionally wounded. Over the course of the novel, Jake’s only moment of complete peace occurs when he is on a fishing trip with Bill Gorton (the only man who does not compete for Brett’s attention). As seen in In Our Time, Hemingway’s protagonists often find solace in nature; it is interesting to note that this scene in The Sun Also Rises occurs only between Jake and Bill. The masculine description of Brett’s character is particularly intriguing; her hair is short, she owns her sexuality, and is ever in power within romantic relationships. She repeatedly destroys herself as a result of her own impulsivity and always depends upon Jake to climb out of her own despair. The complexity of these characters is that they raise the question of the role of desire. Desire is harmful and perverse – neither Jake or Brett can engage with this natural longing. It appears that Hemingway is speaking about the profoundly negative implications of war on human existence. After the war, men and women are left to pick up and put back together the pieces of themselves and are often unsuccessful.
The first third of the Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises reads to me very much like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In the first chapter, we see Robert Cohn through Jake Barnes’ eyes. Jake immediately reveals himself to be a biased, and as my classmates have rightly stated, anti-Semitic, narrator. Hold this up to Fitzgerald’s novel wherein Nick judges the other characters in regards to class and wealth. However, as The Sun Also Rises progresses, we see more and more of Jake’s hatred of Cohn whereas Nick is fond of Gatsby throughout the novel.
In walks Daisy- I mean Lady Brett Ashley. Both representing “New Women” who live with more or less agency in well-to-do society and have unbalanced love lifes. This brings me to what is valued in the story: the selfish moment, which is why Jake loves bull-fighting. Montoya “always smiled as though bull-fighting were a very special secret between the two of [them]; a rather shocking but really very deep secret that [he and Jake] knew about. He always smiled as though there were something lewd about the secret to outsiders, but that [the two of them] understood” (Hemingway 136). These two see the beauty of the sport but also the brutality, and they can enjoy it without risking their own lives.
My reaction to Brett’s character was very complex. On one hand, I admired her agency and how the relationships she was a part of throughout the novel were of her choosing. I liked that she seemed empowered by her sexuality and that she used her femininity to her advantage. I liked that the other characters didn’t ever really slut shame her, choosing instead to place the blame on the man. I was intrigued by how her character seemed to comment on how overconsumption of sex, food, alcohol, etc. still leaves people feeling empty inside. I was also interested by how masculine her character was. The name Brett is stereotypically masculine. Her hair was cut short. She definitely gave off a “one of the boys” type of attitude. Her more casual approach to sex could be interpreted as more stereotypically masculine. I do wonder if Hemingway intentionally made Brett’s character a more masculine character because he wanted the story to be a little gay, because there is definitely room for a queer reading of Brett’s character. I was confused by the end of the novel when Brett chose to go back to Mike. Was it supposed to be more commentary on overconsumption always leading to dissatisfaction?
Hello Elise,
Your take on Brett’s character is very interesting. I also feel she takes on many traits typical of a man. I think Hemingway pushes the envelope a bit in his writing when he forms these characters for his stories. Does he mean to make her one of the boys? Brett says many times in the story about being “one of us” when talking about the Count. I suppose they all have been to war and have all experienced some kind of war injury. I think Hemingway writes Brett’s character as a free woman or a woman who is bending the rules of conformity and dealing with life after the war in her own way.
I found it odd that all her guy friends know she is pretty much going through all of them and finds a way to deal with it. I think they just care for her a lot and will accept her no matter what. Either they are invested in their friendship, or they are waiting to see who the lucky person will be who ends up with her. I do not fully understand how Hemingway writes just yet. But I do see depth and meaning in his stories with a lot of room for interpretation and inference.