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 19^th and early 20^th 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

Here are some prompts you might want to respond to for In Our Time.  You’re also welcome to respond to anything in the book that interested you, or to another student’s comment, if you prefer.

Please remember that blog posts must be at least 200 words to receive full credit for the day, and they must be posted before 5:00 p.m. on the day they’re due. 

• What did you think of the structure of the book? You might want to speculate about how the vignettes and stories work together or about why Hemingway chose to present the book in this way.
• “On the Quai,” which opens the book, is very short, but has a complex structure that involves narration within narration. While it was not part of the original collection published in 1925, Hemingway deliberately added this story to introduce the collection in the 1930 edition of the book.  What themes, concerns important to the book as a whole does this story introduce?
• Choose a single story that appealed to you in the collection and discuss it in more detail.
• Talk about the presentation of gender in the book—while most of the stories and vignettes address gender issues in some way, perhaps the pieces most significant in this regard are “Indian Camp,” “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” “The End of Something,” “A Very Short Story,” and the four stories about young, married couples: “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot,” “Cat in the Rain,” and “Out of Season,” and “Cross-Country Snow.”

This is where you’ll post your class blog responses.

I will ask you to respond to the class blog 9 times throughout the semester. For every day that we have assigned readings in the course, I will provide some prompts to get you started thinking.  You may respond to the prompts if you like, but you may also respond to other students’ comments, or to anything else that interests you in the assigned material for the day.

Blog posts must be at least 200 words to receive full credit for the day, and they must be posted before 5:00 p.m. on the day they’re due.  Blog posts will not receive letter grades, but you will receive credit for the number of comments you post, with 9 posts equaling 100%.