554 Hemingway, Ernest
unhappiness, and Cohn’s violence. Brett knows that
Cohn’s problem is that “he can’t believe it didn’t
mean anything” when they were lovers, but to her it
is meaningless. After Cohn knocks out his friends
and beats Romero to a bloody pulp, he finally
agrees that “everything” is pointless, saying “I guess
it isn’t any use.” When a bystander is killed during
the running of the bulls, a man who had a wife and
two children, a waiter is left to express how sense-
less the death is. “All for sport, all for pleasure,” he
says. Ironically, the only truly worthwhile activities
are casual pursuits, like fishing with friends. Jake
is happiest trout-fishing with his friend Bill, and
enjoying a bottle of wine (or two) afterward. They
find a kind of peace in friendship that is otherwise
elusive. For Jake, traditional pursuits like prayer
and religion seem empty in comparison. The
novel ends with his rescue of Brett, but their rela-
tionship is another exercise in human futility. They
are right back where they started, lost.
James Ford
Gender in The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises raises many questions about
what it means to be a man. The novel is narrated
by Jake Barnes, a man left impotent by his war
wounds. Most of the major characters are men, but
they spend their time fighting and arguing over
one woman, Brett Ashley (the novel’s only major
female character). When Brett is first introduced
in the novel, what is most prominent is how she
differs from other women. She has a crowd of men
around her and she is quite beautiful, with her “hair
brushed back like a boy’s.” In fact, Jake explains,
“she started all that.” Another fact that makes her
different is her tendency to drink like a man. Count
Mippipopolous, one of the many men smitten with
Brett, says that she is “the only lady I have ever
known who was as charming when she was drunk
as when she was sober.” Her refusal to follow the
rules of polite society often excludes her, such as
when she cannot enter the church because she has
no hat. Much has been made of Lady Ashley, and
the significance of her character. Is she a liberating
force, since she is in many ways the center of the
novel and refuses to follow societal conventions? Or
does she reinforce common prejudices, in that she
seems to be the cause of many of the problems in
the novel and often is dependent on men? As Jake
says of her, “she can’t go anywhere alone.” What is
clear is that Brett Ashley is a compelling character,
and the men of the novel orbit around her. For
instance, at the fiesta she wants to dance with a
crowd of men, but they keep her in the center of
the circle: “they wanted her as an image to dance
around.” This is symbolic of Brett’s relationships
throughout the novel. She has a series of affairs, all
the while loving Jake. Her final affair is with Pedro
Romero, the young bullfighter who in many ways
is a symbol of young, powerful manliness. That
relationship fails (just as all her others do), in part
because Pedro wants her to grow her hair out, to be
“more womanly.” He insists on marriage, but Brett
Ashley refuses to be bound by society’s expectations
of a woman.
Jake is far removed from the smooth confidence
of Pedro Romero. His war wound shadows him
throughout the novel, “the old grievance.” He is
generally good-natured about his condition, but it
prevents him from pursuing his relationship with
Brett. They genuinely love each other. Whether or
not Brett’s affairs are the result of his impotence
is unclear, but it is certainly an important factor.
As she says, “I couldn’t live quietly in the country.
Not with my own true love.” Jake is patient with
her, but his situation leaves him decidedly bit-
ter about women in general, and Brett Ashley in
particular. He muses that a man has “to be in love
with a woman to have a basis of friendship,” before
concluding “to hell with women, anyway.” That
conclusion is half-hearted; the one thing Jake can
never do is forget about Brett, or the wound that
keeps them apart.
One quality that seems indicative of manliness
in the novel is af icion, the passion that some men
(and only men) have for bullfighting. Jake has it,
and it is his link to a secret world of men. The
hotelkeeper Montoya is an aficionado, as is Pedro
Romero. In fact, all the great bullfighters and lov-
ers of the bullfights are aficionados, with a sort of
spiritual bond linking them. When Brett’s affair
with Pedro threatens to weaken his af icion, it is the
one thing Montoya cannot forgive of Jake and his
friends.