The Sun Also Rises: Contemplation and Questions

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, chronicles a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s. The book's title is drawn from Ecclesiastes 1:5: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." Time magazine included the novel in its TIME “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.”


During the 1920's a group of writers known as "The Lost Generation" gained popularity. Gertrude Stein used this phrase to describe the people of the 1920's who rejected American post-World War I values. Two of the best known writers among "The Lost Generation" are Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The "Lost Generation" defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness apparent in literary figures during the 1920s. After the horror of World War I, young people felt that acting morally did not necessarily provide humans with a good life. Many good, young men went to war and died, or returned home physically and mentally wounded. Their faith in the moral guideposts that had earlier given them hope were no longer valid. They were "Lost."


The novel, The Sun Also Rises explores the lives and values of the "Lost Generation" by following protagonist Jake Barnes and several of his group of literary acquaintances from Paris to Spain, from city spectacle to rural fishing and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Initially, Jake seeks peace away from Brett, with whom he is unable to consummate a physical relationship due to a war injury, by taking a fishing trip to Burguete, deep within the Spanish hills, with his pal Bill Gorton, another veteran of the war. Pedro Romero, a passionate bullfighter, and other European citizens serve as foils to the expatriate Americans.


Eventually, although they attempt to mask their fears through excessive drinking, the characters work through their various desires and anxieties during the fiesta in Pamplona.

Questions for Contemplation

How does Hemingway show that Jake is insecure about his masculinity? Move beyond an explanation of physicality to include spirituality, intellectual curiosity, and creativity.

What issues shaped characters’ thinking during the novel? How do these issues reflect the issues that Americans of the time were experiencing?

What technological innovations influenced the way people perceived society and the individual’s place within it?

Drinking; sex; idle talk loaded with cleverness, irony, and pity; attacking Cohn --- a scapegoat; seeking out the noise of crowds and ‘sophisticated’ scenarios… These become the modus operandi of a generation that is truly lost. How is the novel representative of the Jazz Age and the age of the ‘Lost Generation?’

WWI did impact profoundly upon every sector of the Western world. How did American literature respond to the societal transformations of the post–World War I period? Analyze the novel in the context of World War I.

How does the experience of war shape the characters and their behavior? Examine the differences between the veterans, like Jake and Bill, and the non-veterans, like Cohn.

Describe how Hemingway uses major symbols include Jake’s wound (his impotence) and water (river, bathing, and the sea) to create deeper meanings?

The Sun Also Rises is considered by most scholars to be an important novel among all novels written by Americans. But to be an important novel, it has to address more than an empirical moment; i.e., it must have universality. To ascertain The Sun’s universality, a reader must view this novel as a morality play (Everyman/ Jake vs. the war. In what ways does Jake win, and in what ways does the war win?

Hemingway’s writing style: closely analyze his sentences. Note the use of ‘and.’ His description of the landscape is so vivid yet with a modicum use of adjectives. Why does Hemingway write in this particular style? How does his writing style mirror the times in which he lived and the events he was attempting to chronicle?

Compare Jake's relationship to Brett with Cohn's relationship to Frances. How are the two relationships similar, and how are they different? Why do you think that Hemingway create these two female characters so very differently?

What qualities do Jake and Cohn share with the rest of their acquaintances? Is it safe to call them both outsiders? Why or why not?

Compare Jake and Cohn. How does the fact that Jake went to war and Cohn did not make them different from each other?

Discuss the characterization of Lady Brett Ashley. Is she a sympathetic character? Is she a positive female role model? Does she treat her male friends cruelly? In what ways do the male characters treat her cruelly? How do they treat females in general in the text?

Bill tells Jake that “sex explains it all.” To what extent is Bill's statement true of the novel The Sun Also Rises?

Why is Cohn verbally abused so often in the novel? Is it because he is Jewish? Explain. How does Cohn embody the Jewish heritage of the tradition of alienation and suffering? How does that tradition of alienation and suffering explain why Jake accepts Cohn when other characters do not?

Why does Mike attack Cohn but not Jake, whom Brett actually loves? Why does Cohn accept so much abuse?

The ‘Hemingway hero’ [some call him an ‘anti-hero’] has these attributes: a) he is doomed to be destroyed; b) he is not, however, defeated because he maintains dignity while under duress; c) he never speaks of his angst. Using this basic definition of the Hemingway hero, describe how Jake Barnes represents the typical Hemingway hero and Robert Cohn does not.

How is Count Mippipopolous similar to Jake and his friends? How is he different? What is the effect of including a character like the Count in the text?

What inferences can we as readers make about Hemingway’s point of view about non-Protestant Europeans? About persons who do not practice Christianity?

Discuss the problem of communication in the novel. Why is it so difficult for the characters to speak frankly and honestly? In what circumstances is it possible for them to speak openly? Are there any characters who say exactly what is on their mind? If so, how are these characters similar to each other?

Read closely and analyze one of the longer passages in which Hemingway describes bulls or bullfighting. What sort of language does Hemingway use? Does the passage have symbolic possibilities? If the bullfighting passages do not advance the plot, how do they function to develop themes and motifs?

The bullfights are like a morality play within a morality play. The young matador is an example of the ‘Hemingway hero,’ and the bulls are allegorical constructs. What purpose do the bullfights serve metaphorically/ symbolicall? What do the bullfights imply about the lives of the “Lost Generation?”

Brett personifies the mythological fertility goddess. Note how the festival goers worship her in the bacchanalian frenzy. Eros is destructive. Cohn, Mike, Pedro are done in by Brett. Jake, because of his wound, is spared. Create an analysis of Lady Brett Ashley as symbolic of the female gender according to the worldview of Hemingway.

The Fiesta: the pagan festival coincides with a religious festival. There are lots of possibilities to think about here: e.g. Jake and then Brett entering a church and their thoughts at those moments; the parallels between the pagan and the Christian. Both are ways to cope with the debilitating darkness that keeps Jake awake at night. Choose one or more moments and analyze it/ them in the larger context of the entire text.

The Sun Also Rises, with its stress on nihilism and absurdity, is a study in Existentialism. What qualities of Existentialism emerge in the text?

Deconstruct Hemingway’s writing style. Closely break apart his sentences. Note the use of ‘and.’ His description of the landscape is so vivid yet with a minimum use of adjectives. The last paragraph of the book in tandem of a string of short, simple sentences. His style complements his theme. Describe the theme of the book in conjunction with Hemingway’s writing style.

--- adapted from resources provided by Harry Anderson, book discussion leader, Harmony (RI) Library